Robes of Righteousness
Junior Level

Handout

Teacher's Guide

For those of you who do not know, back in January, a judge gave my husband and I custody of my husband’s 6 year old nephew.  His name is Nathan.  We don’t know how long Nathan will be with us, because with the system he may be sent back to his mom anytime.  Nathan has become the son of our hearts and everyday we try our best to get God’s word inside his heart.  God blessed me so much one morning several months ago, while on the way to school he accepted Christ into his heart and was saved.  Yes God can save a 6 year old!  I was only 9 when He saved me.  Everyday, Nathan and I have Bible study together.  Sometimes I think I learn just as much from him as he does from me.  God is so amazing that way. 
 
Nathan and I were having our daily Bible one day this week, and daily he reads for thirty minutes from his Bible out loud to me. Then we discuss the lesson. This particular day we were learning about sin and staying away from it. 

I said: Nathan sin is dirty and God is so clean that He can’t stand even be around it or look at it.  When we sin, we then have to go to Jesus and our hearts are all dirty from the sin and we can’t clean it up ourselves and we grieve the Holy Spirit of God when we sin because He is living inside us. 

Ephesians 4:29-32  “Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers.  And grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption.  Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice:  And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you.”

Trying further to explain this, I asked Nathan,  what if I paid a very high price to buy you a clean white shirt, and I told you to keep it clean and then you went outside and you chose to play in a mud puddle even though you knew it could make you dirty?  Then when it did get the shirt dirty you tried to clean it but you could not, you only made it worse. You would have to come inside and stand in front of me with that muddy shirt and see the sad look on my face that you chose to get it dirty when I told you not to. So all you could do then would be to ask me to please forgive you and clean the shirt. This is how it is when we sin.  Nathan almost in a whisper to himself, said, we get our shirts dirty.

1 John 2:1-5 “My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous:  And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.  And hereby we do know that we know him, if we keep his commandments.  He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him.  But whoso keepeth his word, in him verily is the love of God perfected: hereby know we that we are in him.

I replied, yes Nathan we get our hearts dirty.  Jesus paid a very great price for us, with His own life on the cross and when we get saved we are clothed in righteousness and He commands us not to sin, but sometimes we just chose to play around in the sin like mud when we know it will get us dirty.  When we do that we must go in front of Jesus and see that we did a bad thing and we hurt him from our sin and we have to ask Him to please forgive us and make us clean again because we can’t do it ourselves.

Nathan said, and then after you clean the shirt, I wouldn’t play in the mud again.

My heart was jumping up and down!!!  (The Holy Spirit was teaching his heart!)

Excited, I said YES… YES that is how it is with sin, we ask Jesus to forgive us, He cleans up our hearts and then we learn to stay away from that sin! 

Then I asked Nathan another question.  What if after I cleaned your shirt and you put it on and you went right back outside and you ran and jumped right in the mud puddle again.

Nathan chimed in, I might jump in so hard I would get stuck and couldn’t get out!

(By then I was about to shout, HALLELUJAH! ha) and excited, Nathan continued, our prayers for more wisdom are working Cindy, I’m getting more wise!  (We pray for wisdom everyday.)

Yes you are Nathan I told him, that is the Holy Spirit speaking to you, and yes, just like that mud puddle, sometimes if we go right back out and do that sin again after Jesus already forgave us, we can jump so hard we get stuck in that pit of sin and we can’t get out and we have to cry out to Jesus to help us.

Next, I asked Nathan, what is going to happen if you run right out and jump in that mud again after I cleaned you’re shirt?  Nathan giggled and said, I’m gonna get in trouble!

I laughed and said Yes you would and so will we if we keep sinning and sinning against God and do not turn from that sin after we repent and He forgives us.  It was such a blessing to see him learning and his eyes brightening as he was learning and understanding the lesson.  God surely was speaking to his little heart.

After we had prayer time each alone, we then prayed together. After that we read out of Psalm 18 and I was explaining how God is a warrior and when the devil comes at us, God is angry at him.  Nathan said, He will fight our battle because the battle is His not ours! (Out of the mouths of babes!) 

Matthew 21:16 “Jesus saith unto them, Yea; have ye never read, Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings thou hast perfected praise”

This was such a blessing today, I had to share it. God is so good. Please keep praying for Nathan and for me that He will learn more and more and that I will be wise to teach him everything I can about the LORD while he is here with us. God is so good! I love this little boy so much and I love you all too! :o))

In the book of Luke we see Jesus teaching in a parable about one who has sinned and then realizing their condition, turning away from that sin and repenting.

Luke 15:10-32
10Likewise, I say unto you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth.
 11And he said, A certain man had two sons:
 12And the younger of them said to his father, Father, give me the portion of goods that falleth to me. And he divided unto them his living.
 13And not many days after the younger son gathered all together, and took his journey into a far country, and there wasted his substance with riotous living.
 14And when he had spent all, there arose a mighty famine in that land; and he began to be in want.
 15And he went and joined himself to a citizen of that country; and he sent him into his fields to feed swine.
 16And he would fain have filled his belly with the husks that the swine did eat: and no man gave unto him.
 17And when he came to himself, he said, How many hired servants of my father's have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger!
 18I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee,
 19And am no more worthy to be called thy son: make me as one of thy hired servants.
 20And he arose, and came to his father. But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him.
 21And the son said unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son.
 22But the father said to his servants, Bring forth the best robe, and put it on him; and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet:
 23And bring hither the fatted calf, and kill it; and let us eat, and be merry:
 24For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found. And they began to be merry.
 25Now his elder son was in the field: and as he came and drew nigh to the house, he heard musick and dancing.
 26And he called one of the servants, and asked what these things meant.
 27And he said unto him, Thy brother is come; and thy father hath killed the fatted calf, because he hath received him safe and sound.
 28And he was angry, and would not go in: therefore came his father out, and intreated him.
 29And he answering said to his father, Lo, these many years do I serve thee, neither transgressed I at any time thy commandment: and yet thou never gavest me a kid, that I might make merry with my friends:
 30But as soon as this thy son was come, which hath devoured thy living with harlots, thou hast killed for him the fatted calf.
 31And he said unto him, Son, thou art ever with me, and all that I have is thine.
 32It was meet that we should make merry, and be glad: for this thy brother was dead, and is alive again; and was lost, and is found.
In these scriptures, Jesus is not talking about a lost man, he is talking about a saved one, or a son.  We are not adopted sons and daughters of God until we are born again through the precious blood of Jesus Christ. 

Romans 8:15 “For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father.

Galatians 4:5 “To redeem then that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.

Ephesians 1:5 “Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will.”

So this son decided he wanted something more, and he left His Father’s house.  Aren’t some of us the same way, we decide we want something different.  We listen to the devil and we start to become dissatisfied and we think that the world has more to offer us than the LORD who died for us, then we venture out thinking we can take care of ourselves only to fall into the pit of sin that Satan has dug out for us to trap us.  There we are, in the dirty mud pit of sin, when God told us not to get our robes dirty after He saved us.  We can try to clean ourselves up, we can try to run away, we can try to hide like Adam and Eve did in the garden, but we cannot get away from God’s Holy Spirit because He is living on the inside of us. 

This boy realized he had made the biggest mistake of his life, and that he was not worthy to be a son any longer.  Sometimes when we so foolishly turn away from our Father to the things of this world, after a hard lesson of pain, we learn that we made the biggest mistake of our lives.  Oh what a mess we can get into, if we had only stayed in our Father’s house, we wouldn’t be living in the mud with the pigs. 

This son knew  that his only hope was in the his father, and he had to go back, even if things were different, even if the Father wouldn’t want him, he had to go back and try. 

We realize that our only hope is in Our Father in Heaven, and when we mess up so bad, we know that even if He is angry at us, even though we do not deserve to be a son or daughter any longer, we have to go back and beg for forgiveness, otherwise we will die inside. 

So the son started out on his journey back home to his father, we must do the same.  Sometimes it’s a long way back, but we have to keep going because He is our only hope.
The son finally made it back, he had rehearsed everything he was going to say…he was going to say Father I am not worthy anymore to be your son for the horrible things I have done, please just let me live as a servant to you, I have learned my lesson.  Have you ever felt that way after you did something that was wrong?  Have you ever thought, LORD I don’t deserve you, I don’t deserve to be your child after the things I have done, just let me serve you.  Just treat me as a servant and not Your child because I don’t deserve it. 

We serve THE BEST Father…what happened when this son came just in view?  His father saw him!  He had been waiting for him to come home.  He ran to him and put his arms around him rejoicing that his son was home!!!  Hallelujah, have you ever come back to the Father and you had rehearsed what you were going to say, maybe you thought you would try bargaining with God to once again be in fellowship with you, and as soon as you hit your knees, you felt the loving arms of Your Father around You, and all you could do is weep.  He is happy that you have come back once again.  Just like the father in the parable, Your Father in heaven gives you a new clean robe of righteousness so that you can start over again.  He is so good. 

We must learn, that we do not have to sin, we choose it.  We are human beings so therefore sometimes we will sin, but we should try our VERY best not to.  We have the empowerment of the Holy Spirit of God living inside us to help us run away from sin no matter how appealing it may seem to us.  We must learn that we cannot even go near the mud hole, or the pit of sin because we will fall into it.  We have to learn that we cannot be around those in the mud hole because they will sling mud all over us.  We must be very careful who we spend our time with, what we spend our time listening to, and looking at, what we read, what we eat, and the places we go.  We are sons and daughters of the Most High and we have been clothed in Robes of Righteousness and by His grace we can remain in fellowship with our Father and the blood of Jesus Christ will keep our robes clean!  Praise YOU FATHER!

 

Dear Righteous Heavenly Father…

Thank You so much that You are You.  Thank You for providing for us, and for loving us, and keeping us.  Thank You that You love us as children and that even when we get our robes dirty, you clean them up when we repent and turn away from that sin.  Father thank You for Your Holy Spirit that empowers us to make righteous choices and to run away from even the appearance of evil.  You are so good and it is only through You that we are redeemed.  Thank You for being the best Father and for loving us the way that You do so passionately. Help us to love You with all our hearts, with all our souls, with all our minds, and with all our strength.  We adore You and praise You because You alone are worthy of all Praise, Glory, and Honor!  In the MIGHTY, LOVELY name of BEAUTIFUL JESUS we pray!  Amen!

~*Cindygirl*~
August 8, 2010