Sermons Hiding in the Tall Grass

Sermons are interesting animals. They knock around forming in my brain for at least a week. Then they come out multiple times over a weekend and then they sink back into the high grass waiting to pounce on me again when I least expect it. The way I prepare for a sermon is to research, pray, mull it over, and then write it down nearly word for word by Thursday. Then I need to hear it out loud to try to digest it myself so I preach it to myself three times before preaching it to others for the first time Saturday night. I preach it 3 more times on Sunday so all told I will hear my own sermon 7 times before I put the notes in a file but the echo of the truth keeps bouncing around for a while. Anyway, this past week the message was pretty clear. Boiled down to a sentence the truth of the day was,"Your worth is not determined by what you do or what you have but by what Jesus did for you." If this is true then everything that happens to you is used by God to change something in you so God can then work through you. Good stuff. It took me 30 minutes to say that and I heard it seven times thirty or nearly three and a half hours of that great truth of the Gospel. So, Monday I am leaving the office and I tell my assistant that I am going home to meet the cable guy since we have been having trouble with reception. Jim Colledge comes out of his office and asks if I am getting HD. I say,"No, I am not getting HD. I wouldn't do that." Since I am pretty sure Jim has HD I use the tone of my voice to express my disdain for the waste of money. I am such a piece of work. So, what I am saying is that after preaching 7 times about the wonder of my worth being in what Jesus did for me, on Monday I am trying to suck worth from not having HD television. I don't want to use this blog as catharsis or public confession, I just wanted to point out how I need the gospel to keep going deeper. If the gospel goes deep enough I won't keep using silly things to puff myself up and instead live in the wonder of the love of God purchased at a great price. I am telling this to all the rest of you who feel you are slow learners. There is no one slower than the one who preaches it seven times and forgets it Monday by 4pm. I am glad that sermons keep hiding in the tall grass in my life. I need them to keep hiding there so they can jump out at me time and again and bite me with grace.