Mephibosheth

Here are my brief thoughts from the sermon I preached on Mephibosheth:

1. David shows grace because grace is shown to him. We need to be like David.

2. Mephibosheth comes to David expected bad things to happen. After all, he has been hiding in a barren place for well over a decade. He is a relative of the former king and has a disability. Both of those should have prevented him from taking a place at the king's table. Grace doesn't meet expectations, we don't get what we deserve. Can't you just see crippled Mephibosheth sitting next to pretty boy Absolum? Wouldn't you have loved to have been a fly on the wall.

3. We are Mephibosheth. Regardless of our physical condition, our hearts have been crippled by hurts and sin. We still get to eat at the king's table.

Needless to say, my sermon was slightly longer than my brief outline, but you get the idea. It was well received. I had the worship band play "Who Am I" before the sermon which I thought was a good lead in. I did chuckle internally at the end of the sermon when out of habit I said "as we stand and sing". Old habits die hard. Most people at the church were singing and probably no one else noticed the significance of the statement.

It was a good thing I was prepared for it because the next Sunday was a 5th Sunday. The agency I work for is attached to the Methodist Church and 5th Sunday contributions at many churchs go to sponsor our work. I was asked to go speak at two small country churches. A curcuit preacher normally serves the churches but he get's 5th Sundays off. So I modified Mephibosheth to tie it to the work we do and it went well. I told Shannon afterwards that it was the first time I had ever gone to two services in a Sunday and not taken the Lord's Supper once. I missed it.

Both churches were established over 100 years ago and the largest had an average attendance of 25. One of the churches had a footnote at the bottom of their worship order in the program that read, "Subject to change due to the Holy Spirit". I thought wouldn't it be great if all churches were open to that movement. Then I also thought, wouldn't it be great if that was a footnote on my life. "Subject to change due to the Holy Spirit".

The weeklong celebration of Grace turning 10 is over. We had a great time Friday evening as 8 girls joined her for a bowling party. You can imagine the squeals and screams that accompanied each spare and the one strike by the girls. Gutter guards are a great thing. I was accused of being a showoff because I bowled a respectable 140 after not having bowled in several years. I never even touched a gutter guard either.

This Sunday, I have been asked to preach at First Christian Church. I am feeling honored and a little nervous about this. I decided to stick with a good Old Testament lesson on grace. Yes, those do exist. I am going to be preaching on Mephibosheth and the grace he received from David. I would like my blogging friends to review the story and give me your thoughts. What jumps out at you from this story? Here is the text from 2nd Samuel 9.

Grace at double digits

This past Saturday, Grace turned 10. We celebrated it on Friday night and will again this weekend with a party and my family coming up.

Why am I just now getting around to posting about Grace's birthday? Well we had a very crazy weekend with Saturday being:
Grace Basketball game at 9
James soccer game at 10:15
James baseball game at 12:30 in Knoxville
Shopping in Pidgeon Forge and Birthday meal at Red Lobster

Sunday
Church
Grace ushered at an event at Tusculum College
James two baseball games in Knoxville (they won the championship of the tourney)

Then blogger wouldn't let me post pictures yesterday.

Happy Birthday Grace!


Here is one of my favorite pictures of Grace. It was taken when she was about two. We were at the beach.

One day on that trip, she had been playing in the sand and invited a sea gull to play with her. The exchange went like this:

Grace: Seagulls would you like to help me build a sand castle?

Seagulls (Grace in a deeper voice): We can't we don't have hands.

Our lulaby for Grace as an infant was "Amazing Grace" and she has continued to amaze as she has gotten older. She is a smart, kind, mature, and responsible young lady. I cannot not begin to tell you how proud we are of her. Happy Birthday Grace!

Here is a shot of Grace this weekend reading at James' baseball game.

I wish I would have had my camera

I was driving to work at the intersection of Depot & College Streets (No there is no college in Greeneville but one of the downtown streets in called College, I have yet to learn why). This intersection is the home of the Andrew Johnson National Site Visitor Center and the back of the Greene County Courthouse AKA the Greene County Jail.

I looked over across from the jail and saw a lady standing by her car while two fellows in "Jail Blues" were working on her car. The tool of choice was a coat hanger. They were trying to break in to her car with her permission. Does that count as community service? I wish I would have had my camera.