I’ve been reflecting on and praying over the Apostle Paul’s second letter to his young protege Timothy all week in preparation for Sunday morning. Chapter 4 has particularly captured my attention as I study all the rich imagery Paul shares with Timothy as a means of passing on that which is most important in life and ministry.

As I thought about sermons from this passage, I realized there was absolutely a sermon in every sentence. Seriously, here are some of those sentences:

• “I give you this charge…” (verse 1)
• “Preach the Word.” (verse 2)
• “Be prepared in season and out…” (verse 2)
• “Correct, rebuke and encourage…” (verse 2)
• “For I am already being poured out as a drink offering…” (verse 6)
• “The time for my departure is at hand…” (verse 6)
• “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.” (verse 7)

Well, you get the idea. The imagery is such that each line is a sermon unto itself.

Now, I’m no Apostle Paul, but as I prayed over the passage this week, short little one or two line thoughts kept popping up. I kept writing them down thinking they’d be good to include in a sermon, but as I sat down to write a sermon, I thought many of them were, like Paul’s letter to Timothy, sermons unto themselves.

I share them with you here, and I call them A Sermon in a Sentence…okay, so some of them are two sentences, but…

• There’s nothing quite like death to make one take a look at life.
• Scripture is meant to shape culture. Culture should never shape Scripture.
• People don’t want truth. They want permission.
• It’s not our task the make the Bible relevant. The Bible is timeless, it’s the Holy Spirit’s job to make it relevant.
• We desire comfort, not conviction.

I thought this was a good one!

• We live in an age that seeks flattery rather than a fix, entertainment rather than edification and soothing over salvation.

A few more that I wrote down:

• People don’t reject the Bible because it’s unclear, but because it’s inconvenient.
• We desire redefinition over repentance.
• Discipleship isn’t comfortable, it’s costly!
• The Church isn’t called to be trendy, it’s called to be holy.

So, this next one is longer, but here goes:

• People say, “I’m spiritual but not religious.” That’s just another way of saying, “I’m looking for a religion that affirms my choices and my actions.” They’re looking to have their “ears tickled.” They want to walk down the buffet line of religious choices and pick a little bit of this one and a little bit of that one until they’ve crafted a spiritual philosophy that matches their preferences.

Lest one think I’m referring to people “out there” in the world, you’d be incorrect. I’m referring to people in the church. Let’s not be “those people.” Let us be people who embrace Truth, as challenging and convicting and inconvenient as it might be. Unbelief in the Church is not the problem. False belief is the problem.

Actually, any of those, or all of those, or none of those may show up in today’s sermon. Who knows? It’s 6:30 on a Sunday morning and that sermon is still a work in progress. One thing I’m sure of: The folks at Haughton Methodist Church only wish I would preach a sermon in a sentence.

Hey? If you want to know which ones (if any) show up in today’s message, why don’t you join me at 10:30 a.m., at 966 Highway 80 in Haughton, LA? I’d love to see you there!

Until next time, keep looking up…