Are You Wearing The Right Shoes? Series

Sermon Brief

Date Written: October 3, 2008

Date Preached: October 5, 2008

Where Preached: OPBC (AM)

Sermon Details:

Sermon Series: Preparing to do Battle!

Sermon Title: Are You Wearing the Right Shoes?

Sermon Text: Mark 2:1-12

1 And again He entered Capernaum after some days, and it was heard that He was in the house. 2 Immediately[a] many gathered together, so that there was no longer room to receive them, not even near the door. And He preached the word to them. 3 Then they came to Him, bringing a paralytic who was carried by four men. 4 And when they could not come near Him because of the crowd, they uncovered the roof where He was. So when they had broken through, they let down the bed on which the paralytic was lying. 5 When Jesus saw their faith, He said to the paralytic, “Son, your sins are forgiven you.” 6 And some of the scribes were sitting there and reasoning in their hearts, 7 “Why does this Man speak blasphemies like this? Who can forgive sins but God alone?” 8 But immediately, when Jesus perceived in His spirit that they reasoned thus within themselves, He said to them, “Why do you reason about these things in your hearts? 9 Which is easier, to say to the paralytic, ‘Your sins are forgiven you,’ or to say, ‘Arise, take up your bed and walk’? 10 But that you may know that the Son of Man has power on earth to forgive sins”—He said to the paralytic, 11 “I say to you, arise, take up your bed, and go to your house.” 12 Immediately he arose, took up the bed, and went out in the presence of them all, so that all were amazed and glorified God, saying, “We never saw anything like this!”

Introduction:

When you think about getting ready for battle? What do you think about putting on? Your helmet? Your armor? Your sword? Your shield???

Many people think about those things but overlook or take for granted a very important part of their armor and that is their SHOES! How important are your shoes? Well let’s just think about what would life be without shoes to protect our feet?

Think about the soldier storming the rocky beaches of Normandy.

Think about construction worker working around nails, broken wood and other sharp objects…

Think about an ice-skater and what his or her life would be like without their skates!

Think about a fireman and what his or her life would be without safety boots!

Think about the pro athlete (doesn’t matter which sport)…without their specialty shoes

What about the farmer? What about the door to door salesman? What about the truck driver?

Do you see what I mean? Do you see how important shoes are to us? This morning I want us to look at the importance of our ‘shoes’ when it comes to preparing ourselves for battle… the shoes of our spiritual armor!

One of the first things I can say about shoes is that there is not a one size fits all…many things can be one size fits all but shoes are not one of them.

Shoes are very a personal item. When your shoe does not fit, they hurt and when your shoe hurts, all the world seems out of joint!

There are some things in life that you can make do with the wrong size – a belt that’s too long, pants that are a bit snug, a shirt that’s big enough to pitch a tent with… none of these things are bad, but if your feet are hurting because you don’t have the right shoes on…it won’t matter much. When our feet hurt…everything seems out of sorts!

I absolutely HATE to shop for shoes… most of the time I use the hunter gatherer method of shoe shopping. I will go into Walmart locate my prey, take out my debit card and take the shoes home!

There are some people in this very ROOM today where shoe shopping could be considered an Olympic sport! But I just cannot get excited about rifling thru box after box of shoes, comparing styles, and harassing the shoe salesman.

I have my shoes that I have purchased from Walmart for the past several years… I like these shoes, but I can’t recommend that to you, now, can I?

And just as one size does not fit all, neither does one style please everybody. Then there is price and affordability to consider. Another HUGE factor when purchasing shoes is does it fit the occasion? I would NEVER recommend that you follow me to the store and get shoes just like mine.

We all need good fitting shoes…many people do not realize just how important the right shoes are for our overall health. An improperly fit shoe causes us to walk the wrong way which leads to back problems or hip problems and it can have a domino affect. Shoes are VERY important for us physically!