Sackitis

Sackitis

Eph 5:28, Matt 11:28-29

I. Ok, this is weird sermon week number two. The sermon that I preached last week is one that I can’t seem to get around preaching periodically, and it touches on a another subject that makes me feel I need to preach another weird sermon.

A. As much as I don’t like to repeat sermons, these are two subjects that I feel hold a lot of people back in their relationship with God, so if you will bare with me I’m going to have another go at it.

B. If you won’t bare with me I guess we can leave, because I don’t have anything else to say.

C. I want to talk about the burlap sack that we all carry around.

II. You have one, I have one, all of us humans have one.

A. A sack. A burlap sack. You might not have known you have one but you do.

B. You may not have been told about it, and it could be you don’t remember.

C. But, you were given a sack.

1. An itchy, scratchy burlap sack.

2. You needed the sack so you could carry the rocks.

3. Rocks, boulders, pebbles. All sizes. All shapes. All unwanted.

4. You didn’t ask for them, but you got ‘em. Don’t remember?

D. Some were rocks of rejection.

1. You were given one the time you didn’t make the team.

2. And, it wasn’t for lack of effort. You practiced hard.

3. You thought you were good enough for the team, but the coach didn’t. The instructor didn’t.

4. You thought you were good enough, but they said you weren’t.

5. They and how many others?

E. You don’t have to live long before you get a collection of stones for your sack.

1. Make a poor grade. Make a bad choice. Make a mess.

2. Get called a few names. Get mocked. Get abused. Get betrayed.

3. And the stones don’t stop with adolescence either.

4. And sack gets heavy. Heavy with rocks. Stones of rejection.

5. Some we don’t deserve, some we do.

III. Open your sack and take a look, you’ll see not all the stones are from rejections.

A. There is a second type of stone. The stone of regret.

1. Regret for the time you lost your temper.

2. Regret for the day you lost control.

3. Regret for the moment you lost your pride.

4. Regret for the years you lost your priorities.

5. And even regret for the hour you lost your innocence.

6. Regret for when you shouldn’t have and you did.

B. One stone after another, one guilty stone after another.

C. And the sack gets heavier and heavier, the sack gets harder and harder to carry.

1. Life gets more and more difficult, because we get tired, and we want to give up.

2. How can you have dreams for the future when all your energy is required to carry the past?

3. No wonder some people look miserable. The sack slows the pace.

4. The sack rubs the skin raw and makes us not want to move at all.

5. That helps explain the irritation on so many people’s faces, the sag in so many steps, the drag, in so many shoulders, the anger, the loss of control, the desperation in so many lives.

6. People get consumed with doing whatever it takes to get some relief.

D. So you take the sack to work.

1. You decide to work so hard you’ll forget about the sack.

2. You go in early and you stay late.

3. People are impressed, but when it’s time to go home, there’s the sack right by the door where you left it.

4. So, you try to drink away the rocks in the sack. You set the sack on the floor, sit on the stool.

5. The music gets loud and your head gets light.

6. But then it’s time to go and you look down and there’s the sack.

E. Some people drag their sack to therapy.

1. They sit on the couch with the sack at their feet and spill all their stones on the floor and name them one by one.

2. The therapist listens. They give some help.

3. But when the time is up, they’re obliged to gather the rocks and take them with them.

F. You get so desperate you try a weekend rendezvous.

1. A little excitement. A risky embrace. A night of stolen passion.

2. But then the weekend passes. Sunday’s sun sets and waiting for you on Monday’s doorstep is—you got it—your sack of regrets and rejections, and there is even another rock or two added.

G. You even try to hide from the sack and pretend it isn’t there but the pain won’t let you.