In early January of 2006 I was listening to pastor Jim Wood’s radio program on Christian radio station WRJZ in Knoxville. Pastor Wood is Founder and Executive Director of Wears Valley Ranch (WVR), a Christian children’s home and school for young people from crisis family situations located in beautiful Wears Valley, TN. During this particular broadcast, pastor Wood mentioned that before a WVR student could go on the annual spring break trip to Florida the student had to memorize the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:3-7:27) word-for-word. My initial reaction was “well, that’s pretty cool”. My second reaction was, “can you do it?” Thus, began a spiritual journey that came out of seemingly nowhere…but the Holy Spirit was at work.
For nearly five months I continued to debate whether or not I had it in me to memorize all 111 verses of this sermon. It seemed as though God was pecking on one shoulder saying “trust Me, you can do it”, while the Prince of the power of the Air was on the other reinforcing doubts by telling me “it’s too hard; it will take too much time; you’re too busy; there are other things to do with your life”. Finally, after many days of procrastination, prayer and faithful introspection took hold and I became determined the Sermon on the Mount was going to be memorized once and for all.
I began learning the sermon on May 1, 2006, with a goal of having it completely memorized by the end of the year. This allowed 242 days to learn 111 verses of scripture. However, with the Good Lord providing incredible inspiration I had the Sermon on the Mount memorized in its entirety in three months. Honestly, I thought this marked the end of a nice personal accomplishment and that was going to be that. The funny thing is, God seemed to have other plans and the Lord began asking, “now what are you going to do with it?”
And that brings me to the present. After memorizing the Sermon on the Mount and doing a continuing expositional study over many months, it is now my calling to present the sermon to as many people as possible. If you live in East Tennessee or other areas relatively close to Knoxville and you are checking out this website, it is my prayer that you will invite me to present the Sermon on the Mount and a brief exposition of the sermon to a church group, Sunday School class, small group, or Wednesday evening event with which you may be affiliated. Please click on "Contact Us" in the upper right corner to request further information or schedule a presentation.
God Bless and thank you for visiting the Sermon on the Mount website!
Geoff Brock
Corryton, TN
