Psalm # 15

Preached: May 9,2010 Des Arc First UMC Nursing Home

Who may worship in your sanctuary, Lord? - Who may enter your presence on your holy hill?

Now those are a couple of Good Questions. If you were to listen to the Pharisees and priests you would need to answer with the list of the following ten requirements

  1. To walk upright and do what is right
  2. To speak in the truth of your heart
  3. To refrain from slanderous gossip
  4. To do no evil to your neighbor
  5. To not insult your nearest relative
  6. To honor those who fear the Lord
  7. To reject those whom the Lord despises
  8. To no change what you have sworn for something worse.
  9. To not lend out the money at interest
  10. To not accept a bribe against the innocent.

I try to live up to those ideals and I hope you do also. But if you are not living up to these ideals or you have broken the commandments of God, does that mean you should not come into a church or place of God and feel you do not belong? Well in my belief you can and should. Jesus taught us many things about what God was like and what God wants us to do here on earth. If you listen to some churches and ministers, you are not welcome in their church unless you repent of all of your sins and promise that you will never do those again. If you fail at doing this — you will be expelled from their presence and asked not to return.

  • Get a Divorce and you can no longer be a preacher in this church.
  • Commit adultery and you must leave that church.
  • Have homosexual tenancies and you may be thrown on the fires of hell in some churches .
  • Commit the seven venial sins and you are condemned to Hell forever.
  • Not be the person your church thinks you should and you will not be let in through the front door.

But let’s look at what Jesus said and did.

  • To the adulterous women—“Go and sin no more”
  • To the whores and tax collectors he dined with—He explained God’s love and desire for them and asked them to turn their lives around.
  • To the Man on the cross next to him who asked forgiveness.—“You shall be in heaven with me today.”

That does not sound like a God who condemns all who fail at doing what they are supposed to do to hellfire. So how can we? Why do we? And what would Jesus say about our actions? Jesus taught us that the Pharisees who believed we all had to live “prefect lives” in order to receive God’s loving grace got it wrong. In fact the two groups of individuals who got it wrong, most of the time, according to what we read in the Gospels were the Pharisees and the Church leaders. And they are no different today! I have told my church that we need to hang a banner outside our church that reads “Worship for Sinners.” We know that we each sin at least three times a day in thought word and deed.

  • We also realize that we each continue to sin because we fall short of the glory God created for us to be.
  • But there is no reason to stop coming to church,
  • That is not a reason why we should not receive God’s love and grace and take part in the sacraments of Communion and Baptism.
  • There is no reason why we should be excluding anyone of their right to be with God and feel him touch their lives.

Should we be working to correct our lives—YES!!! But just because we have not does not stop us from learning how to change our lives and do the things he taught us to do. Who is fit to worship God and to be in heaven? If you cannot live up to the ideals then this all is truly unfeasible. And in a sense it is suppose to be. Our failings were meant to show us that it is possible for anyone to make themselves fit for heaven. That to be fit for heave we each most depend upon not ourselves but on God’s unfailing and merciful love and grace. Jesus can and does make us completely fit in the end as we bow before him and confess our faults and our failures and turn them over to him for his help and guidance. Should we keep all sinners out of our churches—Never. If we did there would be no one there including the ministers and priests—or we all fall way short in many areas. I just thank God for his mercy and forgiveness and a chance to worship His Holy presence each day. What is keeping you from Jesus today. Turn it over and go in a new direction. And know that God goes with you in that new direction.