Homecoming Sermon: 2011

1. Homecoming Sermon: 2011 This is my Home

2. Psalm 118:25-26 • 25 O LORD, save us;    O LORD, grant us success. 26 Blessed is he who comes in the name of the LORD.    From the house of the LORD we bless you.

3. Your New Home!!!!!

5. Exodus 3:5-6 • 5 “Do not come any closer,” God said. “Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.” 6 Then he said, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.” At this, Moses hid his face, because he was afraid to look at God.

6. “Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.”

7. What kind of home are you going to make it?

8. Mark 11:15-19 • 15 On reaching Jerusalem, Jesus entered the temple area and began driving out those who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves, 16 and would not allow anyone to carry merchandise through the temple courts. 17 And as he taught them, he said, “Is it not written: “‘My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations’? But you have made it ‘a den of robbers.’”

9. A House of….something else… • It becomes a house of judgment • It becomes a house of cliques • It becomes a house of self-interests

10. Matthew 9:10-13 10 While Jesus was having dinner at Matthew’s house, many tax collectors and “sinners” came and ate with him and his disciples. 11 When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and ‘sinners’?” 12 On hearing this, Jesus said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. 13 But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”

11. So what kind of home will we make? • A place we can feel at home? • A place we can approach God in his fullness • A house of prayer • A home for sinners