We Do Not Deserve To Be Here

We do not deserve to be here today!

Read Lamentations 3:1-24

Introduction… Not a single person in this room should be in here today!

Not a single person in this room DESERVES to be in here today…

I mean, we are all human beings are we not… we all have certain inalienable rights…we all have specific goals for our lives, we all have specific qualities about us, we all have something going for us.. therefore… we do not deserve to be here…

We have just read a few verses from the book of Lamentations, it is a book of the Bible that was written by a man named Jeremiah…

Jeremiah was a well known prophet, that is, he spoke to the people and delivered God’s message to them..

Similar to what preachers do today… not exactly the same, but similar…

And we can see that Jeremiah, this prophet of God, had gone through some difficult times in his life…

He started chapter three off by saying “ I am a man who has seen affliction”.

And then he goes on to list many of the afflictions, or, sufferings he had been through in his life…

This man of God, this prophet had seen so much destruction, and had witnessed so many bad things happen in his life that he felt like God was using him for target practice…

Verse 12 says, “He drew his bow and made me the target for his arrows”

The prophet of God feesl like he is being used by God for target practice… he doesn’t understand all that has happened, he can not comprehend all of the suffering he is seeing…

He doesn’t even feel like God is hearing his prayers… verse 8 says “even when I call our or cry for help, he shuts out my prayers”

Guys, we feel like that some times don’t we… We feel like God is using us for target practice and we feel like when we call out or cry out for help, God does not even hear us….

We can relate to Jeremiah… we can relate to this prophet of God and how he feels about what he is going through in his life…

And we can study the Bible, and we can look and see that Jeremiah served God faithfully, he served God unconditionally, he did what God wanted him to do…

And we can look and see what Jeremiah is going through and we can say…

JEREMIAH DIDN’T DESERVE TO BE THERE!

And NO ONE…. No man woman or child on earth, deserves to be in here today!

Now, Some people would argue with that statement…

Some people would say that certain persons in this room today DESERVE to be here…

And some people would even go as far as to say that certain persons deserve to be in here because they are DIFFERENT than us…

But, I want us to look at God’s word and see why we do not belong in here today…

The first thing I want us to notice, is that according to the Bible,

Not according to me, but according to God’s Word…we are all equal in God’s eyes…

And I always want to use scripture to back up what I say… because nothing I have to say is of any importance, but everything that GOD says, is important…

Acts 10:34 (NIV)

34 Then Peter began to speak: “I now realize how true it is that God does not show favoritism

Deuteronomy 10:17 (NIV)

17 For the LORD your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who shows no partiality and accepts no bribes.

Job 34:19 says that God..

…… shows no partiality to princes and does not favor the rich over the poor, for they are all the work of his hands?

Colossians 3:11 (NIV)

11 Here there is no Greek or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all.

You see, according to the Word Of God… God is no respecter of persons…

God looks at our hearts… he sees us as either a person who has accepted Jesus Christ as our Lord and savior, or as a person who has not…

But God does not look at the color of our skin… He does not look at the country we were born in, he does not look at our bank accounts, he does not look at where we live, He does not look at where we are at this very moment…

We are all equal in Gods eyes……

And since we are all equal, may I say that NONE of us deserve to be in here today…

Now, you might hear someone say that there are some people that deserve to be in here today more than others…. because of some sin they have committed or because of some sin they have in their life…