Sunday, March 15th, "The Death of the Righteous"

This week our church witnessed the "death of the righteous." There was no doubt in any one's mind that Beulah Mardis was now in heaven. She is now alive and well in heaven. The Old Testament saints used to pray, "Let me die the death of the righteous." When I was a teenager I witnessed the death of such a saint. Her name was Marilyn Cromer. She had cancer, diabetes, and went to dialysis three times a week. Even so, she never missed church. If you asked her how she felt she would reply, "I'm joyful." One Sunday evening our pastor came to the pulpit and said, "Our piano player is sick tonight so we'll have to worship a capella Marilyn got up from her pew and walked slowly to the front of the church. She sat down at the piano and began to play one of the selected hymns. That night our little church worshipped louder and with more passion than I had ever heard before. As long as she was able she wouldn't dream of our church worshipping God without a piano player. (it just so happened that Anna Belle was present in our service this Sunday and Joanne, our regular piano player was sick, Anna Belle stepped up and played our piano) Her first Sunday back in 5 months and she played a vital part in our worship service.

The question of the day was, "So what makes a person righteous." The root word of "righteous" is "right". To be righteous simply means to have a right relationship with God. Jesus told Nicodemus that he must be born again. The only way to be right with God is to be born again. To be forgiven of our sins and accept Christ as our Lord and savior. However, their are things that we should do in order to preserve and enhance our righteousness in Gods eyes.

I've come up with five "oughts". Five things a Christian ought to be in order to be called righteous.

#1. A Christian ought to love God. Heaven is a place for those who love God. The Bible says, "Love the Lord your God with all of your heart, with all of your soul, and with all of your mind."

#2. A person ought to hate sin. We ought to avoid sin like a plaque. We can't both be righteous and constant sinner at the same time. Paul said that's impossible. Even though we may never reach a point in our life where we will never sin we "ought" to try our best to avoid sin; even though sometimes we catch it's symptoms.

#3. A person ought to love the Body of Christ. The Christian life was not meant to live alone. The Bible says, "Do not forsake the gathering of yourselves together." Sometimes, I think people isolate themselves from the Body of Christ. They distance themselves over one reason or another. I know that sometimes we physically should not attend church; but in some cases I know that we allow our physical ailments to become more of a cover up for the real reason we don't attend. We ought to love the Body of Christ and attend as often as possible; even if we physically don't feel like it.

#4. We ought to keep the 10 commandments. If there was ever a list of rules a righteous person should keep it would be the 10 commandments.

#5. We ought to be people of prayer, scripture, and devotion. This is truly a lost art in today's churches.

What will your funeral be like. Will people witness the Death of the Righteous. Or, will they wonder where your soul will spend eternity. The book of James tells us our life is like a breath that is here today and gone tomorrow. We only have one breath; we ought to make sure it's a righteous one.