(singing) and the walls came tumbling down the city that we lo-uh-uh-uh-uh-uh-ove
You know that song? I love that song.
It's in my head, it gets stuck there, and I don't know what to do with it.
My name is Father Mike Schmitz and this is Ascension Presents.
So I was talking the other day with a guy, a friend of mine
who is roughly my age and he said,
"You know, I think the only Olympic sport that I would actually be able to do
and compete in now these days is curling."
I'm up here in the northern Minnesota. Curling is kind of a thing.
It's kind of like in Canada as well.
Curling, if you don't know, you take a big stone and you slide it along the ice
and then people go in front of it and they sweep.
If you heat up the ice to kind of direct the—it's kind of like bowling with team.
It's like team bowling with ice and a broom.
I think about this. When it comes to being good enough for the Olympics,
I used to dream of being in the Olympics.
I had to realize I'm not good enough.
I can work really, really hard. I'm not good enough to be in the Olympics,
like I'm not even qualified to be an Olympic sweeper like in curling
or I thought about this when I watching the Winter Olympics a little while ago
it was like— there's the luge and you know what the luge is or the skeleton.
The guy in the luge or in the skeleton, they're laying on their backs or on their stomach
and that's the race, that's the event
and I realized as I was watching this, "I'm not even good enough
to lie down at the Olympic level." Like I just can't even lie down at the Olympic level.
I think that's all there is to it, too.
I think that luge— it's just you lie down and hang on. Isn't that right? I'm not sure.
Maybe I'm revealing my ignorance.
But I thought about that when in reference especially to people who say
"When it comes to heaven, when it comes to going to heaven,
like yeah, I think I'm good enough. I think I'm good enough to go to heaven."
Why? Well, because I haven't killed anyone or I haven't—you know, I'm not Hitler.
I haven't really done anything really that bad."
And then in our head we think, "What's really 'that bad' really mean?"
And yet, I realize like I'm not even good enough to go to the Olympics in lying down;
like what in the world makes me think that I'm good enough to go to heaven on my own?
The reality is this: we have to acknowledge at some level we have to think,
"I'm not good enough."
If we're gonna start anywhere, we have to start at that place.
Now I know that sometimes people think,
"You're getting down on yourself. You need more self-confidence."
Like listen, I'll tell you what. I don't need any more self-confidence.
I have to realize that I'm not good enough for heaven
and I think it's really important if you're watching this, to realize you're not good enough for heaven either.
And that's not an insult. What that means is, it means you don't have to be.
When it comes down to it, God doesn't say, "Are you going to be good enough
to come into my house?"
We realize there's this thing called grace, that none of us is good enough for heaven,
none of us is good enough to live in God's presence
and yet we have this incredible grace that Jesus gives us,
this grace working itself out in faith through love,
this grace given to us and we receive it in faith and work it out in love,
that none of you—none of us has to be good enough.
All we have to do is we have to be willing to let Jesus love us.
We have to respond to that love and give him our whole heart, to surrender our lives to him.
And that's what it is—I'm not good enough to be in the Olympics
and I'm not good enough to go to heaven
but any one of us
can surrender.
Any one of us
can let ourselves be loved. That's my invitation to you today.
Two things.
One is are you willing to give God permission to love you as you are, even if you're not good enough
and the second thing, it's kind of a bigger deal.
Are you willing to surrender your life to him?
Because at the end of the day, we don't go and get to heaven
because we've worked really, really hard.
We get to heaven because we were willing
to surrender our lives to a God who loves us so much he was willing to die and rise for us.
(singing) ... the city that we lo-uh-uh-uh-ove.
It's still in my head.