It requires two key components for a Major League baseball player to be selected for admission into its prestigious Hall of Fame. First, the player must have enjoyed a stellar career, the tops at his position when he played; and second, once he is nominated and voted favorably by the Baseball Writers’ Association of 
America, he then must be inducted at the annual ceremony. Without both, he is just another Major League baseball player. The first requirement is a performance issue; the second, a procedural one.
Borrowing from this model, I want to draw an analogy to the Christian faith. Let me start by offering this encouraging word: Anyone can be selected to enter into its Hallowed Hall, not just an elite group of performers.
This being said, I want you to observe two notably different requirements: first, there is no need for even a lackluster Christian career. Someone can enter God’s Hallowed Hall as the very last thing he or she does before exiting out of here. Then second, there is no need for any kind of ceremony to get selected, like baptism or church membership.
The Bible repeatedly heralds that first requirement, that we can’t earn our way into God’s Hallowed Hall. It’s not about performance! No compilation of good works could ever so impress God that He is left with no choice but to throw wide open the doors to His prestigious Hall.
But regarding that second matter of procedure, why not come out this Sunday morning to learn more about what the Bible teaches about placing our confidence in ceremony, believing that some Rite will grant us entrance? How fitting for a sermon series entitled, “Right in God’s Sight,” that we turn our attention on Sunday to “Rite in Man’s Sight.”
