Dying with a Purpose - Bobby Schuller

[Applause] whoever you are would you stand with us we're going to say this together hold your hands out like this as a way of opening your body to the holy spirit we're going to say this together i'm not what i do i'm not what i have i'm not what people say about me i am the beloved of god it's who i am no one can take it from me i don't have to worry i don't have to hurry i can trust my friend jesus and share his love with the world thanks you can be seated we know what the lord says about us because we can read it we know what it says about us that he loves us so much that he he laid down his life for us greater love has no man than this that he lay his life down for his friends you are a friend of god and he's got great plans in store for you if you believe it say amen now uh i sort of feel bad for hannah on occasion especially when ministry gets hard and i shouldn't i know you you enjoy being married to me i hope yeah thumbs up i got a thumbs up that's good when hannah and i were engaged she was not engaged to a seminarian or a guy who was planning to be a pastor she was engaged to a businessman i was in school business school i was a real estate appraiser and i was working for actually a second job a real estate investment company and then i was also scouting around at different financial companies where i had some connections through various friends and stuff when hannah and i got married she i mean she was i was kind of a catch you know because of the you know what i mean i mean not maybe not as much of the looks but in the wallet department i had a high very high potential and we were in love and when we got married none of that was really factoring of course i think though i mean we both were very passionate about ministry we were both missionaries we both did a lot of humanitarian work together we both worked at the same church and when i say worked i got paid 50 a week to lead worship but it was ministry was always important to us but what we thought when we got engaged is we would build a life and business and we would use the financial resources that god gave us to encourage the church while also volunteering and doing ministry and things like that that's what we thought would happen i believe it was when we got married that we we really felt a call to ministry and i i know i've said this before but i really felt up until that point that business was the way for me and there was this crux of a moment i'll never forget i was spending a lot of time at a hedge fund i had a friend who was just a year older than i was and so at the time he was a pretty young guy and he had just bought his mom a house in dana point with cash and i was like i want to do what he's doing and i can do what he's doing and so i started hanging out at this hedge fund and the guy who sort of helped run it was introducing me and i got to know some of these people and what i started to find out very quickly was that most of the people that are working there most of the men uh who were youngish in their 30s let's say late 20s a lot of 30s they almost none of them were married or if they were they were divorced most of the guys at this group were alcoholics had maybe some drug issues one guy told me we make a lot of money but we have no time to spend it and then the final straw that broke the camel's back is i remember noticing that so many of these offices had showers in them and i remember asking a guy once i was like why do all these offices have showers and he said well sometimes we work so late and the stock market opens so early that if we were to drive home and drive back we wouldn't get enough sleep so it's better to just sleep here and then you'll get six hours of sleep and then you can still shower and be ready for the day and there was something about that idea that i was like nope nope i gotta find something else i gotta do something else with my life and you know hannah and i when we were married we were married at the chris cathedral and it was that day we both started to feel a call to ministry that's why i often say i wasn't called hannah wasn't called to this ministry we were called it's like a couples i would really believe it's a couple's calling and i remember when we started leading this church after a long horrible string of a lot of drama and a bankruptcy and the loss of this building and all these things we came in to sort of help and lead and eventually i became a senior pastor and i remember our first property in garden grove the my office was in what was called the rectory which means it's a dormitory for priests and and it was the one of the most run down smelly buildings you've ever seen but my office in directory had like uh various spots everywhere stains there was like a carpet that was like a million years old there was this part that was like i always called it the fun house because it was like when you walked it was super wavy like this you kind of go up and down as you're walking we had a terrible cockroach problem and uh it never really went away you'd always see i never found the cockroaches alive which was good just see find them dead randomly and then we moved to irvine you know garden grove is a lovely town but so is irvine and you know our there was a lot of good that happened when we combined with uh irvine press uh and we lost some things too when we left but one of the things that we really the biggest thing of course is we left our 75 000 lease which was crushing us but more than that it just started to feel like things were turning that we were going to have a home and a stake in the ground and i remember when we first moved here and i still feel this way just loving this campus and loving this neighborhood and i remember when we knew that things were going to start to we're going to have to move here and stuff we got a tour of the office and the office here is so beautiful it was built and i think 2005 is gorgeous it's done by architect everything is clean and oh it's nice you know and i remember them taking to the senior pastor's office you guys should see this office i would never build an office for myself like this but i am so glad that pastor mark did god bless you pastor mark if you're watching my office has 18 windows it has this giant bookshelf on it that can hold all of my books you should have seen my book mess from seminary mountains of books it looks like you know from sword in the stone with uh uh what's the wizard's name how did i forget this merlin thank you duh merlin looks like merlin's you know living room or something and i got to put all my books up and they had a fan and the big beautiful windows and a high vaulted ceiling and then she's showing me i'm like this is the senior pastor's office this is cool and then the person that was showing us took us to said you have your own private bathroom i thought wow that's amazing and then pointed and said and look at this you have your own shower i was like i never told anybody the story but there was something about that moment getting my own shower in an office that now all of a sudden was starting to look more like an apartment than an office and wondering would i be staying up all night there was some sinking feeling in my heart that on that day when i said i'm not going to do a job where i need a shower because i can't go home and see my family i am not going to waste my life i'm going to use the life god has given me to make some kind of an impact and then to be gloating about my new office and find out that it also don't forget comes with a shower it made me think it's interesting how in life we in ministry especially can get caught up in the business of ministry and people in business who start a business to help others can get caught up in the business of business that we just forget that life is about so much more your life if you can get a hold of this is meant to make such a big impact for god never forget that someday you will stand before the lord and give an accounting for what you did in this life you will show the lord lord the precious gifts that you gave me the time that you gave me the people and the resources that you gave me the education that you gave me this is what i did with it let that moment make sure that moment is a good moment for you that when you come before the throne of god you can know with all your heart lord this is what i did and he will look at you and he will say well done good and faithful servant enter into my kingdom you have a lot to give a lot more than you think make your life count that brings us to the life of stephen stephen who was the first martyr of the church is a famous character it's important that we understand stephen and the christians of stephen's day don't call themselves christians they call themselves jews and consider themselves jewish thoroughly there are at this time i believe very few or almost no gentile christians but this hangs under a grievous injustice the crucifixion of jesus christ if we can see the temple real quick the sanhedrin think of it as the supreme court of israel made up of its 70 greatest religious leaders with one high priest or president or someone called a nazi that leads the court you might be familiar with this this is in the first century what the temple looked like it was on the back side of this wall there was a room called the hall of hewn stone do we have a picture of that looks like this and this is where the sanhedrin would meet to adjudicate and try various people keep in mind there are almost no accounts of the sanhedrin putting someone to death they almost never ever do it and when they do it's a big big deal okay sanhedrin has three main rules number one never meet at night number two always meet at the temple at that hall there and number three never do it during a religious festival okay when jesus was crucified in israel he was a celebrity he wasn't this wasn't like people hadn't heard of him everybody knew who jesus was everybody who was sick wanted him to heal them everybody was talking about him when he came into the city there was a massive parade when the sanhedrin tried jesus though remember the sanhedrin is made up of some of the most strict people who get on people's cases about mixing fabrics and get on people's cases for breaking the sabbath in weird obscure ways right incredibly legalistic and when it came to jesus someone they wanted dead desperately where did they meet can we bring those rules back up one more time do they meet in the morning or they meet at night they met at night did they meet in the temple no they met at caiaphas's house in secret and and they meant during passover during a festival one of the holiest festivals there was they broke the only three rules they have wow now so it's that utter hypocrisy that's hanging in the air okay so that's hanging in the air now the early church is gathering and in jesus day again there were sort of two types of jews there were hebrew jews which seems like a uh like obvious right and then there were greek jews now greek jews were those who were coming in mostly from places like babylonia they grew up speaking greek they would read the bible in greek the greek bible in fact today is called the septuagint they would use that and so as these people would mingle together as they were moving back into israel into places like galilee there was this tension between cultures and languages and that worked its way into the church since the church was mostly jewish the bible says that the widows that were greek speaking even though they were jewish were being overlooked in the disbursement of food and resources and so the apostles noticing this decide that this issue has to be addressed and this is what i want you to catch about the story the twelve apostles who are our miracle workers and powerful people they look at this problem and instead of solving it themselves they say let's delegate seven greek people to solve this and they say this shall we wait tables they say shall we wait tables in other words serving the widows was not as important to them as going out and doing something else they called ministry which was preaching right like what i'm doing they wanted to preach they wanted to teach they wanted to do the important stuff and they wanted to delegate someone else to care for the widows and to care for the orphans and so they appoint seven people to do it all of them greek speaking jews and there's this one guy who kind of leads the group that rises to the top his name is stephen and this is what i love the bible points out the contrast that the 12 left to go preach and do miracles but it is stephen the guy who is just available the guy who just says sure i'll help widows it's him that the bible says all of a sudden he begins to preach with incredible power and just droves of people start coming into the church in the ministry and then it says that as he's serving widows that he starts to operate in power miracles and tremendous wonders come out of his life and you hear almost nothing of most of the other 12 the ones who said i want to do the important thing god took for many of them what was they considered the important thing and gave it to the person who was willing to do the grunt work who was willing to serve the widows and the orphans and the people who were suffering isn't that just what jesus always talked about yes we will see that peter and james and others are going to do great things later on in the story but that luke the author of acts really wants you to see this that when they delegated that chore they delegated that calling did you hear what i'm saying when they delegated shall we wait tables they also delegated spiritual power to raise the dead and they gave it to stephen and stephen did it with power and just to drive the point even more when they when the sanhedrin wanted to kill the leader of the church and they looked at the whole group and they saw peter and they saw james and john and all these people who do they pick they pick stephen the guy willing to wait tables hear me friends hear me so the sanhedrin arrests stephen they bring him into the temple during the day not during a festival and instead of stephen defending himself he gives his fellow jewish leaders a scathing sermon he says we you know we jews our father abraham god made a covenant with him and brought him out of the land of chaldeans and decided he was going to make a covenant people to know him they're like yeah yeah we know we got the bible memorized you know go keep going go and then he says and out of him he created a family and from him there was a son named joseph who was the most loved by his father israel and joseph was betrayed by his brothers and sold into slavery and like yeah we know and remember moses moses was called by god and brought freedom to his people but many of the stiff-necked people turned their backs on moses and there were two slaves that uh that moses rescued and one of them later said will you kill me like you killed that egyptian like yeah yeah we know and then he says you are not like joseph you're like his brothers you are not like moses you're like those stiff-necked people his sermon is a fulfillment of his own life where he says you think you're great but in the kingdom of god it's these little things that matter you betrayed all of those rules and killed the lord and you kill prophets and you kill good men so you can keep your power and as is typical when people are called out about their injustice they prove the point and so the sanhedrin not having any further hearing they gnash their teeth and enraged they dragged stephen out of the city and as was the custom in the day they would throw him into a pit or off of a cliff so that the legs would break and then they continue to throw stones at him until he dies okay so they proved the point that he's saying that you just killed somebody and you broke all of your rules and then this is what i love you remember stephen's last words he said first he says look i see the lord standing at the right hand of the father it's the only time in the bible jesus is not sitting at the right hand but standing and then his final words as they're breaking all the rules as they're doing something horrible unjust unfair he totally fulfills the heart of god by saying to the lord lord do not hold this sin against them and all those who knew the sanhedrin was corrupt who were not christians but were thoroughly jewish watched their brother do the most jewish thing ever he fulfilled the word of god one of those jews watching was a very faithful jew who was holding the cloaks of those who were executing the man his name was saul and i believe the church traditionally teaches that it was when saul who in his fervor held these cloaks that a seed was planted in his heart in this moment when he watched the rules being broken so they could kill someone they thought of as dangerous to their ideas that a seed was planted in saul's heart that man became paul the great probably the greatest apostle in the bible who wrote the majority of the new testament see steven's death is was not a tragedy it was a triumph he died a kid a young person but his death is still rippling today it is still having an impact on our worldview and life today one man's act of loving kindness and sacrifice most of all his final words lord do not hold this sin against them forgive them just overflowing with compassion and mercy even for those who are killing him wow that is powerful i want to live like steven live don't you i want to be the kind of person that although we have work to do we have a task set before us i will not fall on the slippery slope of wasting my life neither will you don't waste your life make your life count make it count make every moment count time is such a gift every minute with your kids that's a gift every opportunity you have to help someone in need is a gift an opportunity to make a difference not just in the lives of others but with your own life make your life count i don't need to belabor the point but even if you have a minute left in your life i know you can think of something really important to do with that minute so my friend don't waste your life make your life count jesus tells us in the parable of the talents let me tell you some good news okay you want some good news before the bad news here's the good news all right the good news is you will not have to give an account for your sins if you entrust your life to jesus christ isn't that good all the bad stuff you've done choir you guys got a lot of bad stuff am i right me too i'm always using the choir it's so good to have you back my peanut gallery honestly all the bad stuff that you've done in your life is forgiven god gave you a completely new slate and even though you continue to struggle with things you won't give an account for your sins if you've entrusted your life to jesus but you do have to give an account for what you did with your time jesus says in the story that there there were in the parable of talents that when we come before god he's just going to ask us plainly with the gifts i gave you with the people i gave you with the time i gave you with the place i gave you you know how lucky we are to be american with the with the freedom i've given you with the with the the education i've given you what'd you do what'd you do with it and on that day i know that you will come before the throne of god and you will be able to bring your sacrifice to him and say this is what i did maybe i could have done more but this is what i did he will look at you and he will say well done good and faithful servant enter into my kingdom i promise you my friend this is the most important thing in life that yes we have fun stuff that we do yes we have business that we do but in the end if we don't do the thing that counts our soul we'll wither and die we need to have and do the thing that matters don't let anyone convince you that you don't have something great to give to people today you have something amazing that you can give to others and that you can give to god believe in it believe in it and watch what god will do in your life i'm so proud of you you're doing a lot better than you think and your the things you're going to do in the future are going to be great lord we love you and we trust you with our lives and we ask in jesus name that you would make us more and more like your son jesus christ help us to trust god that the use of our time and helping others and doing what we are called to do that sometimes when it seems like a waste of time that's the best use of our time lord help us to understand the next right thing to do give us the courage to do it we ask it all in jesus name amen hannah and i are so happy you've joined us in worship today and we'd like to say thank you for all the ways you continue to support the hour of power's worldwide mission god is on the move and great things are happening you know love is the essence of everything good in the world and while millions of words have been written sung and spoke about it it remains a mystery until it's put into action thankfully jesus christ is love personified and he invites us to embrace a relationship with him so we can fully experience its wonder because god loves us perfectly we can follow his spirit learn from his example and live every day in response to his goodness as we internalize our identity as his beloved he uses our faith to deliver help hope and encouragement to others in fact that's exactly what you do when you support this ministry for over 50 years hour of power has been proclaiming the transformative love of the lord and empowering people of all ages to take hold of the very best and brightest future in him as we embrace new rhythms in this back to school season it can be helpful to have tangible reminders of god's heart around us being surrounded by divine encouragement keeps us anchored in him so we can bless and uplift our friends and family this is the vision behind our love joy grace special offer for your gift of 75 or more we'll send you the love joy and grace collection which includes a box set of four magnets and a matching canvas tote bag the magnets which feature the phrases love is spoken here joy is chosen here grace is given here and love joy grace will be a reminder of the love joy and grace that our savior gives us every day the canvas tote bag imprinted with the same positive phrases is perfect for carrying books groceries or other goodies in both a sustainable and inspirational way with your gift of 100 or more we'll also include a matching throw pillow adorned with the same blue and green floral motif as the tote bag this soft and comfy home decoration boasts the phrases love is spoken here joy is chosen here grace is given here call write or go online and request the love joy and grace collection for your gift of 75 or more we'll send you the four piece magnet set and the canvas tote bag or for your gift of 100 or more we'll also include the throw pillow your support is making it possible for millions of people around the world to step into their best life through the transforming power of the gospel while we anticipate fall and greet this back-to-school season hannah and i are praying that the holy spirit will fill you to overflowing with his wisdom grace and peace thank you and remember as always god loves you and so do we [Music] hey church family if you've enjoyed this sermon remember to give it a thumbs up and let me know what ministered to you in the comments section from all of us here at hour of power god loves you and so do we

Channel: Hour of Power with Bobby Schuller

Views: 1,098

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: Bobby Schuller, Sermon Title, Bobby Schuller Sermon, Shepherds Grove, God, Jesus, Inspiration, Scripture

Id: t5O2oD_fYVA

Length: 28min 23sec (1703 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 12 2021