The Upside-Down Kingdom - Bobby Schuller

[Applause] would you stand with us we're gonna say this creed together as we do every week hold your hands out like this is a way of receiving from the spirit of god let's say 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 now we come from a reformed tradition and we say that the purpose of life is to glorify god and to enjoy him forever and that is true but don't forget that god also offers glory to his disciples but it's not the glory the world offers you don't believe me well don't you remember what paul said in his epistle i believe to the colossians jesus christ hope of glory what does that mean what does it mean that jesus christ is the hope of glory i believe it means that the world offers its kind of glory the same kind it's always offered trophies fame followers people watching you people clapping for you and then there's another kind of glory the kind that comes when we stand before the throne of god and give an account of our lives where we look back at what we actually did in god's kingdom and what kind of a difference we made and when we are more like the sheep and less like the goats when we look back and realize that even though we were imperfect and we sinned and we made mistakes we lived with our heart completely for the lord when we looked back and understood most of the time when we were leaving that leading meant to serve not to be served it meant to give credit rather than to take credit and meant to take responsibility rather than to cast blame we will look back on a life well lived and in that season we will glory can i get an amen from the saints in the house that god wants a great life for you but to live that kind of eternal life you must walk a narrow path that goes upstream that's different than what the world says the message of the world has always been the same me me me me my my my my look at me but the kingdom of god is a different message lay your life down serve love and that is where life is when holy spirit moves us in the direction of hurting people serving others glorying in the lord that's where it's at you have such an amazing destiny before you but your destiny only comes when you lay down your need for the world's glory and live your life for the glory of the lord which will be your glory okay i still remember a vivid image there's the old world like europe and then there's the old old world like the middle east europe is just like a little old like a couple thousand years old but the middle east is like older than history in the middle east especially in the flat lands there are these things called tells t-e-l like tel aviv a tell is an amazing thing i never knew something like this could exist it's a mountain made of dead people when you see a towel very often you will see a flat plane and then sticking out of the ground there will be this very odd almost perfectly circular shaped hill you know what that is it's a tell it's a layer cake of history basically what happened was something like 6 000 years ago a bunch of settlers built a village there and then a viking type or horse archer type came through destroyed everything killed everybody but there was a good source of water there and so some other settlers came and well they built on top of it and then they got killed and then somebody else built something on top of it and then they got killed and then pretty soon this layer of civilizations becomes the only high ground in a valley which becomes a great defense and then becomes a city it's called a tel so if you could cut a tail in half you would see that there might be as many as 50 or 60 cities villages or civilizations and the more that we're there the more valuable the spot comes because why anybody because it's higher so it reinforces itself it's amazing in america the idea of a tell is kind of disturbing and something we've never seen but they're all over the middle east and many cities are tell something because they're built on a hill like tel aviv well one interesting tell one i'll never forget was one called bait shawn in the middle east it was the capital of uh the decapolis which are the ten major pagan cities in jesus day i remember when hannah and i went there with uh one of the best tour leaders i ever met he was a jewish indiana jones his parents were german and his family escaped germany during the holocaust and re-established themselves in israel he had a cowboy hat still has a thick german accent was famous had found a a gold ship or something and and that got him tenured at the hebrew university i believe anyway i remember when we went we had a private tour from this guy wonderful man and he walked us through this tell which what you're seeing here is the roman ruins and that was sort of the last well maybe there were more but anyway this is the roman ruins and he was walking us through telling us about rome one of the most beautiful theaters were there and all sorts of structures and he walked us through and he showed us everything and he goes and then you come through this big hallway and then you come into the house and then he's like and then come in this area and he's this thick like hebrew german accent he's like what do you see in here you know we walk in this little room i i don't know the real dimensions because this was about 15 years ago but i want to say it was like do you remember this story hannah maybe six feet around something like that and he goes in this little room was a small room and in the small room a small altar and on the hotel a little god big temple little god i never forgot that line big temple little god big grand beautiful on the outside on the inside a little nothing big temple little god man if there was something that describes what the roman empire became in its epitome it was a big temple with a little god romans were all about glory they were all about looking great on the outside trophies they actually did not care as much about wealth they cared about achievements winning victories battles things like the olympics strength power fame glory notching your name into history there was an old saying by the romans that a man dies twice the first time is in his last breath the second time is the last time someone speaks his name the idea being that if we can become glorious and famous that in some way we can achieve a kind of immortality that even though we sleep cold and breathless in our graves someone out there still remembers us and still speaks our name i don't know about you but that is not the kind of eternal life i want i want an eternal life that is full of glory i want an eternal life that is full of song and meals and festivals and projects and work and friendship i want a kind of eternal life that is only achievable by the very strong name and work of jesus christ it is the only way we can approach the throne of god boldly is not in our own power not in our own good works and our achievements but only by the forgiving grace of christ crucified can we come before his throne beloved sons and daughters and to know that the glory of eternal life wasn't even earned by us it simply was received as a free gift can i get an amen there is no there is no life in the kind of glory the world offers how many celebrities how many supermodels how many rock stars have to tell you i am depressed i want to kill myself i don't like my life i don't like what i've achieved this has brought me nothing before we regular mortals we'll learn and stop wanting that how long how long i don't know about you but i refuse to believe that that is the only kind of full life a person can receive today god has such a simpler better more glorious thing in store for you don't get me wrong man i i think look i i love rock stars i love artists but all of us you know i always think that the famous artists are like there's an old saying that jews are like everybody else only more so i always liked that thing i heard a rabbi say that once you are god's treasure he loves you and all the things that god teaches us to do is for our benefit it's not like he's doing it because we ought to because that's the moral thing to do it is but he's it's also the best way to live life it's the best way to live and that good news that's good news so we get to stephen last week we talked about stephen the first martyr of the church and we saw it's more from stephen's perspective you might remember that in the book of acts the 12 apostles needed to serve the widows and the orphans but they were too busy they said shall we wait tables so they asked if there was anybody that was available and there were seven that were willing to wait tables for widows one of them was a guy named stephen didn't want to perform miracles didn't want to be a great preacher or an evangelist just wanted to be available to serve widows and he said i'll do it and you remember what the bible says says that out of all of them he was full of spiritual power and even though he he thought he was just being called to serve widows he was being called to a test to see who really understood the kingdom of god and in his obedience full of the spirit he performed great miracles and many were coming into the kingdom because of his preaching even though that's not what he signed up for when stephen was killed there was a man holding the cloaks of his killers his name was xiaowul saul we say in english just a little digression i'm just going to go back just a little bit i'm running out of time there's a famous rabbi named gamaliel if you ask any orthodox jew today do you know the name gamaliel they will know that name one of the great sages he was the grandson of perhaps the most important hebrew you know jewish rabbi hillel in jesus day there's two schools fighting each other the very legalistic shammai group and the more uh sort of love your neighbor hillel group when the in acts chapter 5 some of the apostles are brought into the sanhedrin of which gamaliel is a member and when they want to kill the apostles gamaliel said you know what he says don't kill them why would you kill them he says either this is man's work and if it is it'll fizzle out or this is god's work and if it's god's work should we fight against god and even if we did could we stop it interesting huh good man it sounds like to me he had a disciple you remember what disciple is a disciple does not mean someone who believes in jesus name i mean it is that for us but in its context a disciple is a seminary student someone who is who's preparing to become a rabbi his disciple was a kid named shaol a kid that was about jesus h roughly the same age shaol watches his rabbi gamaliel not cast judgment like the other members of the sanhedrin but cast mercy that was his mentor later when stephen is being tried in the sanhedrin why is saul there do you remember because he's a protoger of gamaliel who's who's a member of the sanhedrin so he's like a like a intern you could say like an intern at the same age he's not a member but he's standing there and that's why he's the one holding coats and when stephen dies and saul watches this holding cloaks the last words from stephen do you remember they are father do not hold the sin against them you cannot watch a man die ruthlessly and viciously and unjustly and then his last words are words of grace mercy and love for the people that are killing him you cannot watch that and not be a little changed tradition augustine's teachings and many other traditions of the church is that that's when the mantle of stephen transferred to shaol to saul that something went inside of his body the seed was planted in his body and from that point on even though after that he becomes worse not better he also begins to viciously attack people i believe that there is this thing that as he persecutes christians he starts to get the same treatment throwing christians in jail and beating them and they're saying god forgives forgive saul he doesn't know what he's doing god forgives saul forgive saul forgive saul we don't know i mean the bible doesn't say that but it's easy to imagine it isn't it it's easy to know that the the character of a human being can only endure so much mercy before it becomes soft and that's what happens shaoli saul is on his on the road to damascus to see some more christians and jesus knocks him off of his horse let me just pause real quick this idea of a seed being planted through your obedience is so important i think i told you the story once my grandpa shuler said that in the kingdom of god when it comes to preachers there are some people who plant the seed there are some who tend the seed so that it grows and there are some that reap the harvest and i said well which one are you he said i'm none of them there there's also someone who needs to till the soil so the seed can get in that's what i do in other words he was saying i softened people up i softened people up for the gospel so that when they hear these deeper teachings they can receive it's hard not to imagine that when saul was persecuting christians and they were loving him forgiving him and giving him mercy that he wasn't getting a little softened up and that the seed that stephen planted in his heart wasn't growing all that to say saul is knocked off of the horse and he's converted and he's struck blind he hears the voice of jesus christ and he says saul saul why do you persecute christians no he says saul saul why do you persecute me notice how jesus makes no differentiation between himself and the church or you might even say jesus in this case makes no differentiation between himself and suffering people people who are suffering injustice there's no difference why do you persecute me that's not a leap by the way to say that jesus does not make any differentiation between himself and the suffering jesus just says it plainly in matthew 25 he says when i was hungry he's first of all he separates sheep and goats i was at the fair recently with haven and cohen i was like hey look at this sheep it looked just like a sheep and the guy goes that's not a sheep that's a goat let me tell you if you chop a goat's horns off and people do it all the time i cannot tell the difference between a goat and a sheep there's one way you can tell it's in the personality it's the personality you know sheep are at peace they stay together they're under the care of the shepherd when when you uh when you're with sheep you lead sheep but when you're with goats you have to drive goats you have you have to have dogs and you have to like walk behind them and kind of like it's almost like herding cats you know and so jesus says that in the end times we stand before the seed of the of judgment he'll look at the sheep and he'll say well i was hungry he gave me something to eat and when i was thirsty you gave me something to drink when i was naked you clothed me when i was a stranger you invited me in enter into my kingdom and they'll say well when did we feed you and give you something to drink you said when you did it to the least of these you did it for me can i tell you another story this is specifically for parents and grandparents and caretakers remember once as a dad reading the story in my quiet time and thinking lord i have no time to feed the hungry and to give drink to the thirsty and to clothe the naked i've got kids and right as i was sort of saying that in my heart my son who was like a little baby came up to me completely naked and said daddy i'm hungry let that be a grace to you it doesn't have to be homeless people sometimes we're called as parents in a season to serve our kids our kids are hungry our kids or people for your caretaker our kids are thirsty very often unfortunately they're naked and you got to clothe them all right but i would for sure say the least of these and can i just say as someone who spent a lot of time working with the homeless that so many of those homeless people you just ask where's their family ounce of prevention is a pound of cure all right i'll finish with this if you i believe that when we learn to trust jesus christ with our actions especially in regards to loving our enemies to caring for those who are in need to to living an unhurried life to not be always grinding out for glory although being you know i mean it's but when we do that that we will begin now not just when we die to inherit a kind of life very quickly here are some things our world is so loud and everybody's talking we need in order to serve your neighbor sometimes we need more people that are willing to actively listen listen to people that means when they say something to you say it back to them and keep saying it until they go exactly when they say that they know they've been heard paul tells us that when somebody's gossiping about us or saying bad things about us but we love them he throws proverbs at us and shows us that when we love our neighbor like if you want to get somebody back that's your enemy love them and it'll be like hot coals now that can either mean it's like you're really zinging them or it can mean there's an old expression in the old world you put hot coals in their head meaning that their fire and their hearth went out hearth went out i always say it wrong and so they carry the coals on their head so it's actually a gift when you love your enemies you're either meeting a need or you're singing them i'm not really sure but it's one of those things but practically it's very useful give credit when you're in a team where credit is due try not to take credit for work people have done take responsibility for your mistakes even when somebody else is part has a part of it most importantly say thank you to people even though they should have done it this is especially true of the people you live with you cannot say thank you to the people you're married to or your parent or to your parents you can't say thank you too much i've never heard anyone say stop saying thank you to me it's too much stop appreciating me so much very often we think well they're supposed to do that why would i thank them you know maybe it's an employee or a co-worker well because you're giving them dignity when you do that and you're appreciating the work that they did they didn't have to do it as well as they did they didn't have to do it on time thank people improbable person doing impossible things person who's not qualified doesn't have the experience doing amazing things for god that's what god wants for you but you have to do it his way trust me in this try it for like 60 days okay just try it and watch how your life will get better father we thank you we trust our lives to you we pray that you'd forgive us and fill us with your holy spirit wherever we are break chains of sin or addiction or depression or grief or envy or all the many things to keep us stuck in self-absorption and help us to live the unhurried joy-filled lives that can only be found in your kingdom we ask it in the very strong name of jesus christ amen and now the lord bless you and keep you the lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious unto you the lord lift his countenance upon you and give you his peace in the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit 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 will 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] [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: 784

Rating: 5 out of 5

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

Id: 3oPnSjYYBrA

Length: 28min 22sec (1702 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 19 2021