Bobby Schuller - How To Have Favor with God and Man
It surprises me that many people today don't know really how to get into heaven. I think most people in America today believe in God and most people who believe in God believe in some after life or something will happen, but they're not really sure what the rules are. How do I get in? And can I just say for those of us, many of us who are Christians that wonder will I get in? Did I lead a good enough life? It is not about you leading a good enough life. Can we just say that is good news? It's about who you trust. Look, if you lived an imperfect life, but you're friends with Jesus Christ, he's gonna let you in. If you live an imperfect life, but you knock on the door of your friend and you say can I come in? He will welcome you with a warm hug. I wanna encourage you today to make a decision to follow Christ.
See, that's the key. Bible says that if you draw near to me, I'll draw near to you. That's how God is. Maybe you say it shouldn't be that way. We should be the only ones that draw to God. Or maybe say it's the other way, God should do all the work and come to me. You say, God, you do all the work, you come to me. No, he says, if you draw near to me, I'll draw near to you. Now, my personal opinion, 'cause it doesn't say this in that passage, is if you draw near to God just a little bit, he's gonna draw near to you a lot. Nobody wants you to go to heaven more than Jesus Christ. You know that, right? Not your mom, not your dad, not your best friend, Christ wants you to go to heaven more than anybody.
But here's the key, you gotta trust your life in him. You have to believe on him, that he laid down his life for the forgiveness of your sins, that's all it is. And from there everybody else says do your best, try and get as many moral things right. Christianity rightly says trust in the love of God for me and then build your life as a response to that. Make a decision today to follow Christ, and you'll never be the same. If you make a decision today, I want you to text the word HOPE to the number on the screen, and I want to pray for you. Our team's gonna pray for you. We're not gonna hit you up or anything. We just want to pray for you. Make that decision today. Begs another question, what is heaven? Or here's a better one, and I like to ask this question a lot, where is heaven? Where is heaven? The answer to that question is similar to where is America? You might say to me I'm in a church building, but I'm also in America.
You know, I'm in California, but California is in America. You might say America is that big beautiful country that goes from sea to shining sea, south of Canada, north of Mexico, that's America, but it's also Alaska, and it's also Hawaii, and it's also Puerto Rico and Guam, and you might even say, well, is America in France? You'd say, well no, America is not in France. You'd say, well, if you go to Paris, there's an American embassy, and that is considered America. And if here in Los Angeles you go to the French embassy, that's considered France. And actually, last I heard there are six American flags on the moon. One of them is knocked over because when Apollo 11 took off, the thrusters knocked it over. But the other 5 are still flying.
I don't know how a flag flies on the moon. Probably doesn't wave, it probably goes like, you know, something like this, I don't know. And if you're imaginative enough, you might say that's America, who knows? And in a way who cares? What matters is that when we think of a government or a country or a people or a culture, it's not something that's limited to geography, and that's true of Heaven. We answer the question where is Heaven? Jesus tells us there's three places Heaven is.
Number one, Heaven is in your hands. It's at hand, you hear him say it all the time. Heaven is at hand. That means that when I do things, when I ask for it, when I receive it, heaven's right there. Second place Jesus says Heaven is, Heaven is what? Within you, it's inside of you. Whoa, what does that mean? We'll get to that. And the third place where is Heaven? Well, Heaven is the pearly gates, it's the father's house. It's where we go when we die. So Heaven becomes like the way we describe America, not just something I go to when I die, it's something that's here and now, it's an idea, it's a feeling, it's the presence of the spirit, it's the power of God, it's the word of God.
And here's the really, really interesting thing, one of my favorite ideas in the Bible, we can put stuff there now. We can put treasure or maybe say wealth or riches in this space that's not just when we die something I can get at, it's in me. If Heaven is in me, then treasures in Heaven are where? Say it, in me. They're in me. If kingdom of heaven is at hand, then treasures of heaven or what? At hand. If you're confused, don't worry about it. We're gonna get you there. Jesus says there's not just one kind of wealth, there's two kind of wealth. There's not just one kind of treasure, there's two kind of treasures. Not one kind of rich, there's two kind of rich. Two ways to describe a rich person. There's two types of treasures.
Now, religious people like to act like the first one doesn't matter to God, but it does. He tells us plainly this is important to God, ask for it, he'll give it to you. And the first type is earthly treasures. What are some earthly treasures? Well, money is an earthly treasure, and it's a good thing when good people have it. Planes, trains, and automobiles, factories, buildings, these are earthly treasures. Clothes, your new clothes, earthly treasure, new jacket, your new purse, your new shoes, those are earthly treasures. And believe it or not, those matter to God. Wow, God cares about my shoes? Believe it or not, he does. That's the silverware that you got from your family. It's whatever, whatever, it's the drawing that your kids gave you when they were 5 and now they're 46. It's a treasure, isn't it?
So we have earthly treasures, and they matter to God. But Jesus says here's the problem with earthly treasures, here's the real problem. It's the turnaround. It's the fact that, yes, you loved those shoes three years ago, but today, I don't know. He says moth destroys your clothes. So you you have a great robe, moths eat it away. You have great silverware, the rust will destroy it. It'll destroy the hinges on your doors, it'll destroy your car, and worst of all, thieves break in and steal. Maybe you have some gold or silver in your safe, and the thieves could come and break in and steal your gold, your silver, and your double stuffed Oreos. Those are in my safe. It's a long story if first time you heard me talk, but I do keep Oreos in my safe. That's weird, I know. Just roll with it. Yeah, yeah, earthly treasures are wonderful, they're amazing. They're a gift from on high, but moth, rust destroy, thieves break in and steal.
And so Jesus tells here's the second type of treasure. What is it? It's the kind of treasure that's in you. It's the kind of treasure you get when you die, and it's the kind of treasure that's in your hand. It's the kind of treasure no one can see. It's the kind of treasure when we talk about personal development. It's the kind of treasure we talk about what you're accomplishing in your prayer life. It's the kind of treasure that happens when you memorize scripture. You begin to store things in hidden places. The heavenly treasures of this world lead to earthly treasures in this world that are blessed, that are blessed. Maybe you say, Bobby, I still don't get it.
Let me just say it plainly, you may want your life to get better, and you're hoping, hoping, hoping it gets better. You're hoping your boss gives you a raise. You're hoping that the person buys the thing you're selling. You're hoping that you meet the girl or man of your dreams. You're hoping to find a good church. You're hoping to beat your addiction. You're hoping, hoping, hoping. These hopings will get you nowhere. Do not hope that things will get better. What gets better is you or what gets worse is you. If heaven is within me, heaven is at hand, and heaven is God's will, then when I get something inside of me that no one can see, that is when the beginning changes. Life gets better when you get better. Life gets better when you get better.
When a plant is planted, when a seed is planted, it grows down before it grows up. The roots grow before the crops grow. We cannot forget this universal principle. Like the setting of the sun, you must grow deep before you grow wide, and that is the treasure you should be seeking after is the development of the personalities, the attitudes, the skills, the methods, the rhythms of life, that build in you who you want to be. You have to believe you can become that kind of person. Can we say something? You actually don't have to believe in yourself to get better. In fact, that might be a bad idea. If you find yourself in a rut, out of money, broken relationships, you've hurt people, you've sinned, or you're addicted, or you've messed up, believing in yourself we call that delusion. Jesus says the truth will set you free and, the truth is you messed up. I've done it too. We've all messed up.
So affirming some weird thing that doesn't exist is not gonna help you. Here's what you have to believe you have. You don't have to believe in yourself now, you have to believe in your future self. That's what you gotta believe. You got to get in your imagination someone you can become. Where would I live? Who would be my friend? What would accomplish? What would my bank account be like? What would it be like to have dinner with me? What would it be like to spend time with me? What it would feel like if I was hurting and someone was with me? See, when we get a clear picture of how we want to act, how we want to see, how we want to think, how we wanna feel, and we decide to build into our lives the treasures that lead to those types of things, that's when everything changes. You need heavenly treasures, hidden treasures, before you have earthly treasures.
Yeah, you can get those earthly treasures, but cursed is the man or woman who stores up for themselves all the treasures that moth and rust destroy but they don't have joy and compassion and love and fulfillment. But don't forget the other things. You might say to me, well, what kind of treasures should I store up? What are you even talking about? We could probably put on this screen behind me a list of 150 things, but off the top of my head, here's a couple of them. What about manners? Manners is a heavenly treasure. You're like come on. The Bible says love is not rude. I remember I was 15 years old, and I had this radical change in my life when I became a believer, and I was still a kid and my sister and I, she's three years older than me, 18, she was a senior, I was a freshman.
Getting ready for school, she's in the bathroom taking too long, so like a young brother does, I popped my head in and launched a huge burp, brrrrp, in the room and close the door. Classic brother. I take about 10 steps, and I go that was rude. I walked back, I opened the door, and I said, "Angie, the Bible says love is not rude, and that was rude. I'm really sorry". And I gave her a hug and she said that's when I knew everything changed. Manners are important. Err on the side of manners. Confidence is important. The ability to lead and make crucial decisions and be calm. Imagination is important. The ability to picture what an organization can become or who I can become or who could be my friend or where I could go.
Wisdom, one of the greatest of all, the ability to sort through knowledge and pick what I need for now. Critical thinking, the ability to ask the right kinds of questions. Vocabulary, the ability to communicate with better words what I'm thinking, what I'm feeling, where I wanna go, who I wanna be. Faith, the kind of thing that manifests itself in things like healing power and good leadership and believing and trusting in God. And what about the simple thing of joy? Just being a joyful, mirthy person that can light up a room. We could go on and on, but what we ought to do is frame in our life a list of the kinds of unseen treasures we need now.
If you don't have the unseen treasures and you have a million bucks, 100 million bucks, it doesn't matter, but if you begin to build into your life the kind of skills, attitudes, and possibilities, and all of the things that make us who we are, then your future looks a lot brighter. Yeah, you don't need to believe in yourself today, you need to believe in yourself tomorrow. You don't need to believe in yourself today if you've messed up, if you find yourself in a ditch, what you need to believe in is the methods, the practices, and the disciplines that get you out of the ditch. What you need to believe in is who you can become, and you can become anyone you want by getting better here, by storing up treasure here and here, here. That's it, man. Life gets better when you get better.
And here is I think at the top of the list, if you had to pick one, the number-one heavenly unseen treasure you can store up for yourself, and that is goodwill. Sometimes the Bible uses the word favor. I like the word goodwill. It's one that's used in organizations and businesses. Goodwill looks like this, when someone thinks of you, they think of someone they would trust their kids with. They think of someone that would do something really well with their money. You're like in the parable, you're like the guy who gets the five talents and turns it into ten. Goodwill is the idea that I trust this person with my stuff, with the things that are important to me. I trust this person that when my back is turned, they'll stick up for me. Goodwill is you're the one that stands out from all the rest.
And what's crazy about goodwill is it's not just something we can get with people, and we can, it's something we can get with God. If you have goodwill with God, doors begin to fling open for you. But having good will with God and goodwill with people means you build up the things within you that earn that goodwill. Yes, God loves you just as you are, and God's gracious towards you, but there is favor that God will pour out on your life. As I said in the beginning, if you draw near to God, he'll draw near to you. We must draw near to the Lord. And as we earn favor with the Lord and Goodwill with him, you'll actually see that you'll start to get goodwill with good people, and that's a great thing to have too.
So how do we deal when there's offense, when people are mean, when people are cruel to us? There's an earthly way to do, there's a heavenly way. The earthly way is to lash out, to tell it like it is. The heavenly way is with respect and gentleness. Nobody likes doing that. Here's the setting for 1 Peter chapter 3, which will read in just a second. In 1 Peter chapter 3, we hear about a guy named Nero. He was a Caesar who was a nutcase, liked to drink his wine with lead in it. That can't be good for you. And this Nero wanted to have a swimming pool in his front yard. But unfortunately, there were a bunch of homeless people there. So what he did is he lit their tents on fire, you know, because he would clear it out, and then he could put his pool there.
But unfortunately, the fire got out of control and burned like a third of the city to the ground. And people looking at Nero saying, I think he burned those homeless people's houses down, and I'm not bothered by that. It is Rome after all. He burned my house down, too, and now I'm mad. And Nero said no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, hold on a minute, it wasn't me. This is Italy, it's Rome, you know. It wasn't me, he said. He said it was that new group of Jews who are in town that worship Rabbi Jesus. After all, don't you know, they were, this is what he called them.
Number one atheists, why? Atheists, why'd he call them atheists? Because they didn't believe in the Roman pantheon. Number two, he called them cannibals, why? That's weird, 'cause they ate the body and blood of Jesus. And number three, he called them incestuous, because they would say I love you brother, I love you sister, and then they'd get married. Doesn't make any sense. By the way, back then it was good, but today if you're at church and you're a young man and another young woman calls you brother. That's bad news. Bad news, you're not gonna get very far with her. But I digress. Brother is the death stroke for all youth groups. I've been called brother on more than one occasion, it's rough.
Anyway, when we read in 1 Peter chapter 3, the Christians are writing to the Bishop of Rome, and they're saying we're being called all these horrible things, and people are maligning us, and it's bad for business, and I can't sell anything, and then now Nero's coming after us, and there's persecution, and some people are being jailed, some people are being killed, what do we do? And it's all because they're lying about us. Peter says, "Who's going to harm you"? He tells them just do it. Just keep doing what is good. And he says, "Who's gonna harm you if you are eager to do good"? That's a great question. "But even if you should suffer for what is right, you are blessed". That word blessed is makarios, it also means happiness. That means if you do what is right in life, you'll be a happy person If. You stop worrying about your reputation and just focus on being right here, you'll be happier.
"Don't fear their threats, don't be frightened, but in your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect". Look, that is a good question. Peter begins by asking this question, who is going to harm you if you do what is good? That's a good question. Will God harm you if you are eager to do what is good? The answer? No, right? God's not gonna harm you. Will good people harm you if you are eager to do good. And the answer is no. If they do, they're not good people. So who would harm you if you did what is good? And the answer is people of questionable character. And we are too comfortable trying to get people of questionable character to like us, love us, appreciate us, root for us.
That's the kind of goodwill you'll never get. But I promise you one thing, that goodwill will not get you very far. Because here's what people of questionable character think about love. Love is what I feel towards you. What that means for many people of questionable character is they will say they love you until they're done using you. They say they will be there for you until you have nothing left to give them. They say they will root for you until you have something they want, then they'll destroy you. It is not good to rely or depend on people like that. But if someone's rude, someone's mean, someone's cruel, someone lies, just respond with Peter says gentleness and respect.
Dallas Willard called this spiritual judo. Do you know what judo is? It's a martial arts style, someone throws a punch and you use the punch to throw the person. All right, the Bible says don't overcome evil with evil, overcome evil with good. Overcome evil with good. And if you do that, things will go better in your life, another heavenly treasure. It's a temptation, isn't it? When there's someone you're competing against, you know, in a friendly way, maybe it's in business or sports or art and a third party begins to malign them. Maybe you wouldn't gossip about them, but someone else, a friend of yours begins to say something. The temptation's to agree with that, isn't it? Oh yeah, she did say that. Oh yeah, her art is terrible. Oh yeah. There's two ways to have the biggest pumpkin, did you know that?
Here in Orange County at the Orange County Fair, we have a pumpkin growing contest, and some of these pumpkins get really, really big. I've seen one of them, it was as big as I was. Can you imagine a pumpkin 6 foot 4? Maybe it wasn't quite that big, but it was too big to hug, that's for sure. I sure would have liked to see it turn into a jack-o'-lantern. But we have these pumpkin carving contests every year, and if you ask me how do I win the pumpkin carving contest? I would say I'll tell you, there's two ways. The first is when the pumpkin growing is going on to go and smash everybody else's pumpkin. That'll get you there. You go to the first farm and you find the biggest pumpkin, the guy who's gonna get first place, and you smash the pumpkin, and he chases you off, but the deed is done.
Then you go to the next farm, the guy who would've had the second biggest pumpkin and you smash his pumpkin, and then you think, okay, now we're making progress. Once you get to the third farm and there's someone standing out front, Farmer Maggot with his shotgun says, "I've heard of you. You're not getting on this farm". It's hard to hide talent, It's hard to hide gifting, but can I tell you it's also hard to outrun a bad reputation. That is no way to win a pumpkin carving, not carving, just a pumpkin growing contest. Here's a better way to win the pumpkin growing contest. Read the pumpkin books, buy the right pumpkin seed, spend time with the world's greatest pumpkin growers.
Watch the YouTube videos and listen to the pumpkin podcast. Get the best soil, the best seed, find the guy that grew that legendary pumpkin, and he's retired and ask him to help you and teach you. That's how you grow the biggest, best pumpkin. That's how you grow the biggest, best life. You work on you. You develop yourself. You work harder on yourself than you do on anything else. You gotta brush your teeth every day, you know? Man says I don't have to brush my teeth every day. I'll just brush my teeth once a month for three hours. No, no! That won't work, that won't work. You know, you want to get, you wanna get strong, you know, you want to go to the gym. Man says I don't need to work out three or four times a week, I'll just work out one day a week all day. All day I'll just work out. No, that won't work, that won't work.
If you want to become the kind of person, it's not about extraordinary things every once in a while, it's about doing the little things for an extraordinary amount of time. It's about a devotion to do every day the little things to make a big difference in the long run. How long does it take? you ask. That's a good question, and I'll give you a straight answer. About six months. See, there will always be spring and there will always be fall, there will always be the spring of the leaf and the fall of the leaf, but you have to plant in the spring, and you have to care for it for about six months. And that's the first time you're gonna see a harvest. You can't just go to the gym for a few days or a couple of weeks, you gotta go for about six months. You can't just work on yourself and those skills and the books and the goals and the things, you gotta give it about six months.
And if six months comes and you don't see a change, change what you're doing. You're in the wrong business, the wrong place, the wrong people, something needs a tune-up. Six months is about how long it should take before you see the first fruit. Will you get a huge harvest? No, but you'll get something, and you can allow that to motivate you. So don't try and go around smashing other people's pumpkins, build your own, grow your own. If you want to build yourself up, you won't do it by tearing others down. You wanna build yourself up, you won't do it by tearing others down. Here's how you build yourself up. You build yourself brick by brick by brick. Brick by brick.
When you read the books, that's a brick. When you start the day off right, that's a brick. When you clean up your desk, clean out your garage, clean your house, that's a brick. When you apologize to your spouse, that's a brick. When you read the book about how to do better as a parent, do better as a husband or wife, that's a brick. You're building a brick. When you fire some friends that you need out of your life, the toxic ones, you've built a brick. When you grab a mentor or some good friends that are like the way you wanna be, that's a brick. And every day as we practice these disciplines, we're putting the bricks in our life that are gonna form who are gonna be.
Five years from now you're gonna be different, but how different is up to you. You're gonna be different in a bad way or different in a good way? I'm urging you today to understand that the more of these bricks you place every single day, the more you are building something that people notice. And can we just say it is hard to hide talent? It is hard to hide a good reputation. It's hard to hide someone with the kinds of skills and abilities that people want to be around. It's hard to hide joy or good vocabulary. It's hard to hide the kinds of things that make us grow and that we develop in. So my friend, just trust me, trust the pace of God. God won't take forever, but he's never in a hurry.
Focus on you, compare yourself to you, work on you. Believe in who you can become and when you change, things change. When you get better, things get better. And every day is an opportunity to take one more brick, one more step to becoming who you're called to be. I am so for you. You may be in the worst place ever. You may be out of money, divorced or abandoned, or you lost your job, or you're sick. You might have the worst day of your life and the worst year of your life, but these words will change your life. If you begin to work on you, everything will change for you. So I'm rooting for you, and you're doing better than you think, by the way.
So, Lord, we thank you and we ask in Jesus's name to build into us the kind of rhythms, the kind of books, the kind of podcasts and sermons, the kind of prayers, and the kind of people that will help us become who we need to be. And we ask it in the strong name of Jesus. All God's people said 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.