Bobby Schuller - God's Solutions Are Better Than The World's Solutions
I'm not an old man, but I'm not a young man. I'm 41, what does that make me? Just over the hill. And one of the things I've learned in my 41 years on earth of trying things the world's way and trying things God's way, God's solutions are better always. They just take time. God's solutions are always for your benefit, and God's solutions are better than the world's solutions. We're gonna see an example of that today. But first it's important that we recognize that what the world says about morality and actually what most religions say about morality is do these things right, and we'll let you in the house. And do them exceptionally well, and we'll give you a seat at the table.
But Christianity in its right form doesn't say that. It says the opposite of that. It says, trust in Jesus, and just as you are, sinner, broken, messed up, addicted, carrying a bag from one hand to the other and going back, all your fears and insecurities, just come in the house and sit at the table, and we'll show you what to do. Trust from day one God loves you just as you are, not as you should be, and build your whole life in response to that. That's the gospel. The gospel says that because Christ laid down his life for me, I'm justified. One way of hearing the word justified is just as if I'd never done it. You have to say it with an Oklahoma accent, just as if I'd never done it. And who of us has something in our life we wish he'd never done. All of us have many things that we're embarrassed about, worried about. Well, God's for you. He invites you to come in.
And so, today I wanna even just ask you on the onset to make a decision today to commit your life to Christ. All you have to do is in your heart right now make a decision to come before the Lord and just ask Christ into your heart, and your life will never be the same. And when you die, you'll know where you're going, not because you were perfect, but because you trusted in Jesus Christ. If you make that decision today or maybe you just made that decision, text me the word HOPE to the number 25252, the number on the screen. I want to know your name, and I want to pray for you. Well, God's solutions are better than the world's solutions. God's solutions are good for all the problems in the world that we face, and there's a lot of reasons they're good, but one of the main reasons is for God, time is on his side. Whenever you're doing life with God, time is on your side too.
Sure doesn't feel that way as we get older and things don't work as well and we have to face changes we don't like, but when you serve and do life with God, time is on your side. I know all of you are as big of fans of Trader Joe's as much as I am. Trader Joe's has a Neapolitan pizza you can buy for $4.29. It's frozen, and as I do, I take these frozen pizzas, and I'll buy about 10, and I'll put them in the freezer in the janky, leftover fridge we leave in our garage. That's for all the guy stuff, you know. And I put those pizzas in the freezer, and when I'm hungry at night and I just need a quick meal, I'll go in there and open up the box, and it says real Neapolitan pizza, and they claim that it's made in Italy. I'm not sure though. Maybe it's made in Italy, but it's not made by Italians.
Anyway, I cut it, I open it up, and I use a knife, and I take the plastic off, and I take it, it was, like, those little, like, crispy frozen cheese shreds, you know, that kinda fall on the board, and I put it in the oven, and wouldn't you know it, 10 minutes later, that's pretty quick, I got a fresh Neapolitan pizza from Italy. And the inside sometimes is a little doughy. If you don't time it right sometimes you get one side is burned and the other side is a little frozen and you don't know why. Like, isn't it the same temperature everywhere in the oven? I guess not. Well, a lot of people did a lot of things during COVID. Some people developed some new hobbies.
Some of you are into sourdough bread, I've heard that. But a good friend of mine, he got into making real Neapolitan pizzas. Was over at his house recently, and we got to talking, and I told him about my good deal that you can get at Trader Joe's for $4.29, frozen Neapolitan pizza. And he said, "Bobby, that's not a Neapolitan pizza. I'm an expert. You want me to make you a pizza"? And I said, "Why, sure, that sounds great". So, he got out the ingredients, he got out the flour and all the other stuff, and as he's talking to me he's making his dough, pounds it, rolls it up, does this thing, puts it in the bowl, and I said, "All right, you ready to stick it in the oven"? And he goes, "No, no, we have to let it rise". "Oh. My frozen pizza doesn't rise, I just stick it in".
Anyway, he lets it rise, takes an hour, he puts a little towel over it, puts it over by the oven. Hour goes by, his alarm goes off, he goes, "Okay, all right". Goes and gets the dough, it's now twice as big. He punches it, which looked really fun to me. I didn't get to do it. Next time. Puts it down on the board, cuts it into four bits. I said, "Now are you ready"? He goes, "No, no, this isn't one pizza, this is four pizzas". And so, he cuts it into four bits, rolls them into four balls, puts them on a cookie tray, puts it back over on the oven. "What's going on now"? He says, "Well, Bobby, it's not done. It still has to rise," right.
So, now we gotta wait another hour, two hours go by, and I haven't even seen the cheese yet. He makes a big deal about when the two hours are over. He pulls this one, "This one is for you". He makes a big deal about the fact that he's not using a rolling pin, he's gonna use his hands, like, stretches it out, uses his fingers, and pushes it to the edge. He puts a beautiful sauce on it that he had made the night before full of garlic. He said, "We love to serve our food with garlic, you know". And then put on this fresh mozzarella that he cut. I thought mozzarella was always in shreds in, like, a bag, but, "No, no, mozzarella is you slice it, it comes up in circles," and he put these circles all over. And then he had this oven outside, and the oven used real wood, you know?
He had gotten the wood going, and it was full of ash, and smoke is coming out of this big turtle shell looking thing with a tube, and he had this big stick, you know, it's, like, 4 feet long with, like, this big thing, and he took this thing, and I don't even know if he put it on the ground. He just kinda swirled it around inside the oven, that part was quick, was about a minute and a half. Brought it out, it was smoking. He used this, he didn't have, like, a wheel thing, he had, like, this big, it looked like a sword with two handles, went, clunk, clunk, clunk, you know? And then before then he put fresh, the best olive oil all around, and he went to his garden and clipped Italian basil, put the fresh Italian basil on top, and then served it to me.
And I took a bite, and I thought, "Whoa, whoa. This is good". Are you hungry yet? It's almost lunchtime. He said, "Bobby, this is a Neapolitano pizza. This is the real thing, you know, the mwah". That's a real pizza. But the difference between my pizza and his pizza, his pizza takes time, takes a lot of time. It takes three hours. I don't know about you, I don't want to wait three hours if I'm hungry to eat a pizza. Or do I? Or do I? I don't know. As I've learned in life, this is the way that God is.
You know, God doesn't do frozen pizzas. It's not his way. He likes to do the good stuff. He likes to make your life what it really ought to be, and that doesn't happen quick. And when you're in the hands of a master, there's no frozen this or that. There's no microwaves. They say that anything that heats up food that doesn't use fire is from the devil. That's in the Bible. Just kidding, it's not. It's a joke, no, it's a... I thought you knew that, I gotta clarify sometimes. You guys gotta read your Bible. And what this has developed in me an understanding about God. It's just an absolute trust with God and his timing and his way. You just do things God's way, things'll go better.
You may have heard the name Warren Buffet. He's called the Oracle of Omaha, worth $100 billion. That's a lot of money. Million dollars is a lot of money. If you multiply a million dollars times 100,000, 100,000 million, you get 100 billion. That' how much Warren Buffet has. And in my day I've always been surrounded by people that are on computers, and all these screens, they're timing everything, and they're shorting, and they're doing calls and puts and all this stuff. Warren Buffett does, he just looks at a bunch of companies, and when he finds when that's just a good business at a fair price, he buys it and he just forgets about it. And boy has that served him well. He calls it sit on your keister investing. He didn't say keister, but you can't say what he says in church. Sit on your keister investing.
You buy a good company, that's where the work is, and then you just let time be on your side. You don't worry about up markets and down markets, you don't worry about charts, you just look at a company, and if it's a good business, you own it. You know what I discovered that's so strange about Warren Buffet. How wealthy do you think... this guy is worth $100 billion, how wealthy do you think he was on his 60th birthday? Anybody? On his 60th birthday, he'd been investing, he started Berkshire Hathaway when he was 26, by his 60th birthday he was worth $10 million. Now, that's a lot of money, but my guess is there's at least five people in here who have a net worth of $10 million. Probably more, we're in Irvine, let's be honest. $10 million is a fortune, but it's a small fortune. You wouldn't think that on your 60th birthday, most men when they turn 60 with $10 million, what do they do? Right?
A little bit of this, little bit of that, right? Warren Buffett just kept doin' the same thing, and now he's worth $100 billion. What happened? I'll tell you what happened. He turned 92. He's not just a good investor, he's old, he' old, that's right. When most people retired, he kept investing for an extra 32 years of compound interest on $10 million. Warren Buffet looks in the mirror and says, time is on my side. Time is on my side. And if you say, I wanna live to be 92 like Warren Buffet, what do I do? Well, simple, just eat what he eats, Diet Coke and McDonald's. I don't know. Don't do that. Works for him, though, Irene, works for him. And I think that... everyone's laughing 'cause Irene likes McDonald's.
I think that things in the kingdom of God are like this in the sense that you just do things God's way, and things go up and things go down. Storms come, sunny days come, but if you do things the Lord's way, it's good advice for a good life. It's really good advice, and over time you can trust in the Word and in the way of the Lord. But you have to know what the way is. Now, that brings me to the main question of today. What happens, what do I do when I'm angry? Or what do I do when someone's angry at me? How do I respond? That's a good question, that's a good question. Isn't it a good question to think when you're not angry? What do I do when the time comes? Certainly not good to ask that question when you're angry, 'cause punch somebody in the face might come to mind. James gives us the answer. "My dear brothers and sisters," he says, "take note of this. Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak".
What a good philosophy that is. What a good, Lord, help us be that way, quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry. Do you think a person that does that is a happy person or an unhappy person? What do you think? I'm gonna go with happy, because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires. "Therefore, get rid of all moral filth, and the evil that is so prevalent". When we read moral filth, there's like a... wait, hold on now, what is that? What is it in this context if we're studying it? Moral filth is lashing out in anger. Okay, "And humbly accept the word planted in you which can save you. Do not merely listen to the word and deceive yourselves. Do what it says. Anyone who listens to the word but doesn't do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in a mirror and after looking at himself goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like.
But whoever looks intently into the perfect law," another way of reading that is a perfect way, right? "The guidelines that give freedom and continues in it, not forgetting what they've heard, but doing it, they'll be blessed in what they do". The scriptures are saying God's solutions are better than the world's solutions. If you've grown up in church, you've heard be doers of the word, not merely listeners, but maybe you didn't know that that the context of that to do means to be slow to speak and quick to listen. Who wants to do that? That is not what the world teaches us to do. What do we do when we feel angry? A good question, a very good question. What do we do when someone's angry with us?
Another good question. Well, we know what the world would say. The world's stories and heroes and messages are around one message typically, lash out. Power up. Protest. Fight. When no one listens, then you push. When pushing doesn't work, you punch. When punching doesn't work, you shoot. Amazing how much Hollywood talks about gun violence being a bad thing, and does movies about gun violence. Is this the right way to respond when you feel angry? Well, Jesus, you might remember in his day there was a group called the zealots, and they wanted to be free from Rome, they wanted to be free from Rome, and their anger was justified. Here's something you can write down in your notes. All angry people feel justified. Everyone who's angry has righteous anger in their own eyes. Every single person who feels angry about something feels like their anger is righteous.
Next time your best friend or your mom or dad or your spouse or your enemy, especially your spouse though, shouts at you, ask them, are you justified in your anger? Yes, they are justified in their anger. At least they feel that way. Everyone thinks that their anger is righteous anger. You say, well, righteous anger is okay. Well, show me anger that's not righteous. Show me someone who feels angry, but would say, I'm angry, but it's not righteous or justified it all. Very rare. Maybe it's there, maybe you've seen it, but I've seen it and I've seen pigs fly. So, the worlds, so Jesus sees the zealots, and their anger is justified. They're being occupied by the Romans who are colonizers, right? They're brutal, they're taxing, they're unfair, they're all the things that we don't like in the modern world.
And the zealots say we need to power up and push these guys out. And how does Jesus respond? He weeps over Jerusalem. Jerusalem, Jerusalem. Why? He has a prophetic knowledge that even though they're justified, they'll all be destroyed and put into bondage. He sees the fall of Jerusalem. He sees the destruction of the temple. And you know this is what anger, lashing out, gives you. This is what the world's way gives you, it gives you frozen Neapolitan pizza. Frozen pizza, it's food, but it's not that good. Even when you win, it's not that good. And that's what the zealots got. They got Jerusalem for a small time, but then they were utterly destroyed. Were they justified? Absolutely. Were they the good guys? Hundred percent. But they didn't do it Christ's way. They didn't learn that God's ways are better.
And so, we have a world in which everybody feels like this is the best way to do things. I don't know about you, I've seen so many protests. I am over protests. Everybody's doing it, it's the new cool thing. I have seen protests the last couple of years about vaccines and masks, the police, the presidents, the environment. I've even seen protests over wanting the McRib to come back to McDonald's. Don't get me wrong, I like the McRib as much as the next guy. I love all the good things in the world. But can I ask you a question with all the protests that we've had and all the shouting and all the angry name calling and all the throwing of things and the breaking of things, all of the texts that have been written online, are we better off? Is the world's way working? Did you get what you wanted? Or did you just get at best a frozen pizza?
I think that the book "Animal Farm" ought to be required reading in every college and high school in America. George Orwell fought on a side he thought was good, the socialists against the fascists, Hey, if you're fighting fascists, even socialists are good, right? But boy did he find out that they were all bad. When he wrote "Animal Farm," it was a story about the farm animals who take over the farm, and they kick the farmer out, and the way they do it is by constantly shouting, "Four legs good, two legs bad. Four legs good". And every time some sensible voice or someone in their team tries to raise a concern about the pigs who are slowly getting power or about the way things are going or about the way we treat people, they just start shouting over them, "Four legs good, two legs bad".
And, of course, the culmination of the story is eventually the pigs get power at the farm, and they change the words to, "Two legs good, four legs bad". And if you don't follow along, you're in big trouble. And all I can hear in angry mobs, whether they're on the left or the right or wherever, even in the middle, no matter what, even the McRib guys, all I hear, all I hear is stupidity, the kind that hurts people. "Four legs good, two legs bad. Two legs good, four legs", but who cares as long as we're in the shouting group. I'm a hero. Oh, okay, thank you. And so, you see, you know, the people of Cuba protested and got what they wanted, the people of Venezuela protested and got what they wanted, and the Russians and the North Koreans and all these folks, when they protested, they got power, but they got bondage. Doesn't mean they weren't suffering or they didn't want the right thing, but God's ways are better.
Couples that fire off at each other that claim that they loved one another, that they'd commit to each other in a relationship and protect each other and never be against one another are shouting the most harmful, mean things at one another and still call each other in public the love of my life, still shouting, demeaning, dressing down, insulting. And they got what they wanted, they got it off their chest. I finally told her what I thought. I finally told him what it was like being married to such a buffoon, or what a lazy bum he is, or what she is, and this type of thing, and what they got, a dead marriage, a dead family. Recently, a man went into a smoothie shop, and this on TikTok went viral, and took a peanut butter smoothie and threw it at a couple of kids, minimum wage workers, shouted at them racial slurs, horrible things, got it all on video.
Surely, his anger wasn't justified. Surely he's just a psychopath, right? Well, the other side of the story, he has a son who's allergic to peanuts, he asked them don't make a smoothie with peanut butter in it, and when they gave him a smoothie that almost killed the son, he lost his mind. Was he justified? No, but in his mind was he justified? Yeah, he was. There is a better way, and that is the loving way to even love your enemies by being slow to speak and quick to listen. When someone draws a line to box you out, you draw a line even bigger to box them in. They have to sit and talk to you, even though they hate you. Slow to speak, quick to listen. This is where the real power is. This is called the "Hour of Power," are you ready for some power? Here it is, the real power is in listening. When you listen, you are in the power position. And it's like when two cars here in Irvine get next to each other, one is an old Honda from the '80s, it's got about 150 horsepower on it, but boy does it have a big muffler.
And it'll... And next to it pulls up a Tesla, Tesla Plaid with 1,000 horsepower. It's about as loud as a golf cart, pulls up, which one has the power? I'll tell you, it's the quiet one. You go into a room, people are shouting, and one lady or one gentleman is sitting in a chair confidently listening, I'll tell you who has the power. It's the quiet one. The power is in the listening, and you don't do it to have power over people, you do it to give power to people so they stop feeling angry and insecure and can listen. So many people feel unimportant, unlistened to, uncared for. Shouting doesn't fix it. It's a ministry. What if when you went into a meeting with your team, you wanted to hear what everybody had to say before you told them what you thought it was supposed to be?
What if when your kids are having a rough time, you listened to what your kids were going through before you diagnose them or solve their problems and they really feel heard by you? What if when your neighbor lashes out at you about where you're parking or about the noise you make, you listen to him instead of telling him all the things that he does or she does? I bet it would work better. You know why? In fact, I'd stake my life on it, because I'd be staking my life on the Word of God. It's what it teaches us, slow to speak, quick to love, quick to listen. Don't play the game. Don't play the game. And don't play by those rules. Don't let it corrupt you. Remember what Jesus did when he faced evil people who were gonna crucify him? He said nothing. This famous, I like this picture at Rancho Capistrano, great image of Jesus being questioned and judged by Pilate.
Pilate's doing all the talking, Jesus is doing the listening. But what I love about this image is clearly Pilate is looking down on Jesus, but the artist makes it clear that Jesus is higher than Pilate. He doesn't see what's really happening there. Jesus is in the power position, so that's where we want to be. We want to learn to be like Christ and to listen before we speak. And I just promise you, this is a better way. It's so much better to forgive people and to be merciful and to be slow to getting really angry even when you're totally justified in your anger. It's a better way to live. Feel it, feel it, don't pretend it's not there, don't act like it's nothing, but forgive it and move on. Feel it, feel hurt, acknowledge that it hurts, but forgive it and move on. Oh man, you do that, you get a all new kind of power. You become like water. You become like water, just no problem. You are good, you are good to go.
Funny story, King Xerxes in the ancient days was trying to invade Greece, and so he built a bridge of pontoon boats so he could invade Greece, and the weather got bad, and all the pontoon boats sank, and he was so angry he commanded 300 men to whip the sea with lashes. They're all out there whipping the sea, and then poke it with hot irons, and then take handcuffs and throw them into the ocean to show the ocean that it was under bondage under the king of Persia. I don't know about you, but to me that sounds pretty stupid. Sounds pretty stupid. Wouldn't it be great to be more like the sea and less like Xerxes? Who's more powerful, the great Emperor Xerxes or the sea?
Last I checked, Xerxes is long gone, but the sea is doing just fine, Irene. Just floating around. You know, those lashes and all that stuff doesn't seem to bother him or her, whatever it is. She's fine, and so are you. If we can learn, especially with words, to just listen and do our best to forgive that person and move on. One last thought. It's hard to forgive people when you've got a lot of turmoil inside already. Hey, if you feel beat up in life, you feel like you've been put down, you feel like you've been marginalized, you have no power, or people misunderstood you, maybe did something you feel really embarrassed about, lot of us feel that way. And I want you to know, God loves you, and I love you, and you can let that go.
It's hard to forgive people when they insult you in those tough spots the same way your mom did or your dad did or that crazy uncle or whatever, it's hard to forgive them. It's hard to be easygoing when you feel like you're judged. It's hard to be easygoing when you have a lot of guilt or if there's something you did in your past that everybody knows about, you're really embarrassed about that. Hey, I want you to know that Christ died that you could have a fresh start. God's Word is bigger than the world's word. God's Word is bigger than your family's word. It's bigger than everybody. His Word over you is you are loved, forgiven, you're a new creation.
You know, there's not a lot of chances you have to receive Christ in your life. People hate making decisions because there's a renunciation of it all, you know? But I wanna encourage you, make a decision for Christ today, and just follow him and let go of that, and you'll receive the power from the Holy Spirit to love people. In fact, I want you to make a decision right now if you've kinda left the faith to come home to God. Do it in your own way, but come to him today. I wanna encourage you to do that. If you made that decision today, I want you to text the word HOPE to the number on the screen. I want to know your name so I can pray for you. I'm not gonna, I'm just gonna send you an encouraging text, that's it. But I believe that this is the most important thing we can do in our life is get our spiritual life right with God, and then things everywhere else go better.
So, Father, we love you, and we thank you that your ways are a happier, more joyful, better way to live. You give us real tools for a successful, meaningful, good life, for better marriages, better work, better churches, better schools, better government. Lord, if we do things your way, it goes better. Let us be the first one to do it right. Wherever we are, whatever field we're in, we trust your ways. Your ways are the good ways. And we love you, and we thank you. It's in Jesus's name we pray, all God's people said amen.