Pastor Craig Groeschel
May 3, 2009 - W0918

This week’s guest speaker is Craig Groeschel, Senior Pastor of LifeChurch.tv.  LifeChurch.tv is a multi-site church with 12 campuses across the country as well as a campus that meets entirely on the Internet. Through satellite broadcasts that enable all of their locations to be connected as one, LifeChurch.tv transcends metropolitan regions to join together people from around the world to worship God and to experience a relevant and powerful message which teaches truths from the Bible.

I just want to let you know that your Pastor Wayne Cordeiro is not only well-respected in Hawaii but around the world. I am only one of thousands of pastors that have been impacted by him. You are an amazing church!

I am here with my wife and family enjoying your hospitality. I just want to say that my wife Amy is my best friend and she gave me 6 kids. That is a lot of kids! Everywhere we go people ask us if we know what causes that! I say, "Yeah but it's just to good to give up!"

Everybody, say “Bless your heart” three times.  Did you know that “Bless your heart” actually means, “You’re an idiot!”? Really. When we see a woman wearing an unusually ugly dress, you hear others say, “Bless her heart.”  When we see a man smash his own thumb while hammering nails, we say “Bless his heart.”

When I was a young pastor, I got to preside over my first funeral. The lady had been about 107 years old, was well-respected and had tons of mourners attending. The senior pastor said it should be straightforward so I shouldn't mess it up.  The only thing the senior pastor insisted was that I include a singing of "Amazing Grace."  Now I know I have no singing voice, but worse is that everyone else knows it too once the first note leaves my lips, but I figured once I began singing, everyone would jump in and soon they'd drown me out so it wouldn't be that bad. Unfortunately, to my horror, when I began the song, no one jumped in! Apparently everyone else thought it was meant to be a solo! I kept singing like a dying cat and it was horrible.  But to make matters worse, a fly buzzed into my mouth and got stuck in my throat. Should I cough it up next to the resting lady in the casket or should I swallow it?  Well, I decided to take one for the Kingdom and....! I barely survived the ordeal and was heading towards the home stretch soI decided to end the service with the closing we've all heard a million times before, "Ashes to ashes, dust to dust... ... ...” Do you know what comes next because my mind went completely blank.   I panicked!  As I looked around the room for some help, everyone looked really sad so I decided to go with a light-hearted rhyme, “...I sure hope the casket doesn’t rust!”

When the funeral was over, the funeral director walked me over to me and asked, “First funeral?” I nodded.  He said, “Bless your heart.”  I told you!  If that's not solid proof that "Bless your heart" really means, "You're an IDIOT!"

Needless to say I felt like an idiot, but the Bible actually talks about using idiots for the Lord, for it is written, "When they saw the courage of Peter and John and realized that they were unschooled, ordinary men, they were astonished and they took note that these men had been with Jesus” (Acts 4:13). Instead of “idiots” though, the polite translators of the Bible used the word “ordinary”. According to the Greek dictionary, Ordinary: idiotes (id-ee-o'-tace)-ignoramus, an ignorant or unlearned person, an IDIOT.

Rest assured though, if you are a genius or at the top of your class, God can still use you! But God does specialize in using idiots! He uses men who do not realize you cannot minister to thousands of people without adequate food supplies. God used tax collectors, fishermen and prostitutes.  He did not use the Sadducees or the Pharisees.

Typically, in want ads for new ministers, the qualities required are married, masters of divinity and 10 years of experience. Think about that.  Jesus himself would not have qualified! Man is looking for world credentials but God is looking for idiots.

When an idiot meets Christ, there is no stopping what God wants. I pray that all of you become Kingdom Idiots. Nothing will stop you. But there three qualities of …

KINGDOM IDIOTS

1.     Possess a consuming PASSION.

My youngest daughter, Anna said that when she grows up she wanted to spank people and tell them about Jesus. I was glad because it showed she had a consuming passion for Christ. The Book of Acts showed us people that were totally consumed with Christ. When the authorities wanted to punish the Disciples, they defiantly answered. As it is written, "But Peter and John replied, 'Judge for yourselves whether it is right in God’s sight to obey you rather than God. For we cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard’” (Acts 4:19-20). They were so consumed by Christ that they were compelled to speak for Him against rational thoughts for their own safety.

Ask yourselves, why did Jesus come? To change the world. Is the main purpose of the church to serve you? No! WE exist for the world and God. We exist for those yet outside of the church.

I came to Christ while in college and hung out with party people and drunks. Well, Jesus hung out with tax collectors and prostitutes. Actually I found out that drunks like to talk about Christ. In fact, a drunk wanted to leave a loud party so that we could talk better about God.  But while leaving we were confronted by an angry street preacher who condemned both of us to Hell. I had to restrain my drunken friend from hurting the preacher. Afterwards, my drunken friend broke down and cried that God did not love him. At first I argued that God did love him but he kept on insisting the opposite.  Finally, I changed tactics and said, OK, maybe God did NOT love him. Then the drunk began arguing that NO, maybe God did love him!

It worked.  He eventually came to Christ and also became a volunteer youth pastor. So when you become a Kingdom Idiot for Christ, you cannot help but talk to others about Him and miracles will happen.

The Apostles rejoiced even through hard times and "Day after day, in the temple courts and from house to house, they never stopped teaching and proclaiming the good news that Jesus is the Christ” (Acts 5:42). Remember, they never stopped trying to spread the word. So …

·    Who are the three people you are inviting to New Hope next week?

Yes, talk to people about Jesus and invites them as the Apostles did. So the first quality of a Kingdom Idiot is to have a consuming passion for Christ and the second is…

2.                 Have an unshakeable DEVOTION.

The authorities were angry with the Apostles, "'We gave you strict orders not to teach in this name,’ he said. 'Yet you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching and are determined to make us guilty of this man's blood.’ Peter and the other apostles replied: 'We must obey God rather than men!’” (Acts 5:28-29). The Apostles had that unshakeable devotion that made them obey God rather than the authorities.

Here at New Hope, you are so blessed by volunteers that have that kind of unshakeable devotion, for example, to be here on campus setting up tents in the middle of the night instead of sleeping . But there was a pastor I had heard of that was similarly blessed. After each sermon, a man would come up to the pastor and tell him, “The answer is yes!  What’s the question?” This went on several times.  Finally, the pastor asked the man what he was talking about. The man teared up and explained that one of the pastor’s sermons had finally turned him to Christ and that he had given up pornography, began loving his wife and family properly and even had brought his children to Christ. So what the gentleman meant when he said, "The answer is yes!  What's the question?" was, "Whatever the need is for God, I'll do it.  So what's the question?  What do you need for me to do?"  That man’s answer was YES!

So my prayer for you is that your answer is yes also! But unfortunately, most of us have a shakable devotion. Our devotion wavers if times are hard enough.

I once saw a lady that I could tell had had a hard life but she was there in church.  I suddenly felt the urge to give her whatever I had in my wallet but it was only $5.  But even at such a small amount, I struggled.  After all, how could my meager last $5 lunch money really benefit her? After much internal debate, I did give it to her. She began crying. She told me that when she awoke that day, she realized that she only had enough gas to get to church but not back home. But she TRUSTED the Lord anyway and came.  My $5 would get her home. Her devotion had not been shaken.

Afterwards, someone offered ME lunch. So I ordered an EIGHT DOLLAR sandwich! So let our answer always be yes!

Years later, a similar situation came up but this time I had a hundred dollar bill in my wallet. I debated internally once again. Should I give it or should I use it for something else? I ended up not giving it. And to this day, I always wonder what miracle or blessing we both missed out on. Apparently, I have a $5 devotion in me but not a $100 one.

As Christians, we tend to lead insulated lives with other Christians. Too many of us want to lead risk-free Christian lives. But Jesus knew what He risked.  He came to die for us. He said that in order to gain life we would have to be willing to lose it. As the Bible says, "So we all agreed to choose some men and send them to you with our dear friends Barnabas and Paul--men who have risked their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Acts 15:25-26). So remember, the Bible talks about men who have risked their lives for Christ. Yet in many churches we cannot get people to serve in the children’s ministry. So …

·    How can you become more devoted to the ministry at New Hope?

What do you have inside of you that you can give to the cause of Christ and New Hope? Then, the last quality I wanted to talk about for Kingdom Idiots is to …

3.     Become irrationally GENEROUS.

Show new believers who you are. Give to those that have need. As it is written, "All the believers were together and had everything in common. Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need” (Acts 2:44-45). They were such Kingdom Idiots that they did not believe that more material things would make them happy. They would sell their own things in order to meet the needs of others. Hence, the Bible says, "There were no needy persons among them. For from time to time those who owned lands or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales and put it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to anyone as he had need” (Acts 4:34-35).

How many of you would give $50 to your pastor to meet whatever need there is? How many of you would open your homes for a week to a Christian in need? How many of you would volunteer to do repairs on a house for an elderly couple? Look around. See and feel the power represented by those Kingdom Idiot volunteers around you.

If outsiders saw us Christians doing all these things, what do you think they would say? Those people are idiots! Ask yourself this …

·    How can you become a more generous part of New Hope?

I know that I scheme to get more of what I want in life. What if instead we scheme to GIVE MORE to those in need? What if our 10% tithe was just the starting point for us and we schemed to be able to give 12%, 15%, 25%? Now wouldn’t that be idiotic?  Wouldn’t that qualify me as a Kingdom Idiot for Christ?

My wife once put us on a no meat diet for a while and I hated it.  At around the same time I visited a third world country and was served dinner by a poor woman and she gave me some meat.  I was a little suspicious because I had not seen any cows or other animals around except for dogs! Later though, the translator let me know that there had been no meat on that woman’s plate and that she had saved up for 6 months in order to bless me with meat! I felt ashamed. How could I ever be selfish again?

What if we schemed to bless others more? Well, we would be called idiots by others but we would know that we are really Kingdom Idiots for Christ and as the Bible says, "Therefore, in the present case I advise you: Leave these men alone! Let them go! For if their purpose or activity is of human origin, it will fail. But if it is from God, you will not be able to stop these men; you will only find yourselves fighting against God” (Acts 5:38-39).

When we turn to Christ we will be overwhelmed by passion. So how many of you want to be Kingdom Idiots? Say it three times like you really meant it! I want to be an Idiot for Christ!

Bless your hearts!

When the Bible speaks about “ordinary” men that were called to Christ it was actually talking about idiots or seeming idiots to the non-believing world or in other words, becoming Kingdom Idiots for Christ. Kingdom Idiots possess a consuming passion for Christ, have an unshakeable devotion to Christ and are irrationally generous to the point that non believers would call them idiots.

DISCUSSION SUGGESTIONS

1. Why did Jesus choose ordinary men or idiots and not the Sadducees or the Pharisees?
2. Why do we need a consuming passion?
3. Who are the 3 people you are inviting to New Hope next week?
4. How are you going to invite them?
5. When has your devotion been shakable? Why?
6. How can you make your devotion more unshakeable?
7. How can you be more generous?