Pastor Wayne Cordeiro
April 5, 2015 - W1514

Today, I want to talk to you about A Greater Life.  God did not create you and me to live a mediocre life—a life of small dreams, experiencing below average relationships, and having a second-rate faith.  Your best days are just ahead of you.  One touch from God and He can catapult you into a favored season.

THE POTENTIAL INSIDE OF YOU

What is potential?  Potential is everything that you can be that is not a reality yet; everything you can do but have not done yet; it’s everywhere you can go but have not gone yet.  Your potential is in latent form and Jesus wants to bring that to pass and give you “a greater life.”   This is so incredibly important to God that He decided to do something special for you by imparting “a greater life” in you.  It’s found in John 10:10, “I have come that they (you) may have life, and that they (you) may have it more abundantly.”  Abundantly, in Greek means “greater.”  In the first three words, “I have come,” Jesus is saying, “I am personally coming to guarantee this abundant life to you because I love you and am committed to you.”

Some of you might be saying, “Pastor Wayne, you don’t know what I am facing.  I received a bad diagnosis, my job doesn’t pay enough, my marriage is flat, and I’m flunking my classes.”  Listen, you can be in a bad barren place and that’s okay because that may be where you are but that’s not who you are!  You are a child of God; redeemed by the King.  You have a future, a hope, and a promise that He is coming for you personally to walk you through to that end.  Jesus came personally to lift you out of that rut. 

When I started in ministry many years ago, I flew from the mainland to Honolulu on standby.  When you’re flying standby you get whatever seat is left, and they put me in the very back, the middle seat, between two oversized construction workers.  I thought this is going to be a long flight when a male flight attendant came and asked if I were Wayne Cordeiro.   I said, “Yes,” and he said, “Get your bags and follow me.”  I thought, “Oh no, what have I done?” because we were heading towards the Exit.  But just before we got to the Exit, the flight attendant turned around and asked, “Is it all right if we upgrade you to first class?”  I said, “Yes!”  I didn’t get to Honolulu any sooner but I got there in abundance!  Jesus is saying I came to give you an upgrade—from death to life, from hell to heaven, from crushing debt of sin to Paid In Full!  Just like with the flight attendant, I had to trust Him enough to take my belonging and follow Him.  My prayer is that if you have never received Christ and trusted and followed Him that you would do that today.

Another scripture that proves Jesus gave Himself for us to have “a greater life” is Proverbs 4:18, “The path of the righteous is like the morning sun, shining ever brighter till the full light of day.”  God created us for increase, not decrease; to expand, not to shrink; to improve, not to get worse.  God’s idea for our lives is that regardless of what we go through, we will become better and more refined. 

At the beginning of John 10:10 (NASB) Jesus says, “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.”  Who is the thief?  He is the adversary of your soul, the devil.  He will do everything he can to keep you from coming to your full potential and gaining God’s promise to you of “a greater life.”  He will give you crumbs along the way instead of a full loaf of bread.  For instance, instead of healing, he’ll say to take an aspirin or a numbing agent to make you feel good.  He will try to get you to settle for less.

THE ENEMY’S STRATEGY

The enemy’s first attack is to make you to settle for less than “a greater life” is containment—to hold you back.  He can’t change what you have accomplished; he can’t push you back to yesterday, so he will do everything he can to keep you from going forward into your future.  He will cause you to think, “This is just how it is.  I can’t do anything more.”  He will give you crumbs to pacify you so you don’t go for your inheritance.  It’s okay to be at the bottom (I’ve been there many times), just don’t settle and get stuck there.  Don’t you dare sell yourself short, there’s so much potential in you and Jesus is saying, “I will come personally to help you because I have a better life for you.”  

Let me give you two parables to bring this all together:  Matthew 13:44, 45, “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and hid, and for joy over it, he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.”

13:46, “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant seeking fine/beautiful pearls and when he found one pearl of great price/value, he went and sold all that he had and bought it.”  The merchant sells all that he has because he knows the value of one fine pearl in the field.  Let’s say you’re in the Midwest, looking for a property and you meet someone who is trying to sell a property with an old farmhouse.   You’re thinking it’s a little expensive, you don’t know if you have enough money but you’ll look at it anyway.  As you amble through the property, you find a crevice in the rock and as you go inside it opens into a cavernous cave with civil war relics and boxes of gold, probably confiscated from the Confederacy.  You think, “Whoa, this is amazing and they don’t know what’s in here!”  You walk out and decide to buy the property.  You will have to sell everything (house, car, furnishings, etc.) because you know what’s on that property.   The Bible says the kingdom of heaven is so much more valuable than that.

DIFFERENCE BETWEEN INVESTING AND CONSUMING

There is a vast difference between consuming a few crumbs today versus investing everything you have in God and watch your inheritance flood into your life.

Years ago, Starbucks had their first public offering at $17 a share, I think, and I scraped together everything I could to invest.   I’m a coffee addict and I thought this was really cool and bought 100 shares.   My goal was to get 1000 shares.  It went on and on until the shares split five times—from 100 to 500 shares.  I let it keep growing until several years later we bought our first house with it.  My only regret is that I didn’t buy more stocks, because today it’s worth about $90 a share.

How many of you wish you had bought Apple stock at $22 a share when it first came out?  What if someone knew in advance that if you had bought $5000 worth of stocks then, that today, Apple would hand you a check for1.5 million dollars.  Wouldn’t it have been great if someone had inside scoop and told you?  You would have sold everything you had, and leveraged everything you could to get that $5000 to invest in Apple stock. 

The devil wants you to consume God’s blessings today and God is saying, “No, invest in the inheritance I have for you.”  Let me give you a comparison: If you drink three cups of coffee a week at Starbucks it means that you would have spent about $520 a year.  But what if instead of drinking $520 of coffee, you invested that $520 in Starbucks stocks?  Did you know that today Starbucks would give you a check for $46,934? That’s what the $520 would be worth today!

Remember when Apple first started the Mac Classic?  If you had bought a Mac Classic for $1500, it would have been obsolete in three years.  But if instead of buying a Mac Classic, you took that $1500 and invested in Apple, today they would have handed you a check for $98,606.   At Wal-Mart, a toaster costs $15, instead of spending that on a toaster if you had invested it in Wal-Mart, today they would hand you a check for $30,403.  See the difference between being a consumer and being an investor?  When you consume, it’s gone; when you invest in grows.   If we only knew what the future would be.

In Matthew 13, Jesus is telling us “I have insider-trading information” that the stocks of the kingdom of God will skyrocket beyond your wildest imagination.  It will increase 30, 60, 100 fold.  God is saying I promise you that if you give everything you can into the kingdom—your life and heart—I will give you everything the kingdom has because I have come that you might have “a greater life.”  I don’t want you settling for mediocrity (crumbs) saying, “This is good enough for me.” God is saying, “No, I have a whole loaf for you.  I have come that you might have life and have it more abundantly.”

OUR HOPE

My message today is simple.  Jesus is inviting you to have a relationship with Him.  This Easter would be a great time to begin a new life of forgiveness with a future and hope.   God is saying that for far too long some of you have been carrying baggage of doubt, addiction, fears, health issues, bitterness, and irreconcilable offense.  This would be a good time to leave it at the cross and start a new life with God.  What do you say? You are not immune from the world's problems and struggles, but He will give you an edge and says in Romans 8:28, “We know that all things work together for good for those who love God and are called according to His purpose.”

Trust God enough to obey and follow Him.  He will upgrade you from death to life, from hell to heaven, from crushing debt of sin to Paid in Full!  When you say, “Yes” to Him, He changes everything from what you are to everything He is.   Don’t go away with just a mediocre blessing; go away with a whole new beginning - “a greater life,” and receive His inheritance for you. 

STUDY QUESTIONS:

1. Which scripture tells us that God wants us to have “a greater life?”

2. What does “the potential inside” you mean?

3. What two scriptures did Pastor Wayne give to prove that God wants us to have an abundant life?

4. What is the devil’s strategy to cause us to settle for less?