How to Enter the Kingdom of Heaven

There is a Pharisee inside each one of us! Pastor Mike Patz continues our School of Jesus series by challenging us with the words of Jesus found in Matthew 5:17-20. We regularly misunderstand His words of condemnation towards the pharisee. They are not necessarily the evil, wicked, and bad people we see in our minds. In the days of Jesus, the Pharisee was trained to know the law. Yet they missed the mark because their method was to just try harder to live up to the laws of God, cleaning up the outside and ignoring the filth on the inside. The deeper work that Jesus brought was to clean up the inside and then allow the transformation to move to the outside. The law can restrain the heart, but it will never transform the heart. Jesus is not creating new laws, He's creating new people!

The Sermon on the Mount will change your life if you will dig in! People may ask, "God, what are You going to do about the decay all around us?" We are God's answer to the Law of Entropy upon the world we live in. Pastor Mike Patz continues our School of Jesus series by shining the spotlight on Matthew 5:13-16. The answer is true disciples! Disciples are called to be the preserving entity on the people we encounter. We are called to shine brightly in a dark place. It only takes a little bit of salt to make a really big difference. It only takes the right kind of light to make a great difference. Jesus calls us to be the salt and light, for this is who we are!

In the School of Jesus series we are learning kingdom of heaven principles from the King. It is an upside-down kingdom that is counter-cultural to worldly kingdoms. In this sermon, Pastor Matt Ulrich unpacks the hard truth found in The Beatitudes in Matthew 5:10-12. This promise from Jesus is clear, but not often preached in Christian circles today: Persecution. We believe the good life equates to comfort, but persecution is one of the classes. Is it true persecution, for righteousness' sake? Sometimes your life is going up in flames, but its just your fault. When we live our lives for Christ, we will be slandered and ignored. True happiness is promised for those who are persecuted for the sake of the Kingdom of God.

Welcome back to class! Pastor Mike Patz continues the School of Jesus series with a powerful look at Matthew 7:21-23. The Sermon on the Mount is serious business! In it, Jesus quotes from Psalm 6 that He is the fulfillment of the Messianic scriptures. Yet many people who claimed to know Jesus would not enter the kingdom of heaven. The kingdom of Jesus, and the words of Jesus, only make sense in relationship with Jesus. The question today becomes, "Do you know Him?" We can only truly know Him when we become fully aware of what He's done for us on the cross.

The theme of the shepherd and his sheep is found often in scripture. In the middle east, the need to care for sheep would have been widely known, and Jesus' claim to be the Good Shepherd would easily be translated to the people of His day. In this sermon, Find Feed Fight, Pastor Mike Patz takes us on a journey from Ezekiel 34 to John 21, challenging us who are already God's sheep to rise up and become shepherds. We are the answer to someone's prayers for a loved one who is lost. If we love God, we will feed His sheep. Take a look around you! The people you see who are lost are your flock.

The power of vision! Pastor Mike Patz unpacks Habakkuk 2:1-4, challenging us to take the time to identify the personal vision of our lives. Proverbs 29:18 says "without a vision people perish..." but with a vision, we flourish! Vision is the ability to see the invisible before it's visible. What you see is what you're going to get! At Greenhouse we see a church filled with fully devoted, passionate disciples of Jesus Christ. Catch the vision of bringing the Kingdom of heaven here on earth!

We welcome guest speaker Will Jones, founder of Awakening Ministries International, to continue the School of Jesus series. As we look at Matthew 5:9 in the Beatitudes found in The Sermon on the Mount, we see that Jesus promised, "blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called the children of God." There is much chaos and turmoil in the world today. True peace and justice are non-existent because this world has been marred by sin. The good news is Jesus is the Prince of Peace! He calls His disciples to be peace makers, bringing true shalom into our realm of influence. Peace comes from God, is given by God, but is manifest through our lives.

Don't just clean the outside of the cup! We continue our School of Jesus series with a message from Pastor Destin Williams of Mount Carmel Baptist Church. In Matthew 5:8, Jesus declared, "blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God". Religion cleans us up on the outside, but Jesus is not merely interested in the external. He desires for us to be cleaned up and holy on the inside. This means that our hearts, our minds, will, intellect and desires, will become clean as well. The word of God should be deeply planted on the inside of us, so we can rest in His will for our lives.

"Ugly" seems to have become the norm in our culture today. Bitterness, anger, and hatred are on overload. Yet there can be beauty in the midst of the mundane. We continue the School of Jesus series as Pastor Mike Patz breaks down the Beatitude found in Matthew 5:7: "Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy." When you come out of the school of Jesus, you will look more like Him, full of grace and mercy. There are few things more beautiful than mercy shown in our every day lives.

Pastor Mike Patz asks "What is the secret to satisfaction?" If you will enter the School of Jesus, go to class and do your homework, your life will be changed. Jesus wants us to be filled, to be fully satisfied. Our look at the Beatitude found in Matthew 5:6 shows us that Jesus has a feast for us, and the secret to being satisfied is to hunger for the one thing, the perfect justice and rightness of God. There will always be something missing if you're not feasting on Him!