In this impactful episode, Pastor Rick Warren invites us to reflect on what we are giving Jesus for His birthday. He highlights the importance of putting our trust and making God the center of our lives. Through touching family stories and biblical insights, Pastor Rick urges us to become guiding stars to others, thereby bringing them to Christ this Christmas. Explore how faith and intentional actions can deepen your relationship with God and enrich your spiritual journey.
Hey everyone, welcome back to Pastor Rick Warren’s Daily Hope. If you’re joining us for the first time, welcome. We’re so glad you’re here. You know, on the very first Christmas, when Mary was about ready to give birth to Jesus, she and Joseph were turned away by the innkeeper. Why? Because there was no room. Well, today, Pastor Rick brings his Christmas series, Will I Make Room for Jesus?, to a close. He’ll show us today how just like the innkeeper, we can miss out on being part of God’s greatest plans if we don’t make room for Jesus every day. Okay, here’s Rick with the final part of a message called, What Gift Will I Bring to Jesus?,
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The Warren families have had a tradition for 53 years called a birthday party for Jesus. I know this because I started it. I was three years old. When I was three years old, I asked my mom, what is Christmas? And she said, it’s Jesus’ birthday. And I said, as a three year old with great logic and five points, It’s Jesus’ birthday. That means we should have a birthday party. We could have a cake. We could have a candle. We could have Kool-Aid. We could sing songs about Jesus. And the angels can come down from heaven on a ladder. And so we started a birthday party for Jesus, and we followed that tradition for 53 years. We don’t do it on Christmas Day, we usually do it on Christmas Eve, and now that we have all these services, we do it earlier in the week. It’s a very, very meaningful, now sacred time for what has now been three generations of Warrens, actually four now. I remember when my sister and my brother and I were little and we would have birthday party for Jesus and it was kind of squirrely because we’d talk around and we’d sing some songs, Christmas songs, and then we would read the Christmas story and then we would go around the room and everybody in the room, young and old alike, would say two things. First, what I’m most thankful for this Christmas What I’m thankful for to God from the last year. And then number two, what gift I’m giving Jesus for his birthday. What gift do I want to give my Lord, my Savior, for the next year? Now when we kids were small and little, it was pretty simple and pretty oftentimes comical. But as my sister and I and my brother grew up, Those conversations became quite meaningful. And during teenage years, we would begin to talk about the things that were hurting us and the things that were helping us and the struggles we were facing and what we wanted to give to Christ in the new year, for the next year. And then, as we got older, my sister, my brother and I, we all got married. Shondell and I had kids. And when our kids began to be little ones, it went fun again, it got kind of lighthearted. Now it was serious for the adults, we would still share seriously, but the kids would share in their simple ways. And then as my kids began to grow up, and they became teenagers, it got serious again. And all of a sudden we were talking about things as a family once a year that we did not talk about at that depth, except in our birthday party for Jesus. and what we were gonna give and what we were gonna dedicate to the Lord, each of us in our hearts and it was different every year. And now my kids are having kids and I’m back in the small fun stage again where the little ones share what they want and then the adults share in a more significant level. My question is, what are you gonna give Jesus for his birthday? You know, my family tells me that I’m pretty difficult to buy for, because I really don’t have any needs. I don’t have a lot of wants, whatever you wanna get. Maybe you’re like that, and you’re hard to buy for, just whatever you want. What do you give Jesus for his birthday? What do you give the God who has everything? Well actually, he doesn’t have everything. There are four things he doesn’t have unless you give them to him. And this is what I suggest if you wanna be a wise man or a wise woman, you give Jesus these four things this Christmas on his birthday. You might write these down. Number one, if I wanna give Jesus something that he doesn’t have, number one, I give him my trust. I give him my trust because faith is a voluntary matter. Jesus doesn’t have your trust unless you give it to him and he’s never gonna force it. Do you really trust God? You see, you decide how much you’re gonna trust God. What are you expecting God to do in those seven different key areas, in your health, in your finances, in your marriage, in your career, in your relationships, in your mind, in your heart, all these different things we’re talking about vocationally, intellectually, mentally, spiritually. If you expect God to do a lot in your life this next year, he’s gonna do a lot. If you expect God to do a little in your life, he’s gonna do a little. If you don’t expect God to do anything in your life, he’s not going to do anything in your life. Why? Because every time God moves out of heaven and moves on earth, it’s because somebody believes. Somebody trusts. God says, according to your faith, it will be done unto you. What are you trusting God with in your life? According to your faith, it will be done unto you. Now the Bible says this in Psalm 50, verse 14. God says, I want you to trust me. I want you to trust me. In your times of trouble, and some of you are in trouble right now, I want you to trust me in your times of trouble so I can rescue you and you can give me glory. Did you know that a lot of times God knows the problem? Well, he always knows the problems you’re getting walking into and he doesn’t stop you. He lets you go ahead and make that dumb mistake. And then you get into trouble so then he can bail you out and then you can praise him and trust him and he gets the glory. Are you gonna trust God in your trouble? Are you gonna trust God in every other area of your life? If you don’t give him your trust, he doesn’t have it. Number two, second thing you can give Jesus for Christmas. I give him first place. I give him first place in my life because that’s where he belongs. He is God. In fact, the very first commandment of the big 10, the 10 commandments, number one is you shall have no other gods before me. Anything you put first place in your life that’s not God becomes your God. And there’s a word for God when it’s not God. It’s an idol. And that’s the second command of the top 10, you shall have no other idols. An idol is anything you put in first place in your life that’s not God. Your career can be an idol. Your girlfriend can be your idol. Making money can be an idol. Your hobby can be an idol. Your husband can be an idol. Your kids can be an idol. The Bible says, now there’s nothing wrong with any of those things. They’re all good. In fact, they’re all gifts of God. You wouldn’t have any of them if it weren’t from God. So there’s nothing wrong with any of those things. God just says, they should not be in first place because whatever’s in first place in your life is the center of your life. And if it’s not God, you can lose it. And if you can lose it, your life falls apart. If you make your job and your career the most important thing in your life, when you lose your job, your life falls apart. If you make your bank account the most important thing in your life, when your bank account goes bankrupt, you lose your life. If you put somebody else in that place, you lose that loved one, your life falls apart. You must only have one thing in first place in your life, and that is the God who can never be taken from you. So you make him first place in your life. You give him first place. The Bible says, you shall have no other gods before me. You say, well, great, I wanna do that. How do I do that? How do I put God first place in my life? I didn’t do it this year. I was in first place a lot of times. There’s other things were in first place. How do I put God in first place this next year? Let me give you a little practical acrostic. F-I-R-S-T, write down these five words. First, here’s how to put God first in your life. F is finances. Finances. I is interest. I put God first in my finances. He is the first place in my money. Then I give him first place in my interest. He’s first place in what I’m interested in. R is relationships. I put God first place in my relationships. And I say, okay, God, you’re number one. The safest place for a wife to be is knowing that she’s number two in a husband’s life. That God’s number one. That gives enormous security. Finances, interest, relationships. S, schedule. I put God first in my schedule. What does that mean? It means every day I give him a part of my time, even if it’s just five minutes a day. God, I’m gonna have five minutes a day where I sit down and I be quiet with you and I read the Bible a little bit, listen to it, read a Christian book, and I talk to you and I be quiet and I listen to your word and I say, is there anything you wanna say to me? You’re first in my schedule. You might want to just start the day right off the bat. Give him the first day of every week, that’s Sunday. Give him the first part of your money, that’s a tithe. Give him the first part of every day, that’s a quiet time. You put him first. Finances, interest, relationships, schedule, and tea, you put him first in your troubles. What does that mean? It means when you get into trouble, the first thing you do is you go to God. You don’t panic, you pray. You don’t go talk to somebody else about it, you talk to God about it. You don’t repress it or express it or suppress it, you confess it. You go first to God. Prayer becomes the first choice, not the last resort. No matter what you’re doing, Lord, here’s another problem, you just talk to him all the time. And that’s how you put God first in your life. Now Jesus makes an amazing promise to anybody who does this. He says in Matthew 6, 33, Seek first, that means give him first place, top priority. Seek first the kingdom of God. What’s the kingdom of God? That’s God’s plan and purpose for your life. Seek first God’s plan and purpose for your life, what God wants to do in your life, and his righteousness. What’s his righteousness? That’s the character God wants to build in you. That’s the kind of person he wants to make you. Say, God, I want your plan, and I wanna be the person you want me to be. Seek first his plan and purpose and who he wants you to be. And here’s the promise. All the other things, circle all, all the other things will be given to you as well. Now that verse is either true or God’s a liar. And it goes back to number one. Will you give God your trust? Do you really believe that? that you could trust him, that if you put him first place in every area of your life, he’ll take care of everything else. He’ll sure remove a whole lot of worry from your life if you’ll do that. I give him my trust, I give him first place. Number three, the third thing I can give him, he doesn’t have it unless I give it to him, I give him my heart. I give him my heart. Now I love this verse, Psalm 37 verse five. Open up before God. Keep nothing back. And he’ll do whatever needs to be done. I love this. He says, if I come to God and I say, God, I’m opening up my life to you, the good, the bad, the ugly, the stuff I’m ashamed of, the stuff I’m proud of, the ins and the outs, every little bitty bit, every area of my life, God, it’s all yours. I’m totally open to you. God says, okay, then I’m gonna do what needs to be done in your life. I promise I will do what needs to be done in your life. You give him your heart. Now what is your heart? Your heart is what you love. Your heart is what you value. Your heart are the things you care about most. The heart is what you treasure. It’s your value system. How do I know if I’ve really given my heart to Jesus? Well, Jesus is very clear about this. Look at the next verse. He says, wherever your treasure is, your heart will be there also. Whatever costs you is what you’re gonna value. Whatever you have to put out for financially, you’re gonna value. If you buy a car, all of a sudden you value that car and you don’t wanna get dinged up because you put a lot of money into that car. Now if it’s on loan, you don’t mind it getting binged up. But you worry about it, if you put money into it, you care about it. If you buy a house, you care about that house. If you buy a piece of art, the more you pay for that art, the more you care about it. Jesus knew this, whatever you treasure, where your treasure is, whatever you invest money in, that’s what you’re gonna have your heart in. I couldn’t care less about Hewlett Packard Company. But if I bought some stock in it, I’d start caring about Hewlett Packard being a successful company. Why? Because now I’ve invested in it. If I haven’t invested any money, I couldn’t care less about that company. But wherever I put my treasure, my heart is going to be there. Now this is exactly what Jesus is saying to us. And this is what the wise men did. The wise men brought their gold to Jesus. They invested their treasure. It says they opened their treasures. What? We want you to have our heart, Lord. Now let me explain this to you. God doesn’t need your money. He doesn’t need my money. It’s all his anyway. It wasn’t your money before you were born. It’s not gonna be your money after you die. You just get to borrow it for 80 years. So really, the whole world, everything belongs to God. He just loans it to us for a while. So it’s really all his. And here’s what God says. Look on the screen, Hosea 6.6. God says, I don’t need your sacrifices. I want your love. I don’t need your offerings, God says. I want you to know me. Anytime we give an offering to God, God’s not poor. God owns the universe. He doesn’t need my money. He wants what it represents. Where my treasure is, my heart is. And I have found over 35 years that the more I give to God, more my heart is with him, not with myself. Wherever your treasure is, your heart is. And so you say, God, I give you my heart. And to symbolize that, I’m giving you part of my treasure. I’m bringing my gold to you. Now God loves you so much and he loves us all so much that throughout history, he has always figured out a variety of ways to get our attention. If you are a genuine seeker, he’s gonna provide you a travel guide. You can count on it. Now in the wise men’s example, he prepared a special star. And we really have no evidence that anybody else saw it. They may have, but he provided a star as a travel guide for the people to find Jesus. If you are a seeker and you have not yet met Jesus face to face, I wanna tell you this. God has already provided a star for you. It’s already around you. You just need to look for it. Who’s your star? It may be your wife. It may be your child, your husband. It may be a friend. It may be somebody who’s next door, a neighbor, a coworker who’s a devout Christian. It may be a book. It may be this church. It may be your guiding star to guide you through the dark. I want to tell you one thing you may not realize. It may be a problem. Problems have an amazing way of getting our attention. And God is trying to say, I love you. I’m here. I want you to trust me. I want you to know me. I love you. And I came to earth for you. Now, if you have not yet received Christ, look for that star. If you have already received Christ, you’re already a believer. You’ve already met him face to face. Here’s my question for you. Who are you a star to? Who are you guiding to Jesus this Christmas? What neighbor, what friend, what relative do you care enough about that you want them in heaven when they die? You see, this is the fourth thing that you can bring to Jesus. This is the fourth gift you can give. If I am wise, if I’m a wise man or a wise woman, I will bring Jesus my trust, I will bring Jesus my treasure, I will bring Jesus my heart, and I will bring to Jesus other people. That’s the fourth thing. I bring others to Jesus. That’s the fourth gift you can give that Jesus doesn’t have. Because the number one thing that God wants is he wants a family. He wants children in his family who choose to love and trust him. It is the reason we celebrate Christmas. God so loved the world, that’s you, that he gave his only begotten son, that’s Jesus, that whoever believes in him, that’s all of us, will not perish, that’s the greatest news, but have everlasting life, that’s the greatest gift. You will never out give God. He’s given to you eternal life. And that is what Christmas is all about. Christmas says, God shouting to earth, I love you. I care about you. I want you in my family. So I bring others to Jesus. Let me show you how passionate God is about people finding him. Jesus says this on the screen. Go out, Luke 14, 23, go out into the highways and the countryside and urge everyone you find to come in so that my house, the house, will be full. Who are you gonna be a light to? Who are you gonna be a star to? Don’t come to Christmas by yourself. That’s really selfish. Anybody will come on Christmas Eve. I’m not asking you to go to witness to somebody. I’m not asking you to convince them to accept Christ. I’m asking you to invite your friends and your neighbors to Christmas Eve. People of other religions will come to Christmas service. Atheists will come to Christmas service. I’ve never met anybody who says no to a Christmas service. Be a star this week, and the gift that you can give Jesus this Christmas is bring somebody who doesn’t know him to Jesus. You know, every year at Christmas, hundreds of people give their lives to Christ. Sometimes thousands, depends on who we invite. Sometimes thousands of people. It’s almost like if you get him here at Christmas, they’re gonna come to know the Lord. So this week, I challenge you to be a star. Be a light that guides somebody to Jesus at Christmas. I want somebody in heaven because of you. Let me pray a prayer of blessing for you. Let’s bow our heads. Father, I want to thank you for these dear, dear people that I love. And I thank you that you love them even more and that you loved us enough to send your son Jesus to die for us and to forgive all of our sins. What a deal. And to give us a purpose in life and to give us a home in heaven. I pray that this week that we will bring others to Christmas. And I pray that you will use us to be stars and that there’ll be people in heaven because of this week and because we cared enough. I ask you to bless everybody’s health. I ask you to bless their safety and the shopping this week. May we, in the middle of all this rush and all the activities, make room for you in our hearts. We pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen.
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Hey, if you’re like me, sometimes you feel like your prayer life has become inconsistent or routine and just needs a boost. If you’ve ever felt like that, then you’re going to want to get a copy of the brand new Daily Hope Prayer Journal. This year’s theme, Resting in the Great I Am. And this is going to help you tap into God’s power and presence as you discover the keys to praying with passion and purpose. This is a journal that features 240 beautifully designed pages filled with over 150 life-changing Bible verses, photos, and artwork. It really is a spiritual growth tool designed to help you enjoy a vibrant prayer life, connect with the Lord, and establish a consistent daily prayer time. You know, as you use this journal, you’re going to be amazed at how faithful God is to answer your prayers. You’ll be reminded every day how much God loves you and wants to be part of your life. So be sure to request the brand new Daily Hope Prayer Journal when you give a gift to help Daily Hope reach the people around the world with the hope of Jesus. Just go to PastorRick.com to get your copy of this great resource. That’s PastorRick.com or you can just text the word HOPE to 70309. Again, that’s the word HOPE to 70309. And thank you so much for your support. Your gift to Daily Hope helps us share the hope of Christ with people everywhere. Be sure to join us next time as we look into God’s word for our daily hope. This program is sponsored by Pastor Rick’s Daily Hope and your generous financial support.
