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Join Pastor Rick as he uncovers the necessity of building a supportive community to attain your life's vision. Discover the strength found in collaboration, why the journey is not meant to be traveled alone, and how small groups serve as fertile grounds for love and personal growth. With heartwarming listener stories and testimonials, this episode is a testament to how Pastor Rick’s messages resonate with listeners of all ages, providing wisdom and hope for those in pursuit of their destiny.
SPEAKER 01 :
Hey there, everybody, and welcome to Pastor Rick's Daily Hope. And whether today is your first time tuning in or if you're a regular listener, we're really excited that you're here. Well, today, Pastor Rick is continuing his series called Discover Your Destiny. So get ready to explore the practical steps to grow in all areas of your life. spirit, mind, body, relationships, and even your career. So stick with us as we uncover God's incredible plan for your future. So let's join Rick with the final part of a message called Getting to Where You Want to Be.
SPEAKER 02 :
Number seven is be patient and persistent. Be patient and persistent. And the reason why you have to be patient and persistent is because it isn't gonna happen overnight. The bigger your goal, the longer it will take, the more significant your goal, the more time it will be involved and energy, it takes time and discipline. Listen, I have trained leaders Over 400,000 leaders in the last 30 years, I've trained in leadership training in 164 countries. So I know what I'm talking about here. And the number one problem with most people is they set their goals too low and try to accomplish them too quickly. We underestimate, oh, we overestimate what we can do in a year. We can underestimate what we can do in 10. I suggest you set big goals and then take a long time to reach them. That's why we're calling this the decade of destiny, not day of destiny. Because where you wanna be, you're not gonna do it overnight. You didn't get in the mess you're in overnight. You're not gonna get out of it overnight. Some of you, it's gonna take a decade to get out of debt. You're gonna have to peel that onion a little bit at a time. It never ceases to amaze me. I'll be out on the patio and somebody will come up and start sharing about their marriage problem and they want me to solve it in five seconds or five minutes. And I say, now, how long have you had this problem? Nine years. And you want me to solve it in five seconds. It isn't gonna happen. You're gonna have to work step by step by step by step. And so you be patient and you be persistent. Nothing great is ever accomplished without patience, persistence, determination, endurance. I suggest that you set big goals and I've set enormous goals for my life and then I spend the rest of my life going after them. Eliezer did this. He was an example of great patience and persistence. Let me show you a couple examples. First, he's patient in finding the right woman. He's not impulsive. He's not quick on the draw. The Bible says in verse 21 here on the screen, the servant quietly watched her, Rebecca. He wanted to be sure the Lord has made his trip successful. He's not just jumping at the first chance. Oh, she's good. Let's go. No, he's waiting. He's patient. He's persistent. And when he got invited to the home for dinner, he's very, very focused on what he's gonna do and he's persistent. Look at this. It says when they get to Rebecca's home, verse 33, then the supper was served. But Abraham's servant said, I don't wanna eat until I've told you why I've come. Now I would have eaten. Okay, it's obvious, I would have eaten. Okay. Okay. But this guy is persistent and patient. I don't wanna eat until I tell you why I've come. And so, all right, Laban, that's Rebecca's dad, said, tell us your mission. And here's what the point is. For you to reach your goal, you're gonna have to learn how to delay gratification. Most Americans have no concept of delaying gratification. It's the reason why our entire nation is in debt, including the government. Because we don't know how to delay gratification. Every time you buy something on credit, you are not delaying gratification. You're buying something you can't afford now with money you don't have. Credit is the number one example of our inability to put off pleasure until we can afford it. What we say is I want it, I want it now and I want it right now even if I can't afford it. And that's why you're in debt. Because you don't delay gratification. You see the difference between successful people and unsuccessful people is successful people do the things that unsuccessful people are unwilling to do. And they don't always feel like doing it. Successful people often do things they don't feel like doing. Unsuccessful people always do what they feel. That's what makes you unsuccessful. Just do whatever you feel and you'll be unsuccessful in life. Successful people know how to delay gratification. They do the tough thing first before they have the fun. They do the thing that must be done. They do the right thing before they do the enjoyable thing. And Eliezer goes, yeah, I'm hungry, but let me first tell you my mission. And until you have that discipline to be patient and to be persistent, you're never gonna reach your goals. Let me give you a verse that you oughta hold onto. Here's your first promise. You can hold onto this one for your vision and your dream. God says it in Habakkuk chapter two. Habakkuk's a little tiny book at the end of the New Testament. I like to throw these verses in, because when you get to heaven, I don't want you to be embarrassed. When Habakkuk comes up to you and says, hey, how'd you like my book? And you go, oh, oh, Mr. Habakkuk, I didn't even know you were in the Bible. So I'm going to give you this verse so when Habakkuk comes up to you in heaven, you go, oh man, I really love that third verse in chapter two. Woo, that one really helped me in Decade of Destiny. Okay, here it is. Habakkuk chapter two, God is speaking. These things I plan, plan for your life, won't happen right away. Slowly, steadily, surely, the time approaches when the vision will be fulfilled. Now, if it seems slow, do not despair, for these things will surely come to pass. Just be patient, circle that, just be patient. They will not be overdue a single day. Now, God says it's gonna happen, but it's gonna take a while. One of the marks of maturity is learning the difference between no and not yet. Little kids don't know the difference. When you tell them not yet, they think that means no. A lot of adults think that's with their prayers. God says not yet, and you think it's a no. Now, why does it take so long to reach your dream? Why doesn't it happen like that? Why does it take so long to fulfill a vision, to reach a goal? Why does sometimes it take so long for God to answer a prayer? I'll tell you why. Because God is more interested in what you are than what you do. He's much more interested in your character and growing that than he is in your career. Because you're not taking your career to heaven. You're not taking your car to heaven. You're not taking your cash to heaven. You're not taking your china to heaven. You're not taking your clothes to heaven. You are taking your character. That's what's gonna last. That's why the most important question in the next 10 years is not what do I wanna have and not even what do I wanna do, but the most important question is what do I wanna be? How do I wanna be different 10 years from today? Do I wanna be a man of God? Do I wanna be a woman of God or a spiritual infant? Do I wanna be a fully grown person? Mature in emotion and spirit, yes. And God says, what you do is gonna last a generation, but who you are is gonna last for eternity. So while you're working on your goal, God wants to work on you. And that's why it takes some time. While you set your goal, God says, yeah, go after your goal. I want you to reach this goal. You ought to have a goal. You ought to have a dream. You ought to have a vision. Go after it. Go after it with all your gusto. But while you're going to go after the goal, I'm going to do some reconstructive surgery on you. And I'm going to change some things that you don't like about you. And I want to change in you. Now, step number eight, this is important. You must enlist a team for support. you must enlist a team for support. You're never gonna reach your goal on your own. You're never gonna fulfill your vision by yourself. Success is never, never, never a one-man show. You've gotta involve other people. It takes teamwork, it takes cooperation. Now, Eleazar does this. He enlists everybody he can to help fulfill his mission. He gets the parents involved. He gets the family involved. He gets the relatives involved for support. He does everything he can to get the cooperation of people around him. And all the many times I've been to Africa, I've heard this proverb over and over and over, and it's very wise. If you wanna go fast, go by yourself. If you wanna go far, go with others. If you wanna go fast in life, go by yourself. But if you wanna go far, you better go together. You better have a team. You better have a small group around you that's gonna take you together. Now you see, what really matters in life is not how fast you go. We are impressed with speed, like how quickly you got that done. It doesn't matter how, it's not important to have a speedy decision. It's important to make the right decision because 10 years from today, nobody's gonna care how fast you made the decision. They're gonna wanna know, did you make the right decision? Not the speed of it. Nobody cares how long it took or how fast Michelangelo painted the Sistine Chapel. Nobody cares how fast Van Gogh painted his paintings. The speed is irrelevant. What matters is, is it a good piece of art? Does it last? Is it significant? So if you wanna go, you gotta go with other people. You're never gonna achieve your decade of destiny goals on your own. Why? Well, a couple reasons. One is God wants you to learn the number one lesson in life. And the number one lesson in life is learning how to love. Not what you accomplish, but learning how to love. And not just love people like you. It's easy to love people like you who are cool. Real love is learning to love the unlovely, the people who are unlovable, the people who are difficult to love. Don't look at them right now. Don't elbow them. Real love is learning to love the people who get on your nerve. I said don't look at them, don't, don't. Okay? Learning to love the difficult to love. And let me just say this. If you're not in a small group, it's why we insist everybody in our church be in a small group. And we let our small groups study whatever they want to study during the year. But once a year, during our spiritual fall campaign, we want everybody to study the Decade of Destiny material. All of our small groups, thousands of them, from Santa Monica to Carlsbad, are going to be studying for the next six weeks in small groups. And the reason why you need a group is there are some things in your life that you will never be able to change on your own without the help of others. If you could change them, you would have changed them, but you can't, so you won't. You need other people in your life who will support you, who will love you, who will encourage you, who will challenge you, who will help you practically and emotionally in prayer and things like that. You have a group like that in your life? I wouldn't make it without my small group. The one I've been in with now, I think I've been at, it's been saying six years, I think it's eight or nine years, the one I've been in right now. And there's some things that just aren't gonna change in your life without the help of other people. If you're not in a small group, I pity you. That's the laboratory for learning how to love. And without that weekly support, you're never gonna reach your decade of destiny goals. You need other people. When I started Saddleback, I had giant goals for this church, but I built the team. And that team helped me. I could have never done this by myself. In fact, I didn't. It was done by a huge team of people. Now notice what the Bible says here on the screen. One person standing alone is easily attacked and defeated and you give up on your dream. but two can stand back to back and conquer. And three people are even better for a triple braided cord is not easy. You get three or four people that you're supporting their goals, their dreams, their decade of destiny, and they're supporting your goals, your dreams, your decade of destiny, you're gonna make it. You're gonna make it. You gotta have people supporting you. You need a small group for Decade of Destiny. Jesus said this, Matthew 18, 20, where two or three come together in my name, there I will be with them. That's a promise of God. You don't have to have a group of 10 people. You don't have to have a group of eight people. Just get two or three, four people and say, let's just sit down and we'll talk about this in a small group. Small is actually better. Now, the ninth step is the most important of all because it's the most difficult one. Step nine in reaching your vision, your goal, your dream in life is you must pay the price. You must pay the price. Because there's always a price tag for fulfilling a dream. Always a price tag, a cost for reaching every goal. Now let me give you some advice. I Twittered this, tweeted I guess, this week. Never, never desire the success of another person without first finding out what they gave up for it. Never desire the success of another without first finding out what they gave up for it. Because I guarantee you, they did. Sometimes that giving up is worth it and sometimes it is very much not worth it. They may have given up their health. They may have given up their family. They may have given up on God. They may have given up their integrity. So you need to find out what they gave up. Some things are worth giving up for a greater cause, but there's always a price tag to everything in life. In fact, there's only one thing free in life, only one thing, and that is God's forgiveness of your sins. because Jesus Christ already paid for it. The only thing free in life is salvation. And all you have to do is accept that gift by faith. You can't work for it, earn it, deserve it. You just say, God, thank you for sending your son to die for me on the cross to pay for all my sins. It's already been paid for. It's a free gift. It cost Jesus his life. That's free. But everything else, there's a cost. There's a price tag. Now, Eleazar had to pay a price to get this Rebecca to go back with him. In verse 53, notice it says, Then he gave Rebecca gold and silver jewelry and clothes. He knows the way to a woman's heart. He also gave expensive gifts to her brother and mother. Smart guy. Hey mom, here's some gifts for you. And brother, here's some gifts for you. Goals, great goals require great sacrifice. A great sacrifice of time, of money, of energy, of reputation. You see, a lot of people only wanna be successful if it's convenient. They only wanna reach their dream goal if they can do it in their spare time. But if you are serious about making the next 10 years of your life the best decade of your life so far, You're gonna have to pay the price. And that means asking three questions. Write these down. Okay, number one, what will it cost? What will it cost me to reach this dream? In terms of energy, work, time, money, whatever. What will it cost? What discipline? Number two, what am I willing to give? You need to think of that question. And number three, you need to ask the question, this is the most important one of all, is it worth it? Is it worth it? Is the cause worth the cost? You see friends, I've noticed now, dealing with a lot of people in life, most people are giving first class allegiance to second class causes. And those causes will inevitably betray them and they will be bitter for it. And they get the gold watch and they go, that's it? You need to give first class allegiance to first class causes. The greatest use of your life is to invest it in that which will outlast it. And we're gonna be talking about that in the weeks ahead. Let me pray a prayer of blessing for you. Would you bow your heads? Father, I wanna thank you for these people who are here today. And I pray a blessing upon these people that the next 10 years will be the best 10 years of their life. But Lord, really, you've left it up to us. It's our choice. You've told us what to do. And we can either drift or we can have direction. And I pray that each of us will pay the cost the time that it takes to do this six-week preparation that will make the next years ahead of us so much better than all of the past. Now you pray in your heart. Say, dear God, help me to figure out where I am right now and what I wanna change. Help me to clarify what I wanna be and what I wanna do and what I wanna have. in the next 10 years. Help me to take the time to figure out why I want it. Thank you for all the promises you've given in your word. I'm asking you for help. Help me to identify the barriers of why I don't have it already. God, I need your help in creating a step by step plan so that I don't waste the next 10 years. And when I go through difficulty, help me to be patient and persistent and to trust you. Right now I commit to being in a small group so that I can have a team for support in Decade of Destiny. I'm scared, but I'm gonna do this, Lord. And I'm willing to pay the price in time. I'm willing to delay gratification. so that the rest of my life may be the best of my life. If you've never invited Jesus Christ into your life, why don't you say, Lord, I want in on that deal of the free forgiveness. I need your salvation. I could never earn it. But I ask you to forgive me and I ask you to accept me into your family and I wanna learn to follow you, Jesus. I pray this in your name, amen. Hi, everybody. This is Rick, and I hope you enjoyed today's broadcast. You know, if you just prayed that prayer for the very first time or you just recommitted your life to Jesus again today, would you let me know about it? There's something real about sharing your commitment. So write me, Rick, at PastorRick.com and say, Rick, I prayed that prayer of commitment. I gave my life to Christ. And I'll send you some material that will help you on your journey with Jesus, and I'll also pray for you. God bless you.
SPEAKER 01 :
Wow, some powerful words from Pastor Rick today. And now this is really one of my favorite parts of the broadcast. This is letters from our listeners. And now here's Rick.
SPEAKER 02 :
I love getting letters from you. Let me share a little bit longer one. It's from Sarah and her four-year-old son. She said, Pastor Rick, my husband and I are involved in a church plant in Salem, Massachusetts. And I make an effort every day to listen to other pastors preach via podcast. Well, I began listening to your Daily Hope podcast and I stumbled across Christians in the Workplace and that small group study that you did. That has been a great study and quite relevant to us. Thank you for making your materials available beyond Saddleback Church. Pastor Rick, as a result of my regular listening to your podcast, my son now frequently asks to listen to the sermons. He's four and a half years old. And one morning on our way to church, he asked me to put on a sermon. Ha ha! I love this kid. He said, I had a Pastor Craig podcast in the queue, but began to listen. But my son kept asking him to listen to a sermon by you. And I kept telling him this was a sermon. Then he said, no, I want to listen to Pastor Rick Warren. That's funny. Well, when your four-year-old son Sam asked to listen to Rick Warren, you listened to Rick Warren. So I asked Sam, why I like to listen to you. He said, I like what Pastor Rick says. And he said, he says, if you don't swing from one bar to another, you're just going to hang there. Well, I was shocked that he had picked up that truth. That was just one of the recent Daily Hope messages where you talked about faith. And you were referring to where trapeze artists have to let go of one bar before they reach on to the second. And all of that just to say, thank you for the work you do, for the messages you teach. And it goes noticed even by the youngest of human beings, my four-year-old son, best, Sarah. Well, what can I say, Sarah? This is just such a great story. thank you. And thank your four-year-old son, Sam, for listening. And thank you for your ministry in Salem, Massachusetts. May God bless your church. And may all of you join me next time as we continue to look at God's word for our daily hope.
SPEAKER 01 :
Hey, if you'd like to let Rick know how this broadcast has blessed you, he would love it. Please feel free to send him an email at rick at pastorrick.com. That's rick at pastorrick.com. 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.
Pastor Rick teaches that, from the beginning, God’s plan has been to make you like his Son, Jesus—this is your destiny. The Bible describes Jesus as “the exact likeness of God,” “the visible image of the invisible God,” and “the exact representation of his being” (2 Corinthians 4:4 GNT, Colossians 1:15 NLT, Hebrews 1:3 NIV).
Join Pastor Rick as he provides a roadmap to harnessing your unique gifts for the benefit of others. Through intriguing discussions on stewardship and selflessness, he outlines how every talent we possess is meant for a greater purpose beyond personal gain. Inspired by the compelling concept of SODSAT moments, this episode challenges listeners to step up and address the cries for change they see in the world, supported by powerful Biblical promises of blessings for every act of kindness and generosity.
SPEAKER 01 :
Hey there, everybody, and welcome to Pastor Rick's Daily Hope. And whether today is your first time tuning in or if you're a regular listener, we're really excited that you're here. Well, today, Pastor Rick is continuing his series called Discover Your Destiny. So get ready to explore the practical steps to grow in all areas of your life. spirit, mind, body, relationships, and even your career. So stick with us as we uncover God's incredible plan for your future. All right, well, I can't wait to get started today. Here is part two of a message called, How Can I Know My Destiny?
SPEAKER 02 :
Unpleasant obstacles are often God-ordained opportunities for you to make a difference in the life of other people. Here's the problem. You never see it. while you're in the pain. You just can't see the purpose when you're in the pain. Let me give you an example. The story of Job, that's the book next to Esther. And you know this story, Job was the wealthiest man in the world, and one day, actually in 48 hours, he lost all his wealth, he lost all his health, he lost all his family, he contracted a very painful terminal disease, And he starts saying, God, I've served you all my life. Why is this happening? And for 39 chapters, God says nothing. And he can't figure it out. Some of you are right there right now. You're still in chapter 39 or 35. It's not until chapter 40 that God starts explaining to Job what's going on. A lot of times God is giving you a test and God seems a million miles away and you've been doing the right thing and everything still sucks in your life. And you can't feel God. Did you know that in the book of Esther, this is the only book in the Bible that does not mention God one time? God seems to be nowhere in this story. All the theologians, Jewish and Christian, say this is the hiddenness of God. And instead of God doing some fantastic miracle, he just uses normal people in normal situations, making normal decisions to change the destiny of the world. God is hidden. Now Job says it like this in Job 23, here on the screen. He's in the middle of all his problems. He says, I don't see God. I don't see God in the north, for he's hidden. So I turn to the south, but I can't find him. But he knows where I'm going. In other words, I don't know where I'm going, but God does, and I'm going to trust him. He says, and when he has tested me like gold in a fire, he will pronounce me innocent. This is an exhibit, a faith. For I have stayed in God's path, even though nothing in my life makes sense. I have followed his ways, even though I'm in enormous pain. I have not turned aside even though I have lost everything. I have not departed from his commands. In other words, I'm still doing the right thing. I'm not a fair weather believer that if God doesn't bless me, I'm just gonna walk away from him. But I have treasured his word in my heart. He says, you know, I still trust God's word, God's promises, even though I don't feel him, I don't see him, and everything in my life sucks right now. He says, his mind, God's mind concerning me remains unchanged. And who can turn him from his purposes? For whatever he wants to do, he does. And here's the sign of hope. He will do for me. He will do for me. God says, Job says, he will do for me all he has planned. He controls my destiny. Now, Nothing in your life is accidental. Zero, nada, zip. Both the pleasures and the pains, the assets and the liabilities, the limitations and the opportunities, they're all a part of the plan. In fact, even when and where you would be born and the fact that you're here today is a part of the plan. A thousand years before you were born, God knew that you would be at Saddleback Church. I don't care if you're Buddhist, Baptist, Catholic, Jewish, Mormon, Muslim, atheist, agnostic, or whatever. God knew you would be here because he wanted to say to you, I have a destiny for you. I have a destiny for you. In fact, the Bible says this. Look in Acts 17 here on the screen. God determines the time set for them and the exact places they should live. You live here and you came here or you attend here because God planned it. And God wanted you to hear this message on decade of destiny because he wants to do something in your life different than the next 10 years. In the next 10 years. He wants to do that. You're here. That's why he brought you here. Now notice this next verse, 1 Peter 4.10. In fact, let's read this verse aloud together with great gusto, whoever he is. All right, 1 Peter 4.10. Each of us, as good manager of God's different gifts, must use for the good of others the special gifts we have received from God. Now, very important verse, so let's leave it on the screen for just a minute. I want you to notice every phrase. Each of us, that means everybody's included. There are no no-talent people. There are no gifted-less people. You got gifts. Everybody, everybody has gifts. Everybody has talents. Each of us as good managers. The Bible word for management, if you've been in the small group studies these weeks, know is the word stewardship. The word steward means manager. The word manager means steward. Management is stewardship. It means what I have is on loan. What I think I own is only on loan. I don't really own anything. I don't own my wealth. God just loaned it to me for 80 years. If somebody's before me, it'll be somebody's after me. I don't really own my health. I don't own my body. I don't own my time. It's all on loan from God. God is the owner of everything. He owns it all. We are simply stewards. We're simply managers. We are to use what he loans, but God owns for his glory and for his purpose. Now it says, as good managers, you are to manage the gifts God gave you. It says, we must use, if you don't use it, you lose it, for the good of who? Would you circle that? For the good of others. One of the most important lessons you have to learn in life is this. Your gifts are not for you. Hate to tell you that, but your gifts are not for you. They are for the benefit of other people. Your ability to make a sale, to close a deal, to crochet a sweater, to make a meal, to teach a child, to whatever gift you've got, to, you know, Be as good as sports, be good at math, be good at music, whatever. Your gifts were given for you to bless other people. God did not put you on this earth just to live for yourself as a selfish little clod, as George Bernard Shaw used to call it. No, God put you here to live for others. And your gifts are for the benefit of others, and their gifts are for the benefit of you. Now there's a lot of things I'm not good at, but one thing I am good at is I'm good at teaching. If I don't use my gift, you get cheated. If you don't use your gift, I get cheated. No gift is more important than the others. They're all equally important. Some are hidden, some are visible, but they're all important. And God puts you here not to just be a passenger on planet Earth, but to be a part of the crew. You're a part of the crew and to make a difference with your life. So one of the major decisions you're going to have to make before we get into Decade of Destiny starting in January is why and how am I going to use my talents in the next 10 years? And am I going to use my talents simply for me or am I going to use them for the benefit of other people? God never blesses selfishness. If you think that the purpose of a decade of destiny is just so you can get a whole lot more things, you're in the wrong church. Because God never blesses selfishness. On the other hand, if you say, I want to fulfill my destiny, which I guarantee you will include benefiting other people. If you bless other people, you will be blessed so much, you won't be able to handle it. I am exhibit of A of this story. That the more you give your life away, the more God blesses your life. The more you give it away, the more you think about others, not yourself, the more God blesses your life. So you have to decide, will I be a giver or a taker in life? Takers are never happy. Givers are the happiest people in the world. Am I gonna be miserly, which is miserable? Now, here's your homework. On this step one, I want you this week to go home and make a list of what has God given me to use for good. And you make a list of all the, what's my background? Good and bad. What is my parenting and family life like? Good and bad. What are the connections? What are the opportunities? What's my wealth? What's my language? What's my health? What are the things I struggle with in my health? What's my location? What's my passion? You look at everything in your life, none of this is insignificant. It's all a part of the plan for your destiny as much as it was for Esther, this poor Jewish orphan girl who becomes queen of Persia. So you've gotta know what you've got and only until then can you then ask the question, what will be my greatest contribution? Now the second key is just as important to discovering your destiny. Gifts plus needs plus calling equal destiny. So the second thing you have to do is this. I must identify the needs that stir my heart. I must identify the needs that stir my heart. When you look around you and you say, what is it that ticks me off? When I look at the world, what irritates me? When I look around and I see a need, a hurt, an injustice, a problem, what do I look around and I go, that's not right. What is it that if you could, you'd change it right now in our society? What would you do? It's gonna be different for different people because we have different passions. What is it that keeps you awake at night? What disturbs you? What causes you to think, Somebody ought to do something about that. You see, everybody, I've learned, at some point in their life has what I call a sod sat moment. S-O-D-S-A-T, sod sat moment. A sod sat moment is when you come and you say, somebody ought to do something about that. Everybody at some point has a sod sat moment. And you look around and you go, that's just not right. That's just not right. Somebody ought to do something about that. Moses had a sod sat moment. He looked around and he saw this entire nation in slavery. He goes, this is not right. Somebody ought to do something about that. A guy named Nehemiah in the Bible looked at the city of Jerusalem that was decaying and defeated and the walls had all been broken down and Nehemiah goes, somebody ought to do something about that. We need to rebuild that wall. King David, wasn't king at the time, he sees an arrogant giant named Goliath making fun of God and all of his people and he goes, somebody ought to do something about that. Goliath guy. Yeah. There's a guy named Haggai, a little book in the end of the Old Testament. And he looks around and says, hey, we're all living in these nice, beautiful paneled homes and God doesn't even have a place of worship. Somebody ought to do something about that. There's a guy in the Bible named Amos. He wrote a little short book and he says, you know what? All these politicians, they're corrupt and they're unjust and they're ripping off the poor and the middle class. Somebody ought to do something about that. It's called the Book of Amos. Nothing happens to somebody as a sad, sad moment. Now this happens in Esther's life. She hears that her people, the Jews, are gonna be annihilated by this nutcase, Haman. And that he's got her husband, the king, to sign off on a decree that all the Jews can be put to death without fear of retribution. And there's gonna be a genocide of her entire race. And she says, somebody ought to do something about that. Now remember, she has kept her identity a secret from her husband. And she's thinking, a lot of people are going to die if I don't act. And here's what happens. Esther 4, verse 4. She gets very disturbed. It says, when Esther's servants told her what Mordecai, this is her adopted father, was doing because of this genocide thing coming up, she was deeply, deeply disturbed. Question, does anything disturb you? Or is your life so self-centered and so isolated you're not living in community? You're living such an individualistic life that nothing disturbs you as long as it's not about you. That stuff can happen all around you and you're impervious to it. You don't even notice it. You're not disturbed about anything unless it's something disturbing you. You know, the thing I'm so proud of of you in this Saddleback Church, is that we have over 300 ministries, well over 300 ministries to the community that deal with hurts and habits and hangups, that deal with problems and injustices and difficulties simply because somebody in the church said somebody ought to do something about that. None of those 300 ministries did I personally start. They were started by you and by others. I gotta tell you a story. This week I had to go up to Pasadena and I went into the Pasadena library and after it was over I walked across the street and I got a lunch, I ordered a sandwich, some coleslaw and some french fries and I said I wanna take it to go, I'll eat outside. So I have my lunch and I'm walking down Pasadena, downtown Pasadena, just looking for a place to sit down and we come upon this big stone church. and these big stone steps down the front. There are three homeless guys sitting on these steps. There's a white guy with really bright red hair. There's a black guy, African American guy, and there's a Hispanic guy. And the three guys are just sitting there, homeless. So I walk over and I sit down among them. They go, oh, you brought lunch. And I said, that's exactly what I did. And I, you know, as soon as I saw him, I thought, you gotta help these people. So I walk over and I sit down and I start dividing it all up. I kind of felt like Jesus in the 5,000 feeding, you know. The only problem was mine wasn't multiplying. And so I only got one fourth of my lunch, okay. But I'm passing the french fries around, the coleslaw around, we're splitting up the sandwich a little bit. And we had a great time just talking, chewing the fat, having a good time. It's nice, and when I got ready to leave, I didn't really have any cash to give them, and I don't like to give cash to people anyway, because I might use it for drugs or to support an alcohol habit or something. But I opened up my wallet, and I had three Starbucks cards in there. So I thought, oh, that's a good idea, because that can't be used for drugs. So I gave Meech a Starbucks card, and I said, you know, this will help you get some food. And as I'm starting to walk away, the white guy with the red hair says, I know who you are. And I go, excuse me? He says, let me tell you a story. He says, five years ago, on the other side of LA, this is 30 miles away from Pasadena, in East LA, five years ago, you pulled up to a taco shack. He said, you were going up to visit the Dream Center. And he said, you stopped there to get some tacos. And he said, you looked over and you saw me and I was homeless. And he said, you looked at me and said, hey, would you like a burrito? And I said, yeah. And you said, would you like two? And I said, yeah. So he said, you bought me two burritos. He goes, you're Rick Warren. And I'm going, now what is the likelihood of me running into the same homeless guy in a metropolitan area of 15 million people, five years later, 40 miles away, and it's the same guy? Now we were only two blocks away from Fuller Seminary. And these guys goes, we can't wait to tell all these Fuller students we had lunch with Rick Warren. Oh yeah, we're like this. We ate five years ago too, you know. The second thing to know your destiny, you gotta find a need and you go after it. You say, identify the needs that stir my heart. Now let me show you an amazing promise of God. to those who get disturbed about helping people less fortunate. I want you to notice the actions and the promises. There are actually 10 promises of God to you in this passage. Isaiah chapter 58. First he tells you what to do. He says, remove the chains of oppression and the yoke of injustice and let the oppressed go free. There are a lot of people put down by society. He said, you are to defend the defenseless. You're to speak up for those who had no voice. Then he says, share your food with the hungry, open your homes to the homeless poor, give clothes to those who have nothing to wear, and do not refuse to help your own relatives. I wish he hadn't said that last sentence. I like all the other parts. I don't like that part. Then he gives the promises, and he gives 10 promises. Then he says, number one, my favor will shine on you like the morning sun. You will be blessed if you help others. And he says, number two, your wounds will be quickly healed. You got a hurt, you want your hurt to be healed, you help somebody who's in more pain than you. I'll say it again. If you want God to help you in your hurt, You go help somebody else. You don't wait till you're finished, till you're healed. You go help somebody else in their pain, he said, and your wounds will be quickly healed. And then he says, I will always be with you to save you. How'd you like to have that as a promise in the next 10 years? And my presence will protect you on every side. That's another promise of God. And he says, when you pray, I will answer you. How'd you like to have every year prayer answered? When you call to me, I will respond. These are promises of God. If you put an end to oppression and to every gesture of contempt, what's every gesture of contempt? That's racism, friends. That's what it is. It's racism and it's wrong. And to every evil word, what's he talking about there? He's talking about being civil. that you are to treat with respect and dignity everybody, no matter what they believe, no matter what their religion, no matter what their race, no matter what their worldview is. You don't have to agree with them. You don't have to agree with their lifestyle, but you are to treat them with respect. When people give evil words on blogs, you do not retaliate. You put away every gesture of contempt and every evil word, you are positive. And if you give food to the hungry and you satisfy those who are in need, then, here's the rest of the promises, darkness around you will turn to brightness of noon. All that depression in your life, it's gonna lift. And God says, I will always guide you and I will satisfy you, satisfy you with good things. I will keep you, read this with me, strong and well. Is that an amazing promise? How'd you like to be strong and well for the next 10 years? Every one of those 10 promises is geared to how generous you are in life. Because you can spell, you spell love G-I-V-E. You can give without loving, but you cannot love without giving. And God wants you to learn to be generous. Now here's your homework assignment. I want you to make a list of what do I see around me that disturbs me. First you make a list of all your gifts, your background, your talents, assets, and liabilities. Then you say, what is it where I want to feel like saying somebody ought to do something about that.
SPEAKER 01 :
Wow, some powerful words from Pastor Rick today. And now this is really one of my favorite parts of the broadcast. This is letters from our listeners. And now here's Rick.
SPEAKER 02 :
Did you know that there are people listening to Daily Hope broadcasts and following our message all over the world? Here's an example of an email from a listener that just came in from Brazil. He says, hi Rick, my name is Marcelo and I'm from Sao Paulo, Brazil. Every day I listen to Daily Hope on my way to work and God has used your life to speak his truth into my life. Today, I'll be speaking to a group of retail leaders from all over Brazil about living a life of integrity. Hope you won't mind, but I've translated a lot from your message, living a life of integrity, to share with this group. That message touched me so much that I felt the need to share it with others. Well, that's so great, Marcelo. I'm so proud of you. You're being a light for Jesus Christ in his workplace. You're sharing a message of hope with business people. That is just fantastic. Now, I want to say everybody can do the same thing. It doesn't matter where you work. You can share the message of Daily Hope or any of these Daily Hope messages with your coworkers and your friends, and I want to encourage you to do that. And when you do, let me know about it. Be sure to write me and tell me your story, just like Marcelo did. Email me today, rick at pastorrick.com. Thanks for listening to Daily Hope today.
SPEAKER 01 :
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.
Join us as we explore the fascinating story of Esther, a young Jewish girl who rose to become the Queen of Persia and saved her people from annihilation. Pastor Rick walks us through the principles that determined her destiny and how those same principles apply to our lives today. The episode sheds light on understanding personal gifts and limitations, the unique shape that these create, and how both good and bad circumstances are integral parts of God's plan. Tune in to find out how to stop the pity party and embrace your unique path towards a fulfilled life.
SPEAKER 02 :
Hey there, everybody, and welcome to Pastor Rick's Daily Hope. And whether today is your first time tuning in or if you're a regular listener, we're really excited that you're here. Well, today, Pastor Rick is continuing his series called Discover Your Destiny. So get ready to explore the practical steps to grow in all areas of your life. spirit, mind, body, relationships, and even your career. So stick with us as we uncover God's incredible plan for your future. Okay, let's get right into it. This is part one of a message called, How Can I Know My Destiny?,
SPEAKER 01 :
You see, God didn't create you just to take up space to breathe, use resources, retire, and die. He has a plan. He has a purpose. He has a destiny, a calling for your life. Now, the question I'm often asked is, well, how do I know? I mean, really, how do I know what God wants me to do with my life? I want to give you a little equation. Would you write this down at the top of your outline? Gifts... Write this down, gifts plus need plus calling equals destiny. Your gifts, the gifts God gives you, that's the assets and the liabilities in your life, the needs that you see around you plus the individual calling God has on your life, that's called your vocation, Your calling comes from vose, the Latin word for call or voice, vocal. Gifts plus need plus calling equals your destiny. Now what I want us to do this weekend is look at a very well-known story in the Bible, the story of Esther. as a model of the four things you must do in order to fulfill your destiny and in order to discover what your destiny is. Now next week, we're turning the corner on this eight-week campaign where we're gonna look at four key areas of your life. We're gonna look at your finances. And my goal for you in the next three years is that your finances will be determined and disciplined and debt-free. Some of you it's gonna take a little bit longer than three years, it may take you the whole decade. But we're gonna help you, I want you to get directed and disciplined and debt free in your finances. We're going to look at your health and I'm gonna look at my own health. I want you to be holy and happy and I want you to be healthy as we go into this decade. We're going to look at what you have to learn, and that'll be another specific week. What are your learning goals? We're going to look at the fact that I want you in three years, the end of phase one, to be more skilled. I want you to be smarter, and I want you to be successful because of what you have learned. And when it comes to what you do in life, I want you to be... more caring, more creative, and more cheerful, because the Bible says do everything with a good attitude. And we're gonna look at those specifically, but this week I want us to look at how do you know your individual destiny? And we're gonna look at lessons from the life of Esther. Now, one of the most gripping stories in the Bible is this story of Esther, which is in the book of Esther. It is an amazing story of how a young Jewish woman saved the entire Jewish race, changed destinies of history, and prevented an entire people from genocide. Now let me give you a little background. 2,500 years ago, the Persians ruled the world. The Persian Empire stretched from India all the way into Africa. In fact, look up here on the screen. Here's the map of the Persian Empire. And you know modern day Persia is Iran. And the mighty king Xerxes was the emperor of the mighty Persian empire, which, as I said, goes from India to Africa. And Xerxes was a very powerful king, but he also liked to party. And he held a banquet, and I'm not making this up, a banquet that lasted six months. Now that's a party animal, if you ask me. That's a party animal. And one day, when he had all of his cronies, I don't know, hundreds or thousands of people partying at this party, while he is drunk, he asks his wife, Queen Vashti, to come pose naked for all of these drunk guests, because he wants to show off his lovely wife. Vashti was a woman of integrity, and of course she refused to do this. And so Xerxes divorced her and banished her and took away her queenship. So then he decreed an empire-wide search for a new young wife. And he has a mandatory Miss Persia contest. And so they go all over the empire and they're looking for bachelorette number one and number two and number 500 and number 1000. And this is not optional. They took the most beautiful young women in the empire and they forced them to all come to Susa, where was the capital of the citadel. Now, at this point, They narrow it down to a finalist group. And a young, poor, orphaned girl named Esther, who was Jewish, was not Persian, but Jewish, is one of the selected finalists. And she is put in a harem run by a guy named Haggai. And Haggai has, I don't know, hundreds of these young virgins. And for one year, they are given the spa treatment. And they are fed certain foods, and they're pampered, and they are given facials and hair and makeover. I mean, anybody can look good after a year, don't you figure? I mean, if you were at Burke Williams for a year, you'd probably be pretty pretty too. And she is being pampered for a purpose. And then each of these girls is to go spend one night with the king, have sex with him. Now, this sounds like a disaster in the making. This poor orphan but attractive young girl named Esther. Now, each of the women go to this one night with the king, and when the king, Xerxes, the Persian king, sees Esther, and she's been told by her adopted father, Mordecai, don't tell him you're Jews, you're Jewish. He falls head over heels in love with her, and he makes her queen. So the queen of Persia is now an orphaned, poor, young Jewish woman. Now the plot begins to thicken. And after Esther becomes queen, they uncover a plot by an evil man named Haman. Haman is a government official who is the original anti-Semite. And he decides that he's going to get all of the Jews in the empire destroyed. And he gets the king to approve a genocide decree. The king does not know his wife is a Jew. It's a true story. Does not know his wife's a Jew, and he approves Haman's genocide. By the way, during World War II, many of the Jews called Hitler Haman because he was trying to do the exact same thing that Haman did 2,500 years ago. Well, I don't have time to go into all the details of this story. It is a fascinating political thriller filled with intrigue, lots of double dealing. It's a great, great story, but the bottom line is Esther, this young girl, risks her life at great personal expense, she could die for this, to save the Jewish nation. And it's a phenomenal story. In fact, I highly encourage you to read this story this afternoon. It is a fascinating story. But what does it have to do with your life and what we're gonna call Decade of Destiny? Esther did four things to discover her destiny. And you're gonna need to do these same four things. Would you write these down? Number one, first, I must recognize the gifts God has given me to use. I must recognize the gifts that God's given me to use. These are the gifts that you had nothing to do with. They were just given to you by God sovereignly. These are the cards you're dealt. This is the hand you got. There are a lot of things in your life you had no control over. You didn't choose your parents. You didn't choose your background. You didn't choose your race or nationality. You didn't choose when you would be born. You didn't choose where you would be born. You didn't choose the natural talents that you were given. You didn't choose the color of your hair till much later. There are a lot of things you had no choice over when you were born. Now, God gives every individual a different shape. We call these gifts that God gives you your shape. We talk about it in Purpose Driven Life. Shape is S-H-A-P-E, the five things that make you you and make you unique. And everybody has a different shape. Spiritual gifts, heart, ability, personality, and experiences. These five things make you. Spiritual gifts, what am I gifted to do? Heart, what do I love to do? Abilities, personality, we're all different personality, and experiences. We all have different kinds of experiences. There's nobody in the world like you. God never makes a clone. God never makes a copy like a snowflake. He never makes two snowflakes alike. You have a unique thumbprint, eye print, voice print, heartbeat, you have a unique footprint. There's nobody, and when God made you, he broke the mold. Now, you have different gifts. Now, you've heard it said in the Constitution that all men are created equal. Now, that's true in one sense, in that we're all equally loved by God. We are all equally valuable. We are all equally worthy of respect. We all have human dignity. There is nobody who is unimportant. And so we are all equal in that way. But we are not all equal in giftedness. And we are not all equal in background. And we are not all equal in opportunities. And we are not all equal in education. And we are not all equal because We're all in different places. You could have been born in Sudan, southern Sudan, where you don't have any, one set of clothes, no home, and are starving to death. You're fortunate, you live in America. And you've had many, many blessings that other people don't have. I don't know if you've realized this, but the truth is life is not fair. The Bible never says life is fair. In fact, that's why one day God's gonna settle the score. That's why there is a heaven and a hell. One day God is gonna even the odds. He's going to bring about justice. He's gonna settle the score. He's gonna balance the issues. And all the unfairness is gonna be taken care of in eternity. Life is not fair here because this is not heaven. This is earth. Now, God does dole out different gifts and we all have different gifts and different abilities and different background and all these different things. Now, I am not accountable for the gifts God did not give me. Does that make sense? In other words, I'm not very good, for instance, at art. In fact, I can't draw stick figures. I'm a terrible artist. I'm really not very physically coordinated. I have not very good hand-eye coordination. I can actually be clumsy. I was never very good at sports. I'm not good with mechanical things. I couldn't rebuild the carburetor if I had to. And I get very impatient. I'm very patient with people. I'm very impatient with things. And I'm just not good at that. So when I get to heaven one day, God isn't gonna say, hey, Rick, why didn't you paint like Rembrandt? Because he didn't give me those gifts. He's not gonna say, why didn't you shoot hoops like Kobe Bryant? Because he didn't give me Kobe Bryant's physique. Mine's better. I mean, I'm a hunk of burning love, you know, when you think about this. Yeah. Why are you laughing? My own church makes fun of me. I can't believe it, but anyway. The truth is, I'm not accountable for the gifts I don't have. Does that make sense? And you aren't either. And when you get to heaven, God isn't gonna say, why weren't you more like your mom? Or why weren't you more like your brother? Or why didn't you have the talents that your dad did? And why didn't you accomplish what your sister did? And on and on and on. God is not gonna compare you to anybody else. He's gonna compare you to you. He's gonna say, what did you do with what you were given? And the evaluation of your life will not be on what you did compared to everybody else, but what you did given the hand that God dealt you. Does that make sense? Now the Bible says this on the screen, Romans chapter 14. Each of us will have to give a personal account to God. You're not gonna give an account for anybody else, just yourself. Now, listen to this carefully. What we consider to be limitations in our lives, are actually part of the giftedness. That God, when he decides what he wants you to do with your life, what he creates you for, what your destiny is, he gives you both assets and limitations. It's not just good things. There are actually bad things in your life, too, that he allows them to happen in order to shape you for what he wants to do with your life. Life is not fair. Now, let's just take this young girl, Esther. She has some assets, but she has some liabilities. Let's start with the liabilities. First liability. Number one is that she's orphaned. Both her mom and dad died. So she's starting off with not an intact nuclear family. Mordecai, her relative, adopts her, but she doesn't have a mom and dad. So that's a strike against her. Second, she's a minority. She's a minority. She's a Jew living in Persia. So she's a minority. That's gonna be tough. Third, she's a single woman. And in the Persian Empire, women had zero rights and single women had less rights than married women. So she's got no rights, okay? She's poor, she's young, she's a minority, she's a single woman, and she's a believer in God in a pagan culture. So she's got five strikes against her. Exactly the kind of person God says, I think I'm gonna use to change the world. God loves to use the unexpected people. We always wanna choose the superstars. God says, no, I think I'm gonna take a single, young, poor, orphaned, minority woman to change the world. This is typical of God. He loves to use the unexpected. Now, that's not to say she didn't have some gifts because she did have some gifts. Number one, she was smart. Esther is very, very bright. She's intelligent. When you read the story, she's extremely smart in knowing how to use her words and knowing how to get back against the political intrigue of the palace and knowing how to make things happen. She's extremely smart. She listens to advice. And that's a sign of intelligence. So she's got a sharp mind. Second, she's attractive. She's a looker. Obviously, she made the finalist group. And then she's given a year of these treatments. She's purpose-driven pampering. You know? getting her ready for her one night with the king. And the third thing is she's winsome. Esther has an attractive personality. She's engaging. She's charming. In fact, as you read her story, everybody just falls in love with Esther. Okay, yes, she's minority. Yes, she's a believer. Yes, she's got all these things that strikes me. But she just knew how to get along with people. And three times in the story, we're told that she found favor with different people. Look at these verses on your outline. Esther chapter two. Verses eight and nine. Esther pleased Haggai and won his favor. Now who's Haggai? Haggai is the supervisor of the harem. So there's hundreds of women in this harem who've made the finalist thing and it says that Haggai liked Esther and he gave her preferential treatment. Immediately he provided her with beauty treatments and special food and he assigned to her seven maids selected from the king's palace and he moved her and her maids into the best place in the harem. So she gets favor with the guy running the harem. Then in verse 16, 15, it says, Esther won the favor of everyone who saw her. This girl is winning miscongeniality. Everybody's going, oh, we love Esther. They don't consider her competition. She's just so charming, so engaging. And in verse 17, it says, then she won the king's favor and approval more than any of the other virgins. So he, this is Xerxes, set a royal crown on her head and made her queen. Now, you need to understand this. Orphan girl, now the queen of Persia. But none of it would have happened if she hadn't had her limitations. Not just the gifts, but the bad things in her life. I mean, if she had been a rich, married man, she's not even in this story. Because the king wasn't looking for a rich, married man. And if she hadn't been a minority, if she hadn't been Jewish, she couldn't have saved the Jewish race. She wouldn't have even cared about it. So the things that seem to be kind of on the downside were actually on the good side. The point is this, what often looks like a disaster, in this case, I'm part of a cattle call and I'm gonna go out to have sex one night with somebody I don't even love and then probably would be discarded and because I'm no longer a virgin anymore, nobody's gonna wanna marry me. What looks like a disaster was actually God's plan to save the Jewish race from genocide. What's the point? Even the bad things in your life have a purpose. It all has a purpose. It all has a purpose. And you will never know and you will never fulfill your destiny until you stop having a pity party about the bad things that have happened to you. You gotta stop having the pity party. You gotta realize that not just the assets, but the liabilities in your life are God ordained to make you you for what he wants you to do. Not what he wants somebody else to do, what he wants you to do. See, so many people wish they were somebody else. Well, if only I were like that person. If only I had her talent. If only I had her husband. If only I had his wife. If only I had that job. If only, if only, if only. And what you gotta do is you gotta stop saying, well, it'd be nice to be that person. Sucks to be me, but it'd sure be nice to be them. That will, as long as you have that attitude, you will never fulfill your destiny in life. You gotta stop the pity party. You gotta stop moaning and murmuring, and you've gotta realize that even the downsides in your life are part of the plan.
SPEAKER 02 :
Wow, such a great message from Pastor Rick today. And I hope you were just as encouraged as I was. You know, the truth is that most of us don't pay much attention to our health until something goes wrong. We put on a couple of pounds every year and think, no big deal, right? But a few pounds over five or ten years really adds up. Yeah, I know about that. But on a more serious note, it can lead to major illness like diabetes and heart disease. So that's why Pastor Rick worked together with medical and fitness experts to create the Daniel Plan Study. This is a six-session video and workbook study kit from Rick Warren, Dr. Daniel Amen, and Dr. Mark Hyman. This is an out-of-the-box approach to a healthy lifestyle based on five essentials – faith, food, fitness, focus, and friends. The Daniel Plan study gives individuals and small groups the encouragement and accountability needed to succeed. So if you've been watching the scale going up lately, or your health may be in trouble because of your weight, it's really not too late. So join the thousands of people who've lost weight, improved their health, and improved their relationships through the Daniel Plan. So be sure to request your copy when you partner with Daily Hope to take the Word of God to a hurting world. 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. That's the word HOPE to 70309. And thank you so much for your support. Your gift to Daily Hope really helps us share the hope of Christ with people all over the world. 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.
Join Pastor Rick as he shares insights on living a decade of destiny by adhering to God's word and resisting shortcuts. Through Noah's incredible journey of faith and persistence amidst monumental challenges, learn about the antidotes to discouragement and the importance of maintaining faith in God's promises. This episode is a testament to how unwavering trust in God's grace paves the way to fulfilling your life's divine purpose.
SPEAKER 01 :
Hey there, everybody, and welcome to Pastor Rick's Daily Hope. And whether today is your first time tuning in or if you're a regular listener, we're really excited that you're here. Well, today, Pastor Rick is continuing his series called Discover Your Destiny. So get ready to explore the practical steps to grow in all areas of your life. spirit, mind, body, relationships, and even your career. So stick with us as we uncover God's incredible plan for your future. And now let's join Rick for the final part of a message called The Life God Blesses.
SPEAKER 02 :
The Bible says, We don't look at troubles that we could see right now. Instead, we look forward to what we have not yet seen. For troubles we see will soon be over, but the unseen joys to come will last forever. Faith is seeing, believing what you cannot see. And it says here, we look forward to what we have not yet seen. You see, the things you see right now are temporary. Everything you see is not going to last. It's what you don't see that's going to last forever. So he says, what are you going to focus on, the temporary or the eternal? I realize that short-term thinking is what our culture teaches. And I realize that Decade of Destiny is a counterculture move. For me to get you to think 10 years is highly unusual, because most people don't even think a year or a month in advance. They're only thinking from day to day. So I realize this is against our culture to think about what am I gonna do in the next 10 years? But you can't see it, but you trust God. We look at what we have not yet seen. The troubles we see will soon be over, but the unseen joys will last forever. So what does this mean? It means that whether you are blessed or whether you are stressed in the next 10 years will be completely dependent upon what you choose to focus on. If you focus on your problems, you're stressed. If you focus on God's potential and power, you're blessed. If you focus on your troubles, you're stressed. If you focus on God's truth, you're blessed. If you focus on your circumstance, you're stressed. If you focus on Christ's control, you're blessed. It's all what you have your eyes on, blessed or stressed. And the Bible says this, By Noah, Noah's belief in God, this is faith that caused him to see what he couldn't see. Noah's belief in God was in direct contrast to the disbelief of the rest of the world. See, this is a counterculture move, to believe in what you cannot see. His belief in God was in direct contrast to the disbelief of the rest of the world. How was he able to believe? The Bible says he heard God. Noah heard God. You say, well, I don't hear God. How do you hear God? Listen, you hear God by getting near God. You need to write that down. You hear God. I hear God by getting near God. You can't hear God from a distance. You can't hear God if you got the TV or the radio on. You can't hear God if you're always got iPhone plugs in your ears. You can't hear God if you're listening to everything else in life. The Bible says, be still and know that I am God. That means sit down and shut up. It means get alone with God and be quiet and read the Bible a little bit and talk to him in prayer and say, God, is there anything you wanna say to me? You can't hear God unless you're near to God. Now the Bible calls being near to God walking with God. It's a phrase that you find in the Bible. Adam walked with God, Enoch walked with God, Noah walked with God, not physically. It means they were near to God. Near to God. Notice this verse. The Bible says, Noah, Genesis 6, 9, third part of it, Noah walked with God. Now, walking implies three things. Follow me on this. Walking with somebody, when you walk with somebody, implies affiliation, it implies agreement, and it implies alignment. What do you mean by that? First, when you walk with somebody, it implies affiliation. It means, I'm not ashamed to be seen with this person. Are you embarrassed by being seen with Jesus? Are you embarrassed that people might know you're a believer, that you're a Christian? Are you embarrassed by your relationship to Jesus Christ? You can't walk with God unless you're affiliated, you're associated, you have a relationship with God. And not only do you have to have affiliation, you have to have in the same thing alignment. That means you're walking in the same direction at the same pace. You can't walk one way and your partner walk another way. Some of you have tried to walk with somebody who they walk slower than you do or faster. And you're in a mall and you're walking and like every 10 steps you have to slow down and wait for them to catch up. Don't look at them right now because some of you, you married a person like that, okay? And the person you married either walks too fast or too slow for you. And you find yourself, you have to be at the same pace and headed the same direction. If you're gonna walk with God in the next 10 years, you gotta walk at the same pace, not fast, not slower than God, and you gotta walk in the same direction. You got affiliation, you gotta have alignment, you gotta have agreement. The Bible says in Amos 3.3, can two people walk together if they don't agree? The answer is no. No, they can't. How do I know if I'm walking with God? How do I know that? Same three things. I'm in agreement with God, I'm in alignment with God, and I'm not ashamed to be affiliated with God. Oh, and there's one other thing. How do you know if you're walking with God? You'll be out of step with the world. Because the world's walking the opposite direction at a different pace. You'll be out of step with the world. What's the result of walking with God? What's the result of walking with God the next 10 years? Let me tell you what it is. You have no fear. You fear nothing. When you walk with God, it takes all the fear out of your life. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, nothing, nada, zip, because you are with me. You lose your fear when God is near. If you're afraid for your finances, you're not walking with God. If you're afraid for your marriage, you're not walking with God. If you're afraid for your career, you're not walking with God. When you walk with God, you have zero fear. You lose your fear when God is near. Noah was totally unafraid. Everybody in the world's going the opposite direction. He doesn't care. He walked with God. He's not afraid. Many of you have been living in fear for the entire year. God brought you here today so he could say this to you. Stop being afraid. I don't want the next decade to be a decade of fear. I want it to be a decade of faith for you. Last decade, there were a lot of fears in your life. Don't carry those fears into this decade. This should be a no fear decade. I'm not afraid anymore. How do you lose your fear? When God is near. And when God is near, then you can hear. And when God is near and you can hear, There is no fear. No room for fear, perfect love is living here. The Bible says perfect love casts out all fear. In your heart, you're either gonna have love in your heart, you're gonna have fear in your heart. When you bring love in the front door, fear goes out the back door. When you bring fear in the front door, love goes out the back door. Love and fear cannot operate in the same heart at the same time. Now, where do you get the perfect love? Well, not from anybody on earth because nobody on earth can love you perfectly. Nobody can love you perfectly. But the Bible says God is love. The only reason you can love is because God is love. And God loves you perfectly. And when you invite God into your heart in Jesus Christ, it knocks the fear out. Every time you start to get afraid in the next 10 years, you say, perfect love, come into my heart. Perfect love, fill my heart, because it takes out the fear. Love is the opposite of fear. And when you love God and you love your neighbors yourself, your life will be filled with love. Now there's a third antidote that we find in Noah's life, and that is the antidote to tempting shortcuts. Number three, I must do exactly as God tells me to do. I must do exactly as God tells me to do. This is the third key to making it to the finish line. You can have all those nine steps we talked about last week, how to get to your goal, but if you don't do this, you're gonna give up too soon. God will tell you exactly what to do, and then you don't take any shortcuts. You see, Noah didn't just hear the word of God, he heeded the word of God. Verse nine, I love this. It says, Noah always tried to conduct his affairs according to God's will. Do you do that? Do you try to conduct all your affairs according to God's will? Do you say, Lord, what do you want me to do today? What do you want me to do in this interview? What do you want me to do with this sale? What do you want me to do with the next hour? He always tried to conduct affairs His affairs according to God's will. Now, what if God asked you to build a battleship? He's not going to, but let's say he did. You'd probably have some questions. I can think of at least four. First, I would ask, what's a flood? Because in those days, the Bible says at the beginning of time, it had never rained on the earth up to this point. Genesis chapter 2 says that God watered the earth from up within. You know, we know there's water under the ground. And he watered it up from within, almost like a dew that condenses on the ground in the morning. It had never rained. That's one of the reasons. We know that after the flood, the atmosphere changed. We know that simply from fossils that Earth had a tropical climate for a long, long time. And you can find tropical fossils on the top of some mountains that are now covered with snow. You can also find seashells, which obviously we know where those came from too. But the fact is it was a tropical environment. By the way, we know that's why people live longer. When you read in the Old Testament, they lived for hundreds of years. which helped perpetuate the human race when it was just starting off pretty small. Obviously, there was a reason for that. After the flood, something changed in the canopy, in the environment, in the atmosphere, and people didn't live as long. Evidently, more of the sun's rays were getting through or whatever. We don't really know. But the fact is, the Bible said it had never rained. So when God says it's gonna flood and it's gonna rain, not only did Noah not see it, he couldn't imagine it. It had never been done. It's an incredible thing. The second thing I'd ask is, how do you build an ark? How do you build a battleship? And remember, in those days, there was no Home Depot to get lumber from. I mean, you can't be like Evan and Almighty and have the trucks pull up and deliver the lumber. You've got to go out and cut the timber down. That's why it took decades and decades and decades to build this ship. I'm gonna ask the question, how do I get it to water? Because Noah lives hundreds of miles to the nearest ocean. By the way, when the flood came, the Bible says it not only rained, it rained for 40 days solid, but it also says God opened up the springs and the wells under the earth and they, long after the rain stopped, the flood kept rising because of the waters underneath that we know, the subterranean waters. might ask the question, God, how do you intend to round up all these animals? Now, really, I don't have a problem with this. If you believe God can create a universe, God is omnipotent. He can do anything. So he could just snap his finger if he wanted to. It doesn't really matter to me how he did it because if you believe God can create the universe, God can do anything he wants to. Now, it's amazing that Noah did not argue. He did not complain with his assignment. He just goes, whatever you say, Lord. I'm going to do it exactly like you do it. Noah's faith is incredible because the request is incredible. It's unbelievable. It's ridiculously out of human imagination. And yet the Bible says this, Genesis 6, 22. Noah did everything exactly right. as God had commanded him. This verse is actually quoted twice. It's also in chapter seven, verse five. Two times it tells us Noah did everything exactly as God commanded him. Now what does that have to do with your life? In the next 10 years, God blesses people who do what he says even when it doesn't make sense. God blesses people who obey him when it doesn't make human sense. God blesses me when I do what he tells me to do, when I follow his instructions, even when I don't understand it. If you could understand everything God does and why he does it, you'd be God, but you're not, so you're not going to. You don't have the brain capacity to understand what God does. It would be like an ant trying to understand the internet. So a lot of life is just, okay, you say so. Doesn't make sense to me. In fact, it seems stupid. In fact, all the cultures go in the opposite way. But I'm gonna do what you tell me to do in your word. So I'm gonna follow you. Now, this is so important because faith is obeying when I don't understand it. At this stage in your journey, in the next 10 years, let me tell you when you're gonna have the most difficult time. The next month isn't gonna be hard for you. Well, it could be, but nothing like it's gonna be because in the middle of the years, it is in the middle of your life that you have the test that determines how you're gonna end life. Most people think, well, if I wanna end well, I have to start well. No, you really don't. You can actually have a lot of false starts early on in life. You can mess up the early years of your life. You could really just really mess it up and have a bunch of false starts and still end well. Where the real test of where you're gonna end up is is in the middle years when you are discouraged to give up on your dreams. When you are tempted to take shortcuts, to take the easy way out, to skim a little, to fudge a little, to do the easy thing, to skimp, to cut corners and to say, Lord, I know this is what you want me to do and I think I can do it faster if you let me do it my way instead of your way. That's the tempting shortcuts. God told Abraham and Sarah, you're gonna have a baby that will be the father of a great nation. And at 80 years of age, Sarah still didn't have a baby. And now she's going, hmm, shortcut. So she says to her husband, why don't you take my handmaiden, Hagar, and have a baby through her? God says, shortcut, not my plan. It happens all the time. You'll be tempted to take shortcuts in the next 10 years. Ethical, moral, financial, spiritual, relational shortcuts. Don't do it. Don't do it. You do it exactly the way God tells you to do it. Hebrews 11, 7, Noah obeyed God and built a large boat to save his family. Now the fourth antidote is to the fourth trap you're gonna face in the next 10 years, and that is discouraging delays. Because when God gives you a dream, it never, never, never happens immediately. Because God wants to work on you during the delay. We talked a little bit about that last week. Now if anybody had the right to be discouraged over delays, it was Noah. Do you know how long it took him to build the ark? 120 years. Do you think you could sustain motivation on a project that took you 120 years? I doubt it. Do you think you could go 120 years without a single word of encouragement except from God? I doubt it. This man models persistence, determination, endurance. He's an amazing thing. And so the fourth antidote is I must refuse to give up on the dream God gives me. I must refuse to give up on the dream God gives me. You just keep on going, whether you feel like it or not. You don't give up in the middle. You gotta sustain it over the long haul. It is in the middle of your life that determines the end, whether you end successfully or not. Now again, I told you this earlier, Decade of Destiny, what I'm doing with you and our entire church is really a counterculture move because nothing in our society teaches you to think ahead. Everything in our society teaches you live for today and if it feels good, do it. And don't worry about tomorrow or next month or next year or anything like that. Don't even plan for it. To get you to think 10 years ahead is a counterculture move. Would you write this down? Everything takes longer than I think. Isn't that the truth? Everything takes longer than I think. So if you're gonna be different 10 years from now, you better start on it now. You gotta start on it now before you get to the end of the decade. Everything takes longer than we think. Now I'm sure Noah in that 120 years got discouraged, was tempted to give up. I'm sure he faced loneliness. I'm sure he faced fatigue going after his dream. You will face loneliness and you will face fatigue going after the dream God gives you. Count on it. You will face loneliness and fatigue going after the dream God gives you. But you just keep on going. And the reason Noah kept on going is faith in God. Look at this next verse. Hebrews 11, seven, in the Living Bible, Noah trusted God. When he heard God's warning about the future, Noah believed him. It's faith, even though there was no sign of a flood. Now for 42,001 days, Noah has only one goal. fulfill my destiny, do what God made me to do. I'm sure in many days as Noah's building the ark, he's thinking, this is not the life I signed up for. This is not the life I signed up for. Little did he know he was gonna save the world. And I bet many days he didn't feel like working and he'd come home at night tired and Mrs. Noah would say, how was work, honey? Same place, same thing, but he never gave up. you may feel like giving up right now and we haven't even started. You may already feel like giving up. You say, just life is tough. And I think God brought you here this weekend so he could say to you, don't, don't, don't, don't give up. God is in control. And the final of your chapter, final chapter of your life, you haven't read yet. Now God's already written it, but you haven't read it. And you need to not give up. The Bible says this, look here on the screen. Well, let's read this verse aloud. Let us not get tired of doing what is right. For after a while, we will reap a harvest of blessing if we don't get discouraged and give up. The most difficult part of that verse, the after a while part. After a while, we will reach our goal. We will fulfill our destiny. We will accomplish our dream. It's after a while. Now, did you know that the ark is a symbol of salvation? In the Bible, just like Noah's family was saved by being in the ark, they were saved from destruction, you are saved from destruction by being in Christ. Christ is the ark. How was Noah saved? The same way you and I are. We're saved, some people think, but the people before Jesus were saved by works, and then after Jesus, they're saved by grace. No, no, everybody who's ever been saved by God has been saved the same way, by faith in God's grace. The word grace, the first time it's mentioned in the Bible, is in Noah's life. The word righteous, the first time it's mentioned, is in Noah's life, and Noah lived by faith. Look at these next two verses. The Bible says, by faith, Noah, by his faith, Noah showed the world was wrong. Everybody said, we're going this way, but the whole world was wrong. The crowd is often wrong. The majority is often not right. By his faith, Noah showed that the world is wrong. And he became one of those who are made right with God through faith. And the next verse, Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. We are saved by our faith in God's grace. Friend, this is the only way you're ever gonna be saved. It's the only way you're ever gonna get to heaven. You must put your faith in God's grace and you need to do it today. Now the Bible tells us in 2 Chronicles 16, 9, God is looking for people to bless. God is looking for people to use. He's looking down, anybody I can bless in the next decade? It says, "...the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, and He may show Himself strong in the behalf of those whose hearts are perfect toward Him, are leaning toward Him." God is looking for people to use and to bless. I want you to be one of those people. I want our church to be filled with blessable, usable people in the next 10 years. But to do that, to fulfill your destiny, you must do what Noah did. Let's bow our heads. Father, I know that in our broken culture today, you're looking for men and women who will choose to be like Noah. May our family, our church family, be filled with people of faith like Noah. Now you pray. In your heart say this, dear God, I wanna be the kind of person like Noah who brings a smile to your face. I want my faith to be strong to the finish line. I don't wanna fall into any of these traps in the next decade. Forgive me for all the times I've worried about what other people think. Give me the courage to dare to be different so I can fulfill your destiny for my life. I want to listen to your voice, not the voices of doubt. I want to get near you so I can hear you. Jesus, in this next decade, I wanna do exactly what you tell me to do, even when it doesn't make sense to me. I wanna trust you. When I'm tired and when I'm discouraged, help me to be like Noah and never give up. If you've never invited Jesus Christ in your life, say, Jesus Christ, I know I can never save myself. I need to put my faith in your grace like Noah did. I'm asking you to forgive me because of what Jesus did on the cross. And I want to open my life to you. In your name I pray. Amen.
SPEAKER 01 :
Hey, if you just prayed to receive Jesus as your Lord and Savior, awesome. Congratulations. And we would love to hear from you and send you some free materials to help you know him better. So email rick at pastorrick.com. That's rick at pastorrick.com. And now this is really one of my favorite parts of the broadcast. This is Letters from Our Listeners. And now here's Rick.
SPEAKER 02 :
Today I want to share a note from Dion with you who listens to Daily Hope and she came to faith in Jesus along with her husband. Isn't that wonderful? Here's what Dion wrote. Pastor Rick. A couple of years ago, I would describe myself as a person who believed in God but definitely was not a Christian. My husband started listening to pastors on YouTube, and he started sending me your different videos, and you spoke my language. Your explanation about Jesus Christ described the person I was striving to be more like. I then found your podcast at Daily Hope and A Purpose Driven Life and even The Daniel Plan. Basically, I became a super fan. Ha, ha, ha. You always emphasize the need for a church home in small groups, and I began asking God to lead my husband and I to find the right church home. Well, the third church that we tried just happened to be a church where we attended a weekly AA meeting for over three years, and we loved the Sunday messages from the very first service. It felt like home. They have small groups like you talk about, and we jumped into attending the small group meetings weekly. Within two months, we both got baptized and are now official members of our church. I truly believe God allowed you to plant this seed in our souls. That led me to want a deeper relationship with God through Jesus. I'm now a Christian that's working to spread the love of Jesus to others. Thank you so much. I pray that you can continue being a vessel for others who seek Jesus. May God bless you, Dion. Well, wow. Dion, I am so encouraged to know that you and your husband became followers of Jesus. And it's always so exciting to hear how God uses our simple small steps of faith to make a lasting difference in our lives. You know, those of you who are listening right now, did you notice that Dionne and her husband also got baptized and they joined a local church and they're part of a small group? Have you done that yet? If you haven't, I want to encourage you to do that. I hope everybody listening here will get baptized, will join a church family and get involved there. This is how we grow in the body of Christ. We need each other. We're better together.
SPEAKER 01 :
Hey, if you'd like to let Rick know how this broadcast has blessed you, he would love it. Please feel free to send him an email at rick at pastorrick.com. That's rick at pastorrick.com. 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.
