Pastor Rick's Daily Hope

Guest (Male): Hey everyone, thanks for joining us today on Pastor Rick’s Daily Hope, the Bible teaching ministry of Rick Warren. Today we're bringing our series called The Habits of Happiness to a close. In this series, Rick dives into the book of Philippians and helps you discover God’s path to true and lasting happiness. And now over to Rick with the final part of a message called God’s Promise to the Generous.

Rick Warren: Every time you're generous, what happens is a change takes place in you. Every time in you, your heart moves just another tweak up the dial toward God. You become more like Jesus. You become more loving. Every time you give, the Bible says you give a cup of cold water in Jesus' name, he said that counts. Every time I practice generosity, I become a little bit more like Jesus. Philippians chapter one, verse 11 says this, "Your lives will be filled with the truly good qualities which only Jesus Christ can produce for the glory and praise of God."

Now, what we're talking about here is extremely counter-culture because everything in our culture does not say give. Everything in our culture says get. Would you agree we're living in an increasingly self-centered culture? Narcissism is on the rise. It's all about me, myself, I, my stuff, my things, my needs, I, I, I, I, I. Now the middle letter of crime is I, and the middle letter of pride is I, and the middle letter of sin is I. I have an I problem.

When I'm generous, what does it do? It gets the focus off me and I stop thinking about me and I start thinking about others. Philippians 2:4 and 5 says this, "Don't just look out for your own interest. But look also to the interest of others. Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus." The Bible says he became poor that we might be enriched.

Number four, the fourth reason or benefit of generosity is every time I'm generous, I strengthen my faith. My faith gets stronger. Why is that? Because when I give, when I take something that I've got and instead of using it on me, I use it to help you, then I'm going to have to depend on God to help me. Let's say I've got some money that I need to pay my bills with and I help you because you're in a tough fix. Now I've got to trust God.

Or I've only got a certain amount of time and I've got to get all my stuff done and I stop and I help my neighbor with my time. Now I've got to trust God to help that all my little bit of time left, he'll expand it and make it work so I can get the stuff I need to get done. When I only have a certain amount of energy and I go invest it in helping somebody else when I go, "I've got all the stuff on my to-do list to do."

That's a statement of faith because I'm going, "God, I'm going to trust you that I'm not going to worry about it, but I'm going to pray about it and expect you to take care of my needs." Every time I give, my faith grows stronger. Every time I give it's like a muscle, it just gets stronger. Philippians 4:6 says this, "Do not worry about anything, instead pray and ask God for everything you need always giving thanks." In other words, I'm just going to trust God to meet my needs.

Number five, the fifth benefit of generosity. Every time I'm generous, I invest in my eternal home. The Bible says every time I invest, I am generous, when I give time, money, energy, whatever, I invest in my eternal home. Now Jesus called this principle storing up treasure in heaven. This phrase he says, "store up for yourselves," not for God. It says, "store up for yourselves treasure in heaven."

Now you want to know how many times Jesus used this phrase when he says store up for yourselves treasure in heaven? He didn't say it once in the Bible. He didn't say it twice. He didn't say it three times. He didn't say it four times. He didn't say it five times. Jesus said the phrase store up for yourselves treasure in heaven six times.

Now I want you to listen very closely. Anytime Jesus says anything six times, you better listen to it. Because if you don't, you're the one who's going to get hurt in the long run. You're the one who's going to miss the blessing. You're going to miss the benefit. Anytime Jesus says anything six times, then I better figure out what that means because he's going, "Get the message, this is really important. Life is not about storing up things here on earth. Life is about storing up things in heaven."

It's like banking in heaven, it's investing in heaven. Now you can store up things either here on earth or in heaven. The Bible says don't store up a whole bunch of stuff here on earth where thieves can steal it, where rust can rust it, where moths can eat the clothes away. It says store up in heaven.

Now that makes sense. Why? Because you're going to spend a whole lot more time in heaven than here and you're going to need the storage, the spoils, the rewards in heaven far more than here. You're only getting 80 years at the most, 100 on this planet. That's not very long. Everything you store up here on earth you're leaving behind.

But storing up treasure in heaven, you're going to get to enjoy that for trillions and trillions and trillions and trillions and trillions of years. So it obviously makes more sense that I should be investing more in eternity than here and now because I only get to enjoy it here and anything I've got here, I'm leaving here. You can't take it with you. I've said many times you never see a hearse pulling a U-Haul trailer. You can't take it with you. But the Bible says you can send it on ahead.

Now look at what Paul says here. He says I invest in my internal home. He says I'm really glad you Philippians are being generous because he said you're actually storing up treasure in heaven. You're going to get the reward there. He said you will be rewarded for everything you've given away. You've given away your time, you're going to be rewarded in heaven. You've given away your energy, you're going to be rewarded in heaven. You're going to give away your money, you're going to be rewarded in heaven.

Philippians 4:17, Paul says, "Though I appreciate your gifts you Philippian church, I love you guys, thank you, you're helping me out, what really makes me happiest is the well-earned reward," circle that, "the well-earned reward that you will receive because of your generosity." He said you're storing up treasure in heaven. I love the New American Bible says, "I want you to have the profit that accrues to your own account."

That word in Greek, the profit that accrues is interest-bearing account. Okay, interest-bearing account. I want to ask you, how are you doing on your retirement account? I'm not talking about the retirement account here. I'm talking about your ERA, your Eternal Retirement Account. Not your IRA, the individual retirement account. Have you sent anything on ahead? Is there going to be anything in heaven there for you to build on?

Or are you all piling it up on this side? That is a fatal mistake. That's why Jesus says six times you really need to consider this. You're not going to live very long here, but you're going to live forever there. You need to send it on ahead. This is a statement of faith and this is an investment in your eternal home. The Contemporary English Version says, "I want you to receive the blessings that come from giving."

Did you know that there's a verse in the Bible in Proverbs which says every time you give to the poor, God says I consider it as a loan to God and I will repay. It says, "He who gives to the poor lends to the Lord and he will repay." Where? In heaven. God says when you give to help somebody else, you are actually storing up in heaven. You're building your eternal home.

How do I do that? Look at this next verse, 1 Timothy 6:18 and 19. "Give happily," circle that one, happily. The Bible says God loves a cheerful giver. I saw a bumper sticker that said he also accepts from the grouch. But actually, if you're grouchy, don't give. Why? Because you don't get any credit for it because God doesn't want the money, God wants your attitude.

He doesn't care. In fact the Bible says very clearly, you should never give out of guilt and you should never give or be generous out of pressure. If anybody ever pressures you to give or makes you feel guilty to give, you should not give. The Bible says it very clearly. Why? Because God doesn't want it. God doesn't need it, God doesn't want it. He wants your heart.

If my kids are forced to give me a gift, it's not much of a gift. But if they come and they joyfully say, "Daddy I got this for you," that really warms my heart. Give happily to those in need and always be ready to share whatever God has given you. Are you a giver or a taker? By doing this you will be storing up real treasures for yourself in heaven. It is the only safe investment for eternity.

So every time I'm generous, I earn the gratitude of others, I show what really matters, I become more like Jesus, I strengthen my faith, and I invest in my eternal home. Then number six, we learn this from the book of Philippians. Every time I'm generous, I make God smile. Every time you are generous, you make God smile. You make God happy. Generous giving is an act of worship that honors God.

Notice this, Philippians 4:18, "Your gifts are like a fragrant offering to God, a sacrifice that God accepts and is pleasing to him." Pleasing to him, it makes God smile. It makes God happy. Those of you who are parents, are you happy when your kids are selfish and won't share their toys? No. Are you happy when your kids learn to share their toys? Of course you are. Are you happy when your kids are generous? Of course you are.

So is God. God loves it when his kids learn to be generous. Every time you're generous, you're not selfish. You give away money, you give away time, you give away energy, not for your own benefit. God goes, "That's my boy. That's my boy. Did you see how generous he was just then? That's my girl. Did you see how generous she was? They're my kids."

God takes pride, why? Like father, like son. God is the most generous person in the universe and he wants his kids to be the same way. This is one of the habits of happiness. It's not the only one, but it's the one Paul ends with. We've looked at integrity. We've looked at humility. We've looked at reliability. We've looked at productivity. We've looked at serenity. Now he's talking about generosity.

God is watching you every day of your life to see what you do with what he's given you. He's watching to see how generous you are. And this, everything I just said, is the premise behind the greatest promise in the Bible. He's ending the book with this promise. But when you, God says, are like these Philippians who were noted for their generosity, he said when you give out of gratitude, when you give to become more like Jesus, when you give to stretch your faith, when you give to invest in your home in heaven, when you give to show what really matters most, and when you give to please God, then God says this promise.

Philippians 4:19, "Then God will meet all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus." God says you are never, never going to outgive me. So God says let's play this little game. You give to others, you give to me, I'll give to you and we'll see who wins. Then God will meet all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus.

Now this is, as I said, the greatest promise in the Bible. So I want us to memorize it. And let's memorize it in the New International Version. It's easy to memorize it in that. Philippians 4:19, you need to learn this one. Now remember the hardest part to remember in a verse is the address, where it is in the Bible. So you always say the verse before and after the reference where it is, the address. And you memorize something not by reading it, you memorize by saying it. We learn, we memorize with the ear, not with the eye.

So look up here on the screen and let's say Philippians 4:19 aloud together and say the reference at the beginning and end. Ready? Philippians 4:19, "God will meet all my needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus," Philippians 4:19. By the way you guys, what is in Philippians 4:19? "God will meet all my needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus," Philippians 4:19.

Now how many needs will God make? All my needs. Why does he meet them? In Christ Jesus. What does that mean? It means because Jesus Christ died for you, he's already paid for everything you need. Because Jesus Christ died on the cross for you, he made a way for you to be in harmony with God, to be at peace with God, and he paid for everything you need in your life.

So let's try it one more time. Philippians 4:19, "God will meet all my needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus," Philippians 4:19. Now that's a verse you ought to write on a little card, put it on your refrigerator, put it in your car visor, and you keep reading it because it's a great antidote to worry.

And this week when you go, "God I don't have enough time to get all this done," Philippians 4:19, "God will meet all my needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus." "God, I'm not feeling good today. I need strength. I need energy." "God will meet all my needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus." "God, I need a date!" "God will meet all my needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus." "God, I need peace of mind. I am so stressed out." "God will meet all my needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus."

But you've got to remember the premise before the promise. God says I'm watching to see if you're generous. Now let me close with this. There are two ways to be generous. Write these down. By reason or by revelation. I want to explain this to you. You can be generous by reason or you can be generous by revelation. One of them gets God's blessing and the other doesn't. One of them requires faith and the other doesn't.

Now the Bible says according to your faith it will be done to you. So you want to do the one that requires faith. And that is not by reason, but by revelation. There's two ways to give. For instance, if I see somebody, let's just take the example of the Philippines, not the Philippians, the Philippines. Okay, the Philippines had this terrible tragedy, this tsunami, this typhoon that happened. 10,000 people died. We have Filipino families in our church who lost loved ones in that typhoon.

Now I say I read about that and I go, "Man, I need to help these people. I want to be generous." Now there's two ways I can figure out how to help those people. I can go, "Okay, I can give by reason. Say, what's a reasonable amount that I can give?" And what I do is I look at my checkbook and I figure out what I've got. I could give that and it's a reasonable amount. I don't have to pray about it, it doesn't stretch my faith, I just go, "That's what I can afford to give."

That doesn't get the blessing of God, but it's the way most people give. Millions of dollars are given to charity and philanthropy every year by reason. People look and say, "How can I help this particular charity and I'm going to write out a check and it's a reasonable amount. It's what can I afford to give?"

The other way is to give by revelation and this makes giving or generosity an adventure. It stretches your faith. It's like we read on the front side of this about the Philippians. It said they gave more than they were able to give. How do you do that? How do you give more than you're able to give? You're not giving by reason, you're giving by revelation.

You say, instead of saying what can I afford to give to help this need, you go, "Lord what do you want to give through me?" And God's always going to give you an amount that is way beyond what you think, so it forces you to trust him. I have done this literally hundreds and hundreds of times in my life where I go, "God I have no idea what I should give to help this person, to help this cause, to help our church." I have no idea, so just put an idea and it's always something that I'm going, "Wait, there's no way I can do that."

There's just no way. No way God, no way. It's not reasonable. And God says, "Well do you want to give by reason or revelation?" And I go, "Oh, you know. You know me. Of course I want to stretch my faith. I want to grow. I want to be challenged. I want to go at the end and go, 'Shoot, God did that one. There's just a flat out miracle. There's no way I could have done that on my own.'" And so I give by revelation.

I learned to be a generous person from a little boy because my parents were the most generous people I've ever met in my life. They lived to give. I grew up. I didn't have a problem being a taker. I didn't have a problem being a miser because I grew up in a family watching my dad be incredibly generous, watching my mom be incredible. It wasn't hard for me. It wasn't hard for me at all to be generous because I grew up in a family where my parents modeled it.

If you have kids, you need to model generosity for your children so they don't learn to be selfish little brats. That they learn to be givers in life. So you discuss. Now, some of you say Rick, I've never done this before. This is a new experience for me. I've never given by revelation. So I don't know how to do this. Let me give you a couple suggestions.

One would be if you're not tithing, start there and you just pick an amount and just start giving on a regular basis and say, "God we're going to do this." And just pick an amount and set it up. I would encourage you to do that if you're not doing it. I do it. Second thing, if you are tithing, you're already giving. Let me suggest an idea and I actually learned this from my parents. My parents developed the habit of at Christmas time giving a gift to God equal to the amount that they were going to spend on Christmas on everybody else.

Now think about this. Can you imagine going to a birthday party, by the way whose birthday is Christmas? It's not yours. Okay, it's Jesus' birthday. What are you giving the birthday boy for Christmas? Can you imagine going to a birthday party and everybody gives gifts to everybody else except the person whose birthday it is? What's wrong with this picture?

By the way, you know where we got the idea of giving Christmas gifts to each other? It's from the wise men. The wise men brought the first gifts at Christmas to the baby Jesus. So you might want to say I don't want to give more to other people than I'm giving to the Lord who saved me, created me, and made me.

Now we've been in this series on the Habits of Happiness. We've looked at all these different habits. I want to end the series with the words of Jesus Christ himself. Look at there, the last verse on your outline talking about the habits of happiness. Jesus said this, "Remember the words that Jesus himself said, there's more happiness in giving than in receiving."

You guys, if I had time, I would give you my life as an example of this verse. Because God taught me how to be generous at a young age to the point now, you know my story that Kay and I give away 91% of our income and live on 9. And we've raised it every year for 38 years. And I am the happiest guy on the planet. Why? Because there's so much more fun in giving than in receiving. That's the habit of happiness. Let's bow our heads for prayer.

Lord, I want to thank you. I want to thank you for all the things you've given to me. Thank you that you made me. Thank you that you created me. Thank you that you gifted me. Thank you that you've saved me. Thank you for freedom. Thank you for health. Thank you for eyes to see and ears to hear.

If you've never invited Jesus Christ in your heart, the first thing you need to do is you need to give yourself to God. That's what the Philippians did. They gave themselves to God first. You need to say this, "Jesus Christ, thank you for all that you've given me. I want to give myself to you. I want my life to be in the center of your plan. I want to live for the purpose that you made me. I want to trust you. I want to follow you. I want to learn to love you. I want to give myself to you." And I pray this in your name. Amen.

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.

Guest (Male): What a moving message from Rick and I'm also so moved when we hear from you. In fact, here's Rick with a letter from one of our listeners.

Rick Warren: Have you ever taken a step of faith with no idea what's next? Well, with the help of Daily Hope, Nicole did just that. She wrote this note to me. "Hello Pastor Rick, a close friend of mine suggested I listen to Daily Hope four years ago and while I had faith and I loved the Lord, I was lost. But Daily Hope rescued me. My relationship with Jesus grew in ways that I never knew possible.

I was soon baptized and over the next four years, I grew in boldness and in faith in the Lord and I even left a high-powered and high-salaried position to follow a different purpose-driven path with the Lord's guidance. It's been a literal step forward in faith without knowing the next steps. Certainly not something I was capable of years ago and already God is showing me his goodness.

You know as my husband explores his own relationship with Jesus, again your ministry is literally a godsend. Your ability to teach the good news in ways that are easy to understand and apply it is just amazing. We also follow your suggestion to find a good local church. So thanks for all you do for believers and those who are seeking Christ around the world. Rick, you're loved and appreciated and no doubt a vessel of God's grace and mercy." Signed, Nicole.

Well, Nicole, I'm so glad that you've grown in your relationship with Jesus and you've taken the important step of getting baptized. What an important step this is, finding a church home, really listening to the Lord and living a purpose-driven life. All of that happens when you take time to listen to God's Word. I love how your friend shared Daily Hope with you and now you've shared it with your husband. You know, any of you can do this. Anybody can do this. You can share Daily Hope with your friends and with your relatives and with people you don't even know and then watch how God brings life to others through his Word. Be sure to join us next time as we look into God's Word for our daily hope.

Guest (Male): This program is sponsored by Pastor Rick’s Daily Hope and your generous financial support.