Pastor Rick's Daily Hope

Guest (Male): Hello everybody, this is Pastor Rick’s Daily Hope with Rick Warren. I’m really glad you’re here. Today, we’re continuing our series from Psalm 23 called Living in the Goodness of God. It’s all about how God’s goodness meets you right where you are and brings hope even in difficult seasons. So, let’s get started. Here’s part two of a message called How to Be Led by God’s Spirit.

Pastor Rick Warren: Let me show you something that a lot of Christians and believers don’t get. I want to show you two verses that look totally opposite of each other. In 1 John 2:15, John says this: "Do not love the world or anything that belongs to the world. If you love the world, you cannot love the Father."

What is it? That looks like a big contradiction right there. God so loved the world, and then he says but you, you’re not to love the world, and if you love the world, the love of the Father’s not in you. Which is it? You need to understand the meaning of the word "world." The word is used two different ways in the Scripture. It refers to the world’s value system and it refers to the world’s people.

We are to love the people and not love the value system. Does that make sense? We are to love the people, no matter what kind of lifestyle they live, but we are to not love, in fact the Bible says we are to hate, the value system of things like prejudice, racism, injustice, sexism, people hurting each other, and war. We are to hate the things that hurt people in the world.

Love the people; hate the value system. The problem is, we’ve got it reversed. We love the value system and hate the people. Christians do this all the time. They’re no different. They’re just as materialistic. They’re just as hedonistic. They’re just as involved in everything in culture. They love the culture and hate the people. God says you've got that all wrong, you've got it backwards. Love the world people. Don’t love the world's value system.

Five things I have to stop doing. One, I can’t follow a culture that doesn’t follow God. Two, I can’t follow friends who aren’t led by God. Number three, why I often miss God’s will is this: I can’t look to other sources besides God. If I’m looking for direction for my life, the best place to look is not on a TV talk show. The best place to look is to read the owner’s manual, that’s the Bible, and talk to the creator who made you. That’s where you’re going to find out about your life.

I can’t look to other sources besides God. There are many other sources that want to tell you how to run your life, many other replacements. There are many other substitutes for God in the world. They’re actually called idols. For instance, when you’re looking for what I'm supposed to do with my life, I've actually met some believers who think they can pray to God and read a horoscope. Really? That’s like saying I believe in reincarnation and heaven at the same time. They’re mutually exclusive. You either believe in one or the other. You can't believe in both. That’s illogical, irrational, and makes no sense at all.

God says, "I want you to look to me, and don’t look to other things for your guidance." When people look to anything else besides God for guidance for their life, when they’re looking for divine guidance but they’re not actually praying or reading the Bible, it’s called divination. Divination means to try to find out about your future without going to your creator. There are countless ways to define the future: fortune-telling, predictions, prognoses, and things like that.

In ancient times, the most common way that people discerned the future was called consulting the liver. They would actually sacrifice animals, they’d cut out a liver because the liver was supposed to be the heaviest organ in the body, and then somebody would look at it and say, "Yeah, go to war. Go to battle. You’ll win this one."

This is not some little minor thing. The Roman Empire was built on divining the liver. No Roman soldier would go into battle without looking at the liver. The Babylonians looked at the liver. The Etruscans looked at the liver. This was the most commonly used form of predicting the future. It's actually even mentioned in the Bible. Ezekiel 21 says, "The king of Babylon now stands at a crossroads, uncertain of whether or not to attack. So his advisors will cast lots by shaking arrows from the quiver."

That was another popular way. You take arrows in a quiver and you throw them out on the ground and say, "Don't go to battle." Okay, that was one. "And they will inspect the livers of sacrificed animals." Fifty ways to lose your liver right there, or love your liver, or whatever. So that was called divination.

Does that kind of stuff still happen today? Have you ever seen a palm reading shop, or a tea leaf reading shop, or a crystal ball, or Madam so-and-so? That stuff is still around. Tarot cards, horoscopes, these are called divination, looking to the future without looking to God. God says, "No, don’t do any of that kind of stuff. Don’t go call the psychic hotline."

By the way, here’s a little tip. If the psychic hotline says, "What’s your credit card number?" hang up. They should know that. I'd say, "You tell me. If you’re so smart, you tell me. If he can’t tell me my credit card, he can’t tell me anything else that’s valuable because he has no ability at all."

I actually did a little research on this just for fun this week, looking at the modern forms of divination. There are some crazy, bizarre things out there. For instance, in Russia, they throw beans on the floor and then look at the pattern. That’s a lot of beans right there, a pile of beans or whatever. There’s a thing called parrotmancy where you let a parrot out of its cage and it goes over and picks up a card, and then you know who you’re supposed to marry.

I’m not making this up, there’s a divination called rumpology and there are people you can pay who will tell you your future by looking at the shape of your butt. I'm not making that up. That’s called stupidity. That’s saying I would rather know the future but I don’t want God. They don’t want a boss in their life. They want the future but they don’t want God. They don’t want a Lord. They don’t want somebody that they have to serve.

So, the ridiculousness of looking to other sources besides God. The Bible warns us. Deuteronomy 18 says, "Never look to psychics or seances or fortune-telling or the stars or people who claim to be in contact with the dead. People who do these things are doing evil and God hates it with a passion."

I doubt any of you are doing this, but I will tell you this: if you know a believer who’s doing this, politely, gently, lovingly tell them, "You’re heading down the wrong track. You’re never going to know God’s will through a seance, through a medium, through a horoscope, through astrology. If you are following the stars, you’re not following the Son, S-O-N."

You’re not following God. These are counterfeits. Years ago, Gideon used that fleece to discern God’s will. People get fleeced all the time today. Cults and fad therapies and Scientology and all kinds of stuff. The Bible tells us in 2 Corinthians 11, "Satan masquerades as an angel of light," so we’ve just got to avoid that. The Bible tells us in 1 John 4:1, "Don’t believe everything you hear." That’s a good thing to read on the internet. Actually, I read a quote the other day on the internet: "Don’t believe everything you read on the internet," Abraham Lincoln. That guy was way ahead of his time.

If you want to be led by the spirit of God, there are some things you have to stop doing before you start doing other things. Can't follow culture, can’t follow friends who are not following God, can’t look to other sources besides God like all those divination things. Number four, this is one that would apply to a lot of us: I must stop being led by my circumstances.

I’m amazed how many believers think the number one way they try to determine God’s will is, "Well, what’s my circumstance?" I missed the plane; it must be God’s will. Heavy traffic; it must be God’s will. The offering plate skipped my row; that was God’s will. I've had people bumped into each other in a car, "It must be God’s will we bumped into each other." I overslept today; it is God’s will I don’t go to church.

You’re skating on thin ice, shallow, shaky ground when you build your life around your circumstances. There are a lot of examples in the Bible where the circumstances were the exact opposite of God’s will. I think about the story of Jonah. God said to Jonah, "Jonah, I want you to go to Nineveh, and I want you to preach to it." They were the hated enemies of the Israelites because they had oppressed them for years.

Jonah said, "I’m not going." It was literally racial prejudice. He said, "I'm not going." Instead of going west to Nineveh, he gets on board a ship headed for Tarshish, which is a seaport on the coast of Spain. He’s going as far east as he can. God said go west and he goes east. But the circumstances were that there was a ship waiting there headed for Tarshish, he had the money for a ticket, they had space on board, he gets on board, they take him on. It must be God’s will. I’ve seen circumstances ruin a lot of businesses and business opportunities because it looked like a good deal.

Let me give you another example from Paul. Acts 27 is about another Mediterranean cruise about 2,000 years later. Paul is being taken to Rome as a prisoner and the night before the ship is leaving, God says to him in his prayer time, "Tell them not to go tomorrow because they’re going to head straight into a storm."

Paul says to the sailors and the captain of the ship, "If we leave today, we’re going to head straight into a storm." But they didn’t listen to him. Here’s what the Bible says: "Paul said, 'Men, if we sail now, this voyage will be a disaster. We’ll lose the ship, the cargo, and maybe even our own lives.' But when a gentle breeze came up, they thought, 'This is exactly what we wanted.'"

Have you ever had a gentle breeze come up in your life and think this is exactly what I wanted, and you were heading straight into a storm? When a gentle breeze came up, they thought this is exactly what we wanted. So they launched out thinking it would be smooth sailing. Sound familiar? That new business venture, thinking it would be smooth sailing. "But at sea, a violent typhoon storm arose, which made it impossible to control the direction of the ship, so we gave up and just let her drift." That is the epitaph of many a believer who trusted in circumstances. We just finally gave up and let her drift because we thought it was right. The circumstances looked good, but that was a disastrous business deal or marriage or whatever.

How about you? How many times have you ever thought of something circumstantial was an open door and you later found out it was a trap door? You can’t just trust circumstances. I can give you example after example in the Bible about this. David had sent his army to war in spring and he’s at home lollygagging around in his pajamas. He’s upstairs and he looks out and he sees a beautiful woman taking a bath on a roof. What's she taking a bath on a roof for? He looks down from his palace and sees her and he thinks, "Very pretty. Her husband's at war, I'm home alone, she's attractive," and he falls into an affair. Circumstances can lead you the wrong way.

In fact, the enemy can manipulate circumstance. You need to be aware of that. So you always check your circumstance against God’s word. What I mean by that is that you don’t use circumstances to discern God’s will, but you use it to confirm God’s will.

Let me give you one more. If I want to be led by God’s spirit, I cannot be led by my feelings. If I want to be led by God’s spirit, I cannot be led by my feelings because your feelings lie to you all the time. Every emotion is temporary, whether it’s a good one or a bad one. You can be elated at your wedding and it will not last. You can be elated at Disneyland and it will not last. You can be elated at winning a game for a team that you were rooting for and it will not last.

The same is true if you’re depressed, if you’re discouraged. It will not last. No emotion can stay at the same level of intensity. If you have a panic attack, one thing you need to know: it can’t last. You cannot stay in a perpetual state of panic. This too will pass. So you can’t be led by your feelings because they’re not permanent, they're just temporary.

The most common mistake, and I even hear Christians saying this today, is, "Just let your conscience be your guide." I hate to tell you this, your conscience is often wrong. So is mine. The Bible says the heart is deceitful. I’ve told you this many times, that you lie to yourself more than you lie to anybody else. Just because you think it doesn’t make it true. Just because somebody else thought it doesn't make it true. Just because it’s popular doesn’t make it true. Something is true because it’s true, not what you think is true, not what you hope is true. Truth is simply truth. It’s either right or it’s not right.

Most people base their decisions on how they feel. I can’t tell you how many times, and it sounds like a spiritual thing, they say, "Why did you do that?" "Well, I just had a peace about it." That’s not enough to make a decision on. Peace is a good thing, but you’d better have more basis for your decision than just a peaceful feeling. You could have a peaceful, easy feeling, and I know it won’t let you go. You are really old if you know those lyrics. You are really, really old. I'm feeling right at home here right now.

You can’t just go by your feelings. Feelings lie. It may be the result of some burrito you ate or something. The story of Jonah I told you, "Hey, here’s a ship. Hey, I got the money. Hey, they take me on board." He goes down and he goes into the bottom of the ship and he falls into a nice, peaceful sleep. He’s totally out of the will of God and he’s at peace. So that’s not enough. Peace is a good thing, but it’s not enough to base your life on simply emotions because he was totally disobeying God. Satan can give you false peace.

Proverbs 14:12 says, "You may feel you’re on the right path, the right road, and still end up dead." The result of being manipulated by moods, look at the next verse: "We’ve all strayed away like sheep. We have left God’s path to follow our own." Why did we leave God’s path to follow our own? Because we felt like it. Those are things you have to stop doing if you want to be led by the spirit.

Now, the stuff you should do. It is going to be a whole lot faster because this is self-explanatory on this. We talked about the five things you’ve got to stop doing. What are the five things you start doing? Very easy to understand. Number one, if I want to get guidance from God, I want divine direction, I must want to be led. I've got to desire it first. It starts with desire, starts with longing, starts with craving.

Have you ever had anybody hold your head under the water so long that you go, "I have got to get air"? When you get that desperate and when you cry out to God and say, "God, I have got to know. I’ve got to know what you want me to do," it's not like I’d kind of like to know, it would be helpful to know. If you don’t have any intensity or passion in your prayer life about knowing God’s will, God's saying, "I guess it's not that important to you."

But when you say, "I've got to have it," it's like I’m hungry and I've got to have food. I’m out of breath and I've got to have oxygen. I don’t know which way to go in life, "God, I've got to know your will." I must want to be led by the spirit. Psalm 40:8, "My God, I want to do what you want, and your teachings are in my heart." The reason why he wants to do it is because he’s reading the Bible; "your teachings are in my heart."

Number two, I must be willing to do what God says. I must not only want God’s will, I’ve got to be willing to do what God says. I’m willing to obey in advance. In other words, God, before you even tell me what you want me to do, my answer in advance is already yes. God doesn’t tell you his will and then you get to decide whether you do it or not. You have to decide in advance. You pre-qualify. God’s not going to show you what he wants to do with your life and then you get to decide about it. You say, "God, I surrender my life to you completely. I don't just want your will; I’m willing, whatever it is. I don't even understand it, I don't even know it, but whatever it is, I’m willing in advance." John 7:17, Jesus said this: "Whoever is willing to do what God wants and chooses it—it's a choice, you choose God's will—will know if what I teach comes from God." So he says trust me in advance.

I don't know about you, but I am encouraged after that message. And let's keep the encouragement going with a letter from one of our listeners. Here's Rick.

I love hearing from Daily Hope listeners like you, and here's a note that I got from Raymond in New York. "Dear Pastor Rick, I'd like you to know how much I appreciate the Daily Hope broadcast. The nuggets that I get, I share with my lunch group at work. And my family benefits as well because at dinner time, my wife and my son hear the nugget that I learned during the day and we discuss it. It's awesome."

Well, let me just say this, Raymond. Thanks for writing me and thanks for sharing your story. You encouraged me just now. I'm happy to hear that you're sharing Daily Hope with your coworkers and with your family. If God has used this broadcast in your life, would you let me know about it and tell your story? It'll be good for you, it'll be good for me, and it'll be good for all the others who hear it. I love you and I thank God for you and join me next time as we continue to look into God's Word for our daily hope.

Guest (Male): Now, if you'd like to let Rick know how much this broadcast has blessed you, please feel free to send him an email. He loves it. Send it to rick@pastorrick.com. That's rick@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 Daily Hope Ministries and your generous financial support.