Pastor Rick's Daily Hope

Guest (Male): Hello everybody. Thank you so much for joining us here on Pastor Rick's Daily Hope with Rick Warren. Well, today we're continuing in this timely series called Strategies for Stressful Times. In this series, Pastor Rick shares timeless truths from God's word that will help you manage stress, overcome worry, and experience the peace and stability that only God can provide. And now let's jump in with part two of a message called How to Keep Your Tank Filled Instead of Running on Empty.

Rick Warren: What does Jesus have to say about all this? What does Jesus have to say when we come to him with an emptiness in our lives, an empty soul, an empty heart, uh empty of character? How does Jesus respond when you say I got nothing to give. I'm all out of gas. I'm living on fumes. What does Jesus do when you come to him in your emptiness? Does he scold you? No. Does he judge you? No. Does he reprimand you? Say you oh you should be full. No. In fact, he does the exact opposite. Jesus says this in Matthew chapter 11.

Look at this. Matthew chapter 11 verses 28 to 30. He says this. If you're tired, I would assume that includes a lot of people sitting here right now and those who are listening in Daily Hope. If you're tired from carrying heavy burdens, come to me. Come to me. And I will give you a whole lot more to do. Oh no, that's not what he says. He doesn't say come to me and I'll give you a whole bunch of new things to do. No. He says I will give you what? Rest. Anybody like that? That's what Jesus says when you come to him with your emptiness.

Come to me and I will give you r e s t. Now he's not talking about physical rest. You can get that. He's talking about emotional and spiritual rest. You can be physically rested and still feel empty inside. We're not talking about physical emptiness today. You know, the last two days you know what I did? Each of our grandkids when they turn 10, K and I take them on a 10 on a two-day trip to wherever they want to go in California. And it's on your 10th birthday. The last of our grandkids turn 10. Claire turned 10 this week.

And so we said wherever you want to go in California. Some have gone to San Francisco, some have gone to Tahoe. Claire decided two days of Disneyland. I walked my tushy off for the last two days. First day we walked 9.2 miles. I measured it. Over 30,000 steps in Disneyland. We've been on every ride you can possibly imagine. And we were there for two days. I'll be honest with you guys. I'm tired today. But that didn't have to do with my emotional state. It doesn't have to do with my mental or physical spiritual state. I'm just tired.

So thank you guys for getting all out on your own. Goodbye. No, no. You know, you can be physically tired but not spiritually empty and not emotionally empty or you could be physically fit. Some of you are physically fit. You look like it. But you're emotionally empty or you're spiritually empty. So Jesus when he says come to me and I'll give you rest. He's talking about rest for your soul. In fact, he says that later in the passage. If you're tired of carrying heavy burdens, come to me. And I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you.

Then learn from me. For I'm gentle and humble in spirit. And you will find rest for your soul. That's the refilling your tank. For the yoke I share with you is easy to wear. And it makes the load light. The load is light. Now I want you to circle if you're taking notes, circle the word come, circle the word take, and circle the word learn. These are the first steps. And we're going to look at those steps on how to keep your tank filled. Take notes on this. Here are the steps that Jesus tells us what to do.

Ready? Step number one. Get fed up with how I've been feeling. Get fed up with how I've been feeling. Nothing is going to change in your life until you get this satisfied with it. Just satisfied with the way that you feel right now. You have to come to the point in your life, my friends, where you say I'm not going to live this way anymore. I've had enough. I'm not going to stay this way anymore. I'm going to change. I'm going to do something about the way that I feel. Nothing happens until you get desperate.

You see, it's just too easy to put up with everything you're going through even when you don't like it simply because it's familiar. It's uncomfortable. It may be even painful. It may be even empty but it's familiar. So what is it that's going to cause you to finally get fed up with your current situation, your current circumstance, and the way that you've been feeling about it? I've talked to thousands and thousands and thousands of people about this issue over the last 42 years at Saddleback Pastor. And I've discovered that there are only three times when people really really change.

Three things change people. Pain, perspective, and no other choice. Pain, perspective, and no other choice. You're not going to change the situation you're in. You're not going to change the way you feel until you either have enough pain or you change your perspective or there's no other choice. Now let me show you just three Bible examples of what I just said. First, Solomon. Solomon says this about pain in Proverbs chapter 20 verse 27 and 30. He says this. The Lord gave us a conscience and a mind. So we cannot hide from ourselves. I know when I'm in pain.

I know when I'm empty. But he says sometimes it takes a painful situation to make us change our ways. Everybody agree with that? Sometimes it takes a painful situation to make us change our ways. You see, we don't change when we see the light. We change when we feel the heat. And when the heat's on, we never change until the fear of change is exceeded by the pain. And that's why you stay with situations and circumstances and stay even with the feelings of emptiness and dissatisfaction in your own life because you you're not in enough pain yet.

You haven't hit the bottom. It hadn't gotten that bad yet for you. And until you get so uncomfortable, so dissatisfied, we only change when our pain is greater than the problem or the fear of change. So pain will cause you to change. Number two. We get this from the story of the parable of the Jesus parable of the prodigal son. The story of the lost son. Do you remember that guy? He he's a young kid and he says Dad, I want my inheritance now. I'm leaving. And he leaves, takes all of his inheritance and goes to Las Vegas downtown strip and spends all his money on wine, women, and song.

And he says this. It says there about the situation. He wasted everything he'd been given on foolish living until he was broke, miserable, and starving. He had to get a job feeding pigs. Now remember, pork is anathema for Jews. This guy's Jewish. And what's he doing? He's feeding pigs. So he's got it not only a dirty job, he 's got a job he's not supposed to even be doing. He had to get a job feeding pigs and he became so hungry he was willing to eat the pigs' food. You got to be pretty hungry to eat pig slop.

But finally he came to his senses. That's perspective. I've been teaching you on perspective every week in this series on strategies for stressful times. We talked about it last week. How you got to have God's perspective. He came to his senses. And that 's when we change. He came to his senses and he said to himself. What's saying to himself? Self-talk. You talk to yourself all the time. He said to himself self, this is not right. I don't have to stay this way if I don't want to. Finally he came to a senses and he said to himself why am I living like this?

At my father's home, even the hired servants eat better than I do. So he decided to get up and go home to his father. Solomon says pain will motivate me. And the prodigal son says a perspective Hey there, I don't have to live this way. The people who work for my dad eat better than I do. I go home just be a servant. And that would be better than what I'm living right now. So pain and perspective. But Job, I mean Jonah, the third guy gives us an example of how we change when we finally have no other choice.

And when Jonah hits bottom, and I mean literally bottom, he's thrown over board on the ship. He sinks to the bottom of the ocean. And in Jonah chapter two, we have Jonah's prayer at the bottom of the ocean. And one of the things he says in Jonah 2 7, one of my favorite verses in the Bible, when I had lost all hope, I turned my thoughts once again to the Lord. When you don't have any other choice, that's when you turn to the Lord. Now nothing is going to change in your life. That emptiness, that despondency, that depression, that feeling of unfulfillment.

Nothing is going to change until you get dissatisfied with the way you are. And it'll either be pain or it'll be perspective from what we talk about here or it'll be you have no other choice. But sometimes it requires all three. Now that's why Jesus starts his solution to your emptiness by saying this. Look on the screen. If you're tired In other words, if you're not tired of the way you're living, Jesus doesn't have anything to offer you. Let me just be honest with you. If you're satisfied with the way you're living right now, Jesus has nothing to offer you.

If you're self-satisfied, even smug about what happens happening in your life going oh I don't need anything. Nothing needs to improve in my life. Jesus has nothing to offer you. On the other hand, if you are tired, that means I get fed up. I am tired of living the way I'm living. If you're tired from carrying heavy loads, if you're not tired of trying to solve all the problems by yourself, Jesus can't help you. So let me ask you. Are you tired? Are you tired of running on empty? Are you fed up with the emptiness that you've been feeling in your life?

And are you willing to do something about it? As I said, we don't change until we feel the heat. You have to come to some point in your life where you go I have had enough. I refuse to live this way any longer. It is a point of dissatisfaction. All right. Now let me ask you an personal question, friend to friend. Do any of you You don't have to raise your hand on this but do you feel you're at a breaking point right now? If you do, I want you to write this down. I'm going to put it on the screen.

Write this down. A breakdown is the door to a breakthrough. Just write that down. A breakdown is always the door to a breakthrough. There is no breakthrough until you have the breakdown. The breakdown of my pride, my arrogance, my self-sufficiency. A breakdown when I realize I can't do this on my own. A breakdown is always the door to a breakthrough. And I want you as your friend to have a breakthrough now. Now let me give you another thing to write down. Write this down underneath it. I can't make a comeback until I admit my setback.

I can't make a comeback until I admit my setback. If you're unwilling to admit that you have a setback and that you're empty and that you need God's help in your life, nobody can help you right now. I can't have a comeback. Every comeback requires a setback first. But you got to admit it. Now once you've done this first step, which is get fed up. I'm fed up with the way I've been feeling. Now you're ready for step two. It's real simple. Three words. Come to Jesus. Write that down. Come to Jesus. That means you bring the good and the bad in your life.

You bring the frustrating and the painful. You bring the shameful things in your life. You bring the exhausting things in your life. You bring everything to Jesus and you come to Jesus. Jesus says this. If you're tired, okay, I'm fed up. If you're tired from carrying heavy loads, heavy burden, come to me and I'll give you rest. Now notice who you're to come to and what you're to come to. He says come to me and what he gives you back. Who do you come to? Jesus. What does he give you back? Rest. Now notice, friends, it doesn't say come to religion.

Religion can't help you. He doesn't say come to rules. Rules can't help you when you're empty. He doesn't say come to rituals. Rituals can't help you when you're empty. He doesn't say come to regulations. Regulations don't help you when you're empty. He says come to me. Come to me. The antidote to your emptiness, the antidote to your overload, the antidote to all the ucky things that you're feeling right now. That overloaded soul, that empty soul. It's not a plan for time management. Okay? It's not a program for stress relief. It 's not a philosophy. It's not a program.

It's not a pill. It's a person. Come to me. You come to Jesus. Not to religion or anything. You come to Jesus. Now I've studied scripture all my life. And you know what I've discovered? That in the Bible, people came to Jesus for a lot of different reasons. Some of them good, some of them bad. Some came for forgiveness, some came for healing, some came to Jesus for advice, some came for eternal life, some because they had a question. You know what? Jesus didn't care why people came to him as long as they came to him.

Jesus doesn't care why you come to him. Just that you come to him. Look at this verse on the screen. John 6 37. Who Jesus says whoever comes to me, I will never reject. Now notice what Jesus promises. Look at the next thing he says. He says come to me and I will give you rest. What kind of rest? Rest for your soul. That's much deeper than physical rest. Your problem right now is probably not overloaded muscles. Some of you probably need your muscles a little you need to use them a little bit more. What you have is not overloaded muscles.

What you have right now is an overloaded mind. You have an overloaded spirit. You have an overloaded soul. And we need rest not from physical work probably but from tension. We need rest from anxiety. You know what I'm talking about? We need rest from hurry. We need rest from worry. Now that's a different kind of rest, as I said. It's not just sleep. You know, how you unwind when you're physical tired is one way. How you unwind when you're exhausted and overloaded emotionally. I don't know. What do you do? What do you do when you're physically I mean spiritually and and emotionally, mentally exhausted?

What's your first choice? Watch a movie? Do your hobby? Do an exercise? Go do a sport? You know what? Those are all good things. Those are all good things but none of them can restore your soul. Only God can restore your soul. That's why Jesus said if you got soul emptiness, you got soul depression, you've got soul overload, come to me. Isaiah 40. Look at this verse on the screen. He gives power to those who are tired and worn out and he offers strength to the weak. So when you're empty inside, let let me just point out the differences.

When you're empty inside, you know what culture says? The world says when you're empty inside, you need to do more. You need to have more. You need more things. You need to make more money. That's why you're empty. Make more money, get more things, do more things, travel more places. Culture says the antidote to your emptiness is go go go go go go go more. Jesus said no, don't go. Come. Come to me. Come just as you are.

Guest (Male): Hey, if you're looking for daily encouragement from God's word, I'd like to invite you to download the Daily Hope app. It's designed to help you grow in your faith every day. It has easy access to devotionals, audio messages you can listen to anywhere, and video teaching right at your fingertips. You can even search for topics that matter to you and set a daily reminder so you never miss time with God. Just search Daily Hope in the Apple App Store or Google Play. And I hope it's a real blessing to you. 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.