Pastor Rick's Daily Hope

Guest (Male): Hey everybody, thanks for spending some time with us at Pastor Rick's Daily Hope. We are so glad you're here. You know, no matter where you are in life or what you're facing today, God has a purpose and plan for your life. Today we continue our series called Building a Better Future. In this series, Rick Warren explores the lives of biblical leaders who rebuild after seasons of hardship and captivity. You'll discover practical biblical principles to help you move forward with hope and confidence as you trust God's plan for your life. And now here's the final part of a message called Making a Plan to Improve Your Life.

Rick Warren: Step four is this, establish a clear target. That's the next verse, verse five. Nehemiah 2 5, you establish a clear target. Nehemiah 2 5 says, after praying, I answered, if it pleases your majesty, and if your servant is found favor in your sight, then send me to the city in Judah, that's Jerusalem, where my ancestors are buried so that I can rebuild it. Now notice, Nehemiah gets very specific here. He wants to establish a goal. He wants to rebuild the wall. He says, I want you to send me to my hometown and he's very specific.

I want to rebuild the wall. I want to rebuild the city. This is the next step in life planning. You set a goal. You got to have a target. You've all heard, if you aim at nothing, you're going to hit it. So you ask yourself some some simple questions. In the next year, what do I want to be? In the next year, what do I want to do? In the next year, what do I want to have? In the rest of my life, what do I want to be? What do I want to do? What do I want to have?

These are the questions you have to ask in establishing a goal. Now let me tell you something. I've done a lot of goal setting in my life and there are two common errors that people make in goal setting. We set them too low and we try to accomplish them too quickly. Most people set little teeny tiny goals and then try to do them immediately. I want to challenge you to set a big goal so big you're bound to fail unless God bails you out. But spend the rest of your life going after it. That's what I did with Saddleback.

You know, inch by inch, anything's a cinch. How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. You set big goals, you make big plans so big that God has to bail you out. You let the size of your God determine the size of your goal. You see, God loves big planning. Why? It honors him. It honors God to be a big planner. It it it's what you're expecting God to do. And and it's saying, God, I'm trusting you to help me to do this. This is what I want God to do in my life.

So Nehemiah says, okay, I'll tell you what I want. I want to go rebuild the wall around the whole city of my hometown. Had he ever built a wall? No. Was he a builder? No. He's a wine steward. And he's going to go home and do a a rebuilding project for an entire city. He never built anything. He's a cup bearer. But he has a big goal. As I said, we set our goals too low and we try to accomplish them too quickly. So your first is to get the prayer behind you. Then you think it through and you prepare for the opportunity so that when God opens up the opportunity, you're ready for it.

And then when it's there, you're ready to say what you need. You know, people say, well, you know, that guy has all the luck. He gets all the breaks. You know what I found? The more I plan and the more I prepare, the luckier I get. Okay, it's not about luck. It 's about preparation. The opportunities are always there all around you. You just have to be ready for them. You got to see them. How will you see them? By praying, by preparing, by waiting. And then you establish a goal. And then you come to the next step.

Step five in life planning is this, set a deadline. Set a deadline. Nehemiah 2 6, then the king, with the queen sitting beside him. Why why Nehemiah mentions that, I don't know, but maybe it's because she had a little impact or a little input on her husband. The king with the queen sitting beside him asked, how long will your work take? And when will you get back? That's a legitimate question. Yeah, I I'm going to loan my top guy to go to a project. Now the king was willing to send me, Nehemiah says, so underline this, circle it.

I set a time. That's the next step. Step five is set a deadline. A goal has to have a deadline. If your goal doesn't have a deadline, it's not a goal. This is the scheduling part of life planning. You know what you want to do and then you know when you want to do it. You schedule it. You put it in your calendar and you ask the question, how long is it going to take? Probably longer than you think. You know, Nehemiah 5 14, Nehemiah actually tells us he actually came back to the Persian Empire 12 years later because he was popular with this king.

King didn't want him to leave. And so the king says, how long are you going to be gone? You know, it showed that the king really did like Nehemiah. But why did Nehemiah throw in the queen is sitting beside him? Am I guess that she had an influence over the king's receptivity? Probably Nehemiah and the queen were pretty good friends and he's the king's right-hand man and she's sitting there and he's pouring the wine and everybody's happy and Nehemiah says, you know, I'd really like to go back home and rebuild the wall around my hometown where my father's graves are.

And probably the queen said to her husband, honey, let him go. Let him go. And maybe Nehemiah timed it this way, but God had a time in it and you have to have timing. Nehemiah establishes a deadline. He puts it on his calendar. Remember this, a dream without a deadline is just an empty wish. A dream without a deadline is just an empty wish. It won't go anywhere. Now here's the sixth step in life planning. Anticipate the barriers that all face. Anticipate the barriers that all face. Nehemiah 2 7 and 8 he says, then I asked the king to give me Listen to this cuz he's already thought through what the barriers are going to be.

Nehemiah says, then I asked the king to give me letters for the governors of all the territories west of the Euphrates River. That's stuff he's going to have to travel through to get back to to Israel. Give me letters of passage for the governors of the territories west of the Euphrates River, giving me safe travel to Judah. He says, I also asked for a letter to the keeper of the king's royal forest. Get this, instructing him to supply me with the timber that I would need to rebuild the gates of the city and the city walls and by by the way, for a house for me to live in.

Now he 's already asked permission to go. Now he's asking for protection and then he's asking for provision. He says, you know, if it pleases the king, give me these letters to these governors so I can have safe travel. It's about 800 to 1,000 miles journey between Iraq and Israel and he's got to go through a lot of provinces. You didn't travel freely in those days. You had to go through proper procedures. You had to show your papers and he goes, please give me the letters of authority so I'll have clear sailing so when I get over there, there's no problem.

I just need the traveling permits. So he's already thought through what he's going to need. He's asked for permission. Now he's asking for protection. This implied that he'd thought it out. Remember, he's asked he's just been put on the spot. What do you want? Well, he had already thought it through. If somebody asked you right now, what do you want in the next year of your life? Have you already thought it through? And would you go live? I don't know. I don't know what I want. It's a clear example planning. He's not just praying, he's not just preparing during those four months.

He's planning for the opportunity so he know us to say what he needs. So the questions you want to ask yourself in your own planning is when you're anticipating problems, ask some stuff like this. What could hold me back? What could hold me back? You're planning some goal, some project, some dream. Ask yourself, why don't I have it already? What could hold me back? What are the problems, the potential problems? What are the barriers? What could go wrong? If anything could go wrong, it probably will. Nehemiah again is thinking ahead in this life plan. He's already thought through what he wants.

He's already thought ahead about where he wants to go. Now he 's anticipating the problems. Part of the planning process of your life is to anticipate problems in advance. I have to do this all the time as a leader, Saddleback, to see the problems before they actually get there and plan for them in advance. Proverbs 27 verse two says this, a sensible man looks for the problems ahead and prepares to meet them. These are all important steps. You might want to listen to this message again a second time. You see another part of anticipating the barriers is calculate the cost in advance because there's always a price tag for every dream and for every goal.

Nehemiah actually gives the king He's asked for permission to go. Then he's asked for protection. Now he gives the king a shopping list. He says, I want you to let me go and I want you to give me protection. And by the way, I want you to pay for it too. And notice what he asked for. He asked for the lumber. He says, I I I need you to give me a letter to the head of all your royal lumber uh to give me what I need to build the beams for the city gates. Uh okay, I I thought that out.

Then he says that and I'm going to need lumber for the city walls. That's second thing. He said, and by the way, I'm going to need lumber for my own house. Now is Nehemiah a contractor? No. He's never built anything. He he he's never built anything in his life. He's a cup bearer. Yet when he has the opportunity, he rattles off exactly what's needed. Why? He has a plan. Now how did Nehemiah know what to ask for? Well, evidently calculated the cost. How in the world did he know there was a royal forest near Jerusalem?

Evidently I did do advanced planning. So this whole chapter indicates he knows what he's doing when he gets into the situation. He even knows the name of the foreman. He's already figured it out way in advance so that when the opportunity arose, he he's prepared for the opportunity. Now what am I saying through about all this in this step? It took a lot of faith cuz Nehemiah is taking an enormous risk. Just look what he's asking for. He's asking a pagan king to let him do something the king had already said will never be done, build walls around Jerusalem.

He asked for permission to go build the wall. If you didn't like your request, it's off with your head. He's scared to death. And and you know, if most of us had gotten the okay right there, uh we probably would have breathed a sigh of relief and beat a hasty retreat. Uh we wouldn't have even dared to ask for anything else. But Nehemiah just keeps asking the king and he even says, I want you to pay for it all. So as I said, he asked for permission, then protection, then provision. I want you to pay for it all.

You know, some people schedule their plan and they think of their plan, but forget to budget for it. Jesus pointed this out. Look at this verse on your outline. Luke 14 27 28, Jesus said, you will never be my disciple if you're not willing to carry your cross and follow me. So don't look at this. Don't begin until you count the cost. Who would begin building without first figuring the cost and seeing if they had enough money to complete it all? All right? So there's a budgeting part to your life plan. Not thinking through what energy it's going to take, what connections it's going to take, what money is it going to take?

Now there is a sub point here that I want you to I want you to understand. Leaders and people that are used by God are willing to ask others for assistance. You're never going to be fully used by God until you learn how to ask other people for help cuz nobody can do what God calls them to do on their own. James 4 2 says, you don't have cuz you don't ask. How many people have you said no to for many times and well, she really wouldn't want to do this. You said no on their behalf.

Well, you nobody would want to help me with this. You don't know that. You don't know what people will say. Don't ever say no for other people. Let people say no for themselves. Now again, that takes faith. It takes incredible boldness to do what Nehemiah does. He asks the king, a pagan king who has death and life in the power of his hand. It's risky business, but because he's prayed and he's planned, he's prepared, he's ready, then he's strong enough that even though he's standing there with his knees shaking to death, he keeps pushing it.

Now the wisest risks, listen to me, are those that are taken after prayer and planning. To take a risk before prayer, before planning is presumptuous. Proverbs 21 verse one, it's not on your outline, says this, the king's heart is in the hand of the Lord and he directs it like water course wherever he pleases. If God wants to move somebody in any direction, he can. And here's a clear example that proverb where God took a pagan king and moved his heart all around. The point is God's a specialist in changing hearts. Now listen. Some of you have dreams in your life that you want to get done.

You want to you've dreamed about it in your business, but you're not the CEO of your company. Maybe you're in middle management and I want to say to you, the heart of the executive is in the hand of the Lord and he can turn it whichever way he wishes. The company's president is in the hand of the Lord. You need to remember that. God is in the business of changing hearts. It's up to him. He's sovereign. Okay? So don't tell me that other people won't let you do what God has called you to do. Just start believing and trusting and watch what happens.

Now let me ask you, do you really want to grow spiritually? You know, the very fact that you're here listening to this message means you want to grow. What plans have you made for that in the next year? You know, we plan everything else in our life. Why don't we plan our spiritual growth? Do you have a plan to read through the Bible? Do you have a plan to set aside a certain time every day for prayer? Do you have a plan to talk to that person about at work about the Lord? Do you have a plan to invite him over for dinner to your house and get to know him and then invite him to church?

Have you planned it or you just letting it hoping it'll happen someday? Very few things happen spontaneously. You need a plan. A plan for Bible reading, plan for witnessing, a plan for prayer, plan for all the things that are important in your life. And the plans you have that you just think up and then ask God to bless, that's not what we're talking about. What we're talking about is saying, God, not help me to not do what I'm blessing, I bless what I 'm doing. Instead you pray, God, help me to do what you're blessing.

What's your plan? If you're getting your plans from the Lord, they'll be big enough for him to fit in. That's how you know they're from God. Now let me point out here. Nehemiah didn't try to manipulate the king. When the king asked, what's wrong? He was totally honest. My home's in shambles, my hometown. He didn't make up some phony story. He didn't make up a story about going back to Jerusalem under false pretenses. He didn't manipulate the king. He didn't trick him. He didn't play games with him. He didn't use any deceit. He just He had already talked to God about it.

When you have a boss who's unsympathetic to a project or a goal that you don't you want to do, don't manipulate him. Don't play games with them. Just talk to God about them. You don't have to know the key men in life if you know the man who holds the keys because the heart of the king is in the hand of the Lord and he can turn it any way. Now when you try to change somebody, that's manipulation. Let God change the heart. And that leaves us to the last step. And the last step number seven is this, trust God to meet all my needs.

When you're writing out this life plan, trust God to meet all the needs you think. I don't have that. How could I how could I ever do this plan? I don't have what I need. Nehemiah 2 7 and 8 says this. Nehemiah says, because God's gracious favor was on me, the king gave me everything I asked for. Notice he gives God the credit. Nehemiah gives God all the credit and remember he's This is autobiographical. This part we're looking at in the series on uh on Nehemiah that is not in the first person, but it does talk about Nehemiah and it does say He doesn't Nehemiah doesn't say, look at what my planning did.

What he says is, look at what God did. God was behind it all. He knew that it wasn't his cleverness. Uh mark of spiritual maturity is when you recognize that God 's hand is behind the people who are helping you or may be delaying the project. God was with me, he says. If Nehemiah hadn't prayed and hadn't planned setting this thing up, nothing would have happened. Now let me close with a couple reminders as we've been talking about planning your life for building a better future. Two things you need to keep in in mind. Proverbs 16 verse one says this, we may make our plans, but God has the last word.

Have I ever had plans that didn't turn out the way I planned? Yeah, over and over and over. Why? Cuz I missed it. We we're human beings. We don't always get the right plan. Your plan isn't infallible. My plan isn't infallible. We can make our plans and God tells us to make our plans, but God has the last word. And so if my plan doesn't happen in my time or in my way, I just go God, I trust your plan better than mine. And James chapter four verse 15 says this, that when you plan, you ought to always say if it's the Lord's will.

James 4 15, what you ought to say is if it is the Lord's will, we will live long enough to do this or that. That's godly goal setting. Now let me just close by applying this to your personal life. What would you like God to do in your life in the next six months, in the next year, the next five years? What would you like to change? What do you want to be better in your future? We're talking about building a better future. It all starts with these seven principles. When God finds a person willing to do it his way, in his timing, based on his power, he will always provide the resources.

I have found that to be in true in my life for 50 years. Now the summary of this chapter is a beautiful example of the harmony that takes place between God's part and my part in accomplishing what God wants done on Earth. God's part is the sovereignty part and I'm trusting him in the timing and the location and the resources and all those things that are out of my control. My part is in the praying and in the planning and doing what I can control. You see, we pray for God to set up circumstances that are out of our control, but then we plan for all the things that are under our control.

God has a part and you have a part in building a better future in your life. God won't do what he's given you the brains to do. And you can't do what only God will do. Now if you've never opened your life to Jesus Christ, you need to you you need his power and presence in your life first. So let's just close with the prayer and if you've never opened your life to Jesus Christ and had the power and the presence of God come into your life, follow me in this prayer. Let's bow our heads.

Say, dear Jesus Christ, I I I know you put me on this planet for a purpose and I want to fulfill your purpose for my life. I I want the life plan that you have planned for me. So I'm first of all asking you to come into my life. I want to have a relationship with you. Just say that. I want to have a relationship with you. I want to get to know you and learn to trust you. And I ask you to guide me and I ask you to give me wisdom in building a better future.

I surrender myself to your purpose for my life. In your name I pray. Amen.

Guest (Male): Hey, if you've just prayed along with Rick to accept Jesus in your life, Rick would love to hear from you. Just email Rick at pasterrick.com. We'll send you free tools to help start your relationship with Jesus. And now let's hear how lives are changing through Daily Hope. Here's Rick with a letter from one of our listeners.

Rick Warren: You know, I love hearing from people who are growing closer to God through our Daily Hope broadcasts and and emails. And it really encourages me when I hear your story. So please send them to me. You know, here's one that I got recently from Suzanne that I think is going to encourage you too. Suzanne wrote, I've been listening to Daily Hope for over a year and I get so much out of it. Sometimes it seem as though you're speaking directly to me. Well, I am, Suzanne. Somehow she says I started listening to your Daily Hope messages and I feel that God made that happen because for the first time in my life I'm understanding the teaching of Jesus and I feel so alive.

My eyes are open and I look forward to each day. I haven't had a boring life, but I was always missing something that I just never could find. Suzanne writes, you know, I was incarcerated as a teen and I was married and I had a baby at 18 and that marriage was terribly abusive. And even at the lowest points in my life, I somehow had an optimism that somehow it would get better. And I now know that God was with me even though I didn't recognize it at the time. So thank you, Pastor Rick, for spreading the word of good hope.

You know, Suzanne, I want to thank you so much for writing what you just wrote and I'm so glad Daily Hope is helping you understand the Bible and God is speaking to you through his word. My friends, this story is what Daily Hope exists for. It's why we exist. We want to share the hope of God's word with people just like Suzanne. So I want to say to all of you, thank you so much, those of you who generously support Daily Hope so that people like Suzanne can discover God's goodness and God's grace and God's mercy.

You know, if God is blessing you through Daily Hope, would you share your story with me? Write me Rick at pasterrick.com.

Guest (Male): 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.