Pastor Rick's Daily Hope

Host: Hello, and welcome to Pastor Rick's Daily Hope with Rick Warren. We're so glad you're here today. We're going to continue our series called The Keys to a Blessed Life. In these messages, Rick walks through Jesus' Sermon on the Mount and shows us how to live a truly hopeful and purposeful life. Let's jump back in. This is part two of It Depends On Who You Depend On.

Rick Warren: I've put down here a couple of verses that I would encourage you to memorize. One of them is for when you're young, and another one is for when you're old. But the first one everybody can memorize; it's only one sentence. Psalm 71:16. Look at this verse: "I walk in the strength of the Lord." I walk in the strength of the Lord. That's an affirmation. Psalm 71:16. In fact, let's memorize it right now. Let's say it together. Psalm 71:16. "I walk in the strength of the Lord." And where is that verse? Psalm 71:16. And what does Psalm 71:16 say? "I walk in the strength of the Lord."

Here is what I encourage you to do. Write that verse on a card and read it over and over until you've memorized it so you can say it ten times a day. You make it the most important affirmation in your life. When you get up in the morning and you want to go right back to bed and you're worn out and you go, "I don't even have enough energy to get started today," you sit on the side of your bed and you say, "I walk in the strength of the Lord."

Then when you get up and you go to school or you go to work, whatever you're doing, and you have that first conflict with somebody, you say, "I walk in the strength of the Lord." Later in the afternoon, when you get a phone call and it's bad news and it's terrible and you're frustrated and you're scared and it creates anxiety and stress, you say, "I walk in the strength of the Lord."

When late in the day you're just running out of energy and there's still a whole lot more to do, you say to yourself, "I walk in the strength of the Lord." When you go to bed at night, as you put your head down on the pillow and all of the things that you didn't get done and all of the worries and the fears and loneliness and any other thing that tends to pile in, you say, "I walk in the strength of the Lord."

That is the kind of woman God blesses. That is the kind of man God blesses. I walk in the strength of the Lord. I don't just depend on God's wisdom and do the right thing. I do the right thing with the right power. I'm not doing the right thing under my power; I'm doing the right thing under God's power. God, I need you to give me the energy. I need to plug into the power.

When you get older, you're going to face the pains and problems of aging. That gets pretty frightening. Just talk to somebody who's getting up in age and ask them. Here's a good verse for then, when maybe your body isn't working like it should and your mind isn't as sharp as it used to be and maybe you're starting to get a little Alzheimer's or a little dementia. Psalm 73:26 says this: "My health may fail and my spirit may grow weak, but God remains the strength of my heart. He is mine forever."

That's a great verse to remember. Everything else may fall apart in my life, but God is the strength of my heart; he is mine forever. One of the most famous Christians of the 19th century was a guy named Hudson Taylor. He was a very famous missionary to China and he was a spiritual giant, a brilliant man. Later in age, though, he lived to be an old man, and in his old age, he lost his health and became very, very weak.

He wrote this letter to a friend and it said this: "I am so weak I can no longer work. I am so weak I can no longer study. I'm so weak I can no longer read my Bible. I cannot even pray. I can only lie still in the arms of God like a little child and trust." That's good enough.

Sometimes in your life, you're going to be so weak you can't even pray. Sometimes in your life, you're going to be so weak you can't read the Bible. You can't go to a Bible study; you can't work; you can't do anything. What do you do in those moments? You're just lying there in bed so weak. I rest in the strength of the Lord in his arms like a little child, and I trust.

Weakness can actually be a good thing in your life if it causes you to depend on God. Look at this verse here on the screen. This is from Saint Paul. Paul says this in 2 Corinthians 12: "Three times I begged God to take away my weakness." You have some weaknesses you'd like God to take away; you've probably asked him to. "And each time God said, 'My grace is all you need. My power works best in your weakness.' So you don't need anything else; you just need me. My power works best in your weakness."

Paul says, "So I now gladly boast. I boast about how weak I am. I used to hide my weaknesses; I used to be ashamed of my weaknesses." Paul says, "Not anymore. I'm proud of my weaknesses. Why? Because when I'm weakest, the power of Christ works in me and shows up through me. And when I'm weak, then I am strong."

That's the paradox of depending on God. The more you're weak, the more you depend on God. The more you depend on God, the stronger you get. You do the right thing, but you do it in the power of God, not in your own power. Now there's a third one, and this is a big one where you can learn dependence, being poor in spirit this week so God can bless you. Tom's going to come talk about it. To be blessed by God, I depend on God's wisdom and I depend on God's strength, but the third thing is I depend on God's timing, not mine. I depend on God's timing, not mine.

Tom: The older I get, the more I understand how timing is so important in every area of life. Look at it in sports; you can see it easily. The difference between a professional pitcher and an amateur is timing. The difference between a professional golf player and an amateur is timing. You can see it in things like cooking. A professional cook knows it takes 37 seconds in the toaster for the perfect Pop-Tart. They know that if they're a real professional.

You just see it in all kinds of areas of life. You see it in your life. God's timing, the right timing, is God working in the right way in your life. The Bible is really clear about the fact that there are seasons to our life. One of those seasons that God talks about again and over again is the season of waiting. He is working in our lives during this season of waiting.

While you're waiting, God is working. Don't think that the season of waiting means that God has stopped working. He's still working; he's just taking us through a season of waiting because of timing, because of what he's doing in our lives, because of what he's doing in circumstances. That's why the Bible says in Psalm 31:14-15, "I trust in you, O Lord. You are my God. My times are in your hands."

You're going to spend a lot of life waiting. If you don't figure out how to trust God while you're waiting, you're going to spend a lot of life not trusting God because there's a lot of life where we are in God's waiting room. Have you ever been in a hurry when God wasn't? That happens to anybody else? I mean, you want it to go along, but it's just not going along. God is never in a hurry.

God is never in a hurry because he's eternal. He is watching; he is working; he is seeing how and when you will trust him as you're waiting. We're saying, "When, Lord, when is it going to happen?" and God's saying, "What am I doing in your life? You can trust me with this."

The problem with waiting is our human nature and the culture around us. Everything about it says don't wait; get things as quickly as you can. I mean, we have fast-track and fast passes, and one of the best business magazines is Fast Company. Everything is fast. When I go through the drive-through to get food, I like to give my food at the first window, and I want to see the bag come out so I can just keep driving by and grab it as I go by. I don't want to even wait 20 seconds. That's the way we tend to be wired in our culture, and it goes against God's blessing in our lives.

God's blessing comes through these times of waiting. Ecclesiastes 3:11 says God has set the right time for everything. I know some of you right now, you are in a time of waiting. Maybe it's for school to end, maybe it's for a man or a woman to come into your life, maybe it's for a marriage to happen or for a baby to come. You're in this time of waiting in your life.

If you were honest, you would say, "I'm frustrated right now with how slow this is working." We've all been there at times. There's a promise in the Bible that tells you not only that God is working but also how God is working. It's an important promise to understand for how God works in our lives during these times of waiting. Isaiah 60:22 says, "I am the Lord, and when it is time, I will make these things happen quickly."

Here's how God's working, how he works in our lives, and it will drive you crazy. You wait and wait and wait for something, and then all of a sudden God just gives it to you all at once. It's just overwhelming, and you say, "I was asking for it, but could you slow it down a little bit now?"

This can happen with a lot of people who have been through adoptions where they've started the adoption process and they thought the adoption was going to go through in a few months, and they waited months and months and sometimes years and years and thought it never was going to happen. Then they get the phone call, and the phone call says, "Okay, we've got the baby for you. Are you ready in two days? And you've got to go pick them up in another country. Can you do that?"

That's how God works many times. That's how God worked in sending Jesus into this world. The Bible tells us that the world waited thousands of years for Jesus to come the first time, but at the right time, Jesus came into the world. We've been waiting 2000 years now for Jesus to come again. When's he going to come again? God's right time. That's when he's going to come.

You might write this down. A delay is not a denial. Just remember that a delay is not a denial. We think God is saying no, but really God is saying, "Not yet. Will you keep trusting me through this?" This has to do many times with how we talk to God about it, how we pray. Sometimes when we pray about something, we say, "God, I want to give you first option on this. Can you do this really fast? If you don't get it done, then I'm going to go get it done myself. I don't care what I have to do; I'm going to get it done."

God is saying, "No, are you trusting me?" Micah talked about that. Micah 7:7 says, "I trust the Lord to save me, and I will wait on him." I'm not going to go out and get it myself. I'm not going to accomplish this myself. I'm going to wait on him to answer my prayer. That is the kind of faith that God blesses.

Rick Warren: One of the things that Tom just said is brilliant, so you need to write this down: While I'm waiting, God's working. You need to write that down. A lot of times we think while I'm waiting, nothing's happening, but God is often working behind the scenes in ways you can't even see to get you ready for the answer to your prayer. While you're waiting, God's working. It's not like God's waiting; while you're waiting, God's working.

A good example of that is how we got this land for Saddleback Church here at Lake Forest. You know, we started many, many years ago over in Laguna Hills High School. The church began to grow, and the more it began to grow, we had to go to other different buildings. At one point, we were using four different high schools in the same week. We were using Laguna Hills High School on one day, Mission Viejo High School on another day, El Toro High School on another day, and Trabuco Hills High School on another day.

In fact, in the first 13 years of this church, because we didn't have any land to build on, we used 79 different buildings. Can you imagine that? We said, "We're the church, if you can figure out where we are this week, you get to come." We were literally—there's a church up in LA called the Church on the Way—we were the church on the move because you never knew where we were from week to week.

The church kept growing, and we went from one service to two services, to three services, to four services, to five services, to six services. And I'm going, "Anytime, Lord, we'd like to have a building now." I'd look around, and friends of mine who were pastors, they got a building, and they got a building, and they got a building. One day, God said to me, "Rick, who are you doing this for?" I said, "Well, I'm doing it for you, Lord." He said, "Well, does it matter what I do in other people's lives? You just follow me."

He said, "Would you still serve me if the church I call you to lead and pastor never has a building?" I said, "Of course I would. Of course I would." The fact is, while we were waiting, God was working. God was preparing this piece of land, 120 acres. That's bigger than most college campuses.

But the problem was nobody knew where this piece was because while we were starting the church, there was no city of Rancho Santa Margarita. There was no city of Foothill Ranch. There wasn't even a Lake Forest; there was an El Toro. There were no roads around here; there was no freeway. This was a cow pasture. Nobody even knew it was here.

But a thousand years ago, a million years ago, God had already planned that's where I'm going to put part of my church, part of my body called Saddleback. I'm going to put them right there. We just had to wait for everything to happen for God to give us this piece of property.

I can't tell you how many times we were tempted in early years to settle for something small. People would say, "Here's a half-acre of land, here's a third-acre of land." We could have bought that. Each time, I'd say, "No, it's too small. It's too small." I just kept trusting God for this. If we had bought it, we would have built a church that seated 200, and none of you would be here.

Now, let me just give you a little lesson. God always gives his best to those who wait. If you get in a hurry, you're going to settle for second best in your life. Before God brings the best man into your life, the best woman into your life, the best job into your life, the best opportunity into your life, Satan's going to give you all kinds of detours. He'll say, "Hey, see me over here? Me over here?" You go, "I'm getting tired. Why don't we just pick this one?"

You settle for less than God's best in your life. Don't do it. As your pastor who loves you, I'm telling you, don't do it. If you will wait for God's best, God always gives his best to those who leave the choice to him. But if you get frantic and you get nervous and you get in a hurry and you start trying to answer your own prayer, you will have a fatal flaw and a terrible mistake in your life.

That's what Abraham did. God promised Abraham, "I'm going to give you a son." When it didn't happen and didn't happen and didn't happen because his wife was unable to conceive at that point, he took her handmaid, got her pregnant, and had a little boy named Ishmael. He said, "Here, God, I got the miracle son." God says, "That's not the baby I'm going to give you. That's your plan. That's not my plan; that's your plan."

If you want God's blessing, you've got to learn this truth very deeply. Spiritual poverty means I don't do it myself. I depend on God's wisdom, I depend on God's strength, and I depend on God's timing. He'll answer it when he's ready to answer it and when he knows I'm ready for the answer. I'm going to trust him.

All right, number four. Let me give you another way to practice this week. To be blessed by God, I depend on God's wisdom, God's strength, God's timing, and I also depend on God's defense, not mine. I depend on God's defense, not mine.

There's always going to be people in your life who misunderstand you. Do you agree with that? There'll always be people around you who misunderstand you. There will always be people who don't like you. There will always be people who criticize you, judge you, attack you, gossip about you, spread rumors about you. A lot of people think, "If I could just be perfect, then everybody would like me." Wrong.

Jesus was perfect, and a lot of people didn't like him. So even if you were perfect, even if you were Jesus, there would be people who are just not going to like you. They're going to attack and they're going to criticize and they're going to try to get—even in your closest relationships, those who love you most, your boyfriend, your girlfriend, your husband, your wife, those who love you most, you're still going to be misunderstood by them because we live in a broken world.

When you are misunderstood, you're going to have a tendency to get in there and defend yourself. When you're attacked, your tendency is to attack back. When people criticize you, you want to criticize back. People slam you, you want to slam them back. People insult you, you want to insult them back. You're out on the freeway, somebody expresses to you the international sign of displeasure, you want to express the international sign of displeasure back to them. Don't do it.

Let God be your defender. Don't defend yourself. God says every time you get under attack, get criticized, get put down, get misunderstood, now you've got two choices. You can defend yourself, or you can let me defend you. What will it be? Who do you think can do a better job of defending you? Yeah, God can.

I would like to thank you. Thank you for being a part of our Daily Hope family. I don't get to say that often enough, but your generosity is helping us share the hope of Jesus with people here at home and literally all around the world, even in places where it's difficult and even dangerous to get the good news.

I recently heard from a woman named Eunice in Cameroon. Cameroon is a country in Central Africa. She wrote to me and she said, "Pastor Rick, I lost both of my son and my daughter in the war. And now I'm raising four grandchildren on my own. I was overwhelmed with grief." But then she says, "Through the Daily Hope devotionals, I have found strength and comfort and peace in God's word. So thank you for helping me hold on to hope."

Wow, that's powerful. That's powerful. That happened because your giving is helping Eunice find the strength to carry on, to raise her grandchildren and to keep trusting God, even through the deep loss of her kids. Now right now, I wanted to tell you about this because we have a special opportunity.

There are some generous friends who have offered a matching grant. What that means is whatever you give will be doubled. They'll match it. That means whatever you give today will go twice as far to reach even more people with God's word. So can I ask you a favor? I want to encourage you to give the best gift you can today. Together, let's keep bringing the hope of Jesus Christ to people like Eunice and to the billions of other people who still need to hear.

There are still people who've never heard the name of Jesus. We want to keep expanding to get the message to the whole world. So help us out. Let me just close by saying I love you. I do, I love you. I thank God for you, and I am so grateful that we are in this mission together. God bless you.

Host: If you'd like to support Pastor Rick's Daily Hope, just go to pastorrick.com. That's pastorrick.com. Or you can text the word HOPE to 70309. That's the word HOPE to 70309. From the bottom of our hearts, we thank you so much for your support. Your gift to Daily Hope helps us share the hope of Christ with people everywhere. Be sure to join us next time when 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.