Rick Warren - When Life Shakes You, Only This Will Hold You

You know, probably the most common greeting that you hear,

particularly among believers, is God bless you. And we say

it not just when people sneeze, we say God bless you.

Have you ever thought, what in the world does that mean?

What's a blessing?

How do you define a blessing? Would you know a

blessing if it slapped you in the face? I mean,

the Bible says that sometimes a problem is a blessing.

So when you say, God, bless them really great, you say,

given a bunch of problems? Really, what in the world

is a blessing? And if you pray for God to

bless somebody, how do you even know if it's happened

or not if you don't know what a blessing is?

The word blessed in the Bible is the Greek word makarios, makarios.

And makarios is the word for.

Happy, happy.

It is the word for happiness. To be blessed is

to be happy. To have a blessing is to have

happiness in your life. And when Jesus talks about you're

blessed if you do this, you're blessed, he's saying you're

gonna be happy if you do this. It's the exact

same word. Now today we're gonna begin quite a long

series through Jesus' most famous sermon. It's called the Sermon

on the Mount. And Jesus begins the Sermon on the

Mount by talking about eight ways to be blessed by God.

Eight ways to receive God's blessing on your life. You

could call it eight ways to be happy. The truth is,

I want you as your pastor, I love you, I

love you. And I want God to bless your life.

I want him to bless your relationships. If you're in school,

I want you to bless your studies. If you're married,

I want you to bless your marriage. I want him

to bless your finances. I want God to bless your health.

I want God to bless your talent. I want God

to bless your future. So I'm extremely interested in how

to receive the blessings of God. Now, as we study scripture,

we find that the problem isn't with God, the problem

is with us. God wants to bless your life, you

just have to get blessable. And a lot of us

don't live lives in ways that God can bless. God

isn't gonna bless sin. God isn't gonna bless arrogance. God

isn't gonna bless indifference. There are a lot of things

God will not bless. And so when Jesus starts his

most famous sermon, the first thing he begins with, I'm

gonna teach you the eight conditions for receiving God's blessing

in your life. And for the next eight weeks, we're

gonna look at each of those eight conditions in detail.

We're calling it the P's to a blessed life.

Now let me read the first verses. In Matthew chapter five,

this isn't on your outline, but the Sermon on the

Mount is in Matthew chapter five, chapter six, and chapter seven.

We're gonna go through all three of those chapters verse

by verse in the days ahead. And chapter five starts

like this. When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up

on the mountain, and after he sat down, his disciples

came to him and he began to teach them. And

he says this, blessed are the poor in spirit, for

theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Now that doesn't tell

me a whole lot, because I don't understand most of

the words in that verse. First, I don't know what

poor in spirit means, and I don't know what the

kingdom of heaven is. So we've gotta unpack this for

you to understand the benefit to your life. First, what

is the kingdom of heaven? Is that different from the

kingdom of God? Well, I'm gonna ask you to hold

your questions on this because I promise you, in this series,

we're gonna deal in depth with this issue. We're gonna

look at what is the kingdom of God and why

it is so incredibly important to your life and why

you definitely wanna be a part of it. And we're

gonna go into that in detail, explaining what is the

kingdom of God. But this week, as we start the series,

I want us to look at just the first six

words of Jesus' most famous sermon And the first six.

Words he starts with, the first word he starts with, blessed.

Now I like that. God starts teaching with a blessing.

He doesn't start with, let me give you eight curses.

He gives you eight blessings. That's my kind of preacher.

And he says, let me tell you eight ways to

be happy. That's the first thing Jesus talks about in

the Sermon on the Mount.

Here's what he says.

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the

kingdom of heaven. So the first word out of his

mouth to you is a blessing. Now, what does it

mean to be poor in spirit? Well, he's not talking

about physical poverty. He didn't say blessed are the poor.

He says blessed are the poor in spirit. He's not

talking about economic poverty. He's not talking about material poverty.

He's not talking about physical poverty. He's talking about spiritual poverty.

He's talking about maintaining a certain kind of attitude. For

you to understand this, I put there on your outline

several other translations of this verse so you could actually

see a fuller understanding of what it means to be

poor in spirit. For instance, the New Living Translation says,

God blesses those who realize their need for him. The

God's Word Translation says, God blesses those who recognize.

They're spiritually helpless.

The Common English Version says, God blesses those who are

who depend only on him.

You can see a pattern developing here.

He's saying, I recognize that I am inadequate to live

my life without God. Without God in my life, I

am spiritually poor. Without God's help in my life, I

am spiritually poor.

I am inadequate.

A good verse that helps clarify this is Psalm 146.

There in your outline, verse five. The Lord blesses everyone

who trusts him and depends on him. Circle the word

trust and the word depend. This is the first condition

for God's blessing on your life. You gotta trust him.

You've gotta depend on him. And that's what it means

to be poor in spirit. In fact, let me give

you a definition. Why don't you write this down? To

be poor in spirit, which is the first condition for

God's blessing on your life, means I humbly depend on

God instead of myself.

That's what it means.

To be poor in spirit means I humbly depend on

God instead of myself because I know I'm inadequate to

handle all the problems that face me in life. So

if I want God's blessing on my relationship to my girlfriend,

my boyfriend, my husband, my wife, or anybody else, then

I've got to be dependent upon God. If I want

God's blessing in my work, in my career, in my studies,

if I want God's blessing in my finances, in my health,

I have to humbly depend on God instead of myself.

So then the question becomes, how do you do that?

How do I actually depend on God on a daily

basis and on a moment by moment basis? Well, this weekend,

I want to give you Five practical ways to do

this from the word of God. And these are five

practical ways. You can practice every one of them this week.

And if you practice these, you will become a woman

or a man who is poor in spirit, which means

you depend on God rather than yourself.

You understand your need for God in your life.

And then that's the kind of woman, that's the kind

of man that God says, I like to bless. So

let me just get right into it. You might write

this first one down. Five ways to express my dependence

on God. Number one, to be blessed by God, first,

I depend on God's wisdom, not mine. I depend on

God's wisdom, not my wisdom, not my own. In other words,

I listen to what God says, I follow what God

says to do, and I do what he says to do.

Now let's look at some verses together from the Bible.

Proverbs chapter 14, verse 12 says this. There is a way,

Proverbs 14:12

there is a way that seems right to a man,

but in the end, it leads to death. Now circle

the word seems. There's a way that seems right to us,

to human beings, but in the end, it's a dead end.

He said our ideas often lead to dead ends. It

leads to death. Have you ever in your life had

this feeling that something was so very, very, very right

and you just knew it was the right thing to

do and you felt it with all your heart and

then you did it and it ended up being so very,

very dumb or very, very wrong or it became a

total fiasco and a failure?

That's what this verse is all about.

There's a way that seems right to us, but it

often ends, he says, in a dead end. And every

one of us could give a testimony on this, where

you've had this feeling, this hunch that this is the

perfect job, and it ends up being a dead end.

This is the perfect relationship, the one I've always needed.

the one I've always wanted, and that relationship ends up

a dead end. This is the perfect person that I

should marry, and I know this is the person, and

we all know people who've made that decision, and it

flopped miserably. Parents will often think, I know this is

the right thing to say to my kids. And then

it has the exact opposite effect on the kids and

actually harms them rather than hurting them. It happens in friendships.

It can happen in investments. I know this is where

I should put my money. This is a sure winner.

This is a big deal. I know if I invest

in this, man, I'm gonna clean house. It's gonna be great.

And then it just totally flops. You could probably, and

we could probably spend the rest of the night doing this,

Think of painful examples where you wish that you would

listen to God instead of your gut. Because God is

filled with truth and your gut is.

Filled with pizza.

So your gut's often wrong. Just because you think it

doesn't make it right. And just because you feel it

certainly doesn't make it right.

Feelings lie.

Lie. They lie to you all the time. I mean,

there's an old country western song that says, how could

it be wrong when it feels so right?

Are you kidding me?

There are a lot of things that are wrong that

feel so right at the moment.

Are you kidding me?

That's about the most immature, stupid thing you could say.

Because a lot of.

Stuff feels so right, and it ends up being so bad.

And Six months later you're saying about that relationship, what

was I thinking? How in the world did I get

messed up in that one? How did I get my

life so tangled in something so stupid and so dumb

and now I'm scarred and I'm hurt and I'm burdened

and I'm going, am I gonna.

Recover from this?

The Bible says there's a way that seems right but

it ends in a dead end.

So the first way to.

Get God's blessing in your life is I depend on

God's wisdom not my feelings, not my thoughts, not whatever

else is telling me. I depend on God's wisdom, not mine.

Do you know someone who's graduating this year? Maybe it's

your son or daughter, a grandchild, or perhaps a neighbor

or family friend. As you celebrate this important milestone and

they begin the next phase of their journey, they need

to know that God created them, loves them, and has

a plan for their life. That's why Pastor Rick created

a special resource just for graduates called The Purpose Driven

Life Selected Thoughts and Scriptures for the Graduate. Filled with

inspirational scripture, biblical wisdom from Pastor Rick, and beautiful imagery.

This unique hardcover gift book provides a priceless reminder of

the bountiful life God has planned for your graduate, and

it will inspire them to seek his unique plan and.

Purpose for their life.

Don't miss this opportunity to minister to the graduate in

your life today. We'll send you a copy to say

thanks when you give a gift to Daily Hope to

help share the hope of Jesus Christ with people around

the world.

If you wanna have fewer dead ends in your life,

if you wanna have fewer defeats, fewer failures in your life,

the next verse is for you. Proverbs 3, five to seven.

Trust the Lord with all your heart. Do not depend

on your own understanding. In other words, don't depend on

your wisdom. Don't depend on what you think is the

right thing to do. Don't depend on your hunches and

your feelings. Those are often, lead you astray.

Do not depend on your own understanding.

Seek his will, God's will, in all you do, in

everything you do, how you spend your time, your money,

your relationships, everything. And he, God promises, he will direct

your paths. He's saying don't be impressed with your own wisdom. Instead,

respect the Lord and turn your back on evil. So

if I really want God's blessing, the first thing is

I depend on God's wisdom Not what my feelings say,

not what my gut says, not what my friends say,

not what I think, but I trust in the Lord

with all my heart and lean not on my own understanding.

Now, how do I get God's wisdom? Two ways.

You pray and you read. You pray, you talk to God,

and you read the Bible, you let him talk to you.

And that's how you get God's wisdom. Look at this

next verse. The Bible says in James chapter one, verse five,

If any of you, if any of you lacks wisdom,

you should pray and ask God who gives it grudgingly

and sparingly to all. That's not what it says. If

any of you lacks wisdom, you should pray and ask

God who gives it, read it with me, generously and

graciously to all. Now, notice he gives it to everybody.

All you gotta do is ask for it. You don't

have to be qualified for it. All you have to

do is ask for it. You see, God doesn't want

you to be stupid. God doesn't want you to make

dumb mistakes. God doesn't want you to hit dead ends.

God doesn't want you to go through failure after failure

after failure after failure in your life.

God wants you to succeed in your life. He wants

you to be wise.

He wants you to make smart decisions with your time,

your money, your relationships, and everything else. And it's not

like you're waiting on him, he's waiting on you. God's saying, hey,

I'm here, and I'll give you wisdom, and I'll give

it generously, and I'll give it graciously, I'm not grudging

about it, I love to give you, I wanna.

Make you wise, but you just gotta ask.

Now, how do you know when you are living on

God's wisdom rather than on your wisdom? How do you

know if you're really depending on God's wisdom? You're talking

to God throughout your entire day, and you're reading his

word on a daily basis. If you're not talking to

God throughout your whole day, God, I'm getting ready to

go into this meeting. I'm getting ready to go into

this class. I'm getting ready to go meet with some friends.

What do I do? What do I say?

And you're not talking to God like that all day.

And if you're not reading God's word on a daily basis,

you are depending on your own wisdom. You're just fooling yourself.

You're not depending on God's wisdom. You're depending on your own.

And it's why you have so many problems and why

so many things fall through and why you end up

with so much pain in your life. Because you're not

depending on God's wisdom by reading the book and talking

to the author. Would you write this down? God's wisdom

and God's will are in God's word. God's wisdom and

will is in God's word. They're in God's word. God's

wisdom and will are in God's word. And if you're

not in the word, you don't know God's will. And

if you're not in the word, you don't have God's wisdom.

And if you don't have God's wisdom, you can't be blessed.

So that's the starting point. I gotta pray, talk to

the Lord, and I gotta let him talk to me.

Let me give you another one, number two. If I

really want God's blessing on my life, and not only

depend on God's wisdom, I depend on God's strength, not mine.

I depend on God's strength, God's power, God's energy, not mine.

Now you've probably noticed that you often get tired. In fact,

you're tired a lot. And at the end of the day,

you're kinda worn out, and you run out of energy,

and the reason why is real simple. You're a human being.

Your strength is limited. God's strength is unlimited. Your strength

is finite. God's strength is infinite. Your strength is exhaustible.

That's why you get exhausted. God's strength is inexhaustible. God

never runs out of energy. God never gets tired. And

so I need to depend on God's strength, not my own.

Let me show you some verses. Psalm 84 verse five.

God says, you bless all who depend on you for

their strength. You want God's blessing in your life? You

need to depend on God for your strength. Now what

do you do when your strength evaporates? You're at the

end of the day and you go, I'm just out

of steam, I'm out of energy. I don't have the

energy to go into this next week. I got too

many things to do and not enough energy to do it.

Here's a good promise, Isaiah 40, 31. Those who trust

in the Lord for help will find their strength renewed.

They will rise on wings like eagles. They will run

and not get weary. They will walk and not grow weak.

Now let me just say this. In the darkest moments

of your life, when you cannot see your way forward,

and doesn't matter what they are or where they came from,

in the darkest moments of your life, you need God's

strength to get you through. And the reason why most

people never get through it is they don't have God's strength.

I've seen people go through a divorce and they never recover.

I've seen people go through a breakup and they never recover.

I've seen people go through a major illness. I've seen

them go through a bankruptcy or getting fired or getting

laid off or getting arrested. I've seen people go through

all kinds of different things, abuse, and they never recover.

Why?

Because they're depending on their own strength. You're not going

to get through it.

On your own strength.

You're gonna get stuck at that stage and you get

miserable the rest of your life. The only way you

get through the darkest days of your life is on

God's strength. You gotta depend on him. Now I put

down here a couple 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 this, 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.

Now here's what I encourage you to do. Write that

verse on a card and read it over and over

and over until you got it memorized so you can

say it 10 times a day. And here's what you do.

You make it the most important affirmation.

In your life.

And when you get up in the morning and you

wanna 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. And then when you get up and you

go to school or you go to work or whatever

you're doing and you have that first conflict with somebody,

you say, I walk in the strength of the Lord.

And later in the afternoon when you get a phone

call and it's bad news and it's terrible and you're

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.

And 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 gonna face

the pains and problems of aging. And that gets pretty frightening.

Just talk to somebody who's getting up in age and

ask them that. And 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, 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. 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 though in age, he lived to be

an old man and in his old age, he lost

his health and became very, very weak. And 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 gonna be so weak you

can't even pray. Sometimes in your life you're gonna be

so weak you can't read the Bible.

You can't go to a Bible study. It can't work.

You can't do anything. What do you do in those moments?

You're just laying there in bed so weak. I rest

in the strength of the Lord, in his arms like

a little child, and I trust. You see, weakness can

actually be a good thing in your life if it

causes you to depend on God.

Look at this verse up here on the screen. This

is from St. Paul.

Paul says this, 2 Corinthians 12. Three times... I begged

God to take away my weakness. Now, you got 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,

Paul says, 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 weakness, 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. See, 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.

Do you know someone who's graduating this year? Maybe it's

your son or daughter, a grandchild, or perhaps a neighbor

or family friend. As you celebrate this important milestone and

they begin the next phase of their journey, they need

to know that God created them, loves them, and has

a plan for their life. That's why Pastor Rick created

a special resource just for graduates called The Purpose Driven

Life Selected Thoughts and Scriptures for the Graduates. filled with

inspirational scripture, biblical wisdom from Pastor Rick, and beautiful imagery.

This unique hardcover gift book provides a priceless reminder of

the bountiful life God has planned for your graduate, and

it will inspire them to seek his unique plan and

purpose for their life. Don't miss this opportunity to minister

to the graduate in your life today. We'll send you

a copy to say thanks when you give a gift

to Daily Hope to help share the hope of Jesus

Christ with people around the world.