Rick Warren - What God Really Wants from You This Year

If you don't really see things clearly, correctly, truthfully. You

may think you're living in the light, but you're not.

You're really living in the darkness, and you're missing all

the wonderful things that God has in store for you

for your future because you just can't see it. Proverbs

twenty nine, verse eighteen says this, where there is no vision,

the people perish.

Now what does that mean?

Well, there are at least three results of not having

a vision for your life. I want you to write

these down. An unclear vision leads to three things. It

leads to indecision, it leads to division, and it leads

to a collision. First, an unclear vision leads to indecision.

Do you remember this verse from our study of James

James Chapter one, verse eight. Double minded people can't make

up their minds that waver back and forth and everything

they do. Without a vision for your future, you're just drifting.

You wander, you ramble through life. You're not really living,

You're just existing. You don't have any goal or purpose

or plan or meaning. You just kind of let life

happen to you. When you don't have a vision, you

waste time and you missed opportunities, you don't make the

most of what you've been given. And without a vision,

you're a poor steward of life, end up just coasting

and you all and you know when you're coasting, you're

always headed downhill. So it causes this indecision. Second, an

unclear vision leads to division. Division. It causes people to

go different directions, in different ways, to be divided on things.

If you aren't sure where you're headed, don't expect anybody

else to go with you, or to marry you, or

to agree with you, or to partner with you, because

everybody's just going to head off in a different direction

because no one has a clear path. You know, this

lack of clear vision is one of the causes of

all the division in America right now. Here's an interesting

verse from Proverbs twenty eight, verse two. In the Message,

it says this, when a country is in chaos, everybody

has a plan to fix it. Okay, they're all going

in different ways, different directions, division, But it takes a

leader of real understanding to straighten things out.

Vision is the answer to division.

The third thing that happens when you don't have a

clear vision for life is a collision. In other words,

without a clear direction of your life, it is inevitable

that at some point in your life you're going to

crash into some kind of dead end. You know, for

many people, when you think about it, I've met a

lot of people. Life's just a series of collisions, relational collisions, confrontations,

of financial crashes, personal crisis, just one after another. They

go from one dead end relationship to the next, or

from one dead end job to the next. Life's kind

of like a bumper car ride. Just keep bumping into

everybody else and you get hit from all sides. Now,

the Bible warns us of the damage of not following

God's vision for our lives. One Timothy one nineteen says this,

and God's word translation. Some people have refused to let

their faith guide their conscience, and their faith has been

destroyed like a wrecked ship.

That's a collision.

On the other hand, having a vision for your future

requires hard work. That's why a lot of people don't

have one. It requires faith, it requires thinking, It requires

prayer and seeking God, all the things we're going to

talk about in this series. If you just make up

a vision for your life, well that's no better than coasting.

What you want is God's vision for your life, and

that is the result of seeing things clearly, seeing with

eyes of faith rather than eyes of fear. We're going

to look at that today in just this introduction message.

You know, in the Bible, Jesus has a lot to

say about your vision, about how you see things, and

about blindness. In fact, in the Bible, blindness is always

a metaphor for having a closed mind. When he talks

about people who are blind, he's talking about their minds

are closed. They're not open to new ideas. They're not

open to what God wants to say. Matthew, Chapter six,

verse twenty two and twenty three is the verse we'll

come back to in this series on vision, because Jesus

said this, Listen closely look at this verse. Your eyes

are the lamp of your body. And if your eyes

are open and good, your whole body will be full

of life light. But if your vision is bad, I

just got new glasses. I've got good vision again. If

your vision is bad, your whole life will be full

of darkness. And he says, and he says, if the

light that you think you have is really darkness, is

the worst kind of darkness you can have. Now, Jesus

is saying that if you don't really see things clearly, correctly, truthfully,

you may think you're living in the light, but you're not.

You're really living in the darkness, and you're missing all

the wonderful things that God has in store for you

for your future because you just can't see it. Now,

we've all heard the expression what you see is what

you get, and in many ways that's actually a biblical statement.

We're going to look at the implications of that idea

through many scripture verses during this series on vision. But

what I want to do today is just introduce a

series on God's vision for your future. And I want

us to go back to a story in the Old

Testament that involves Moses and the Jewish slaves who had

been freed by God from four hundred years of slavery

in Egypt. Now here's the background of the story. We're

going to look at numbers thirteen and numbers fourteen. Here's

the background in the Book of Numbers. God had promised

these freed slaves a homeland of their own, and he

calls it the promised land. I'm going to set you

free from Egypt, and I'm going to take you to

the Promised Land. It represented their future, It represented their

inheritance that God wanted them to enjoy.

It would become the land of Israel.

Now, after crossing the desert, they've gone through the Red Sea,

crossing the desert, all these freed slaves that come to

the edge of the promised Land, and Moses chooses twelve representatives,

one from each of the twelve tribes, to go ahead

of everybody else and spy out the land. And he says,

I won't you go in, check it all out, and

return with the vision report. This is a fact finding mission.

In other words, it's a vision trip. And Moses says,

go into the new land that represents our future and

find out everything you can. Find out what it's like,

see everything you can see. Then come back and report

to us on everything you have seen. This is a

vision trip. Numbers thirteen, seventeen to twenty says this. Moses

gave them men these instructions as he sent them out

to explore the new land. Go northward through the Negev

into the hill country and see what that land is like,

and find out whether the people living there are strong

or weak, few or many? What kind of land do

they live in? Is it good or bad? Do the

towns have walls? Are they unprotected? How's the soil? Is

it fertile or poor? Are there many trees? Enter the

land boldly and bring back samples of the crops you see.

If you're taking notes, circle that phrase you see now,

why did Moses do this?

Because Moses was a great leader.

Why did he send these spies on a vision trip

and ask for a report? Here's the reason. Listen to

this if you're a leader, this is really important. Before

people can succeed with the goal, they have to see

the goal.

If you're a leader, you need.

To understand that we can only accomplish the impossible if

we first see it in our minds. Everything that's ever

been accomplished in history started as an idea in somebody's mind.

First, you have to imagine it. You have to see it.

Sometimes you have to taste it, but you definitely have

to visualize it. And that's why I'm going to teach

you as the beginning of this year, a new series

on getting God's vision for your life Now numbers Chapter thirteen,

verse twenty one, twenty three says this, so they sent

spies in.

They spied out.

The land all the way from the wilderness up to Hebron,

and there they saw circle that word. They saw the

Amanites and the she Shites, and all the Tumites, all

the families descended from Anek. Now, by the way, don't

confuse these tribes with the termites and the parasites and

the satellites and the stalactites. Those are different tribes completely.

But it says what they came to Eskol. They cut

down a cluster of grapes so large that it took

two of them to carry it back on a pole.

Can you imagine that, a cluster of grapes. They also

took samples of pomegranates and figs. This promised land was

so fruitful and so incredibly prosperous. They're bringing back giant fruit.

You know, I grew up in northern California, in the

redwoods and in the wine country, and as a kid,

every season I cut grapes and vineyards at harvest. But

I never saw a cluster grace so large that it

took two men to carry it. This is supernatural, This

is miracle grows. Crop numbers thirteen twenty five twenty six

is this after seeing? There's the word seeing. This is

a vision trip. After seeing the land for forty days,

the men returned to Moses, an Aaron and the people

of Israel waiting at Katesh in the wilderness of Parenne.

They reported of the whole community what they had seen,

and they showed them.

The fruit they had taken from the land.

Now, all this sounds really promising, but there's a problem,

and it has to do with their vision. That's why

we're sharing this story. Two of the spies that were

twelve spies. Two of the spies, Joshua and Caleb, looked

at their future with eyes of faith.

But the other ten of the.

Twelve spies looked at their future with the eyes of fear. Okay,

so let's get into this now. You know the story

looking at the future with fear, which ten of the

twelve spies did, causes all kinds of problems. In fact,

this story illustrates oh five or so of the traps

maybe six that we fall into. Why don't you write

these down? Here's what happens when you look at the

new year, you look at the future with fear instead

of faith. Number one we learned from this story. I

overemphasize the negative when I look at the future in fear.

I overemphasized the negative. In Life Verses twenty seven twenty eight,

it says this was their report to Moses. We arrived

in the land you sent us to to see, and

it is indeed a magnificent country, the land flowing with

milk and honey.

Here's some of the fruit as proof.

But I'll circle the word butt, because now that you

get to butt, you're going to see with eyes of fear.

Here's the conflicting information.

But the people living there are powerful, and their cities

and towns are fortified, and they're very large. And we

also saw the Anakin, the descendants of Anik who lived

in the desert. Now, the Anakin were of the tribe

of Skywalker, and the forest was strong with them. If

you believe that, I've got some land to sell you to.

When you over emphasize the negative, it creates a lot

more stress in your life.

When you're looking at everything with fear.

Look, you worry that the glass is always half empty,

instead of being happy and grateful that the glass is

still half full. Look at what you have left, not

what you've lost now. Of course, life is filled with negatives.

Everything is broken by sin on this earth. Not all

news is positive. But you do have a choice in

choosing what you're going to focus on, what you're going

to emphasize, and that is going to directly affect your

happiness in this new year. So the spies brought back

conflicting news to the spies had eyes of faith and

they gave positive news, okay, but ten of the spies

had eyes of fear and they delivered negative news. By

the way, I think that ratio in news is probably

still true today. For every one positive news, you're going

to hear five negative news stories. And experts tells that

negative news s spreads about ten times faster on social

media and positive news. So I focus on the negative

when I'm looking with eyes of fear. Number two second trap,

I pay too much attention to what other people are doing.

I pay too much attention to what others are doing.

Numbers thirteen twenty nine says this. They're focusing not on

the beauty and the value of the land. They say

the Malakites live in the negative, and the hit Dites

and Jebysites and Amorites live in the hill country, and

the Canaanites live near the sea and along the Jordan,

the Jordan River. What are they say in here? What's

the point? It's a scarcity mentality. What they're saying is

there won't be enough for us this year. All the

good land is already taken by other tribes. There's really

no room for us in this promised land. There aren't

enough resources for everybody. Now, if you look at this

new year with eyes of fear, you too are going

to develop a scarcity mentality, which is going to create

stress in your life, like there's not enough.

And you say.

All the good experiences are gone, all the good jobs

are already taken, all the good houses already bought, all

the good husbands are married. You're going to look around

as a scarcity mentality. Now, you got to look with

the eyes of faith. Number three. Third trap that we

see from this story when we look at the future

with fear instead of faith. I understand, excuse me, I

underestimate the abilities that God has given me. I underestimate

the abilities God has given me when I look at

the future with fear, Because seeing life with eyes of

fear causes you to bury your talents. You know that

story that Jesus told Numbers thirteen thirty one. The men

who had gone with Caleb said, we can't circle that.

We can't. We can't attack those people. They are stronger

than we are. They're underestimating their own ability. Did you

know that people who always say I can't and the

people who always say I can are both right?

Why?

Because fear creates self fulfilling prophecies. You got a vision

based on fear rather than faith. It's gonna limit you

for your entire life. You're gonna miss opportunities, You're gonna

waste talent that God has put inside you, and you're

gonna set yourself up with self fulfilling and self defeating predictions.

You know this happened? Job says in Job three twenty five.

He said, what I have always feared has happened to me,

and what I have dreaded has now come to be.

Let me ask you a very personal question. What are

you setting yourself up for in this new year? What

are you setting yourself up or in just with your attitude,

how are you seeing yourself? Are you looking at your

own abilities as I'm inadequate, I'm incapable are you looking

at your life in faith or in fear? The spies

with fear based vision saw themselves as inadequate Verse thirty

two and thirty three. They said, the land we explored

devours those living in it.

What a what a hyperbole?

The land we explored devours those living in it, he says.

All of the people we saw there are of great size.

He says, we saw giants there. The Hebrew word is

nephelim for a giant. By the way, the Hebrew are

for fans, handsomest, pastor rick in Hebrew, we seemed like

grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we looked the same

to them. You see what they're saying. We see ourselves

as insects waiting to be devoured. That word devouring Hebrew

actually means to eat up. They said, these people are

going to eat our lunch, and they're they're nephelin, they're giants,

they're bullies, they're tyrants, they're NFL linebackers.

It's a great size.

And they say, we saw ourselves as grasshoppers in our

own eyes. That's a pretty pathetic self image. We're insects,

we're bugs that they're gonna squash us. We're gonna go

smash against the windshield. They and then they says, we

saw ourselves. Notice that sentence, We saw ourselves as grasshoppers,

and we look the same to them. What are they doing?

They are projecting their fears on others. That's one of

the problems of a fear based vision is you project

your fears on everybody else. If you think you look

a certain way, you think everybody else thinks you look

that way.

That's a problem. It's a trap. Number four.

The fourth trap of vision with fear instead of faith

is I infect others with my negativity. I infect others

with my negativity. Did you know that fear is contagious?

Did you know parents can pass on fear to kids

and it can actually to be passed from generation to generation.

Verse thirty two. It says they spread a bad report

about the land they had explored. They didn't just keep

it to themselves. This is what happens when you become afraid.

You start talking trash, you start talking negative, you start complaining,

you start griping the Bible. This is why, by the way,

the Bible tells you to not hang out with negative people.

Did you know that in the problems, says many times,

don't hang out with scoffers and cynics, don't hang out

with negative people, critics and complainers. You know, one of

the things I noticed in twenty twenty you probably noticed

that too. How many conspiracy theories popped up during the pandemic.

Oh my goodness, we had more conspiracies in one year

than we had had in a decade or decades. And

the problem was many Christians were falling for those theories too,

and they were actually passing them on. Why, because they

were hanging out with the wrong people. They were listening

to negative reports, They were listening to negative news sources.

You know what, if you start hearing some conspiracies this year,

let me give you a verse to go back to.

It's Isaiah chapter eight, verse twelve. Here's what it says,

Isaiah eight twelve. Don't say that everything people call a

conspiracy is a conspiracy. And don't fear what they fear.

Don't let it terrify you. That's what God wants you

to do. Don't thank every conspiracy and conspiracy, don't fear

what they fear.

Don't let it terrify you.

Number five a fifth trap If you don't have eyes

of faith? Is I make myself miserable when I look

at my life and I looked at the future with

eyes of fear, I just make myself miserable. Here's what

happened after they came back with this fear based report

numbers fourteen one and two. Then all the people began

weeping aloud. Okay, they're crying, and they cried all night,

and they grumbled, and they complained in a great chorus

against their leaders Moses guy had let him out of them,

let them out of slavery, against their leaders, Moses and Aaron.

And they said, we wish we'd died in Egypt or

even here in the wilderness. Are you kidding me? They wailed.

They're having a full bone pity party. We would have

rather stayed slaves. Have to face what we're going to

face in the future. You would or rather died in

the desert than have to face the future because we're

so afraid. Now, that's a very important verse because you

can know that you're looking at life with eyes of

fear when the four warning lights that are in that

verse show up in your life.

When these four things show.

Up in your life, you know I'm not looking at

the future with faith. I'm looking at the future with fear.

Notice the four things. Your sadness increases. It says, they

cried all night, they were depressed, and sometimes fear is

caused our depression is caused by fear. Depression can be

caused by a lot of different things, but once sometimes

it could be caused by fear. Your sadness increases. Number two,

your complaining increases. Has your spouse noticed you complaining more lately?

It says they grumbled and they complained. Why because they

were afraid. They were afraid? Okay. Third, you start second

guessing your leaders. It says they grumbled and complained in

a great chorus against their leaders, Moses and Aaron. He said,

we wish you hadn't led us here. You're doing a

lousy job of leading us. And Fourth, you want to

go back backwards. You want to go back to a

prior time. They said, it would have been better for

us to have died in Egypt.

You you don't want any of.

Those things, But those are signs that you're living based

on a vision of fear than a vision of faith.

So what's the antidote, Well, that's what we're going to

look at in the days ahead. This is just an introduction,

but the antidote in a sentence is you need to

develop a life vision of faith. You need to develop

a life vision of it. You need to see with

eyes of faith, not eyes of fear. And I'm going

to teach you how to do that during this series.

As I said this just intro. Now, there were two

guys who were the minority report, and they were Caleb

and Joshua. They were the only two guys eventually got

to go into the Promised Land. The rest of them

died in the desert. God let them die out there.

Numbers thirteen thirty. Here's what Caleb said in faith. Then

Caleb silenced the people before Moses, and he said, we

should go at once. We should take possession of the

land right now. We can certainly do this. He said, well,

let's do it right now. Stop defeating yourself with the

paralysis of analysis. Do it now. You defeat fear not

by arguing againster feres.

You defeat fear.

With movement, not by discussing it, not by focusing on it,

but by doing, opposing it, doing the thing you fear

the most. That's what Caleb said. Then in verse six

to nine of numbers fourteen, here's what Joshua said. He

is the other guy who had eyes of faith. He said,

we saw the land ourselves, and it's very good. He says,

the future looked great. If we obey the Lord, he

will surely give us that land rich with milk and honey.

In other words, we're depending on the promise of God.

So he says, don't rebel. He said, don't rebel. We

have no reason to be afraid of the people who

live there. The Lord is on our side, and they

won't stand a chance against us. One plus God is

a majority God plus you you know, if God is

for us, who can be against us? Now here's the problem. Sadly,

they chose to believe the majority report of fear, not

the minority report of faith, and they all died in

the desert over the next forty years until a new

generation grew up and they would.

Be allowed to go into the promised land.

One of the saddest verses in the Bible is Hebrews

three nineteen that says this, So we see that they

the people who were the slaves that had been freed.

They were not able to enter the Promised Land because

of their unbelief. That's one of the saddest verses in

the Bible, and it makes me wonder when I read it,

what blessing of God am I missing out on? Me

personally because of my unbelief? What blessing of God am

I missing out on because of my own unbelief? To me,

hell would be if God were to show me what

He could have done in my life if I had

believed him just a little bit more. And I want

to ask you this question as we start a brand

new year, what blessing of God are you missing right

now simply because you don't believe? You don't believe it

your unbelief, you're looking at the future with eyes of fear,

not the eyes of faith. Now, the starting point we're

gonna get into all the details in this series, but

the starting point for getting God's vision for your life, obviously,

is the first put your trust.

In Jesus Christ.

If you haven't done that, you need to ask Him

to put his spirit into your life. It's the only

way you'll ever be able to see with eyes of faith,

and it's the only way you'll ever be able to

get God's vision John, Chapter three, Verse three, Jesus said this,

unless you were born again, you cannot see the Kingdom

of God. You can't see it. You can't see God's

vision unless you're born again.

So you need this. You see, when you're born again.

When you're born physically, you get five censes here, taste, touch, smell, okay, see,

when you're spiritually reborn, born again, you get a new

set of eyes. You can see things you didn't see before.

You can hear things you couldn't hear before. You sense

things you didn't sense before. Unless you're born again, you

can never see all that God has in store for

your life. So here's the first step that I want

to start just this week. Stop listening to your feelings

and stop looking in fear and start living in faith.

Believe that God's going to help you in this New years. Believe,

believe God will help you, and you will see God

help you.

I'll end with this story.

You know, Jesus had some friends, Mary, Martha, and Lazarus.

They have two sisters and a brother, and Lazarus died

and Jesus raised him back to life. And when he did,

he reminded Mary and Martha. In John eleven forty, He said,

didn't I tell you that you will see God's glory

if you believe? You will see God's glory if you believe. So,

here's my question, how badly do you want to see

God's glory in your life? You've got to stop nursing

your worries, they just get bigger. You got to make

some commitments of faith. You got to step out and

move against your fears. I want to pray a prayer,

and I want to pray for two different groups. First,

if you have never given your life to Christ, it's

time to be born again. Then you can start seeing

with spiritual eyes. And if you are already a Christian,

would you stop listening to the negative reports? Would you

go rego over these five things we just talked about

and say, God, I don't want that in my life.

I don't want that in my life. In this new year,

let's vow for prayer. Father, I thank you that you

have a great new future for us. You said, I

know the plans I have for you, plans for good,

not to harm you, but to prosper you. And so

I pray that today, as we start a new year together,

that we would lay aside the eyes of fear and

we begin to see with eyes of faith, and that

we would get your vision for our lives. We don't

want division in our lives. We don't want a collision

in our lives. We don't want the negativity of indecision

in our lives.

What we want is you.

If you've never invited Christ in your life, why don't

you say this, Jesus Christ, I want to be born again.

I ask you to put your spirit in my life.

I realize I need you forgive all my sins and

help me to follow you. I want to learn to

trust you and love you, and I want to see

your vision and your purpose and plan for my life

in this new year. Please accept me into your family.

For those of you who have already prayed that prayer,

pray this Father today. I want to switch from eyes

of fear to eyes of faith. And I don't want

to fall for any of these traps that we just

looked at in today's text. Instead, I want to trust

you and expect great things from you and attempt great

things for you. I want to be a man of vision.

I want to be a woman of vision, and I

ask you to give me your vision in Jesus' name, Amen,