Rick Warren - Why You Don’t Need to Fear the Future—Part Two

Hello, everybody.

This is Pastor Rick's Daily Hope with Rick Warren. I'm

really glad you're here. Today we're continuing our series from

Psalm twenty three called Living in the Goodness of God.

It's all about how God's goodness meets you right where

you are and brings hope even in difficult seasons. Today

we're gonna hear part two of a message called why

you don't need to fear the future.

Another picture I think of when I think of God's

goodness and mercy will follow me is a mother of

a toddler. And any mother of a toddler knows how

many messes a toddler who's just learned to walk and

make in forty five minutes. And if you go to

the house of a mother of a toddler, she is

walking behind that child picking up all the messes, picking

up all the messes that they're making. You have no

idea how many messes you created in life that God

cleaned up. Because God's goodness and God's mercy were following you,

and you made a flippant decision, and it was a

stupid decision, but you made it, and you went going

on not realizing the chaos you left behind, and God's

goodness and mercy are right behind picking up your messes.

God has picked up more messes in your life than

you could possibly even imagine.

Why.

Because He's good and he's merciful. He gives you what

you need and he doesn't give you what you deserve.

Mercy will follow me all the days of my life.

If you're take an O circle that word all, because

God's goodness, in God's mercy is.

Not just some days. God doesn't say, okay, on Monday,

was it?

Friday, will have goodness, And on Tuesday and Thursday we'll

have mercy. And on Saturday and Sunday you're on your own. No,

He is always merciful every moment of every day. He

is always good to you, every moment of every day.

And when you fully understand that God is never not

good to me and God God is never not merciful

to me, when you face your future, all of a sudden,

your fear level goes down and go so what don't

you don't know what's gonna happen next week, much last,

next year, or in the next ten years. But if you

know this, God's goodness will be with me and He'll

be bringing good even all the bad stuff.

I don't know.

God's mercy will be with me. He's gonna be forgiving

me no condemnation with all the bad stuff.

So what are you worried about? What are you afraid of?

Fear comes when you fear punishment, or fear comes when

you fear you won't have what you need when you

get there, you don't have. You know all the resources

you need. God's goodness and God's mercy will be with

me all the days of my life, says all of

the days. Now you say, well, I don't always feel

God's goodness in my life. I don't always feel God's

mercy every.

Day of my life. Who said anything about feelings?

Feelings are unreliable, Feelings come and go. God is not

a feeling. God is always good to you, whether you

feel it or not. And God is always merciful to you,

whether you feel it or not. It's based on who

he is, not how you feel. Everything, Absolutely everything in

your life you owe to the goodness and mercy of God,

and it's going to follow you all the days of

your life. If the Lord is your shepherd. Now here's

the third reason you don't need to fear the future.

God's goodness is watching over me. God's grace is working

in me. Here's a big one. God's glory is waiting

for me. God's glory is waiting for me. And I

will dwell in the House of the Lord forever. That's heaven. Now,

if you're taking notes circle that life and goodness and mercy,

you'll follow me all the days of my life. And

I'll dwell in the House of the Lord forever. That's

the little word that connects today with tomorrow. Even after

you've lived a life of blessing here on earth, it's

not the end.

Friends.

This psalm is building to a crescendo. I will dwell

in the House of the Lord forever. That's a big ending,

that's a big inning. That means I don't have to

fear death. And that's the number one fear people have,

because death is not the end. It's a transition. It's

a transfer. We're going to heaven. God saves the best

for last. If you love and know Jesus, if the

Lord is your shepherd, it just gets better and better.

Because even if I have a tough life here on earth,

I will dwell in the House of the Lord forever,

where there is no more sorrow, no more suffering, no

more sin, no more sickness, no more sadness, no more problems,

no more pain, no more pressure.

It's unbelievable.

With Jesus, it keeps getting better and better. The best

is yet to come. Now this is so important. Next weekend,

I'm going to spend an entire message just on this

on heaven, and I'm gonna answer all the most common

questions because just like with angels, there's a lot of

myths about Heaven, misconceptions, lies, legends that just aren't true. Now,

I just this weekend want to ask one question, and

is this what makes heaven heaven? Why is it so different?

What makes heaven heaven? Well, there are a lot of

things that are different about heaven, but the biggest one

of all is this. It's the home to God's full glory.

The home to God's full glory. And God's glory is

all the good things that He does for you. It's

his character. It's based on who he is. Now we

can see a glimpse, a little glimpse of God's glory

right now when you look at the heavens. The Bible says,

the heavens declare the glory of God. You look at

all the stars. Whooah, God is pretty big. God's pretty powerful.

You look at the sun and the moon. When you

look at all of the tens of thousands of plant

varieties and animals, and the varieties of animals and species

that God created, you see the glory of God. That

God is a creative God. When you see the beauty

of the sunrise and a sunset and a waterfall, you

see the glory of God, the.

Glory of God.

We see a small glimpse of it here, even on

a broken planet. There's a lot of beautiful stuff on

this planet. The Bible says that I can see God's

glory in you, just a glimpse, because you carry the image,

the image of God in you. It's broken, but you

carry that in. You can see God's glory in me.

But the Bible says, one day when you get to heaven, Oh,

now you're going to see the full glory, the full goodness,

the full greatness, the.

Full beauty of God.

You don't see it now, you just see a speck

we get we see through the glass darkly. So we're

gonna look at that in detail. But let me just

show you a couple verses. The Bible says this in

Isaiah sixty three, verse fifteen, Lord, look upon us from heaven,

where you live in your holiness and glory. God's complete

glory is in heaven, unhindered by anything. And then the

Bible tells us that in Acts chapter seven, Stephen was

the first guy who was killed for his faith, for

following Christ. He was the first Christian martyr. And as

they were stoning him, throwing stones at him, and he

was dying in Jerusalem, it says as Stephen was dying,

he looked up toward Heaven. He got a vision as

he's dying in his final moments, and he saw God's glory.

Why because God's glory is complete in heaven. Bible tells

us that when Jesus was resurrected, it says this, Jesus

returned to his glory in heaven. One day you will too.

You're gonna see God's glory. Now we cannot even imagine

the details of heaven. I can share some of the stuff.

We get little glimpses. We get a little sneak peaks

of what heaven is like.

In the Bible.

But the truth is, none of us can even understand

how cool heaven is because we don't have the brain

capacity for it. We live in a three dimensional world.

Einstein proved there are many other dimensions we don't even

know about that we're not even unaware of besides the

three dimensions we live in. And for you to understand

how great, how glorious, how beautiful, how incredible Heaven is

would be like an ant trying to understand the Internet.

You don't have the brain capacity. And every description pearly gates,

streets of gold, those are so far in furi as

to what Heaven's gonna be like. They're just metaphors. They're

just metaphors. It's not gonna be white with clouds. You

think of the greatest, most beautiful scene you've ever seen

on earth, and multiply it by a trillion times, where

there's no sin, no sadness, no sorrow, no suffering.

That's heaven.

We cannot imagine all the details of heaven, but we

do know this, it will be glorious. Why because God's

glory will be there in its full completion. Here's what

the Bible says. Look on the screen. First, Grinthians two,

verse nine. No eye has ever seen, no ear has heard,

no mind has ever imagined.

You can't even imagine what.

God has prepared for those who love him. But surely

I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

What am in the world are you afraid of? Why

are you afraid of death? You're gonna be in a

better place if the Lord is your shepherd. Now we

don't get a full picture of what heaven is going

to be like, but God does give us some little secrets,

and they're scattered through the Bible. If you read the Bible,

they're not secrets, but he does give us some hints.

And one of the things God tells us is that

because he is a good God, and he is a

merciful God, and because he made you to love you,

that his plan for you, This is for you. God's

plan for you began at the very beginning of time,

before he even created the universe.

God thought you up, He wanted children.

God thought you, and is God's plan for you, and

he prepared this in advance. Is that He's going to

share his glory with his children. WHOA That's just too

hard for me to comprehend. Me an imperfect, frail sinner.

God's going to share his glory with me. Yeah, and

you too. We're going to cover this in depth in

next week's message, so you don't want to miss that message.

Roman's nine twenty three.

Says this God wanted to reveal his abundant glory. God

wanted to show how loving, how good, how kind, how

merciful he is. God wanted to show it. And so

he wanted to show his abundant glory, which was poured

out on us. That's you, that's me. Who are the

objects of his mercy? You, my friend, are an object

of God's mercy. As a woman or as a man.

You are an object of God's mercy. He doesn't give

you what you deserve. God wanted to reveal his abundant glory,

which was poured out on us, who are the objects

of his mercy, and whom he has prepared in advance.

He's prepared you in advance. He's already prepared this. This

is talking about you, whom he has prepared in advance

to receive his glory.

One day. You're going to do that.

This is a terrible, terrible, poor, inferior example of it.

But what does it mean for you to share God's glory?

Imagine a giant screen in front of a theater that says,

you know, this movie is playing starring this person and

co starring this person.

In heaven.

Imagine a giant screen that says, now playing for eternity

starring Jesus Christ, co starring your name.

WHOA.

That's what God has prepared because of his goodness and

his mercy and his love and his grace.

That's what he wants to do. Now.

What are the implications of these three truths I mean

for you right now, between now and when you go

to heaven.

What does all this mean?

What does it mean that God's goodness is watching over you,

and that God's grace is working in you, and that

God's glory is waiting for you? What does that really

mean for Monday morning? Well, what I just shared with

you are the antidotes to your three greatest fears. And

if you understand them, if you fully grasp what I'm

trying to teach you this morning, you will be fearless.

You will have a new level of confidence in your life.

You certainly won't be anxious about the future because God's

goodness and grace, and glory are all involved in your future.

If you get anxious about the future, if you have

a problem, you get nervous thinking about what's going to

happen tomorrow. You need to take notes right now as

if your life depends on it.

Because it does. It does.

Let me give you the three implications. How should I

live knowing what God is like knowing God's goodness and

grace and his mercy in my life? You want to

write these three things down. This is how you live fully,

and this is how you live fearlessly. Number one, I

must stay grateful and generous because God is so good

to me. God is generous with me, and God expects

me to be grateful and generous with others the rest

of my life. My first response to God's goodness, my

first response to God's mercy should be gratitude, and my

second response should be generosity. Let me show you some

verses Psalm one eighteen, verse twenty nine. Give thanks continually

to our Lord because he is so good and because

his mercy will never run out.

There's goodness and mercy right there.

His goodness is good and his mercy will never run out.

Continual mercy deserves continual thanks you need to develop for

the rest of your life, andtitude of gratitude. Now, in

one of the past messages in this series, I told

you that there have been scientific studies, many, many, many,

many scientific studies that show that gratitude is the healthiest

human emotion more than any other thing. That if you

develop the attitude of gratitude, if you walk around with

gratefulness in your heart all the time, you're going to

live longer. Studies of proven this, You're going to be healthier.

Studies of proven this, you're going to be happier. Studies

of proven this, grateful people tend to be more successful

in life than ungrateful people. There are many, many, many

benefits of the attitude of gratitude, and most of all,

gratitude is an antidote to fear. Do you have panic attacks?

Do you have fear? Do you have anxiety in your life?

Do you have fears about the future. You cannot be

grateful and fearful at the same time.

It's impossible. You just can't.

So when you're fearful at that moment, you're not being grateful.

And when you are, when your life is filled grateful,

you can't be fearful because they oppose each other. Why

because fear. When I'm fearful, I'm focused on me. When

I'm grateful, I'm focused on others and God, what they've

done for me, what God has done for me. You

get the focus off yourself, the fear and the anxiety

will go down. Gratitude is one of the four antidotes

to fearfulness in your life. The Bible says this Hebrews

chapter twelve, verse twenty eight. We have been given possession

of an unshakable kingdom. This is the kingdom of God. Okay, well, unshakeable.

It means you don't need to be afraid of this.

I can't lose this. You can't lose your salvation. Okay,

it's unshakable. Therefore, let us be therefore, be grateful and

use our gratitude to worship God the way that pleases Him,

with reverence and awe. So you need to disdevelop a

daily habit of being grateful for everything and anything in

all things around you. Now, the second response, and this

is also an antidote to fear, is not gratitude, but

it's generosity. And God says, I want you to pass

on others the same kind of goodness. I'm good to you,

I want you to be good to others. I'm generous

with you. I want you to be generous with others.

I give to you, I want you to give to others.

The Bible says this, Matthew ten, verse eight. You have

been treated generously by God, so live generously, give as

freely as you have received. Now this is interesting because

scientific studies have also shown that the more generous you are,

the less fearful you are. The more giving you are,

the more at peace you are, the more confident you are,

the less anxious, the less fearful you are. And the

Bible actually confirms this that generosity is another antidote to fear.

Because you get generosity, you get the you know, the

focus off yourself and on helping other people. Here's a

good example, Psalm one twelve, verse five to nine. Good

will come to him. Let me stop right there, everybody

who's listening to me right now? Do you want good

or bad to come to you in life?

Well? I want good to come to me.

Okay, here's how you have good come to you. Good

will come to him who is generous. Such people lend freely.

In other words, Hey, you need my car, Take my car.

You need a place to stay tonight, Stay in my place.

You need some money for food. Here, here's some money

for food. You need a babysitter. Let me babysit for you.

What do you need?

You need me to drive you to the doctor. Let

me take you to the doctor. Name me bring over

a meal. Your family sick tonight. Let me let me

Generosity in every area of your time, your talents, your treasure,

your money, your motivations.

Generous with your praise, not sting with praise.

Generous with compliments, not stingy with compliments. Good will come

to him who is generous. Such people lend freely. They

conduct their fares honestly. They will never be shaken. They

don't fear bad news because they trust the Lord to

care for them. They are confident and fearless. You want

to be confident, fearless, become more generous. Man.

I love hearing pastor Rick. What a great message. We

also love hearing from our listeners. Here's Rick with a

very encouraging letter.

Let me close this broadcast by sharing a letter from

a listener in Rome, Italy. Her name is Heitian and

she says Pastor Rick, I've relocated to Rome, Italy, where

I'm currently working at the World Food Program. I really

love listening to your sermons and I also love reading

your daily devotionals, which I share with many of my

colleagues serving in the field offices in Africa and another

hardship duty stations. They appreciate receiving the message very much.

God bless you Heitian in Rome.

Now did you get this?

A message that is starting in southern California in the

United States of America is being sent to Europe in Rome, Italy,

and then it is being re sent out to other

continents like Africa. That is the amazing age of technology

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or thirty years ago. Our ability to reach listeners like

Heshan and her friends, not just in Europe but in Africa,

is a direct result of your prayers and your support.

For Daily Hope.

So thanks so much, and by the way, join me

next time when we continue looking into God's word for

our daily hope.

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