Rick Warren - How To Build a Remarkable Life by Doing Your Best for Jesus

My dad's mato, and I heard him say it over

and over grown up was I will do the best

I can with what I have for Jesus Christ today.

I like that.

I'll do the best I can with what I have

for Jesus Christ today. I'm not waiting for everything to

fall in place. If I'm waiting for perfect environment, nothing's

ever going to get done. I'll do the best I

can with what I have. That's resourcefulness.

You know.

Sometimes you meet people that right off the bat, they

just stand out in your mind, and it may be

because of an outstanding achievement or an outstanding talent or

giftedness or outstanding personality, but they're just extraordinary. They're unusual people.

We call these people remarkable people. You could think of

them very easily. You go that person's remarkable, she's remarkable,

He's remarkable. Things like them Now, all of us want

to live remarkable lives, and God wants you to live

a remarkable life.

That doesn't mean famous. Fame has nothing to do with it.

You can make an impact and most of the world

not even know who you are, but you have an

enormous impact on the world through your legacy, and you'll

never by the way, know your legacy.

On this earth.

You'll never know it because you don't know all the

people whose lives have been changed by people you touched

and they touched others, on and on and on. But

we want to live remarkable lives. And as parents, those

two of you who are parents, we all want remarkable kids,

and we want remarkable grandkids, and we want them to

have an impact in lives. How many of you either

own a small business or you work for a business

that offers either a product or a service of some kind.

Can I see your hands? Okay, yeah, that's a lot

of it. You would you say it's easier to get

people's attention or harder to get people's attention. Today it's harder,

isn't it, because there's so much competition out there, with

all of the noise and all of the news and

all of the media and all social media and things

like that. How does your product, how does your business?

How does your service get attention? Well, the only thing

that really gets attention is that which is remarkable. For instance,

you know, you can have two restaurants right next to

each other, and one of them nobody's going to it

all and the other one, there's a line of people

waiting to get in and they're willing to wait up

to an hour to have a meal.

Why remarkable food?

Or a company creates a remarkable product and it just

goes like Gangbusters and its skyrockets. And why is it

that some hotels and motels have people booking up a

long time in advance and others are empty lots of vacancies.

Remarkable service.

Now I've written on your outline a definition of remarkable.

Remarkable means exceptional, it means outstanding, it means uncommon, it

means worthy of attention. History human history is written primarily

by remarkable people. And you could easily make a list

of people you would think in different areas and arts

and entertainment and in government and in law and all

the different areas well, they were remarkable and they made

it made a.

Pretty big impact.

But I will say this to you, God wants you

to have a remarkable life. But the only way you'll

ever be able to live it is if you're willing.

To be different.

If you want to be like everybody else, you're never

going to be remarkable. That that's the very definition of

remarkable is it's not common you are uncommon. To be

remarkable in life means you're not like other people.

And if you want children who are.

Remarkable children, you have to teach them how to not

care about being like everybody else.

That's not remarkable, that's just common. So the secret of.

Remarkable people is that they're willing to do things that

the rest of us aren't willing to do. They're willing

to develop habits that are uncommon. They're willing to put

in extra hours that are uncommon. They're willing to make

effort that the rest of the world isn't.

Willing to make.

They're willing to pay a price in order to make

a remarkable difference that most people aren't willing to make.

And to learn this last week is interesting. I read

a fascinating study is in two different magazines, and I

actually read it in two different magazines, in Harvard Business

Review and also in Forbes magazine of a study of

one thousand managers who felt quote stuck in their career.

They did this study of people.

I've been at the level I've at. I've been at

the level I'm at right now for a long time,

and I don't think I'm ever going to make any

more progress in my career. I don't think I'm going

to get any promotions. I am stuck in a dead

end career. And so then they went ahead and did

a study, and they interviewed the bosses, and they interviewed

the people, and they discovered that those people, ninety seven

percent of them had either one or more of what

they called career limiting habits, career limiting habits. And they

made a list of the ten most common career limiting habits.

And even when people.

Knew that they had them, they don't change, even though

they know it's keeping them from actually growing and developing

and making.

A greater fact of their life.

Today, we're going to look at how do you build

a remarkable life? And we're going to look at four

of the antidotes to these career limiting habits. Now, the

Bible is filled with examples of remarkable people. Deborah was

a remarkable person. Esther she was a remarkable person. Job

Jonah Nehemiah was a remarkable businessman, and on and on

and on. Some of the people in the Bible, they're famous,

some of you wouldn't know, but they all were pretty

remarkable in the way that they lived. One of them

that you have heard of if you've been around siddleback,

was a guy named Daniel who was taken as a

slave from Israel back to Babylon, which overcame Israel and

took the entire nation as slaves during the Babylonian Empire.

And the Bible says this notice on your outline, Daniel,

chapter six, verse three. Daniels so distinguished himself from all

the other leaders by his remarkable qualities, circle back his

remarkable qualities that the king, this is nebuican Azer, the

emperor of the Babylon Empire, plan to put him Daniel

in charge over the entire empire.

Are you kidding me? Wow?

A guy who starts off as a slave and has

taken hostage to a foreign country and he doesn't want

to be there, but he has so many remarkable qualities

in his life that the most powerful man in the world,

King nebacan Azer the Babylon Empire, goes, I'm gonna put

that guy as number two, and he's going to be

in charge of my entire empire. I want to know

what those qualities were. Today, we're going to look at

four of the qualities that were in Daniel's life, and

I want us to look at it from two different points. First,

in your own law life, these are things you can learn,

These are things that you can develop, and the rest

of your life can be the best of your life

if you're willing to put in the effort now. If

you're not willing to put the effort, you can go

ahead and leave right now. Because no one about them

doesn't change you. They said in that study of those managers,

they knew some of the things they need to change,

they just didn't change them. But if you're willing to

put that effort in to make those changes and ask

God to give you the strength to make those changes,

the rest of your life could be the best of

your life.

And we're going to look at.

The antidotes for antidotes to for the big common things

that hold people back in life, keys to living a

remarkable life. But also because we've been in this series

on family, I want us to look at it.

How do you build them in your children?

You want remarkable kids, you want them to succeed in

their life. Well, there's certain things that you can build

in their life. Four ours for a remarkable life. I've

got grow them in my life. If I want remarkable kids,

I've got to build them into their lives.

Here there are number one.

If I want to build a remarkable life and a

remarkable career, I must learn to be respectful of everybody.

I must learn to be respectful to everyone. This is

the starting point. Respect is the foundation of a remarkable life.

Respecting others shows reverence for God. It shows humility in

the way you relate to other people.

He why have you got?

This is the number one quality and a remarkable life?

Because today everybody's rude.

You won't to agree with that.

Is the world getting more respecting or more disrespectful?

Yeah? No, we're getting ruder.

The world is becoming more uncivil or incivil. And so

the more rude the world gets, the more a person

who is respectable of everybody becomes remarkable. You stand out

like a bright star on a dark night. Now I've

given you a definition there on your outline, the definition

of respect or to be respectful.

It means to appreciate.

The uniqueness, value the worth, and affirm the dignity of

everyone because God made them. I want to read again,

because notice three qualities. Truly, to be respectful of everybody

means you appreciate their uniqueness because they're not like you.

Can you appreciate people who are not like you, You

value their worth and you affirm their dignity. Everyone because

God made them. You see, any time you disrespect anything

God made, it's an insult to God.

As a limit.

I made them, I made that, I made you, and

I made them. You think I love you more than

I love them. You think you're more important than they are.

It's actually quite arrogant, egotistical, it's quite prideful. When we

don't respect other people. We're basically saying God, you goofed up,

you made a mistake, and you should have made everybody

like me, which I'm the standard of perfection here. Well,

that doesn't work. We all know you're not standard. I'm

not standard. Everybody is broken. It's arrogant. I told you,

it's the opposite of humility. Anytime I'm rude to you,

or anybody is rude to you, or anytime you're rude

to anybody else, you're revealing your ego. You think in

that moment that you don't need to be respectful. You

think if the clerk is a jerk, you still need

to be respectful. I'm not saying you have to prove

of everything.

No. No, God doesn't.

Approve of everything I do, doesn't approve of everything you do,

or anybody else.

For that matter.

There's an acceptance approval. He accepts us, he loves us,

he values us. He says we have dignity even though

we're flawed, we're sinful, we're broken. They're both true and

so God looks to bless people who are respectful. If

you want God's blessing on your business, on your career,

on your family, on your friendships, on your relationship, whatever

you want God to bless, you need to be respectful

in every area of your life.

It's the foundation.

There's so many promised promises that are given in the Bible.

Let's say that when you build this quality respectfulness, that

you will be blessed. Let me show you a couple.

Here's one Matthew twenty three, verse twelve. If you put

yourself above others so you don't feel like you have

to respect them, you'll be put down. If you put

yourself above others, you'll be put down. But if you

humble yourself, you will be honored by others. Study after

study have shown that people are. Employees who are disrespectful

get stuck. They don't keep progressing in their career. They

get stuck because people don't want to work with people

who are disrespectful. So God leaves no wiggle room about this.

Let me show you some verses one Peter to seventeen.

The Bible says, show real respect.

To people you like. Oh no, that's not what it says.

Show let's read it aloud together, show real respect to circle.

That to everyone.

Now, just in case you don't understand what the word

everyone means, which, by the way, I looked up that

word in the original Greek, and in the original Greek,

the word everyone means everyone.

There's no exception.

But just in case you know, you think there's a

wiggle room, God thirty forty fifty times in scripture tells

us specific groups of people that.

You must must.

Show respect to if you want God's blessing on your

life and on your career. There's ten different groups God

says you have to show respect to if you want

his blessing on your life. Number one, I must show

respect for God's name and word. I must show respect

for God's name and God's word. I can't be using

God's name as a cuss word or as an additive,

just like a uh uh oh God, God, Oh God.

You know, don't use God as an exclamation point. You

take his word and you take his name seriously. Second,

I must show respect to my parents. In the Ten Commandments,

one of the commandments is honor your father and mother.

And it's the only of the ten commandments that actually

has a promise with it, and it says, and if

you read these verses that I've written out here Ephesians six, three,

two and three, that if you honor your father and mother, you'll.

Have a long life full of blessing.

It's the only promise of the ten commandments that has

a promise with it.

Number three, show respect to my spouse.

If you are married to your husband, your wife, then

God expects you to show respect to your spouse.

And if you don't, by the way.

Guys, men, did you know that if you don't respect

your wife, the Bible says God will not hear your prayers.

Uh oh, this is one verse you got to see.

Let me put it on the screen. First, Peter, First,

Peter three, seven and eight. Okay, here's what it says. You,

husbands must give honor to your wives. Treat her with

understanding as you live together. She may be physically weaker

than you are, but she is your equal partner in

God's gift of new life. And if you don't treat

her as you should, your prayers will not be heard. Bam,

I'm sorry, honey, So you need to treat them. That's

out of the New Living Translation. Now, before you women

get cocky, I have a verse for you too. Ephesians

five thirty three says this, and it starts with the

guys again again, I say again, okay.

Because we don't always learn it that well.

The husband must love his wife as a part of himself.

It's like love your neighbors yourself. You're to love your

wife as yourself. You know they're treating her with respect,

and the wife must see to it that she respects

her husband, praising and honoring him. From the Living Bible,

all right. Number four, the Bible says that God expects

me to respect other church members in our church, family

and pastors. The Bible says we're to treat each other

as brothers and sisters. We are to outdo each other

and showing respect to each other. I'll be happy to

send you these verses Romans twelve ten, Hebrews thirteen seventeen.

But we're to respect each other in the family of God.

Number five. The Bible says that I'm expected to show

respect to older people. You've heard the phrase respect your elders, Well,

guess where it came from.

It's from the Bible.

God says that if you want his blessing, you must

respect the elderly in Leviticus nineteen thirty two. Number six,

I must show respect.

This may surprise you.

To unbelievers, doesn't matter if they're an atheist or an agnostic,

or some other religion, or no religion at all, secularist, whatever.

The Bible says, God expects me to show respect unbelievers

First Peter three fifteen and sixteen, and says, when you

share your hope with them, I always do it with

gentleness and respect. Number seven, I am to show specifically

respect to the poor. To the poor, the Bible says,

if you're unkind to the poor, you insult your creator.

But if you're kind to them, then you show respect

to God and you show.

Respect to them.

And so somebody may not have as much money as

you do. You don't get any leeway in disrespecting them

because they can't afford what you can afford.

You have to show respect to the poor.

Number eight, I am to show respect to immigrants. Now

this is one that's actually mentioned over and over. It's

not mentioned just one time. It's mentioned over and over.

I am to show respect to immigrants. In fact, let

me show you this verse two, because this is a

hot button issue right now, particularly in the United States.

Leviticus nineteen thirty three and thirty four says this, you

must never mistreat any foreigner who is living in your country. Instead,

you must treat them just as you treat your own citizens.

I didn't say this, God did. God did.

Love foreigners as you love yourselves, because you remember that

your ancestors were foreigners at one time in a new country.

And I am the Lord your God.

I don't have time to go into this, but the

Bible very clearly God gets mad. He gets ticked off

when we don't show foreigners or immigrants respect. Number nine.

These are getting harder.

Number nine. I am to show respect to my opponents,

to enemies, to.

People who attack you or maybe persecute you, or maybe

try to put you down or plan for your defeat.

It's easy to show respect to people you like. It's

hard to show respect to people you dislike, or people

who have a different political persuasion or different religious persuasions.

Do you show respect to people who violently disagree with you.

That's a mark of a Christian. Here's what Jesus said.

These are the words of Christ himself. Matthew five forty

four to forty seven. I'm want to read this one

to you two.

Jesus said.

You've heard it said, love your enemies and hate your

love your neighbor, and hate your enemies. But I tell you,

and he said, no, not love your neighbor and hate

your enemies. I tell you, love your enemies and pray

for those who persecute you. In this way, you show

that you are the children of your heavenly father, your

father in heaven.

It shows your follower of Christ. You're in the family.

If you only love those who love you, do you

deserve a reward?

Obviously?

No, are you doing anything remarkable? Notice there's that word remarkable.

Are you doing anything remarkable if you only welcome your friends?

He answers, Obviously not everybody does that. In God's word translation,

So we are how do you be a remarkable person

when when they are attacking you you give nothing but

love back. When they're disrespectful to you, you are respectful

to them. He said, that's how you know you really

have been saved, that you're in the family of God.

And then number ten, this one's hard too. Sometimes I

am to show respect to government leaders. Oh really, really,

even the opposite party.

Whatever.

The Bible tells us over and over that we are

to respect the position even when people are not doing

respectful things. Now, it's not rocket science. This first quality,

the foundational quality of just treating everybody with this frict

treating everybody with dignity, even people you disagree with, and

even people who are not respectful to you. It's pretty simple,

and kids don't have to learn one hundred different rules.

They just need to have to learn one rule. It's

called the Golden rule, and the golden rules. The next

verse on your outline where Jesus said in Matthew seven twelve,

this is the famous golden rule of Jesus. In everything

you do do to others what you would want them

to do to you. This sums up all the law

and the prophecy. He said the whole Bible summed up

in this treat people the way you'd like to be treated. Well,

that's not rocket science. A little child can learn how

do I want to be treated? That's the way I

treat others. And if I learn that one rule, treat other.

People the way I'd like to be treated, then I

am going to be respectful.

That makes sense. All right, Let's go to the second one.

The second are in a remarkable life. If I want

to build a remarkable life and a remarkable career, second

thing I would have to learn is not just how

to show respect. I'm going to have to learn to

be reliable reliable, because if you're not reliable, nobody's going

to trust you. And if nobody trusts you, you can't

do business with them, you can't lead them, you can't

have any impact in their life. Now, in the Bible,

the word reliable is not used that often because it's

a fairly modern term, but the concept is all through scripture,

and it's.

Called being trustworthy.

Trustworthy is the same thing as being reliable, being worthy

of trust. Another word that the Bible uses for reliable

is the word faithful, and the Bible talks about being

a faithful friend, being a faithful spouse, being a faithful leader,

of being faithful to God, being faithful to your church

and your family and your friends, and honor on and

the Bible says that faithfulness people who are reliable, that

they you can count on them. Says, they're very rare.

They're very they're very remarkable, because most people are not reliable.

They're not.

Now, let me give you definition. Reliability means being dependable,

being trustworthy, being honest, being loyal. The Bible says in

Proverbs twenty verse six, there are plenty of people who

will tell you you could trust me.

Yeah, all right, run for the border.

But it's hard to find someone who is truly trustworthy.

A lot of people in the King James says, every

man will proclaim his own faithfulness, but who can find

a faithful man? In other words, it's rare. It's remarkable

when you find somebody that you can totally trust. And

employees pay big bucks for people who are reliable. They go,

I can count on them. Now, how do I do that?

How do I grow reliability? How do I develop a

reputation for being a reliable person? Well, in lots of ways,

but let me just give you three from scripture. Write

these down. Number one, this is kind of obvious. Always

tell the truth the If you don't always tell the truth,

then you're not reliable. If I'm honest eighty percent of

the time, is that reliable. No, it's kind of like

if I said to my wife, ky, honey, I'll be

faithful to you twenty eight days a month. Really, partial

faithfulness is unfaithfulness.

It's either all or nothing.

And reliability means I'm always there and I always tell

the truth. The Bible says in Proverbs seventeen seven, respected

people do not tell lies. Number two, Always do what

I promise. That shows reliability. It shows it to a boss,

to an employee, a supervisor. Always do what I promised

to do. The Bible talks about like clouds without rain,

is a friend who promises to do something and then

doesn't do it. Proverbs twenty eight thirteen says this. Reliable

friends who do what they say are like cool drinks

in a sweltering heat, refreshing. I like that in the

message pairphrase, here's another verse there in your outline problem,

so I'm fifteen.

Four says this.

They keep their promises to their neighbors even when it hurts.

Do you do that?

Have you ever made a commitment and you know that's

no problem with that, But then something else comes up

that's better, and you go, I want to get out

of this commitment because this is a better thing, and

I'll have more fun, I'll make more money.

Or be more relaxing or whatever.

Well, the Bible says they keep their promises to their

neighbors even when it hurts. In other words, when it's

to my detriment, I'm now going to lose money on

this or whatever. That's reliability that is so rare that

it is remarkable because most people are not that kind

of reliable. So I always tell the truth, and I

always do what I say i'll do. And number three,

I always keep confidential information. This was one of the

ten career limiting problems that people have.

Gossip.

Gossip keeps a lot of people from being promoted in

life because.

They can't keep a secret.

They just have to share it with somebody else. Reliable

people know how to keep their mouth shut. They know

how to keep confidential information confidential. Do you can if

somebody tells you a secret? Can they can you be

counted on to not tell anybody. That's pretty rare. That's remarkable.

Problems eleven thirteen. Gossips can't keep secrets, but a trustworthy

person can never be remarkable. If you can't keep secretly,

you'll never be remarkable as a gossip. By the way,

when people gossip to you, you can be certain they

will gossip about you. You just need to know that.

You may not think so well they're my friend. If

they're gossiping to you, then they will gossip about you

because they get power by spreading information. It makes them

feel superior, it makes them feel in control. And anybody

who has to share bad news about other people and

gossip to you is going to.

Gossip about you also.

And the Bible tells you over and over and over

and over and avoid gossips. Don't hang out with them,

don't be friends with them, stay away from them.

Why Because it's contagious.

Proverbs eleven thirteen and the New Living Translation says this.

A gossip goes around revealing secrets. But those who are

trustworthy in other words, reliable, can keep a confidence. Again,

corporate pay big money for people who are not just respectful,

but they're reliable. Okay, so we're talking about not the

three hours of reading, writing, arithmetic. We're talking about the

four rs of character that build a remarkable life. And

the first one we said is to be respectful and

the second is to be reliable. Here's the third one, resourceful.

If I want to build a remarkable life, if I

want to build a remarkable career, I must learn to

be resourceful. Now I'm going to explain this to you.

But again, as I said, companies pay top dollar, pay

a lot of money for people who are resourceful, and

who are resourceful views there are people who figure out

solutions to problems. They are resourceful in that they look

for ways to do a workaround or create a solution.

They're figuring out ways to solve problems. Here's a definition.

Resourcefulness is two things. It's making the most of what

I have.

Do you know how to do that?

Not waiting for something else to come in before you

actually start living, making the most of what I have,

and finding solutions to problems that others have overlooked.

That's what it means to be resourceful.

My dad's matto and I heard him say it over

and over grown up was I will do the best

I have, my best I can with what I have

for Jesus Christ today.

I like that.

I'll do the best I can with what I have

for Jesus Christ today. I'm not waiting for everything to

fall in place. If I'm waiting for perfect environment, nothing's

ever going.

To get done.

I'll do the best I can with what I have.

That's resourcefulness. You need resourcefulness in your finances because you're

never going to have unlimited finances. You need resourcefulness in

your time. You're never going to have unlimited time. You

need resourcefulness in creative solutions, in relationships, in your health,

and in a.

Lot of things.

Because we live, as I said, in a broken, imperfect world.

You're never going to have perfect circumstances for anything. Nothing

in your life will ever have perfect circumstances. There will

always be something wrong with it. That's why you need

to learn to be resourceful where you do the workarounds

with the problems with the weather, with the lack of

this resource or whatever we need.

One of the great examples of.

Resourcefulness would be Paul, and in Philippians four twelve he

says this the apostle Paul. He says, I know how

to live on almost nothing or with everything. I've learned

the secret of living in every situation, whether it is

with a full stomach or an empty one.

With plenty or with little. He goes.

I don't care if I'm up or down, if I'm

in poverty or I'm in prosperity, if things are going good,

things going bad, I've learned how to live in it.

Let's you say I'm resourceful. And people who are resor

who don't have to have everything just right, are the

people who get ahead in life. They're the people who

change the world. They're the people who make an impact,

who live remarkable lives.

Number four.

If I want to build a remarkable life, if I

want to build a remarkable career, I've got to learn

the fourth art, which.

Is I must learn to be resilient.

Resilient, and that means you don't give up when you stumble,

when you fall, when you make mistake, you get up,

you dust yourself off, and you move ahead. You're resilient,

you bounce back, you don't fall apart when things fall apart.

We live in a nation today filled with people who

do not know how to be resilient, and when something

goes wrong, they just give up if at first you

don't succeed. Their matto is not try and try again,

it's give up and expect the government to.

Do it for you or whatever, and you don't.

When you have resilience, you don't label yourself as a

victim or a case as you choose joy. You have

the same problems everybody else does, but you choose to

keep going. You choose to keep moving ahead. Here's the definition.

Resilience is the ability to bounce back and to recover

from a loss, or from failure, or from stress or

from disappointment. This is one of the most important skills.

And people who learn to be respectful and reliable and

resourceful and resilient, they're never gonna have a problem getting.

A job.

Because bosses are looking for that kind of quality person.

Let me give you a couple verses Proverbs twenty four

to sixteen. When good people stumble, even if they fall

seven times, they will.

Get back up.

And I'd like for you to circle the phrase good people,

because notice that even good people stumble.

I love this verse.

One of my favorite verses in the Bible. It says

in King James, though a righteous man falls seven times,

he rises again. Even righteous people mess up, even righteous

people stumble, Even righteous people make bad decisions and mistakes,

but you don't. Failure is never final. Failure is never fatal.

Failure is how you learn what doesn't work. So you

don't ever call it a failure, call it an experiment,

because that's how you learn what doesn't work.

You know.

Thomas Thomas Edison, I think tried I don't know eight

hundred plus different metals before he came up with tungsten

as the effective metal for the incandescent light bulb. He

didn't say, well, I failed eight hundred times. He said,

I know eight hundred things that don't work. And so

if you have that learning mentality, we're going to talk

about this in the next series. A learning mentality. It's

not like I failed eight hundred two. It's like I

had to get I had to just try.

For I find out what works.

One of the keys to Saddleback Church is that we're

not afraid to fail. I just teach our lay leaders,

our volunteers, our staff, and they just fail fast. I

tell all the staff, I want you failing every week.

If you're not failing, you're not trying anything new. It's

not a failure to try something and doesn't work. Now

we know that doesn't work. What is bad is if

you keep failing, doing the same thing over and over and.

Over and not learning from it.

Make it a new failure, make it a doozy. So,

as your pastor, I'm telling you, go out and fail

this week. It won't hurt. It's how you learn to

be a success. Someday I'll write a book a thousand

ways to not grow at church, because I know every

one of them. We've tried them all. We try ninety

nine things. They don't work, a number one hundred works.

Then we go out and teach a seminar to three

thousand pastors pretend like we know what we're doing.

But we're not that smart. It's just trial and error.

Studies have shown that parents who try to protect their

kids from failure and try to buffer them, and even

if they do fail, they.

Won't let them feel it. It's okay.

They let your kids feel bad because they'll learn that.

It doesn't kill you.

The people who fear failure the most are those who

were not allowed to fail.

Growing up. They were not allowed to fail.

And when they did fail, we immediately switched to the subject.

We didn't let them feel it. It's part of growing up,

it's part of a feeling bad is part of life.

The sooner you teach your kids law number one, everything

on earth is broken, the better.

Law number two.

Nothing is perfect on this planet except to God. It's perfect,

and God's love for you is perfect. But everything else

is broken. It's all flawed because of sin, and so

we shouldn't expect it to be perfect. And if we

give our kids the idea that life's going to be

a combination of my little pony and you know, rainbow

bright with pastels and flowers coming down and unicorns, they're

going to be pretty upset when they.

Hit the real world.

Life is tough, everything's broken, nothing's perfect, but God is

good and life can be good even in a broken world.

And marriage can be good even though we're all broken,

and so can everything else. And ultimately we're going to

go to a place where it's all good all the time,

and that's heaven.

But this is not heaven. Here we have.

You, know, Lymphomo, And here we have abuse, and we

have a lot of war and a lot of other

But life can be good even in the middle of bad.

But it's choice, and the choice is to learn to

be resilient, all right. A good example is Paul again

Second Corinthians four seven and eight, are eight and nine.

Paul says, we're often pressured from every side. You ever

feel like that? Pressured from every side? We're often pressured

from every side, but we're never crushed. Sometimes we don't

know what to do, but we're never despair. Sometimes we're

attacked and we're abused, but God never abandons us. And

we get knocked down, but we get up again and

we keep going. That is resilience. Second Corinthians four eight

and nine. The Phillips translation says, we get knocked down.

But we're not knocked out. Let's vow for prayer.

These all come from Jesus Christ, and if you get

Christ in your life, then you're going to get the

power you need. But you have to make the choices.

Because you can listen to all these things and not

do anything about it. Ingleholme and do nothing, turn on

the TV and forget it. But if you say I

really want to be a remarkable person, I want to

be different, I want the rest of my life to

be different, well, okay, let's make that choice right now,

in this moment, just follow me in this prayer, say

something like this, Dear God, I want to stop blaming.

Other people for my problems.

I want to stop making excuses for my problems. I

want to learn to be responsible, and I want to

learn to be reliable. And I want to speak the

truth and do what I say i'll do, and learn

to keep confidences. I want to learn to be re

respectful for everybody, even when they disrespect me. They can't

control my response. I'm in control of that. So God,

I want to learn to be like Jesus, to respect

people and their dignity even when I disagree with them.

To be resourceful. Help me to learn how to solve problems,

to not wait for other people to solve them, to

not wait for the government anybody else, but to use

the brain that you gave me. Help me to be

not just resourceful and respectful, but to be resilient and reliable. God,

you know the things that get me down. You know

how many times I've wanted to give up. You know

how many times I wanted to just throw in the towel.

I'm asking for your help, help me to remember because

we know that you work all things for good, because

we know that you will never stop loving us, because

we know that you use even the bad stuff in

good ways in our lives. I want to be one

of those righteous people that when I fall seven.

Times, I get right back up. And I want, starting.

This week, the rest of my life to be different.

I want this to be a turning point. If you've

never opened your life to Jesus Christ, say something like this, Jesus,

I want to get to know you. I don't understand

it all, but I want to get to know you.

I want to learn to trust you. I want to

ask you to fill my life with faith instead of fear,

and with love instead of insecurity, and with purpose and meaning.

And I want to know your plan for my life.

And I want to start this journey by just saying

to you, yes, Jesus Christ, I'm in. I want to

accept what you did for me on the cross, and

I want to start growing, and I want to live

a remarkable life. And I humbly ask this in your name, Amen,