Rick Warren - Why God Lets You Win Before Testing You

Before every blessing, there is always a testing. God wants

to see if you can handle what He's about to

give you greater responsibility, greater blessing, greater success or prosperity,

or spiritual experiences, greater influence. God wants to know can

you handle what you've already got before he gives you

even more? And God tests you with stress before he

trusts you with success. We've talked about this every single week.

God wants to see if you.

Can handle it.

Jesus explained this principle actually in Luke sixteen. Look up

here on the screen. Jesus said this, you must be

proven trustworthy in small things before you'll be trusted with

greater things. That's before every blessing, there is a testing.

And if you have not been faithful with what is

not your own, who's going to trust you to give

you your own? Before God trust you with success, he tests

you with stress. Now, so far in this series, we've

looked at five tests.

Let's put them all up here on the board and

see where we've been.

We looked at first, when your world is shaken up,

that means the test of a major change. We've looked

at when your pressured to conform. Peer pressure is a

test in your life. We've looked at when your beliefs

are belittled. And remember we talked to the students particularly

about that about at school. We talked about when you're

asked to do the impossible. When a boss or somebody

in your life says I need you to do this,

you go, I don't have the time of the money

to do this. That's a test when you're asked to

do the impossible. And then we looked at when the

heat is on, and we talked about the young men

going through the fiery furnace because they refused to bow

down to the statue of Nebek and Ezra. Now the

next five weeks, let me show you where we're going. Okay,

here's some of the other tests you're going to see.

We're going to look at when you need to have

a difficult conversation, probably need to know how to do that,

when you have to share a hard truth with somebody

you love or as in your life, when you need.

To have a difficult conversation.

Then the next one, when people work against you at work,

at school, or somewhere else like that you maybe even

feel like they're plotting against you.

We're going to look at that test.

When your situation looks hopeless, we're going to look at

that is a test in life. God often allows things

to get so bad it looks hopeless. And then when

the answer to your prayer is delayed, that's what everybody needs.

You need to know the skill of how to handle

a delayed answer to prayer.

That is a test. This is a test.

But this weekend we're going to look at this one.

When God tests you with success, I say, wit a minute.

I know stress is a test. I know suffering is

a test. But success is a test. Of course, it's

a test. Have you ever seen success ruin anybody? Oh,

of course you have. It goes to their head. They

get stuck up, they get you know, it changes their character.

They crack up, they can't handle it. Success has ruined

a lot of people. In fact, VH one built an

entire channel of biographies of rock groups that cracked up,

messed up, broke up once they got successful. Success is

as much of a test in your life is as

suffering is. In fact, I will tell you as a

pastor and having worked with people now for over forty years,

more people are ruined by success than they are ruined

by suffering. You might not think it, but when you're

in suffering you go straight to God. But when you're successful,

you forget God. And for every you know one nine

people who can handle pain, you can't find one person

who can handle fame, and the praise goes to their head.

The Bible talks about this on the screen. Proverbs twenty

seven one says this a hot furnace tests silver and gold.

But people are tested Read this with me aloud by

the praise they received. Well, did you know that every

time you're complimented, this is a test. I tell pastors

compliments and criticisms are kind of like chewing gum. You

chew on it a little while, but you never swallow it,

because both of them can really mess you up. He says,

people are tested by the praise they receive. Human beings

are the only animal that God created that when you

pat them on the back, their head swells. So we

want to talk about the danger of pride and arrogance

and ego when you're successful, because it's easy to forget God.

This is just as much a test as all the

tough times you go through and it's one that we

often don't understand. But Daniel chapter four tells us how

King Nebkinzzar that we've been looking at for several weeks

now literally lost everything because of his pride, his arrogance,

and his ego.

Now let's just review.

Nebucon Azer is the most successful man on planet Earth

at this time. Twenty five hundred years ago, his father

had been the king of Babylon. He was a young

general in his dad's army, and he single handedly defeated

the Assyrian Empire, which was the most powerful empire of

its day. And now all of a sudden, the Babylonian

Empire is bigger than the Assyrian Empire because of this

young man. He comes home the conquering general, and he

is a rock star. And at a very early age

he's very, very successful. And when his dad dies, he

succeeds his dad. He becomes the Emperor of Babylon. Then

he expands the Babylonian Empire until it becomes the most

powerful empire in the world. Of that day, everybody feared

nebucan Ezer. And then not only that, he built the

most beautiful city in the world, and that day is

called Babylon, and he built what we're called the Hanging

Gardens of Babylon for his wife, which were called one

of the seven Wonders of the ancient world, the hanging

Gardens of Babylon, just like the Pyramids. I mean, it

was of that quality. People wanted to just go to

Babylon to see the thing that he had built. And

as I said, he became the most powerful man on earth.

But neviken Hazer had a problem, and it was his pride,

it was his ego he had. You know, some people

have a problem with anger their entire lives. He had

a problem with pride, with arrogance his entire life, because he.

Had one success after another.

Now, this story, chapter four picks up when he's in

his fifties, so he's already well into his leadership as

the Emperor's very powerful man, and one night he has

a very disturbing dream. Now this is thirty two years

after that previous dream that we looked at but he

couldn't interpret at which he called in a guy named

Daniel to interpret. And so thirty two years later he

calls Daniel Baglass, Hey man, I got another weird dream.

Can you tell me what it means, and Daniel tells

him he's sad to be the bearer of bad news,

but he says, well, King, what this means. Is this

the dream you've just had. It means that God is

fed up with your arrogance. He's fed up with your pride,

with your ego. You would have nothing if it weren't

for God. Everything you got in life, it's because God

allows you to have it. And if God didn't want

you to have it, you might be homeless on the street.

But you've taken all the credit for yourself. And you

should have known better, nebuchan Ezer, because God's shown you

a bunch of miracles since the Jews have been here.

Remember the one where you know by the way, he

built this ninety foot statue to himself. Remember we talked

about that, And that's an ego problem. When you say, hey,

I'm gonna build a ninety foot statue, and every time

they blow the horns, you bow down and worship me.

He thought he was God. And then how God saved

the three young men, the Hebrew men Shadrakmishak and Abit Lego,

and said you went through the fire, and he said,

you saw that miracle and and you proclaimed at the

end of that there's only one true God, and you

made this public declaration that God is God and not you.

But then you forgot it and you didn't follow up

on that public commitment. And for the last thirty years

you haven't served God. You've been serving yourself. And so

your time is about up. Because God gave you all

of these chances, and because you haven't humbled yourself and

you haven't depended on God, God is going to remove

you as the king of the greatest empire in the

world for a season of time. And he says, not

only are you going to lose your kingdom, sir, you're

going to lose your mind. You're going to actually lose

touch with reality. You're going to go insane so much

so that you're going to be kicked out of the palace.

You're gonna go live in the desert like an animal.

You're gonna your hair is gonna get all matted because

nobody's gonna care for you. Your fingernails are going to

grow out so long they look like claws. And he said,

you're gonna live like an animal because you truly will

actually lose your sanity for a period of time.

Daniel then says, but here's the good news. Game.

You can avoid it all. You don't have to go

through this humiliating experience. If you will humble yourself, and

if you will listen to God, and if you'll just

start honoring God with your success, get this phrase. If

you'll start honoring God with your success, you can avoid

the fall. Now, unfortunately, the king did nothing about this.

He had the dream, he gets the interpretation, and he

immediately forgets it, and he goes on his way, still

living the ego trip, still being it's all about himself.

He procrastinates doing the right thing, nothing Dumble says to himself,

and he forgets the whole incident, and so he lost

everything he had worked for, the most powerful man, influential

man in the world, ended up being homeless and insane

out on the streets, out in the desert. But Daniel says,

if you'll start honoring God, you can do You'll avoid

it all. But he didn't, so he fails the test

of success. Now, let me just say this to you.

You can be expected to be tested in your success.

Whatever level of success you have in life, God will

test you. If you pass the test, you get more.

If you don't, you get less. Jesus said it. It's

taught all the way through scripture. I don't want this

to happen to you. So what I want us to

do this weekend is look at this story twenty five

hundred years old. You can read about in archaeology. This happened.

And I wanted to simply ask three questions. Number one,

what gets people into trouble when they start succeeding in life?

Because I see successful people falling by the wayside all

the time financially, relationally, mentally, socially, spiritually.

What gets us trapped?

And what causes us to get into trouble when we succeed?

Number two, I want to ask, what are the steps

to recovery after you've failed? Because what Neam what never

can Hazer? Did you need to do too if this

ever happens to you? And number three, what are the

things that I need to remember about God that will

stabilize me whether I'm going through success or through suffering?

And Nebican Hazer learns four things and you need to

learn them. You need to memorize them so that whether

you're in good times or bad times, these things will

stabilize your life. Now, you've heard people say it's wise

to learn from experience, but you don't have enough time

to make all the mistakes yourself. It's wise to learn

from experience, it's wiser to learn from the experience of others.

That's why we have this book. It's a lot less

painful too.

If you want to live a life full of purpose

and joy, then you need to transform the way you think.

And to help you do this, Pastor Rick created a

brand new set of scripture cards with fifty two hand

selected verses from his series Rethinking your Life. These verses

will guide you into a deeper understanding of your purpose

and faith, and you'll find yourself gaining the strength to

overcome temptation and conquer discouragement. When you allow God's word

to transform your mind, you'll see your life through his eyes,

apply his wisdom, and step into a life of purpose

and joy. This set of beautifully designed cards will help

you memorize scripture so you can recall God's word when

you need it the most. And today, when you give

a gift to help daily hope, take the hope of

Jesus to a world in need. We'll send you the

rethinking your life. Scripture card set to say thanks.

All right, let's start by looking at what gets us

into trouble when we're succeeding in life. There are three

causes of nebuican Ezer's fall and his breakdown.

You might write these down.

Number one, we get into trouble because Number one, we

get comfortable and complacent.

With success, we.

Get comfortable and complacent. Now, this happens to all of us.

When things are going good, you just get complacent. Daniel,

Chapter four, Verse four. I nebic Azer was enjoying a

time of peace and prosperity in my kingdom and palace,

and I was taking it easy without a care in

the world. Does that sound like somebody who's praying every day? No,

let me ask you a personal question. Do you pray

more in pain or pleasure? Oh, there's no doubt when

you do. You pay pray more when you're in pain.

When you're in pain, Oh, God, I need your help

right now. When things are going great, Hey, let's go

to the beach. You're not even thinking about God when

things are going good in your life. And so it's

pleasure that pulls us away. It's the good times when

pride creeps in that we forget God. I want you

to notice all the personal pronouns in this next statement

of nebecan ezer he said. I said to myself, just look,

notice the eyes and the me and the miyes. I

said to myself, Okay, you ever talk to yourself?

Oh, you do it all the time.

I said to myself, just look at this great sit

of Babylon that I have created. I, by my own

mighty power, have built this beautiful city for my glory.

I built it.

Just show my power, my might, my majesty, and my glory.

Wow.

That's quite humble, isn't it. This is a problem right here.

Remember the lesson of the whale. When you get to

the top and you're ready to blow, that's when they harpoon.

You be humble or you will stumble. Niamiah needed to

go read Chapter one of purpose Driven Life. The first line,

it's not about you, It's all about God, he thought,

It's all about himself. Now, throughout the Bible, we're warned

constantly about the dangers of pride. The middle letter of

pride is what I The middle letter sin is what

pride causes.

Sin is the root of all sin, and no matter

what the sin is.

I know God says don't gossip, but I think I

know better than God, so I will gossip. I know

I'm supposed to forgive that person, but I know better,

so I Pride is the renewed I know what God

says about sex, but I'm gonna do my thing. I

know what God says about money, but I'm gonna do

my thing. I know what God says about Pride is

the root of every other sin. Pride is the sin

that God Satan kicked out of heaven. God hates pride

more than anything else in life because it says I'm

God and I don't need God. The Bible says pride

goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall,

and Neo and Ebucinezer had a major fall in his life.

Look at this verse on the screen Proverbs fifteen sixteen,

verse five. The Lord despises pride.

That means he hates it.

You can be sure that the proud will be punished.

There are many many verses in the Bible. The Bible

says God resists the proud, but he gives grace to

the humble. Grace is the power you need to change.

If you need to change something in your life, you

need to be humble. God resists the proud. It means

whenever I'm prideful, I'm on the opposite side of God,

and my arms are too short to box with God.

He's going to win every time. God hates pride. But

we get comfortable and complacent with success. Second thing is

we don't pay attention to the warning signs.

Now.

Often in your own life, when things are going good,

you don't see the warning signs. But in every success

of the seeds of your own destruction. But often the

signs are not seen because pride blinds us. You know,

I teach pastors, and I tell pastors all the time,

always being in the spotlight blinds you.

And that's true in any area of life.

Right now, in this stage, there are you know, I

don't know, several hundred thousand watts sing on me.

It's kind of blinding.

If you're in the spotlight all of the time, you

can't see clearly, and so it's not good for your soul.

That's why I tell pastors, you need to go home

and mow your own lawn and change the diapers and

do some laundry and wash the dishes and do the

stuff that real people do, and do everything like you

just need to keep in touch with your roots. We

don't pay attention to the warning signs. Now, God clearly

warned EBC. He didn't just remove him from office. God

cared enough about this game to warn him. He gives

him a dream. He brings Daniel to interpret the dream.

Daniel says, this is gonna happen, and you can avoid it.

You can avoid this massive fall in your career, this

embarrassing experience, if you'll just humble yourself, honor God, stop

forgetting God, do the right thing. And so God said,

I'm going to warn you in advance. You're about to

lose your kingdom and you're about to lose your sanity. Question,

what are the warning signs in your life when you're

headed in the wrong direction?

Do you even know what they are?

You know that what the warning signs are in your life,

that you're kind of got en off track, that you're

getting a little prideful, that you're forgetting God.

Do you even know what those signs are?

Conflict could be a warning sign if you're having conflict

in a relationship that's a sign you're on the wrong track.

Chaos in your life can be a warning sign.

Confusion. I don't know what I'm supposed to be doing

right now. That's a warning sign you're not as well

connected to God as you ought to be. You're doing

it on your own power, like if it's to be,

it's up to me. Temptation can be a warning sign.

I'm just being tempted at a work, at school with

someone or something.

That's a warning sign. And God warned, never can as

you're gonna lose it all. Buddy.

You're very successful, you're a most powerful, influential, successful guy

in the world. But you're gonna lose it all if

you don't change quickly. And Daniel tells the King that

he needs to do two things. Now, pay attention to

this verse twenty seven. Here's what you do to avoid

the humiliating experience.

Two things.

Repent of your sins and start doing right. Then number two,

begin to show merciful kindness to the poor and oppressed.

Then God will allow you to keep prospering. If you

want to maintain your success, you need to do these

two things. First, he says, repent. Now we've talked about

this word. It just means change your mind, change your attitude,

change your thinking. The word repent in Greek is meta.

Noya meta means change, noiya means your mind, to change

your mind. I used to think this way about my life.

Now I think this way about my life. That's what

repent means. You just change your attitude. You got some

stinking thinking in your mind. You got to check up

from the neck up and you need to go. Oh,

that's the wrong thing I've been thinking. This is all

about me.

It's not.

It's all about God. And the Bible says repent change

your mind. Why Because humility is a choice. Let me

say that again. Humility is a choice. It's something you

choose to do to yourself. Did you know that Never

in the Bible are you told to pray God humble me.

Not once in scripture are you ever told by God

to pray God humble me. God keep me humble. Doesn't

say that, It says humble yourself. It says multiple times,

humble yourself. Humility is a choice. Now, let's just define

these two words, pride and humility. Pride is when I

accept the credit for things that God and other people

did through me. Infore me when I accept the credit

that doesn't really belong to me. I couldn't have done

it without God, I couldn't have done it without other people.

But I'm acting like it all came because of my brilliance.

Pride is accepting credit for things that God and others

did through you and for you. Humility, humility is not

thinking less of yourself. It's thinking of yourself less.

A lot of people think humility.

Means I'm walk around going, Oh, I'm no good, I'm nothing,

I'm worthless. I'm just a pile of junk. You're not

a pile of junk. Jesus didn't die for junk. You

are infinitely valuable to God. Look at the cross. It

shows how much you're valuable. Jesus died for you. That's

how valuable you are. But you're also deeply flawed and broken,

and you have weaknesses of mistakes and sins in your life.

Both are true. You're deeply flawed, and you're deeply loved.

Both of them are true. And pride our humility is

just having a realistic estimate of yourself. And it's not

putting yourself down. It's thinking about others. It's getting the

focus off you. Here's the difference. If I walk into

a room where they're having a party and I say.

Hey, how do I look? I'm thinking how do I look?

That's pride.

If I walk into a room, fill a party, fill

the people, and I say, who needs my help? That's

humility is not thinking less of yourself. I'll say it again,

it's thinking of yourself less. The humble person isn't going

around going oh, I'm so humble, I'm so humble. The

humble person is so busy thinking about other people and

thinking about God, they're not even thinking about themselves.

Does that makes sense?

Humility is other persons centered, it's God centered. And the

more you think about and care about others and care

about God, the more humble you will be. And so

he says you need to repent and you need to

humble yourself. That's a choice God. You don't want God

to humble you, because if you don't humble yourself, God

will humiliate you.

And there are plenty of ways to do that. You

don't want that to happen.

And it's a whole lot easier to humble yourself than

to have somebody else have to do it.

In your life. Then he says. The second thing you're

going to do.

He says, if you do this, you can avoid the

big fall is he says, serve the poor.

Serve the poor.

Why in the world would God tell the most powerful

man in the world to serve the poor. Well, there

are many many reasons this. First, it gets the focus

off yourself. You're thinking about people who have more needs

than you do when you are succeeding. Second, it keeps

you in touch with reality. You know, in America, we

don't realize how blessed we are. We live in a bubble.

Let me just put this perspective. If you have any

coins in your pocket right now, any or any coins

in a little you know, the dish at home, or

you got some in your purse, you are already wealthier

than over ninety percent of the people in the world.

Just even have a thing called money that's just laying around.

If you have a refrigerator with food in it, you're

wealthier than fifty percent of the world.

See, most people would love to be poor. In America. Eve,

everybody is rich in America.

Everybody, even the poorest of the poor in America are

rich because we have safety nets here take care of people.

Even the poor have a television or have a phone

and things. They have clothes, they have a roof over

their head. Most of the world would love to be

poor in America, and that's why you live in a

bubble until like when you see how the rest of

the world really does live, and when you serve the poor,

it keeps you in touch with reality.

If you want to live a life full of purpose

and joy, then you need to transform the way you think.

And to help you do this, Pastor It created a

brand new set of scripture cards with fifty two hand

selected verses from his series Rethinking Your Life. These verses

will guide you into a deeper understanding of your purpose

and faith, and you'll find yourself gaining the strength to

overcome temptation and conquer this discouragement. When you allow God's

word to transform your mind, you'll see your life through

his eyes, apply his wisdom, and step into a life

of purpose and joy. This set of beautifully designed cards

will help you memorize scripture so you can recall God's

word when you need it the most, and today when

you give a gift to help daily hope, take the

hope of Jesus to a world in need. Will send

you the Rethinking your Life scripture card set to say thanks,