Rick Warren - Radical Joy—Part Three

Hello, and welcome to Pastor Rick's Daily Hope. This is

the Bible teaching ministry of Rick Warren. Hey, We're so

glad you've joined us.

Today.

We're continuing a powerful series called Radicalis Developing Spiritual Roots.

And in this series, Rick will show you how to

grow deep in your faith, stay grounded in God's word,

and become everything He created you to be. All right,

here's the final part of a message called Radical Joy.

The fifth reason we can have joy no matter what

happens in our lives. If I'm in Christ, God will

meet all my needs.

God has promised us.

If I'm in Christ, God has promised to meet all

my needs. So what do I have to worry about?

And again, worry is a killjoy. The Bible says it

like this in Romans eight, verse thirty two. Since God

did not spare even his own son, that's Jesus, but

gave him up for us all. Won't God, who gave

us Christ also give us everything else?

You see the logic of that verse.

If God loved you enough to come to earth and

die on the cross for your sins, don't you think

anything else You've got as small potatoes as a problem.

When God solved your biggest problem and it came to

earth to die for you. Don't you think he cares

then about your finances? Don't you think he cares about

your relationships? Don't you think he cares about your health,

about your job, your career. Yeah, he cares about all

that too, And that's a reason for joy. God says

I will meet all your needs. In fact, this is

what he says in Philippians four nineteen. My God will

meet all your needs according to his glorious riches. And

here's the phrase in Christ, in Christ Jesus, it's in Christ.

God has not promised to meet the needs of everybody

in the world. No, he's promised to meet the needs

of those in Christ Jesus. Now he says, my God

will meet all your needs. He doesn't say I'll meet

all your greeds. God hadn't promised to give you a

rolls royce or mansion on a hilltop, or God has

said I'll meet all your needs. What you need, I'll

get to you. I'm promised to make you. It's not

the mightast touch you get whatever you want. Is Rick

talked about. It's not like God's a genie. But he says,

I'll meet all your needs. Now, most of us don't

really understand this, so we don't pray for it. One

of my favorite verses in the Bible is Paw eighty

four eleven. It says this, no good thing will the

Lord withhold from those who do what is right?

No good thing?

You know, as a father, when my kids are growing up,

I want to give them good things. I won't withhold

anything good from them. I might withhold something bad from them,

something that will harm them, something that will cause them

to be stunted in their spiritual or physical or emotional growth.

But I'm not going to withhold any good thing from

them if I can supply it as a dad. How

much more does the heavenly Father, who's perfect, say, no

good thing will he withhold from those who walk uprightly,

who are doing what is right? You see, God wants

you to ask in prayer more than you do. God

wants you to pray and get answers more than you do.

God will over twenty times. In the New Testament, God says,

ask asking it about shall be given. Seek and you'll

find knocking the door will be open over twenty times.

God never shuts his storehouse until you shut your mouth.

The Bible says you have not because you ask not.

You don't never ask for it.

God's you know, when you get to heaven, there's gonna

be a storehouse up there, and you're gonna go inside

the store house and there's gonna be all these incredible

gifts and neat experiences and things, and there's gonna be

a little tag on it, and everyone on the tags

is gonna say the same thing. It's gonna say this,

never asked for? How many things have you never asked for?

From God? Now?

Why does God want you to ask in prayer? Why

does he want you to ask and then he can

meet your needs? One reason? He wants you to be

full of joy. That's the reason he wants you to

be full of joy. When my kids are full of joy,

it makes me look good as a dad. When God's

children are full of joy, it makes God looks good.

A sour push Christian is a bad advertisement for God.

Some people go around look like they're baptized, and you know,

I got the you know, I just gotta been sucking

on pickles or something. And God says, no, no, I

want you to be full of joy. Look at this

verse John sixteen twenty four. Ask Jesus says, Ask using

my name, and you will receive, and you will have

abundant joy. The reason for asking is joy. The reason

you don't see miracles, you're not asking for. God wants

to do things in your life that you can't even imagine. Doyle,

talk to me about a time in your life when

you saw God meet and need in a miraculous way.

Well, it was back in nineteen eighty. I just I've

been married all my life pretty much, by the way,

and I married my high school sweetheart and we have

four children. But back then when I had two, Hidi

and Holly, Heidi was four. Holly was two. So my

wife met me at the door and she says, good night,

have fun, they're yours. And so we played till the

middle of the night. And I'll never forget. It was

too late, I mean, it was so late for a story,

and so I just said a little poem prayer, and

I felt bad. And Holly was asleep before amen, but

Heidi was wide awake, and so I walked over her

a little bed. I said, Hidie, was there something special

you wanted to ask God for? Where there's something I've

always wanted. She said, I'd like to have a rose.

And I said, well, why do you want a rose?

She said, because they're so pretty, and I've always wanted one.

She's four years old and whole life she's wanted a rose.

Yeah, and so anything to get her to go to sleep.

So we asked God for a rose, you know, and

I forgot about it. The next night at our little time, Heidi,

we started to pray. I told him a story, and

she grabbed Holly's hand in mine and she said, let's pray, daddy,

and I'll never forget. Her little lips started to quiver,

her hand was shaking, little tears flowing on her face.

I said, Heidie, what's wrong? How come God didn't bring

my rose to me today? Do you think you forgot?

And what do you say? You know it was a

god question? I said, well, you know, we didn't mention

the color of that rose.

A good answer, good, good answer, pretty clever. And so,

by the way, by the way, here's a teaching truth.

It is always easier for God to asking more specific.

But then I said, when you say God, bless me,

what's a blessing? Most of you wouldn't know if a

blessing hits you in the face, God bless me.

That's too vague be specific.

And so uh, we asked God for a white one

because that's what she was thinking about. And so I'll

never for never forget that. I could hardly sleep, and

I had to go out of town the next day,

and uh, and I thought of calling flories down the

street or a friend, you know, playing b we always

think of playing d And so anyway, I had to

go out of town that and I didn't do any

of that. I just went out of town. I played

this concert and it was a small church and I

had a little center aisle down the middle. And after

my concert, I was putting my guitars away and I

hear a voice, are you Doyle Dykes? And it had

been over for probably thirty minutes, no one had been

in there. And she startled me as a little lady,

and she said, God told me to bring you something

from my garden day. And it was a little something

wrapped in foil, about this big, you know, And she

handed it to me, and I could tell by the

way she acted she was special. And I said, well,

I'll enjoy eating this from your garden. She says, oh,

I wouldn't need that, she said, She said.

You better you think it was a carrot or something.

That's what I thought. It's a guy thing.

We always right, and so, uh, don't bring me flowers food.

She said, well, you better not eat that. She waited

till I peel the foil back, and there was one

little white rose and I'll never forget that. And I

told her, I said, well, this isn't mine. She says, well,

God told me to bring you that. And I told

her the story of the rose. And she says, well,

that's nice, and just turned and walked away. And I thought,

I'm slack jawed holding this little miracle. And I thought,

she'll she'll float out of here. She'll never make it

out of the door. And when I got home, I'll never

forget height. He ran out to my truck before I

could even get out of my van seat. And I

reach over and I gave her the little package. She says,

he brung it, didn't he daddy?

Wow, thank you, buddy. That's great.

There's one more reason why we can be joyful no

matter what happens in our lives. And it's the greatest

one of all the sixth reason if I'm in Christ.

The Bible says this, God will never stop loving me.

God will never stop loving me no matter what happens

in my life. Things go right, things go wrong, plans

go awry, whatever, God will never stop loving me.

I can count on it.

The Bible says it like this in Romans Chapter eight,

Verses thirty eight and thirty nine. I am convinced that

nothing can ever separate us from the love of God.

From his love.

Death can't, life can't, angels can't, demons can't. Our fears

for today, our worries about tomorrow, even the powers of

hell cannot keep.

God's love away.

Whether we're high above the sky or in the deepest ocean,

nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate

us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ.

Jesus our Lord. That is good news.

When you come to Christ and you say I'm going

to put my hand in your hand, God grabs on

to it. When you say I'm going to trust you,

I want to love you. I want to be the

person you made me to be. God says, I'm holding on,

and I'm holding on for dear life. When my kids

were little, and we used to go on summer vacations.

We'd go camping, and one time we went to the

Grand Canyon, and there's one we were walking up to

the edge one time and I grabbed the two youngest

Josh in Matthew's hands and I held on to them.

And as we got up there, and this course, they

wanted to get closer to the edge than I wanted

them to get, like you want to get closer to

the edge a lot of times. And they both start

squirming and squiggling and trying to shake hands free, and

they wanted to let go of my hand, but there

was no way I was letting go of theirs because

I was their father and I loved them. There will

be times in your life when you want to let

go of God's hands.

God.

I don't want to be a Christian right now. It's inconvenient.

I don't want to do what the Bible says. I

want to do it my way. I want to go

have sex with that person. I want to go cheat

on my income tax. I want to lie to that

person so I can get out of that sticky situation.

I want to do this, I want to do that,

and there are gonna be times you say it's not popular,

it's not convenient, it's too costly. I don't want to

do the right thing right now, God, I don't right now.

I'll back, but I don't want to be a believer

in you right now.

And you're going to want to.

Let go, But He's never letting go of you. You see,

once you put your hand in Christ's hands, it's out

of your hands. This is called eternal security. Nothing can

separate you from the love of God. Now, if you

earned your salvation by working for it, then the moment

you stopped working for it, you'd lose it. But you

didn't earn it, so you can't lose it. It was

a gift. And once it's given and you put your hand.

The Bible says, even if we're unfaithful to him, he

cannot be unfaithful to himself. And he holds on to us.

And in John chapter ten, Jesus says, they are in

my hands and no one can pluck them out.

That's good news.

I mean, it's no matter what happens, I'm still safe

in the hands of God and he will never, never

stop loving me. I want to end with two verses

one for those of you who know the Lord, and

one for those of you who don't know Him yet.

Those of you who don't know Christ yet, who've never

you've never really certain. You're never certain you've put your

hand in Christ's hand. Maybe you've gone to church all

your life, but you're not sure that if you died

tonight you'd go to heaven. You're not sure that you

have trusted Him for salvation completely. This is why you

don't have continuous joy in your life. The Bible says

in Psalm sixteen eleven. Here on the screen, you will

fill me with joy in your presence. And the more

you spend time in the presence of God, the more

you're going to be filled with joy. And nobody can

rob that joy from me, And nobody can rob that

joy from you without your permission.

So put your hand in his hand.

Those of you who know Christ, you've kind of lifted away,

and you've stopped realizing how much you've been forgiven. You

stop realizing you're on your way to heaven. You just

take it for granted. You stop realizing that all things

are working for good in your life, and that God

is for you, not against you. And that He's promised

to meet all your needs, and that he'll never stop

loving you. You need to pray this prayer psal. I'm

fifty one twelve. David prayed it restore to me again

the joy of salvation.

Don't observe Christmas? Experience it?

And how do you experience it with the joy of

the Lord that's pow our heads?

Would you follow me in this prayer?

If you've never opened your life to Christ, or you're

not certain, you're not settled about this issue, you're little

insecure about it. You need to settle it today receive

God's gift. Pray this prayer. Dear God, I don't understand

it all, but I thank you for loving me and

I want your joy in my life. I ask you

to forgive all my sins and give me a clear

conscience and help me to forgive myself. I ask you

to give me the gift of eternal life. I ask

you to work all things for good.

In my life.

I thank you that you are for me, not against me. Jesus,

thank you for dying on the cross for me. Thank

you that you've promised to meet all my needs. Thank

you that you will never stop loving me so today,

as much as I know how, I open my life

to you, Jesus Christ. I want to follow you. I

want to trust you. I want to learn to love

you for the rest to my life and then be

with you forever. If you've already prayed that prayer in

your heart and you know, Christ, maybe you need to pray, Lord,

restore the joy of my salvation. Help me to focus

on these things, not my problems. No matter what happens

in my life, You're never going to stop loving me,

and all these other benefits are true. Let me live

in joy this month and this next decade.

I pray it in your name. Amen.

You know, if you just prayed that prayer for the

very first time, or you just recommitted your life to

Jesus again today, would you let me know about it.

There's something real about sharing your commitment. So write me

Rick at pastor Rick dot com and say, Rick, I

prayed that prayer of commitment. I gave my life to Christ.

And I'll send you some material that will help you

on your journey with Jesus, and I'll also pray for you.

God bless you.

Wow.

Thank you so much, Pastor Rick for that amazing message. Now,

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