Rick Warren - Radical Faith—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. So let's begin the final part of

a message called radical Faith.

Let me give you another facet of radical faith. Number five.

Faith is giving when I don't have it. Faith is

giving when I don't have it. Now, giving and faith

go together. And the fact is God uses finances to

test your faith.

Has God ever tested your faith with finances?

Oh?

Yeah, all the time.

Have you ever had to decide between paying a bill

and tithing? This is a test. It is a test

of your priorities, It's a test of your love. But

most important of all, it's a test of your faith.

Do I really trust God that he will provide for

me if I put him first in my life? I've

got to pay a bill and give my tie? Which

am I going to do? Do I really trust God?

And money? Many times? Is the acid test? Now?

It's interesting that in Hebrews eleven the Hall of Fame,

the first guy who gets mentioned is a guy named Abel,

and I remember Abel. Cain and Abel, that are the

two sons of Adam and Eve. What did Abel do

that caused him to get into the hall of fame

with Moses and Abraham and all these other big shots.

He never did anything great. He never accomplished anything, never

took any major risks. You know what made Abel great?

He gave an offering in faith. Look at what the

Bible says.

It says.

It was faith that made Abel's offering to God a

better sacrifice than canes.

Through his faith, God approved of his giving.

This guy didn't do anything flashy or fancy or risky.

He just gave an offering. But notice he's listed not

because of what he gave. It wasn't what he gave

it please God, but how he gave it. Let me

say it again, it's not what you give that pleases God,

it's how you give it. It says he gave it

in faith. Now, listen very closely to your pastor who

loves you. God couldn't care less about the amount you give.

What he cares about is the attitude with which you

give it. It is not the amount that matters, it

is the attitude with which you give it. You must

always give in faith. And if you're not giving in faith, friend,

don't give because you don't get any credit for it.

Without faith, it is impossible to please God. So if

you're not giving in faith, forget it. God doesn't need

your money. What he wants is your heart. He wants

your faith. Without faith, it's impossible to please God. And

God says, I'm not looking at the mount. In fact,

God didn't look at the mount. He looks at the

amount you have left over. In other words, how much

you gave in light of what you could have given. See,

for somebody to give fifty cents might be a bigger

sacrifice than somebody gave fifty thousand, because he looks at

what you have left over.

Are you giving in faith? Now?

You need to understand. This is Christmas season. We always

talk about giving gifts to each other in the spirit

of giving. This is the time for giving all year.

So let me explain to you that there are two

ways to give. You can give by reason or you

can give by revelation. These are the two ways you

can give. To give by reason is to figure out

reasonably what I think I can give, and I sit

down and I figure a reasonable amount. I say, this

is what I think I can afford to give, and

so I give by reason. Now, giving by reason doesn't

require any faith at all. An atheist can do it.

You just figure out, well, I think I could give

this much, and I give. The other way is to

give by revelation, and that means I let God reveal

to me what he wants me to give in faith.

And I stop and I pray and I ask, I say, God,

how much do you want to give through me? I'm

the straw? How much do you want to give through me?

This is a test of faith, I say, God, how

much do you want me to trust you for this time?

This time?

And this is giving when you don't have it, This

is when it stretches your faith. How much you want

to give through me? Not reasonable about but by revelation.

In the Bible, there was a group in an area

of Greece called Macedonia. That's where Alexander the Great came

from Macedonia, and the Macedonian Church was extremely impoverished, poor church.

And yet when they heard that the church at Jerusalem

needed help.

They gave a.

Sacrificial gift to help that church when they didn't have

any money themselves. And Paul says this about them. They're

on your outline, he says, because of their great joy,

not because of their guilt.

Because of their great.

Joy, they gave even more than they could afford. How

do you give you more than you can afford given

when you don't have it? I'll never forget years ago

when an Orange County executive, very well known, a business executive,

told me. He said, Rick, you need to tell people,

business people, the best time to start tithing is when

they're in trouble, when they're in debt, when the business

is tanking, because that's when you need God's help. Whatever

you want God to bless, you put him first in

he said. Now, if you give when things are going great, well,

so what, that's great. But the best time, he says

to tide to be faithful to give is when things

aren't going well because you need God's help.

Now most of you know my story. I don't need

to go into that again.

Kay and I decided when we first got married, we said,

if anybody gets paid, God gets paid first. We may

be in debt to other people, We're not going to

be in debt to God. And so if I a

bill doesn't get paid, it's not going to be my tithe.

God gets paid first, because it all came from Him.

And I'll be honest with you. Sometimes the cupboards were

quite bare, and the first thing thought was we can't

afford to give. We can't afford to tithe. Then the

second thought was, we can't afford not to I need

God's help. I need God's blessing. And we've learned that

when we give not by reason but a revelation in faith,

God always the money always arrives in time, and.

We end up with more than we started. I could

give you a thousand stories of this.

Some of you around nineteen ninety three, when we were

meeting in the tent on this property and we decided

to build this building. You know, somebody had to pay

for this, and so we did a thing called Time

to Build, and it was a three year program where

people in our church we prayed, said, God, what do

you want us to give in advance to build this

building over and above our normal tithes? And so we

were all I said, let's take a month. Let's pray

about it. Don't make any spontaneous decisions. Think about it.

Say God, what do you want to give to me?

So I went home and I started praying, and God

gave me an amount that was so astronomical. I thought,

that's really a test of my faith. I don't know

where I'd get that kind of money to give.

For this building.

Then I was reading in Chronicles where David led the

offering for the building of the Temple in Jerusalem, and

God said, a David, you're the leader. I want you

to announce your gift to other people. I thought, Oh,

that's real good that he did that. And then God said, Rick,

I want you to do that, and I said, no way,

not a chance.

He said, do you want to be the leader?

Yeah, then I want you to announce your gift, just

like the leaders.

In the Bible. Did God? Please?

I said, God, if I announce my gift, everybody's going

to misunderstand it. Some people that think I'm showing off,

that I'm giving way too much and that I'm just

trying to show off. Other people think that I'm trying

to pressure them to give the same amount. And some

people think I didn't give enough. So no matter what

it is, I can't win in this one. I don't

want to do this. And that was really having a

battle with God. And God said, do you want the

blessing or not? I said, yeah, I do, Well, then

you will announce your gift. So on the first Sunday

of that month, we're going to spend a month praying

about it. I got up and I said, okay, everybody,

you got a month to think about, pray what you're

going to give. At the end, we're gonna have a

special one day offering and then commit to give over

the next three years to build this building. And I said,

I don't want to do this, but God has impressed

on me.

That is the leader. I'm supposed to tell you what

I'm going to give.

Kay and I have prayed and we believe that God

wants us to give one hundred thousand dollars. Now, friends,

that was equal to two years of my salary at

that time. I was going to give two full years

of salary for this building over the next three years.

And you know, everybody gasped. And then when I walk

out of the service and went home, I thought, you fool,

you have just put your blocked yourself back in the corner,

which is exactly where God likes to put us, right

in a corner.

You don't know.

God's all I need to God's all you got. So

over the next month, I'm thinking of all the ways God,

how am I going to get one hundred thousand dollars?

That's two years worth of salary. How am I going

to live for the next two years? And I'm trying

to Could I take on another job? Is there anything

I could sell? Could I rob a bank? I mean,

just you know, I'm thinking of anything I could do,

you know. So I'm thinking, well, am I going to.

Get this money? This is ridiculous? So everybody's praying.

The week of the big offering, We're going to give

as much as we can in one day and then

turn in our commitment cards for the next three years.

Six days before that offering, I get a call on

the phone and it's a company, a publishing company named Zondervian.

Now I hadn't written a book in fifteen twenty years

since I'd come to saddle Back, and they said, we

would like this is nineteen ninety three.

We would like for you to.

Write a book called the purpose driven Church. I could

do that.

I could do that.

I've been teaching on this for some time. And they said,

now we're going to because we believe this will be

a bestseller, We're going to give you an advance of

one hundred and fifty thousand dollars.

And all right, now we're.

Talking, okay God, Yeah, now woo five days that was

really you know, that was carrying it down to the

wire and I'm going okay, all right. So the following

Sunday we got up for the big offering and said, hey,

you guys, remember a month ago. I got up and

I just in faith announced I'm going to give one

hundred grand. And I said, I don't know where I'm

gonna give it from, but I'm trusting God and I'm

going to give it whether I've got it or not. Somehow, well,

I said, you're not going to believe this. I got

a call this week and a publisher wants me to

write a book and they're gonna give me an advance

of one hundred and fifty grand.

The place went crazy.

People were weeping, people were standing up, shouting, jumping around

and dancing, and the joy in that church and our

church just exploded because there is joy in generosity. And

I just thought, I am so glad I didn't wimp

out on that lesson of faith, and I have learned

over and over again. God says, let's play a little game.

You give to me and I'll give to you, and

let's see who wins. And I've lost that game for

thirty five years in a row. Now, some of you said, man,

that's really cool. Rick, I want God to bless me

like that. So God give me some money and then

I'll give it.

God.

No, no, no, that's not how it works. You prime

the pump because it's not about money. Get this, it's

not about money. It's about faith. Do you trust me?

The Bible says this.

On every Lord's Day, that's Sunday, every week, first day

of every week, each of you should put aside something

from what you've earned during the week. Use it for

your offering. The amount depends on how much the.

Lord has helped you earn.

You make a lot, you give a lot, you make

a little, you give a little. You don't make anything,

you don't give anything. It's just real simple. It's a

proportional giving. Faith is giving when I don't have it.

Tom's going to talk about the next one.

What does it mean to have radical faith? It means

a sixth thing. That means thanking God before I receive it,

Thanking God before I even receive it. Let me ask

you a question. If I today gave you a check

for one thousand dollars, would you wait until you see

if you could cash it to thank me? A few

of you would, but most of you, most of you

would think, Okay, Tom's a pretty good guy. It's probably

not going to bounce. I'll thank him right now, thank

you so much for this, and then you would go

cash it. You'd thank me before you received it. God's

promises are better than any of our promises, any of

our checks, And before we even receive it, we can say,

thank you God that what you've said is going to

happen now. There's a great example of this in God's

Hall of Fame in Hebrews chapter eleven. It's a god

by the name of Joshua to place by the name

of Jericho. You might remember the walls fell down there?

How did they fall down? Hebrews eleven thirty says by faith,

the walls of Jericho fell after the people had marched

around them for seven days. The people of Israel are

going into this new promised land. There's this big enemy there.

They have this powerful city named Jericho. God's going to

defeat the enemy. He's going to let them into this city.

How does he do it? God says, here's my plan.

I want you to go and I want you to

march around this city for seven days, thanking me in

advance for the fact that you're going to have victory.

And then on the seventh day, I want you to

march around it for seven times, just thanking me for

the victory that's going to come. And when they did that,

they marched around the seventh time. On the seventh day,

the walls just fell.

God worked.

Now I've often thought, what if I was one of

those people marching around those walls for those seven days.

I mean, you know, human nature. Some of the people

had to be looking at the walls, and they got

more and more worried the more they looked at the walls.

God could never bring those walls down.

Is never going to happen.

But there were people, a lot of them in that crowd,

who had faith instead, and every day they looked at

the walls. They thought about what God could do, and

the walls looked shorter and smaller, and they realized that

God could work. They thank God in advance. This is

the kind of life that God wants you to live,

the thanking God in advance kind of life. Jesus talked

about it next verson in your outline. Jesus said in

Mark eleven twenty four, when you pray and ask for something,

believe that you've received it. You thank God, you believe

in advance, and then you will be given what you

ask for. Now, I understand that when I pray, I've

got to be humble enough to realize God might have

to teach me to pray for something different. I get that,

But let me just ask you a question. When you

pray and ask God for something, do you.

Believe that He's going to do it?

If you don't believe, why even ask, it's an empty

ex If you pray and you ask God for something,

Jesus said, believe that he's going to do it. Watch

what he's going to do. Thank Him in advance for

what only he can do. Jesus also said this next

verse in your outline. Jesus said, because of your faith

it will happen. He wants us to live this life

of faith. I've had to learn something about this thing

of thanking God in advance. I hope it doesn't take you.

So long to learn it.

I've had to learn to let thanksgiving lead the way

in my life. There's another story in the Bible and

Second Chronicles, chapter twenty where in another battle, the people

of Israel are being invaded and God says, I'm going

to give you the victory in this battle. And the

way I want you to fight this battle is I

want you to put the choir out in front. They're

going to lead the way into the battle. Bad day

to be a soprano, you might think, I mean, that's

not a good place to be in a battle. But

the choir leads the way and God just gives them

the victory because God wanted thanksgiving.

To lead the way.

It's a great illustration and I found in my life

if all that thanksgiving lead the way, it lets me

live a life of faith. If I begin the day

thanking God for what He's going to do in that day,

it's usually a day where I can have a day

of faith. If I begin the day waiting for God

to do something that I can thank him for. It's

usually a day filled with myself. So the question of

faith is are you letting thanksgiving lead the way? Are

you thanking God in advance?

Now?

I hope you'll go home and read this Hebrews chapter eleven,

because there's a lot of more great stories in the

Bible about these heroes of faith and about what it

means to have radical faith. Let me read you the

end of this chapter, Verse thirty two says and says,

what more shall I say? I don't have time to

tell you about get In or Barack or Sampson or Jepther,

David or Samuel, and the prophets who through faith conquered

kingdoms that administered justice and gained what was promised. They

shut the mouths of lions and quinched the fury of

the flames and escaped the edge of the sword. These guys,

as their weakness was turned into strength, and they became

powerful and battle and routed foreign armies. He says, I

don't have time to tell you about these people women

who received back their dead and raised life again. But

then he says, but others listen. But others were tortured

and refused to be released so that they might gain

a better resurrection, And some faced jeers and flogging, while

others were chained and put in prison, and they were stoned,

and some were sawed into and put to death by

the sword. There were others who went about in sheepskin

and goatskin, destitute and persecuted and mistreated. The world was

not worthy of these people. They wandered in deserts and mountains,

and in caves and holes in the ground. And these

were all commended for their faith. Yet none of them,

that's talking about these who went through the tough times,

received what had been promised. None of them received what

had been promised. God had planned something better. He said

for us that only together with us would they be

made perfect friends. Living by faith does not exempt you

from problems. God is not a genie that whatever you

put in in faith you're going to get back. God says,

just because you live by faith doesn't mean you're not

going to suffer. Sometimes God doesn't remove a problem. Sometimes

God lets us go through the problem because he wants

to strengthen us. He's more interested in building our character

than making us comfortable. Because you're taking your character to heaven. Now,

if this life is all there is, that'd be a

pretty lousy life if God doesn't protect us from all

the things that are bad in the world. But God

says no, no, the rewards coming later. This is not

all there is. There's more to life than just hearing now.

And yeah, you're going to go through problems and difficulty,

and you'll probably even go through some suffering. But that's

all to build your faith to because your faith is

like pure gold. So here's the seventh facet of radical faith.

Faith is Trusting God if I don't get it, Trusting

God if he doesn't answer my prayer, Trusting God if

the problem doesn't go away. Trusting God when I have

to suffer. I'm asking God, let me out of prison,

let me out of jail, let me not die. But surely,

obviously not every prayer gets answered the way we want.

Sometimes God says yes, Sometimes God says no. Sometimes God

says not yet I think sometimes God says, you got

to be kidding, But really God doesn't. God answers every prayer,

just not in the way that we want. And speaking

of those who didn't always get everything they prayed for,

it says they were all commended for their faith, yet

none of them received what had been promised. God had

planned something better. Friends, anybody can trust God when things

are going great. That's no sweat, you're flying in cash,

you're happy, and everything's going great. It's easy to trust

God and things going great. The real test of your

faith is when things stink, when you've lost your job,

when you got the problems in the home, when everything

isn't going right. That's the ultimate test of your faith.

Real faith.

Faith develops in the valleys of life, not in the mountains.

Why because if you could understand every way God moves

and why he moves the way he does, then he

wouldn't be big enough to solve your problems. If you

could understand everything that God does and why he does it,

you'd be God.

But you're not. And some things you're just going to

have to trust.

And they don't look make sense, and they don't look sensible,

and they don't seem to fit together, and it seems

sometimes like a tragedy.

We don't know.

We know that we cause a lot of our own

problems that God didn't problems. But we know that God

can even bring good out of bad if we give

it all to him. Sometimes God has a better idea

than your idea. I'll be honest with you. The things

that I have prayed for the longest in my life,

the personal hurts and pains, and the things that I've

asked God to remove out of my life, are have

never been answered. The things I've prayed for the most

have not been answered. But those were the very things

that made me the man I am today. It was

those very pains, those very hurts, those very difficulties that

I didn't like in my life that shaped me and

molded me and made me the man I am today.

So I'm grateful that God did answer my prayers, as

Garth Brooks saying, I thank God God for unanswered prayers. Now,

considering these seven aspects, how do you rate on faith?

I challenge you to become a radical follower of Christ,

not a casual follower of Christ. Be one that's rooted deep.

He say, well, I wish I had more faith. How

do I get more faith? Look up here? This is

where you get it.

Right here. You get this book in your mind.

And the more you understand and know and understand and

read and memorize and fill your mind of this book.

The more faith you're going to have this is faith food.

And the more you fill your mind with the Word

of God, the more faith you're going to have. The

last verse on your outline that says, this faith comes

from hearing the Word of God. Let's bow our heads.

I want every man in this room to pray this

prayer with me in your mind. Say Father, I want

to be a man of faith. Just say Father, I

want to be a man of faith, and I'm going

to ask every woman to pray this Father, I want.

To be a woman of faith.

I want to trust you with radical gratitude and radical

faith rooted in your love. Help me to believe it

when I don't see it. Help me to obey even

when I don't understand it. And God, when I feel

like giving up, help me to persist even when I

don't feel like it. Help me to announce it, to

speak it in order to experience it.

Lord.

I want to practice faith and give when I don't

have it. And I want to practice faith in thanking

you before I receive it. And most of all, I

want to trust you if I don't get it. When

things don't happen the way I want, I want to

learn to trust you even in the tough times. If

you've never opened your life to Jesus Christ, say Jesus Christ.

I want to put my faith in you.

I don't understand it all, but as much as I

know how, I open my life to you and I

want to trust you build faith in my heart.

In your name, I pray Amen.

Hey, if you've just prayed along with Rick to accept

Jesus in your life, Rick would love to hear from you.

Just email Rick at Pastorick dot com. We'll send you

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