Rick Warren - Radical Gratitude – 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. Okay, and now here's Rick with the

final part of a message called radical Gratitude.

Now, the Bible says that as believers, we are to

live in a way that says live in a way

that makes the truth about God attractive. You are to

live in such a way that it makes the truth

about God attractive. Do you do that? Do people look

at you and go, man, I'd like to know more

about the Bible. Do they look at your life and

you are so winsome in your gratitude that people go, man,

what gives with that person? She is always she's never complaining,

but she's always grateful. He's always being positive, he's always

building people up. I'd like to be like that guy.

Do you do that? How do you make the truth

of God more attractive by developing radical gratitude, the roots

of gratitude. In fact, here's what the Bible says on

the screen. Filippings two, do everything without complaining or arguing,

so that let's just stop there for a minute. Okay, okay,

let's just don't skip over that part. Do everything without arguing. Oh,

come on, do everything without complaining. Be serious. That's what

God says to do. Friends, Can I be honest with

you as your pastor? There are some scriptures in the

Bible that I don't understand and don't make sense. I

don't have a problem with those. I just figure I'm

not smart enough. My brain's too small. God knows what

he's doing, and one day i'll get to heaven. God

will explain why he did what he did and it

didn't make sense to me, but he said do it

this way. I don't have a problem with the parts

of the Bible I don't understand. I have a problem

with the parts I do understand. Like that verse, that's

not like open to con questions and conjecture. It's not like, well,

that's your interpretation. When he says do everything without complaining

and arguing, there's only one interpretation. Don't complain, don't argue.

As a believer, you are never to complain or to argue.

Holy guacam only, how in the world you do that? Okay?

He says, If you do that, you will be so

unusual in the world because everybody complains and everybody argues.

You're gonna make the truth of God attracted. It's a witness.

He says, you will become blameless. You'll be blameless and pure.

It'll show you're a child of God without fault. He said,

you'll be faultless if you could do that in a

crooked and depraved generation, which is cynical and sarcastic and critical,

in which you shine like stars in the universe. We

sing that song. We will shine like stars in the

universe because we're living for your glory. How do you

live for God's glory? You don't complain and you don't argue,

but you're grateful in every situation that would change the world,

that would bring millions of people to Christ. Not our

protest signs, but our gratitude. And he says that will

be so. You see, Christians should be known for radical love,

radical kindness, radical joy, radical gratitude. There's a word for that.

It's called Christ like. The problem is, we're not doing

a very good job of this. We really aren't. This

week I read some pressing statistics and in a world magazine,

they did a survey nationally how Americans under thirty view evangelicals. Now,

who's an evangelical? You are? And evangelical is not? An evangelist?

And evangelical is someone who believes the good news that

Jesus Christ died on the cross, paid for my sins,

that by his grace I can go to heaven, my

past can be forgiven. I get a home in heaven,

purpose for living. That's an evangelical. You're an evangelical. It

comes from the word evangel which is the Greek word

for good news. That's all. It is, somebody who believes

the good news. So they did a survey how Americans

under thirty view evangelicals, and here with the results. Eighty

five percent said they're hypocritical, Seventy eight percent of Americans

said they're old fashioned, seventy five percent said they are

too involved in politics, seventy two percent said out of

touch with reality, seventy percent said insensitive to others, and

sixty eight percent said boring. We're not doing a very

good job of representing Jesus. If that's what the world

thinks of us, we're not doing a very good job.

Why because we're not radically loving, radically kind, radically compassion.

We're really no different than anybody else, and we what

we need is a radical change in the way we

act to be like Christ, to have those roots. And

my goal, my desire, my dream, and I want you

to be a part of this. Is that they take

this survey ten years from now and they get a

whole different list, and they go, you know what I

think of evangelicals. I think of those are the people

who help you when everybody else walks out of your life.

Those are the people who give you a second chance,

like in SA Celebrate Recovery. Those are the people who

they stand for the truth, but they share it in

a loving way. You can disagree with somebody and still

love them. Those are the people who are kind. They

are generous to a fault. Those are the people who

give you the shirt off their back. They're the people

who act like Jesus. They care for the poor and

the sick, They help educate the next generation. They do

all the things that the Peace Plan does that's what

the church needs to be known for, not for boring,

negative and all these other things. The Bible says this.

On the screen, there's a verse Proverbs eleven eleven says,

good people bless and build up their city, but the

wicked destroy it with their words. How do you destroy

a city with your words? Negativity, criticism, complaining, griping, all

of those kind of things, and the Bible says, good

people build up their city. What if every person in

our church, in our church family, what if we set

a goal, like this week, we said I want everybody

this week to five times a day express gratitude or

appreciation to people in the city. I'm not talking about

the other believers. I'm not talking about to your family.

I'm talking about people in the grocery line. Man. I

like the way you bagged those groceries, the post office person,

the clerk. What if every one of us in our

church said we're going to be radically grateful and five

times a day in the community this next week, I'm

going to tell five people, you know, I'm just grateful

for what you did, thank you for the way you

did that, thank you for your service, thank you for

your help. Just expressing thank you. That would equal if

we did it every day for a week, that would

equal over one million impressions in our community. Do you

think that would change the climate an atmosphere. Absolutely, we

this one church could change the atmosphere of southern California.

If we everybody five times a day expressed great gratitude

to somebody in the in the community, not a believer,

every day for a month, it'd be about thirty million impressions.

That would radically change the atmosphere in our community. You

can bless people just by being grateful. You know. One

of the ways you can says you know, I thank

God for you. Now you better be genuine, you better

have a reason for it, think it through. But one

of the ways you can bless people say you know

what God has really gifted you? You're good at. I

don't know how you do this, the way you close deals,

I don't know how the way you wrap packages, I

don't know how you do this, the way you you know,

give my dog a bath. I don't know. Whatever it is,

whatever you know, you just be grateful. And if you've

become a radically rateful person, you're going to start building

roots in your life that's going to make you stand

through the toughest things of the next decade. Now, the

way God wired the universe. I love God, He's so cool.

The way He is wired the universe is that when

you give out and you help other people by showing

appreciation and gratitude, God makes sure you always get back

blessed more in return. And there are four personal benefits

you get from developing radical gratitude. As you write these down,

these are the four things that will happen if you

will show gratitude in every circumstance. Four things will happen

in your life. Number one. First benefit, it keeps me

in God's will. You won't have to doubt whether you're

in God's will or not. If you're giving thanks to

God in every situation, you are in the center of

God's will. You don't have to doubt, you don't have

to wonder, you don't have to question. Giving thanks to

God is not and to others is not a duty.

It's a privilege in the alternative of disobedience. This keeps

you in God's will. Number two, it makes me better,

not bitter, particularly when times are tough. If you'll learn

to have the attitude of gratitude in every situation. No

matter what happens, you say God, I'm going to give

thanks in this situation. It will make you better, not bitter. Now,

every one of you have an excuse to be bitter.

I didn't say a reason. I said you got an

excuse because we've all been hurt, We've all had difficulties,

so all things haven't gone the way we wanted them to,

and you could get bitter. But you don't want to

be bitter. You want to be better. So you need

to be grateful instead of bitter that God can bring

good out of it. Now, let me tell you something.

Whoever you're holding a grudge against, whoever you still resent,

whoever you haven't forgiven you, let it go now because

you don't want to take last decades grudge into tomorrow.

That's foolish because at the end of the next decade

you'll just be more bitter person than you are now.

Whoever has hurt you, whoever has harmed you, you need

to let it go. You need to forgive them, not

because they deserve it, You didn't deserve God's forgiveness. Let

it go so you can get on with a clean slate.

Do not take yesterday's grudges into tomorrow's decade. I beg

you as your friend and pastor. Number three. Third benefit

of radical gratitude is it defeats the devil. So how

does that work? Well, let me explain it. It defeats

the devil because the devil loves to mess you up. Now,

the devil's got your number. And what he likes to

do is it gets you angry, gets you upset, gets

you irritated. He likes to get you depressed, discouraged. He

likes to get you jealous, envious, greedy, lustful. He likes

to do all these different things. And he knows your buttons,

and so he has figured you out, and he knows

that if he can just push this button, you'll get angry,

you'll get irritated, you'll lose your joy, you'll lose your peace,

you'll lose your love, you lose your connection with God.

And so he's he pushes that button. Now, what Satan

does not like to do, he hates for you to do,

is to thank God. He can't stand to hear you

thank God. He can't stand to hear you praise God.

So when you if he does something in your life

and you thank God in it, it's it gets him

off his game because his idea is I'm gonna do this,

push this button, and it will make him irritated. But

if I push this button and every time I push

this button, they just say, well, I'm gonna thank God

in the situation, he's gonna stop doing it. Does this

make sense? You see? It's like Pavlow's response. If you

keep doing something and he keeps getting result from it,

he'll keep doing it. And if there's somebody in your

life who irritates you and he knows that, he'll just

keep bringing that person into your life to irritate you

and irritate you and irritate you as god im that

one works. Well, let's do that one again. But if

every time that person starts to irritate you go, oh God,

I thank you in this irritation. I'm just so grateful

for you because I know that even in this, you

can teach me patience, you can teach me love. I

can learn that this isn't that big a deal. I

can learn it's not about me. I can learn to

be more unselfish. I can give you a hundred reasons

that if I can learn from this situation. Now, this

is not our normal response. Okay, friends, I have add

which means you can be scatterbrained. It also means you

can be intensely focused. And when I get intensely focused

on a project and somebody interrupts me, I don't naturally say, oh,

thank God for this interruption. I'm just not that way.

Or when somebody irritates me, oh man, I love this irritation.

Bring it on. But here's the thing. If you can

learn to thank God in everything in your life, you

just shut out the devil. He starts irritating you over here,

and he goes, I'm just not gonna let that bother

me anymore. I'm just gonna go Lord, instead of being

irritated to that person, I'm gonna pray for that person.

I'm gonna thank God for that person. I'm gonna thank

God for you, and I'm gonna thank God for the

lesson of learning. Satan has to move to Project B.

He starts trying to irritate you, get your goat, get

you to lose your joy. Here, Lord, I'm gonna thank

you in this situation. So he starts moving over here, Lord,

I'm gonna thank you in this. If you learn to

thank God in everything, you develop basically a wall of thanksgiving,

a wall of praise around you that frustrates the devil

no end because he can't get at you, because no

matter what he'd does, you're not getting ticked anymore. You're

just gonna thank you God. I don't know why this

is happening. I don't like it, but I'm gonna trust

you and I thank you, and you praise God in

every situation, and there's no way for him to get

at you, and it defeats the devil. Number four. The

fourth benefit is it causes miracles. Gratitude is the source

of miracles. It is the cause of miracles. Why because

thanking faith is thanking God in advance. Now, listen real closely.

When God does something for me and I thank God

for it after it's happened, that's called gratitude. When I

thank God for an answer to prayer before I get it,

that's called faith. Faith is thanking God in advance. In

other words, the Bible says in the Book of Mark,

where Jesus said, when ye pray, believe that ye have,

I've received it, and ye shall have it What does

that mean? You said, I gotta believe I got it

in order to get it. Yep, that's called faith. If

you wait till after you've got it to thank God,

that's called gratitude. If you thank God before you get it,

that's called faith. Faith is thanking God in advance. Now

let's just take a practical subject. Let's say in the

next decade, you want to get married. Now, a lot

of people don't pray for a partner. They whine for

a partner. Oh God, I need a husband. Oh God,

I don't you just let him have a heartbeat. I

don't care, Okay, you know. Shoot, he could look like

Rick Warren for all I care, you know, and I

just just just let him be alive God, And you're whining.

God doesn't answer whines. Okay, he doesn't answer whines. Here's

how you pray over a long term. Now, First, why

do you have to keep praying over and over and

over because God says be persistent in your prayer. Are

you trying to beat God down, trying to convince him

that you need a husband. No, God wants to answer

your prayer more than you want it answered. God is

waiting on you He's not you waiting on him. He

wants to make some changes in you, some radical changes

in you to get you ready for the answer for

whatever prayer you're asking. And when you're ready, he can

answer your prayer. So what you do is you ask

once and then you just keep thanking God in advance. God,

you know what I need. I need a new job.

And now you don't just keep saying, by the way, God,

I need to remind you I need a new job. God,

I need a job. Hello, God heard it the first time.

Faith is thanking God at advance. And God, remember asking

for a job a month ago. Thank you that the

answer is on its way. I don't see it. I

don't know where it's coming from, but I thank you

that it's on the way. You turned off one faucet,

you can turn on another just as easily. And so God,

I'm thanking you in advance. That is the source of miracles.

Faith is thanking God in advance for the answer to

the prayer before you get it. This is what Jesus

did in the miracles. One of the stories of Jesus.

I told you a couple weeks ago about how Jesus

had a friend named Lazarus who got sick, and his

sisters Mary and Martha sent a note to JESUSI, Jesus,

you better come on over and come over and heal him.

Jesus was one day from their house, one day's walk,

and as I told you a couple weeks ago, he

took three days to get there. I don't know what

he was doing for three days, skipping around and picking

flowers or telling jokes, but it took him three days

to get to where his best friend was dying. And

by the time he gets there, Lazarus is dead, and

things buried him in a cave. They didn't bury him

in the ground in those days. The carved caves out

of the limestone walls and rolled a stone in front

of it. Now, Jesus wasn't in a hurry. Why anytime

God is not in a hurry in your life, he

wants to do something bigger. Jesus didn't want to heal Lazarus.

He wanted to raise him from the dead. More glory

for God. Anytime God has taken his time, he wants

to do something bigger than you have been thinking of.

So he gets there and they've already buried us. Say Lord,

it is too late. We already buried the guy. We

wrapped him up, you know, like in those grave cloths

like a mummy, and put him in the cave. And

Jesus says, open up the cave. And then is one

of my favorite verses in the Bible. I memorized it

as a little boy. And Mary says, but Lord, he stinketh.

I thought that was such a cool verse when I

was a kid, one of the only verses I memorized

in the Bible. But Lord, he stinketh. Well, duh, he's

been dead for three days, okay. And they're not embalming.

And it's in the Mediterranean and it's hot, and Jesus

walks up and he says, move the stone out of

the way. And here's what Jesus says. He looks at

the cave and he says, Lord, he's talking to the Father.

He says, Father, I thank you that you've already heard me.

He didn't ask God to raise Lazarus. He didn't beg

God to raise Lazarus. He said, I thank you Lord

that you've already heard me. And I'm just saying this

aloud so the people around me will publicly know that

I am who you say I am, and that you

sent me, and so they may know that I am

the one. And then he says, Lazarus, come forth, come out.

And today he was say Lazarus, come on down, and

Lazarus comes walking out. Now I love it that he

had to say, because if Jesus had just said come out,

every dead person in Jerusalem going to come out of

the tombs. Okay, So he had to be specific. Lazarus

come out, and he comes out. He says, take the

grave clothes off him, loose him, and let him go.

The point was he thanked God the Father in advance.

And when you start doing this, you're moving to a

new level of maturity. You're moving to deeper spiritual roots.

Now some of you have lost your joy and you're

not as close to God as you used to be.

You need to get your You know how you get

it back gratitude. Get a new believer around you and

just get around them and you'll start getting excited again.

Or go out and watch a baptism and let it

remind you of when you were baptized. You know, it's

kind of like going to a wedding. You ever gone

to a wedding and all of a sudden you like

fall in love with your wife again. You know. It's

like you go there and go ah, you know, and

and it's something you see other people in love, you go,

I want to be that way. And when you see

somebody baptize you get around new believer. It gets your

spark back and remember what you were like before. You know. See,

the longer your believer, the more you take for granted

all those answered prayers, all the great things in your life.

It's happened the first time you had an answer prayer.

You're going, Wow, But now you get an answer prayer.

He goes, well, that's typical when you meant to a

tough time the first time and God really helped you.

I go, man, that really helped. Now it's happened so

many times you take it for granted. You need to

get your roots deeper. Now. I invite you to join

me on a radical journey, the journey of deeper Christian roots.

That's power heads. You a'n't going to need Christ in

your life if you've never opened your life to him.

You need to say this right now, Jesus Christ. I

don't understand it all, but I want to put my

faith in you. I want to trust you to know

your plan for my life. I ask you to forgive me.

Thank you for dying for me. I don't understand that,

but I want to get to know you and love

you and trust you. Would you pray? Lord, I want

to honor you this week. I want to start every

day with gratitude. I don't want my feet to touch

the ground without saying thank you God and Lord. I

want to build relationships. I want to get closer to

some people, help me to be grateful for them, to

express gratitude to the people I want to be close

to in my small group and my family and my fellowship.

And Lord, you know the tough times I'm going through,

and I'm going to thank you, just like Abacca did.

Even though everything goes wrong, I will still thank you.

I want to develop my faith and trust you, believing

that you know what's best and I don't. I want

to serve other people this week by raising their value

by appreciating them. But I want my life to be

a witness. I don't want Christians to be known for

the negative. I want you to use me to be

a positive person this week, expressing gratitude to people in

our city, wherever I'm working, wherever I'm playing, make a

difference through me, a radical difference. And I pray this

prayer in your name. 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

free tools to help start your relationship with Jesus. And now,

this really is one of my favorite parts of the broadcast.

Letters from our listeners.

Here's Rick. Friends. Here's an incredible testimony from a woman

named Amy in Indiana about how she used a Daily

Hope devotional to lead her own son to Christ. You

could do this. Here's what she wrote to your pastor Rick.

I've been carrying a burden this past month for my

fifteen year old son who had not accepted Christ. But

last night was the night I finally went into his

room and I asked him and he told me no,

that he hadn't accepted Christ as his Lord and Savior.

So then I asked if he would like to and

he said yes, Well, I had him read the Prayer

of a Salvation attached to the Daily Hope devotional and

then I prayed with him and I prayed for him. Wow, Amy,

what an incredible, precious moment that you were able to

lead your son to Jesus. It's the most important thing

you'll ever do as a parent. And I'm so blessed

to hear your testimony, and I hope it encourages every

other parent to be faithful like that. I want to

just pray for you and your son right now. You're Jesus.

I want to thank you for caring so much that

you made a way for us to become a part

of your family so that we can join you in

heaven one day. And thank you for giving Amy the

courage to ask the question. Thank you for giving her

the courage to talk to her son about you. And

we're so grateful that he's accepted you into his heart.

Now we ask you to give him a receptive heart

and help him to get into God's word on a

daily basis. We know that's the way he's going to grow.

So thank you Lord for Amy's obedience and Jesus, right now,

I'm praying for more and more people to do what

Amy did, to have the courage to step out and

share their faith with a friend, a neighbor, a loved

one who doesn't know you yet. I'm praying that you

will give them just the right words and just the

right time to share just the right message of your

salvation in Jesus' name. Amen. Now, my friends, there is

nothing more important you can do. Then lead somebody to

Jesus Christ. Your life can never be considered a failure.

If somebody's going to be in heaven because of you, youths,

help them settle their eternal destiny. Fact, that's why Daily

Hope exists. It's simply one more method to help you

tell more and more people about the forgiveness and the

hope and the salvation and the love and the joy

that's found in Jesus Christ. Through Daily Hope, we can

work together to help other moms and dads like Amy

and others reach their sons and their daughters for Jesus Christ. Now,

I'm always grateful for your prayers, and I'm always grateful

for your financial support. But you may ask how important

is your donation to Daily Hope Ministry. Just ask Amy,

she's got a son who's going to be in heaven

because you gave. Thank you.

Everybody, be sure to join us next time as we

look into God's Word for our daily hope. This program

is ser by Pastor Rick's Daily Hope and your generous

financial support.

H