Rick Warren - Radical Gratitude – Part One

Hey, everybody, Welcome to Pastor Rick's Daily Hope. This is

the Bible teaching ministry of Rick Warren and we're.

So glad that you've joined us.

Today we're gonna kick off a powerful new 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. I don't know about you, but I can't

wait to get started. So here's part one of a

message called Radical Gratitude.

I want to begin with a letter that I received

recently that I think actually represents the way a lot

of people feel. And it goes like this, Dear Pastor Rick,

I am so tired of going through the motions. I'm

fed up with business as usual. Nothing really excites me

or energizes me anymore. I've been in a slump for

so long now I don't know if I can get

out of it. But I don't like it one bit.

I'm filled with a jumble of emotions. I'm frustrated, I'm bored,

I'm unfulfilled. I tend to focus on what's wrong, and

I can be cynical about everything. The bad news is

that I take out my frustration on the people I

love the.

Most, my family, Paster Rick.

I need a major change in my life. They need

a radical change in their life, is what they need.

You know.

This week I had the TV on while we were

cleaning up, and there was this wonderful documentary on the

Sci Fi Channel on zombies.

Now.

As a pastor, I thought I need to know about zombies.

So I watched this spoof documentary on the Walking Dead,

and as I watched it, I realized a lot of

people in life are spiritual zombies. They're just going through

the motions. They're mindlessly sleepwalking through life. They don't really

have any plans, they don't really have any goals, they

don't really put their heart into what they're doing. They're

spiritual zombies. They're sleepwalking through life. Now, Friends, and if

I were to ask you, and you were to be honest,

would you change something looking back if you could, how

many of you'd say?

Yes, that's true.

Yeah, I think that's pretty universal all of us would.

The problem is you can't. You can't change the past.

You can't do anything about it. It's over, it's dead,

it's done with your past. Is past, and nothing is

going to change the past decade, but you can change

the next one. Are you going to be a better

person ten years from now you say, well, I don't know,

Well I can tell you.

If you say I don't know.

You won't be because it's got to be intentional. If

you want to grow, if you want to develop, if

you want to be better tomorrow, you got to make

some radical changes.

Now.

You need radical change in your life now. This word

radical is a word that's misunderstood today because people don't

know the original meaning of it. Today radical means fanatical.

We don't need any more fanatics in the world. We

need more radicals, but we don't need any more fanatics today.

Radical A lot of people think it means over the top,

It means excessive, it means extreme, It means on the edge,

either religious wise or political wise, that you know, they're

the extremists, they're the radicals. Or we use it as

a as a synonym for cool, for hip, for you know,

that's rad that's radical. But actually the word rat comes

from the fourteenth century Latin word radicalus, which means from

the roots, and what radical means is to be rooted

in the original. That's what radical means rooted in the original.

You know, we get the word radish from the same

word radics in Latin is the word for root. We

get the word radish, which is basically just a big root.

When we talk about eradicating something that means to pull

it up by its roots, it's the same word radical.

And in every area of life, radical doesn't mean extreme,

it means rooted in the original source. For instance, in medicine,

when we talk about radical surgery, that means you root

out the disease at its root. You are going to

cut it out. You're not going to let You're not

putting a band aid over it. You're rooting out the

root source of the disease, radical surgery. In botany, the

radical leaves are the leaves closest to the root. They're

at the bottom of the stem. Those are called the

radical leaves on any plant. In mathematics, the radical number

is the root of the equation, and the radical sign

in math is the square root or the cube root.

The radical in math is the root of the equation.

In chemistry, a radical is two atoms. It's the smallest units.

It's the unit of the smallest amount. And a free

radical you've heard about that is an unpaired electron. It's

the smallest root you can get.

In a molecule.

In linguistics, the radical means two or three consonants that

form the root of a word, and in grammar, the

radical word is the root word once you've taken off

the prefixes or the suffixes. What we need today are

radical believers, not finatal believers, but radical believers who go

back to the New Testament, who go back to the Bible,

who go back to what God intended for us to

do in the first place, without all the trappings, and

out all of the traditions and out all the rules

and regulations and restrictions, to go back to the original

words of Jesus. That's a radical believer. And I want

you to be that kind of believer in the next decade.

When I wrote the book Purpose Driven Life in two

thousand and two, I personally paid for the cover. I

hired an artist from the Midwest to design a woodcut

of an oak tree with the roots exposed. It's very

well known. Here is on the screen. You know that

oak tree with the roots exposed. When I showed that

to the publishing department at Zondervan.

They hated it.

They said, those roots look ugly. You can't just have

roots flying out in the air. Why don't you just

have a pretty picture of a tree. I said, you

don't understand. This is intentional. This is a book about

the root of living. Purpose driven life is about being

rooted and the five purposes that God created every human being.

It's going back to the roots of Christianity. So I

want the roots exposed. It's intentional and purpose driven life

was about radical living. I just never used the word

because I didn't think people would understand it. But I

want you to be rooted in God, to rooted in love,

rooted in faith, rooted in hope. Now, the Bible has

a lot to say about having spiritual roots. If you

look on your outline, the Bible says in Colossians chapter two,

just as you accepted Christ Jesus as your Lord, you

must continue to live in obedience to him. Let your

roots grow down into Him and draw up nourishment from him.

No notice, He says, just as you accepted Christ, you

live in in the same way. In other words, the

way you become a believer is the way you can

continue as a believer. The way you're saved is the

way you live the Christian life. The way you've become

a part of the family of God is the way

you continue.

How did you become a believer?

Not by promising to do good, not by working real hard,

not by keeping a bunch of rules and regulations. There's

only one way to become a part of God's family.

Accept his love, accept his grace, accept his forgiveness.

Put your faith in his love.

And the Bible says, just as you were saved, you

live the Christian life the same way. It's not saved

by grace, live by works. A lot of people think, well,

accept God's love and I become a believer, then I

work real hard the rest of my life to prove

that I'm worthy of it. No, he says, just as

that means the same way you become a believer, you continue.

And what is it You're rooted in God's love. Most

people don't get this, Even people who've been believers for

a long time don't understand what it means to be

rooted radically rooted in God's love. Look of the next verse,

the Bible says, and Ephesians three May your roots go

down deep into the soil of God's marvelous love. And

may you have the power to understand how wide and

how long, and how high and how deep His love

really is. And may you experience this love in other words,

not just know it all. Yeah yeah, yeah, I know

God loves me, he says, May you feel it at

the gut level. I want you to experience. I want

you to experience daily what it means to really feel

loved by God, unconditionally loved by God, so that you know,

no matter what happens in your life, God is never

going to stop loving you, and you love him back

with that same kind of love. He said, That's what

it means to be rooted. May your roots go down

in the soil of his love. May you experience the

love of Christ. Though it is so great you'll never

fully understand it. Our brain capacity isn't big enough. But

he says, Then if you do these things, if you

your life radically root your life in how much God

loves you, and you think about that every day, he says,

then you will be filled with the fullness of life.

That means a fulfilling life, a meaningful life, a significant life,

a purpose driven life, a life of compassion and completion,

a life where you get up in the morning with

renewed energy and new vigor and new vim and new

vitality because you go, man, I know what my purpose is,

I know what God made me to do. And you

don't lose that spark. And you're not a spiritual zombie.

You're not just sleep walking through life, kind of letting

life tell you where to go instead of knowing where

you're going. He says, Then you'll be filled with the

fullness of life and power that comes from God. Most

people live powerless lives. They have no power to change

their habits, they have no power to change their circumstances,

they have no power to change their own lives.

Why because they're not rooted in the love of God.

Now, the Bible, as I said, has much to say

about growing spiritual roots. He says, I want you rooted, radically,

rooted in God's love. In fact, every single problem in

your life comes because you don't have the deep enough

spiritual roots. How do you know when you don't have

deep spiritual roots? Worry, fear, anxiety, stress, guilt, shame, boredom, loneliness, resentment, bitterness.

These are the results of not having deep spiritual roots.

One of Jesus' most famous stories in the Bible is

called the Parable of the Sower, and he tells this

story about a farmer who goes out onto his field

and he takes his seed and he's kind of throwing

it out.

He's broadcasting the seed.

He's not planning one at a time, and he says,

says he throws the seed out on his field, it

falls on four different kinds of soil, and Jesus said,

this represents four kinds of hearts of receptivity we can

have toward God. He says, there's the hard heart that

doesn't even let the seed grow. And he said, there's

the shallow heart that the roots don't go down deep enough.

And he says, there's the crowded heart where the roots

get choked out. And he says, then there's the good

soil where deep spiritual roots are built. And Jesus says,

the reason why people start off good in life and

then blow it, why they start off so well and

then they lose their joy and they get stuck in

a funk and they get in this spiritual zombie thing,

is they don't have spiritual roots, so they're blown away

by everything that happens. Notice this verse on the screen.

The Bible says in Matthew thirteen, Jesus said they don't

have deep roots.

So they don't last very long.

As soon as life gets hard, like a recession, or

the message gets them in trouble, they give up. You

ever felt like giving up? Whenever you feel like giving up,

it is a sign your roots aren't deep enough, Your

spiritual roots aren't radical enough. They're not ingrown into the

soil of God's loving up. If you've been feeling like

giving up, and a lot of people do at the

end of the year, For December is often the most

depressing month for many people because they look at all

of what they didn't get accomplished. They feel like giving

up on their marriage, are giving up on their dream,

or giving up on their desire to ever get married

or have a baby, or giving up on their desire

to have some big.

Goal in life. Don't do that. I can help you

develop spiritual roots.

Now, contrast the person who has no roots, who says

he just withers and wilts whenever problems and difficulties and

trials and troubles and temptations come. Contrast that with a

person who has deep spiritual roots. Jeremiah talks about that

kind of person in chapter seventeen of Jeremiah on the Screen.

Here's what he says. By the way, this verse Jeremiah

seventeen is the first verse in purpose driven Life. Before

the first chapter, I was writing about this, I just

wasn't using the word radical. The Bible says, Blessed are

those you want to be blessed by God. Blessed are

those who trust in the Lord and have made the

Lord their.

Hope and confidence.

In other words, their confidence isn't in their job, their

hope isn't in their marriage, their trust isn't in other people.

Blessed are those who trust in the Lord and have

made him their hope and confidence. And then he gives

a metaphor. He says, they're like trees planted along the

river banks. He said, with roots that reach deep into

the water. And then he says, people who have deep

spiritual roots, there are four things you can see in

their lives. And he gives it here in this metaphor.

He says, such trees who have deep roots, he says

they're not bothered by the heat.

Number one, he said.

Number two, they're not worried by long months of drought.

He said, Number three, their leaves stay green. And number four,

they go right on producing delicious fruit no matter what happens.

Now this verse, God is talking about you, and he's saying,

there are four things here that if you'll develop deep

spiritual roots, will be true in your life.

He said.

Number one, he says that when the heat's on, you

don't wilt. He says, they do not. They do not wilt.

They do they're not bothered by the heat. And what's

he talking about there? He's talking about pressure.

How do you know when somebody doesn't have spiritual roots,

they crumble under stress, They cave in under pressure. When

you don't have deep spiritual roots, pressure comes on and

it baffles and batters and bushes you around and you

just get drawn along like a tumble weed because you

don't have any roots, and you get blown this way

and that way, and this way and that way, and

the pressure's on and the heat's on, and you get fried.

He says, if you got deep roots, heat doesn't bother you.

Bring it on. I can handle the heat. Why because

I've got deep roots. I'm not depending on it to rain,

he said. That's the second thing he said, not only that,

they're not worried by drought. People have deep spiritual roots.

They're not worried about the recession. They don't care if

it goes on ten years, because their source is not

in their job. Their hope is not in the economy,

their trust is not in the stock market. Their roots

are in the love of God. And he goes, when

the drought's on, I'm not worried about it. Why because

my source of nutrition and nourishment and strength and refreshment

is coming from the river, not from the rain. And

we don't know when it's going to rain again. He says,

you're not baffled by circumstances, and you got roots.

And he says, your leave stay green year round. You're

in evergreen.

You don't dry up in the winter, in the fall,

and he says, you keep on producing fruit.

That's what God wants to do.

He wants you to be productive year round, no matter

what kind of circumstances you're going through. Now, what is

the fruit that he's talking about here? The Bible calls

spiritual fruit the fruit of the spirit It's listed in

Galatians five, twenty two and twenty three, and there are

nine qualities. The spiritual fruit are love, joy, peace, gentleness, goodness, kindness, faithfulness, meekness,

self control. I want to have more self control. I

want to be more joyful. I want to be more

at peace. I want to be more loving. I want

to be overflowing in patience. That's spiritual fruit. How do

you know when somebody has spiritual roots real you can

see the fruit. Here's the equation. No root, no fruit. Okay,

really hard to understand. No root, no fruit. Any garden goes.

You got the root off a plant there, it isn't

gonna be fruit on the vine. And if you don't

have spiritual roots, you will have no fruit of love

and joy and peace overflowing in your life. Our culture

is spiritually rootless, and as a result, we get blown

away by this bad and that therapy and that instance

and that circumstance and that problem. And we can see

society decaying in many areas. We can see conflict in

many areas, we can see crime in many areas. All

these things it comes from a lack of spiritual roots.

So what we're gonna do in this series is talk

about radical living, not fanatical, radical living rooted in God's love.

So you're stable, you're strong, you can take anything that

comes at you, no matter what happens.

And none of us knows what's gonna happen.

In the next decade, we're gonna look at what does

it mean to radically follow Christ? What would happen in

your life if you really took Jesus seriously, I mean

not casually, but really took him seriously and God's plan

for your lives? What kind of fruit would happen in

your life? How productive would you be? How much more

productive if you had deeper roots. There's a story in

the Bible, in the Book of Second Kings about a

king named Hezekiah. He was the king of Israel and

everything was going wrong for Israel. But the worst thing

that was happening was the enemy nation of Syria had

a huge army, and they were coming at him, and

they were going to kick their butts, they were gonna

take over, they were gonna annihilate and uproot Israel. And

King Hezekiah is devastated, and he goes to the Temple

of God and he lays out flat on the ground

and he prays it goes God, you got to help me.

I'm in a no win situation. You know, time's up,

the last inning's over. We're in overtime and I'm way behind,

and we're gonna get We're gonna get killed.

So you got to help me. God, Please help.

And through God's prophet a man named Isaiah, God gives

Hezekiah this promise. It's a wonderful promise. Up here on

the screen. Second King's nineteen thirty. It says the surviving remnant,

those who make it through that tough year, whether it's

recession or war or whatever, the surviving remnant of Judah

shall again take root downward and bear fruit upward. The

Bible says in Colossians, look there on your outline Colossians two,

verse seven, in God's Word translation, sink your roots into him.

Let's talk about Christ and build on him. Be strengthened

by the faith that you were taught. And read it

with me. Overflow with thanksgiving, circle overflow with thanksgiving. The

first characteristic of deep roots. How do you know when

somebody has deep spiritual roots? You can write this down.

Continuous gratitude the first characteristic that you know you are

not shallow, you are not superficial.

That you have deep.

Spiritual roots, is you are continually grateful. You overflow with thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving is not to be a day that we celebrate

once a year. It is to be a habit of

a lifestyle of the radical believer. If you have deep roots,

the deeper you understand God's love, the more grateful you're

going to be.

What a special message from Pastor Rick. And now let's

hear how lives are changing through Daily Hope. Here's Rick

with a letter from one of our listeners.

Today.

I've got a quick note from a listener in Minneapolis.

His name is Bill, and Bill wrote to me Rick,

I want to let you know that I prayed with

you this morning, accepting God into my life.

Wow. That's great.

Daily Hope has become the way that I start each

day listening to your podcast. So much has changed in

my life over the past year. I had a job lost,

I had a transition, I had a divorce, my dad

passed away, cancer, and my faith all in the same year.

I'm so thankful for all that you do. Well.

Bill, I want to tell you I know you've been

going through some really tough times this past year, but

there's no greater news than hearing that you've accepted Jesus

into your life. And the fact that God used a

Daily Hope podcast to lead you to Him is such

a blessing. And I want you to know that as

you continue to study God's Word every day, you're going

to find that your faith is growing and you'll see

God actatively working in your life. And I really am

as excited to think about what the next year is

going to bring. Year two in your life will be

very different than the last year. And to the rest

of you, all of our Daily Hope listeners, I just

want to thank you because we're able to provide the

Daily Hope podcast the people like Bill because of your

generous support. Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you,

thank you, thank you for helping us share the good

news all around the world.

We love you and imagine.

What it's going to be to get to heaven and

see all these people who came to know Christ because

of your giving.

God, bless you.

Be sure to join us next time as we look

into God's Word for our Daily Hope. This program is

sponsored by Pastor Rick's Daily Hope and Your generous financial support,