Rick Warren - How To Keep On Believing—Part One

This is Pastor Rick's Daily Hope, the audio broadcast ministry

of Pastor Rick Warren. Well, today we continue in our

series called fifty Days of Faith. In these lessons, Rick

looks into God's word to discover the true meaning of

faith and explore ways we can strengthen it. But first, today,

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Right now, here's Pastor Rick Warren with part one of

a message called how to Keep on Believing?

Have you ever been in a hurry when God wasn't

there's difficult things in life. Is to sit in God's

waiting room. God's waiting room is when there's something beyond

your control that you can't speed up. An answer to prayer,

a miracle, a change in a situation, and you want

it to change, but it is totally out of your control,

and you have to wait on God. The Bible says

in Ecclesiastes three to eleven, God does everything just right

and on time, but people can never completely understand what

he's doing. Boy, is that the truth? We don't know

always what God is doing, and we certainly don't know

when He's going to do it, and so much of

life we spend waiting on God's timetable. Today, we're going

to conclude the fifty Days of Faith series by looking

at how do you keep on believing while you're waiting

on God? And we're going to look at Abraham. If

any man had to wait, it was Abraham. God gave

him a promise that he'd have a baby who would

become a great nation, which later became the nation of Israel.

But Abraham had to wait one hundred years for that baby.

That's a long time to wait. What do you do

while you're waiting on God? The Bible says five things.

Number one, you need to first understand the six phases

of faith. God always takes you through a predictable phase

and stages of faith, and we spend a message on

each of these phases. We're not going to go into

that in detail. You might want to get the series,

but let's just review it this morning. How God always

works in your life. The first phase of faith is

when God gives you a dream, an idea, an ambition,

a goal. God gives you a dream. In at age

seventy five, God gave Abraham a dream. He said, I'm

going to make you into a great nation. But that's

just a start. Phase two is a decision, and a

decision is when you decide to act on that dream.

A dream without a decision is worthless. And every dream

of God has a risk to it. It has a

part that you have to to take a step of

faith out. Abraham had to leave his existing homeland and

go to a place where he never knew. He had

never heard of, never heard of, never been there, and

so he took a risk. And when God gives you

a dream, it says this is what I want to

do with your life. There's going to come a point

you have to make the decision to say, Okay, God,

I'm going to go after your dream for my life,

not my own dream. Once you've done that, you move

into phase three. And phase three is delay because the

dream is never fulfilled instantly. When God gives you an

idea of what he wants to do with your life,

and when he actually fulfills it, there is always a

time gap because He wants to grow you, he wants

to build you up. Eleven years after God gave Abraham

his dream, Abraham still didn't have a child. And when

he's eighty six, it says, but Sarah still had not

born any children. What's happened in those eleven years. The

answer is nothing. He was just waiting on God. He's

tempted to doubt, tempted to despair, tempted to take detours,

but God says, no, You're gonna wait for the fulfillment

of the dream I've given you. Then comes along phase four,

and that is difficulty. God not only lets you wait

for a while, but while you wait, he lets you

have some problems. Isn't that fun? And so you go

through the stage of difficulty, where things go from bad

to really bad, to worse to impossible. And you notice

that at age ninety nine, Abraham still didn't have a son.

He's ninety nine, his wife Sarah is eighty nine, and

still it says, how can a son be born to

a man my age. Now what's worse is that God

changed Abraham's name. His name originally was Abram, and God

changed his name to Abraham, which means father of a

great nation. Now imagine this. He walks into a seven

to eleven. The guy says, what's your name, father of

a great nation?

Oh?

How many kids you have? None? How old are you?

Ninety nine? That's kind of embarrassing folk. It's a test

of his faith. But eventually god fulfills the dream and

at age one hundred and his wife is ninety Sarah,

they have a miracle baby and they name him Isaac,

which means laughter, because they laughed at that thought. I mean,

Sarah's ninety years old. We know she didn't believe God

when God said you're pregnant because she laughed. Any woman

who really believed God at ninety and figured she was

pregnant would have cried. But she laughs, and God laughs,

and Abraham laughs, and Isaac is named Laughter. And they

have a miracle boy. And I think this is great.

But then comes the most difficult phase of faith of

all number five, dead end. And at dead end, God

allows your dream to seemingly die. Abraham was asked to

give up the miracle child. God says, I want you

to sacrifice him back to me. Now get this. Abram

wakes one hundred years, gets a baby, he starts to

grow up, and God says, by the way, now, I

want you to give him back to me. I want

you to sacrifice into me. Heybraham's thinking, what kind of

God is this? Is this a cruel joke? He's asking

me to sacrifice the very dream child that was promised

to me. And he looks he feels pretty hopeless. How

do you know when you're at a dead end, you

feel hopeless. Some of you are at a dead end

in your marriage right now. Some of you are at

a dead end and getting married. Some of you are

at a dead end when you look at your budget,

when you look at your career, when you look at

your friendships, your relationships. Some of you are at a

physical dead end and your health is falling apart. And

when you're at this stage, you start to doubt God's

wisdom and love and you say, why is this happening

to me? It's out of your control. Well, congratulations, God

is getting you ready. He is preparing you for the

final phase of faith, which is deliverance. And the greater

the dead end, the more hopeless of the situation, the

greater the deliverance is going to be, the more of

a miracle. It'll be you go, Wow, that was God.

Only God could have done that. And so God is

getting you ready for a miracle, the miracle of deliverance. Now,

everybody in this room, God's going to take you through

these six phases of faith many many times in your life,

over and over again. You'll go from dream to decision,

to delay, to difficulty, to dead end to deliverance, and

then they'll do it again, and then they'll do it

again to keep you growing in your faith. In fact,

everybody here is at one of these stages right now.

Some of you are in the dream phase, you're getting

an idea. Some of you are in the delay phase

or the difficulty or the dead end phase. But you

have to understand how God works. If you're going to

learn to be patient and keep on believing when you're

waiting on God. The second thing you do when you're

waiting for deliverance is you remember what God can do.

Remember what God can do. The situation may be out

of your control, but it's not out of God's control.

So you don't focus on what you can't do. You

focus on what God can do. What can God do? Well,

look at this verse Romans four seventeen. Read it with me.

Abraham believed in God, who gives life to the dead

and who creates something out of nothing. Folks, that verse

right there is the definition of a miracle. So write

the word miracle out to the side, because in a miracle,

here's what happens. Either God gives life to something that's dead,

or he creates something out of nothing. And that's what

it's all about. Though. That's what God can do. He

can give life to a dead career, a dead marriage,

dead dreams, dead finances, and he can bring something out

of nothing. Jesus said, anything as possible if you have faith. Now,

I want you to notice something. This is very important.

What did Abraham put his faith in? Look at that verse.

Did he believe in Did he believe in himself? No?

Did he believe in his feelings? No? Did he put

faith in faith, you know, like I'm just put faith

in faith. No? Did he practice positive thinking? No? He

believed in God. Now I believe in positive thinking. We've

talked about this many times. But positive thinking and faith

are not the same thing. You hear these songs about

positive thinking, like I believe that for every drop of

rain that falls, a flower grows. Folks, that's belowne. If

every drop of rain produced a flower, the world would

be covered with flowers. We'd be tiptoing through the tulips.

It's just not true. And positive thinking works in one situation.

It works in situations where you have control over the situation. If,

for instance, you believe you're going to do a good

job at something, you'll probably do a better job than

if you didn't believe it. But positive thinking is worthless

in things, things that are out of your control.

You're listening to Pastor Rick's Daily Hope. Rick will be

back in just a moment with the rest of today's lesson.

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God's Big Plans for Me is so much more than

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Now, let's get back to today's lesson. Here on Pastor

Rick's Daily Hope.

Positive thinking works in one situation. It works in situations

where you have control over the situation. Positive thinking is

worthless in situations out of your control, especially when you

come to a dead end in life. When you come

to a dead end, you need more than just a

nice happy thought. You need faith in God. You know,

I could say, you know, I believe I look like

Brad Pitt. I could say it all the time. I

want anyone's going to make me look like Brad Pitt.

What's going to happen is the only thing that changes

circumstances is faith in God. Faith in God works when

things are out of your control. Now here's a little secret.

Most of life is beyond your control. So you need

faith in God far more than you need just kind

of happy positive, you know, think pretty thoughts. When you

get to a dead end, you need to remember what

God can do. Lotus is verse. What is impossible with

men is possible with God. The third thing you do

when you're waiting on God is rely on God's promises.

Rely on what God has promised. The Bible says in

Romans four eighteen, when hope was dead within him, Abraham

went on hoping in faith. He relied on the word

of God. Circle the phrase when hope was dead within him?

Have you ever felt that way that hope was dying

inside of you? How do you know when hope is

dying inside of you? You start using the word never.

I'm never gonna get married, We're never going to have

a baby. I'm never going to be happy again. I'm

never going to change. Abraham went on hoping in faith

circle the phrase hoping in faith. This isn't just wishful thinking,

This isn't just positive thinking. This is hoping in faith,

faith in God. You keep on believing. How do you

keep on believing when you feel like doubting, when you

feel like giving up? Well, it says there he relied

on God's word and nothing is more reliable. Now, I

hope you've gotten this by now in the fifty Days

of Faith, every single message we've talked about, You've got

to get into God's words. If you're going to be

a man of faith, if you're going to be a

woman of faith, you have to get God's promises in

your life. Even here, once again we hit it again,

rely on what God has promised. He relied on the

word of God, and that's what kept them going when

Hope wanted to give up. You need to read this book,

study this book, memorize Bible verses. Later on, you could

pull up this week's memory verse because this is the

last week I gave you too. This week Matthew nineteen

twenty six. With God, everything is possible and Glatians five

to six. The only thing that counts is faith expressing

itself through love. When you get the promises of God

in your life, you will be able to hope in

faith rather than giving up. Now, when you come to

a dead end, rely on the promises. Notice this next verse.

While God was testing him, and that's what waiting is.

It's a test. Abraham still trusted in God and his promises,

so he offered his son Isaac. Now this is a test.

Isaac grows up and God says, I want you to

give him back to me. I want you to sacrifice

them to me. But Abraham didn't panic. I would have,

but Abraham didn't panic. God said, give me your son back,

sacrifice them to me. But he didn't panic. For three reasons,

the Bible tells us. One, he believed that God would

raise him from the dead Hebrews eleven nineteen. Second, when

he's telling a servant, we're going up the hill to

make the sacrifice, he says, will be back, not I'll

be back, but we'll be back. He fully intended the

son to come back with him. And Third, when his

little boy, Isaac is walking up the hill with him,

and he says, Daddy, where's the lamb We're going to sacrifice.

Abraham says, the Lord will provide. He had every intention

and no doubt that God was going to spare his

son or resurrect him from the dead. Why he had

the promises of God. Now here's the big test in

your life. What are you going to do when God

says to you, I want you to sacrifice your greatest dream.

That is the ultimate test of faith. When God says

the thing you value most in life, what you want

most in life, what you crave most in life, will

you offer it on the altar? To me, this is

a test. Will you do what Abraham did? Will you

hope against hope? Will you hope in faith? And will

you rely on the promises of God? Look at the

next verse Romans four eighteen. Though it seemed Abraham's hope

could not be fulfilled, he did become the father of

many nations, exactly as God has promised. Notice the word seemed.

Things are never as bleak as they seem if you

look at them from God's point of view. The disciples

follow Jesus around for three years, and they thought he

was going to bring in the kingdom and set up

a king and they all be rulers. And one day

they look up and Jesus is hanging on the cross

and he's dead. You talk about a dead end. They

are devastated. He's the Messiah, He's the son of God.

How in the world could he be hanging on a cross?

They didn't know that Easter was just a couple days away.

God specializes in turning dead situations around and resurrecting situations

that look hopeless when we rely on the promises of God.

Notice circle the word exactly. He says. He became the

father many nations exactly as God had promised. A promise

is only as good as the integrity of the promiser,

and God cannot lie. The fourth thing you do when

you're waiting on God, recognize the facts in faith. Face them,

but face them in faith. Recognize the facts of your

life in faith. Romans four, nineteen and twenty says, without

weakening in his faith, he it's Abraham faced the facts

that his body was as good as dead and Sarah's

womb was also dead. He's been pretty blunt here, yet

he didn't waver with unbelief. God's word translation says through faith.

He regarded the facts. Abraham recognizes that he and his

wife are beyond child bearing years. He's ninety nine, his

wife is eighty nine, and it is a medical impossibility

that they're going to have children. Now, he doesn't deny

the facts. He faces them with faith. This is very,

very important at this. Faith does not ignore reality. Faith

does not pretend you don't have a problem. Faith does

not act like it's no difficulty. Faith is not denial.

Please hear that, because people think it is. Let me

give you definition of faith. Faith is facing the facts

in your life without being discouraged by them. That's faith.

It's not denying you have problems. It's not denying you

have difficulties. It's not denying you're facing a dead end

or a hopeless situation. From a human standpoint, it is

facing the fact of problems in your life without being

discouraged by them. That is true faith. Some of you

are facing cancer. Some of you have loved ones who

are facing cancer. Right now. You cannot deny the diagnosis,

but you can defy the verdict. Big difference. You cannot

deny the diagnosis. I don't have cancer, Yes you do.

They don't have cancer. Yes, they do. You cannot deny

the diagnosis. That's fantasy, it's denial. But you can defy

the verdict, and you can find and say we're going

to work at this and we're going to do all

we can to beat it and defy the verdict. You see,

this is very important because there's a brand of Christianity

out there that says, deny all your problems and just smile, smile, smile.

That's not Jesus, that's Pollyanna. You know. It says, you know,

I'm not sick. Positive confession. I'm not sick. I got

one hundred and four temperature, but I'm not sick. Or

you know, I'm not in debt. I'm on the verge

of bankruptcy, but I'm not in debt. Faith is not

asking you to deny reality. It never does. Faith asks

you to face the reality in your life without being

discouraged by it. It's not living in denial. Faith is

not clinging to the past. Faith is not stubborn foolishness.

Please understand this. If you're still waiting for eight tracks

to make a comeback, let it go. It's over. It

isn't coming back. If you're still waiting for that special

guy or girl to invite you out on a date,

that person from high school and it's your fiftieth reunion.

Let it go. That puppy's not coming home, just let

it go. If you're hoping that dimpled Chads will elect

you president, let it go, let it go. Grieve deeply,

but let it go.

This is Pastor Rick's Daily Hope. Rick will be right

back to close out our time today. But first, over

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One of the reasons that I started Daily Hope is

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