Rick Warren - How to Tell God You Love Him—Part One

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

Pastor Rick Warren. Today we continue in the series Essentials

for Living. In these lessons, Pastor Rick shares the power

you need to live on, the principles you need to

live by, and the purpose you need to live for

so that you're truly living and not just existing. Now,

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find out more. Right now, here's Pastor Rick Warren with

part one of a message called how to Tell God

You Love Him.

If somebody ask you to describe the Christian life in

two words, what would you say? Somebody asked you, what

does God really want from us more than anything else?

What would you say?

If you said moral devotion, if you said ethical behavior,

if you said religious ritual, you would be wrong. Because

the essence of the Christian life can be summed up

in two words, love affair, love affair. God wants to

have a love affair with you. The Bible says that

you were created as an object of God's love.

God made you to love you.

He made you to be an object of his love,

and God wants to have a relationship with you.

Now that means that you were created for.

The purpose of having a relationship, and as a result,

the most important thing you can know in life is

a God loves you, and the most important thing that

you can do.

In life is to love him back.

Jesus said it like this in Matthew chapter twenty two.

Let's read it aloud together.

The Lord your God, with all your heart and with

all your soul, and with all your mind. This is

the first and greatest commandment.

Nothing's more important. Now.

If you do this, you have fulfilled your primary purpose

in life. If you learn to love God and you

let God love you, your life has fulfilled its meaning, its purpose.

If you miss this part of your life, your life's

a failure because you missed the very reason God created

you and put you on earth for to love and

be loved. Now, there's a term in the Bible for

expressing love to God. And that term is called worship.

We often think worship is a ritual or a routine

or something you do in a church building. Worship simply

means expressing love to God. Anytime you're expressing love to God,

you're worshiping, whether you're by yourself in a small group,

in a large crowd like.

This, or wherever.

When you express love to God in any way, you

are worshiping. Now, you may have noticed that sometimes for

some people it's hard to say I love you, especially

for men. Sometimes we feel it, we just don't know

how to get it out, how to say it, and

so we don't know how to express our love to

our children, to our wives, to our husbands, to our

friends and neighbors and people we work with, or even

to God. It's just kind of difficult. Why does that happen?

Why is it sometimes hard to say I love you? Well,

you may have been raised in a very non expressive

home where there was love, or maybe there wasn't, but

you just didn't talk about it that much. You didn't

frequently say I love you, Or maybe you were taught

to stuff your emotions and to push them down to

hide your feelings. Maybe you have been hurt in the past,

and you say, I don't want to get hurt again,

so I'm not going to tell anybody.

I love them or God.

Or maybe you're resentful about hurts that have happened in

your past, and so you say, well, I don't want

to love God. Are there are things in my life

don't like or maybe you just don't know how.

To express your love for God.

I would say to you, this is your day, because

today we're going to talk about how to do that.

Last night I saw on the internet a book called

ten Thousand Ways to Say I Love You, and today

we're going to cover all ten thousand. Actually, I've just

kind of narrowed it down to six six ways to

tell God you love him, and I'm going to encourage

you to take a self test on each of these

six ways to kind of evaluate yourself. Now here's my goal.

By the end of this hour, I hope that you

will feel loved by God more than you ever have

in your life. And I hope that you will have.

Learned to express love to God more than you ever

have in your life, that you will have learned a

deeper level of worship. And for some of you, I

know that you're going to begin a relationship with Jesus

Christ for the very first time this morning. Now, let's

look at these six ways. The first way we can

express our love to God is one that we're real

good at here at saddleback, and that.

Is by singing to him. By singing to him.

Now, you've probably noticed that music and love go together

because music comes from the heart. It's not something you

do intellectually. It comes out of your soul, out of

your emotions. And of course, there are many love songs

in the world. There are, in fact, radio stations that

are dedicated entirely just to the love song format. But

did you know that more songs have been written about

Jesus Christ.

Than any other.

Topic in the world. Nothing even comes close in second place.

Over the last two thousand years, there have been more

love songs and songs written to Jesus Christ than any

other subject. Christianity is a singing religion, a singing faith.

Why because it's not about religion. It's about a love affair.

It's about a relationship with God. That God loves you

so much that he's sent us on the die, or

he wants you to love him back. Now, so I'm

one forty seven. Verse seven says, sing out your thanks

to Him, sing praises to our God. Nothing will make

you more aware of God's love and God's presence in

your life than singing and praise. Now, I know somebody saying,

but Rick, you don't understand I can't sing well. The

Bible says, make a joyful noise.

And I know all of you can do that.

You go to football games, or you know somebody's getting

married or something. You make a joyful noise, and so

just let it out. You don't have to hit the

right note. You just have to make a joyful noise.

I know that there are some people who come to

saddle Back intentionally late, and they say, you know, I'll

miss the crowd going in, and.

You know, I'll miss the warm up act, you.

Know, all the preliminaries, because I'm coming for the main event.

I'm coming for the teaching. That friend, is a big mistake.

Big mistake, because you need principles for your head and

you need music for your heart.

You need to worship God.

Music inspires, it refreshes, it rejuvenates, it revitalizes. Music and

worship in praise to God has a healing element to it.

If you're depressed, you need to sing the songs. In fact,

I've noticed this. When I least feel like singing, that's

when I need to do it the most. When I

don't feel like participating in worship, when I don't feel

like getting involved, when I wanted to stand still and

be a spectator, that means my heart is cold and

it needs to be warmed up, and so I need

to get involved.

And I need to let my mood be lifted by worship.

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

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

If you've missed any part of today's teaching, you can

listen online anytime at pastorick dot com. That's pastorick dot com.

In the Bible, Jesus told us that in this world

we will have trouble, but we should take heart because

He has overcome the world. It's easy to forget Jesus's

words of hope when you're experiencing difficulties in your life.

You may even find yourself feeling overwhelmed and distraught. That's

why you need to grab hold of God's word. It's

an anchor for your soul that will fill you with

hope and to help you, Pastor Rick has created the

Verses of Hope Scripture Box, featuring a very special collection

of verses to restore your sense of hope daily. This

beautiful scripture box is gold with a look and feel

of leather, and there's an embossed Bible Verse on top.

It's filled with artfully illustrated and inspiring scripture cards along

with well designed blank cards for your personal notes. This

unique tool will help you anchor yourself in God's word

and fill you with hope. We'll send it to you

when you give a gift to help daily hope. Take

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zero zero four. That's Pastorick dot com or call eight

hundred six hundred five zero zero four. Quantities are limited,

so be sure to act quickly and be sure to

let us know which station you heard us on. Thank

you so much for your support. There's only two days

left to get this great resource, so don't wait.

Now Back to more from God's word with Pastor Rick Warren.

Now, in each of these six ways of expressing love

to God, I'm going to ask you to valuate yourself.

So what about this first one here? How often do

you sing your thanks and love to God? Do you

do it on a daily basis? Do you do it regularly?

Do you do it occasionally? Do you do it rarely?

Why don't you check which one represents your current view?

And why don't you put a star by where you'd

like to move to? You see, when you really think

about what God has done in your life, when you

really realize what He's done, you can't help yourself. It's

about to bust out of you. You have to worship.

There's a second way you can express love to God,

and that's by talking to him.

By just talking to him.

Now, it took me a while, folks, I admit I'm

a slow learner, but I finally figured out that this

marriage thing is about communication. I know I'm a little dense,

but I finally realized that the key ingredient in my

marriage was talk. And I discovered that on the days

that when I have deep soul communication with K I'm

not talking about Hi, how are you? I love you,

see you later, honey. I'm talking about deep soul communication.

Our relationship grows. And on those days where we have

little are none of that communication, our relationship decays. Because

a relationship is never standing still. It's always either growing

or decay. The same is true with God. On the

days that you have deep, significant talk with God, your

relationship grows. On the days you have little or no

talk with God, your relationship decays.

It's that simple.

Now, when you really love somebody, you not just want

to spend time with them, You want to talk with them.

Do you remember when you first fell in love as

a teenager and how your parents got upset that you

were always on the phone.

And you, you know, it's like you had a phone

in your ear.

You were, you know, just talk and talk and talk

because you were getting to know that person. That's how

you get to know them through communication. If you if

your husband or your wife never ever talks to you,

you have every reason to start wanting do they love me?

That's why husbands listen, read my lips. Talk to your wife.

She needs this like multiple vitamins, okay, a daily dose.

Now what do you talk to God about? If you

want to express love to God. What are you talk

to him about anything? You'd talk to your best friend

about everything, your hopes, your fears, your dreams, your anxieties,

the things you're embarrassed about, the things you're proud of,

the things you're ashamed of, your goals, your ambitions, your hurts,

your cares, every part of your life. You come to

God and you talk to God about it. The Bible

says this in Someone sixteen. I love the Lord because

he hears me and answers my prayers, because he bends

down and listens. I will pray as long as I

have breath. Now, if you don't feel close to God,

and some of you don't, some of you have been

believers for quite a long time, and you honestly have

lost your spark. Your Christian life has become routine, dull, joyless, lifeless,

and there's no real joy and sparked anymore. There's a

simple remedy for that. Start talking to God again. You

don't talk to him the way you used to talk

to him. You don't talk to him as gut levels

used to do. Now you got all these kind of

these and thousand write little cliches that you repeat over

and over and over, and you need to just talk

to him more often.

You see, prayer is not some duty that you have

to do. It's a privilege that you get to do.

You get to talk to the creator of the universe,

and he has invited you, and he wants to.

Talk with you. He wants to talk with you.

So why don't you rate yourself on this one of

expressing love to God? How often do I talk to

God each day? Do I do it once a day,

twice a day, ten times a day in morning, afternoon, evening?

Do I do it regularly? Occasionally? Rarely?

Why don't you put a circle around what it is

in the star by or an arrow by the one

that where you'd like to go. You say, Rick, I'd

like to have more prayer time with God. I'd like

to talk to God more. I just don't have the time.

Then you're too busy.

You're too busy anyway, You'll never have the time. You

must take the time to pray. There's a third way

that you can express your love to God, and that

is by.

Listening to him.

By listening to him, listening is one of the greatest

gifts you can give to somebody. The gift of listening

because we all want to be understood. We all want

to be listened to. When you listen to someone, you

are saying you matter to me. When I listen to

my children, when I listen to my wife, when I

listen to anybody, I'm saying I value what you have

to say. I value your opinion, you are important to me.

On the other end, when I don't listen to somebody,

I'm basically saying you don't matter to me. You are

not important to me. What you have to say I

don't value. And so one of the ways you express

love to anybody is by listening to them, and the

same is true with God. Every time you listen to God,

you're saying, God, you matter to me.

God, I value what you have to say.

Now, listen is the most misunderstood and a left off

part of prayer. Most of us think that prayer is

just talking to God. No, that's only fifty percent of prayer.

The other fifty percent of prayer is shutting up and

being quiet and letting God speak to us. Now, usually

we're in too much of a hurry to do this.

Well we do is say Hi, God, it's me. I

got ten things I need for you today. I want

you the five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, Thank you,

good buddy, over and out ten.

Four bye bye. And we don't stop, We don't wait,

we don't listen, we don't.

Say, oh God, do you have a few things to

say to me? And we don't listen. Now, God is

speaking to you all the time, you see me. Yes,

God is speaking to you all the time, or at

least he's trying to speak to you all the time.

So well, I don't ever hear him because you're not listening.

You don't ever take the time. You don't ever get quiet,

You don't ever pause inived to day and say, by

the way, God, you got anything you want to say.

To me right now? You're so I'm busy. Your life

is so full of noise.

You always have a channel on a radio, TV, cell phone,

something God couldn't get through because the lines are all busy.

And you need to not just take time to talk

to God, you need to take time to listen to God.

And you stop and you pause because God is speaking.

How does God speak to us? Well?

Many ways.

One he speaks to the Bible, his word. If you're

not spending any time in this book. Obviously, He's not

going to speak to you through this book if you're

not reading it. Number two, He speaks to us through

the experiences we go through in life.

Everything that happens.

To you, the good and the bad, the big and

the little, the irritating, the unavoidable, the painful, all of

those things. God is talking to you through everything that

happens in your life. He said, well, I don't see

what God's saying because you're not listening. You're not reading

these principles in this book, and you're not being aware

that God may be trying to tell you something through

that irritation. God speaks to us through other people, through

the advice of Christians and godly people who say, well

what about this? And God oftens will speak to you

through another person. God will speak to you through impressions.

He puts ideas in your mind, some great, good idea.

Where do you think you got that idea? God put

it there now, Not every idea you get us from God.

When we get an idea from God, we call it

an inspiration. When we get an idea from the devil,

we call it a temptation. When we get an idea

from ourselves, we just call it dumb. Now, you have

some good ideas, you do because God gave you a

brain to come up with good ideas. But how do

you know if an impression is from God or not?

You test it. The Bible says you're to test it.

And we've talked in the past about six ways to

test an impression or an.

Idea from God.

Did you know that the Bible says that hearing God's voice,

being able to listen to God and hear God speak

to you is the test of whether you're really a

true believer or not, whether you're in the family or not,

whether you're headed for heaven or not, whether you are

in the flock of God. Jesus said this in John

chapter ten. I am the good shepherd, and I know

my own sheep, and they know me, and they listen

to my voice. If you've never ever got an idea

or an impression or heard from God in your life,

you have every reason to wonder, do I really know God?

Do I really have a relationship with Jesus Christ? Am

I truly a believer? Have I stepped across the line yet?

Because maybe you haven't. Because God is trying to speak

to you and maybe you haven't made that relationship.

Now here's the question. How often do I pause to

listen to God each day?

Do I do it in the morning, in the afternoon,

in the evening, Do I do it hourly? Do I

do it occasionally? Regularly? Rarely?

Do I pause and just say? God? Is there anything

you want to say to me about this?

A decision you're working on, an event, you're getting ready

to go to, somebody you're getting ready to talk with.

Why don't you evaluate yourself on that. The fourth way

you can express your love to God is by publicly

identifying with him, by not being ashamed of him at work,

at home, in your neighborhood, by not saying, I'm not

going to let anybody know I'm a Christian. I'm not

telling my neighbors, I'm not telling the people at work,

I'm keeping it a secret. Then you don't really love God,

because if you love somebody, you're not ashamed of them,

you publicly identify with them. Can you imagine how do

you think my wife would have felt if years ago,

when we were dating, I said, honey, let's get married

and we'll be committed to each other, but let's just

keep it our little secret. Let's don't tell anybody about it.

You know, I'll be committed to you, you be committed to me.

But when we're in public, let's pretend like we don't

know each other, and let's just act like total strangers.

Won't that be great? She'd say, what kind of love

is that? Buster? It didn't any kind of love.

At all, because when you really love somebody, you're not

ashamed of him. You say this is my husband, this

is my wife. You take on a name and you

say we are a family, and you identify with each other,

and you can't say you love Jesus Christ and be

ashamed of him at the same time.

Jesus said it like this, Mark eight thirty eight.

If anyone is ashamed of me and my teachings, then

I will be ashamed of him when I come in

with the glory.

Of my father.

Jesus said, if you are ashamed of me on earth,

I'm going to be ashamed of you in heaven.

This is Pastor Rick's Daily Hope. Now, if you've missed

any part of this message, or if you'd like to

find out more about Pastor Rick Warren and this ministry,

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While you're there, Rick will be back to close out

our time today. But first, in the Bible, Jesus told

us that in this world we will have trouble, but

we should take heart because he has overcome the world.

It's easy to forget Jesus's words of hope when you're

experiencing difficulties in your life. You may even find yourself

feeling overwhelmed and distraught. That's why you need to grab

hold of God's word. It's an anchor for your soul

that will fill you with hope and to help you.

Pastor Rick has created the Verses of Hope scripture Box,

featuring a very special collection of verses to restore your

sense of hope daily. This beautiful scripture box is gold

with the look and feel of leather, and there's an

embossed Bible verse on top. It's filled with artfully illustrated

and inspiring scripture cards along with well designed blank cards

for your personal notes. This unique tool will help you

anchor yourself in God's Word and fill you with hope.

We'll send it to you when you give a gift

to help Daily Hope take the certain Hope of Jesus

to people everywhere. Just go to Pastorrick dot com right

now to get your copy, or you can call eight

hundred six hundred five thousand and four. That's Pastorick dot com.

Or just call eight hundred six hundred five thousand four.

Quantities are limited, so act quickly and be sure to

let us know which radio station you hurt us on.

Thank you so much for your support. There's only two

days left to get this great resource, so don't wait.

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I want to share a letter from an a new listener, Sherman,

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Now I know, Pastor.

Rick, that it was through the giving of other people

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