Rick Warren - How the Bible Changes Us—Part Three

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

of Pastor Rick Warren. Today we continue with a series

called forty Days in the Word. In these messages Pastor

Rickshaw's practical Bible study tools that will reignite your passion

for God's Word and revolutionize your life as you grow

closer to Jesus. First, we're excited to let you know

that very generous friends of Daily Hope have stepped forward

with a special fifty thousand dollars matching grant That means

any gift you give to help Daily Hope share God's

Word with people everywhere will be double. So contact us

right away, go to Pastorick dot com or text the

word Daily to eight hundred, six hundred five thousand and four.

Right now, here's Pastor Rick Warren with the final part

of a message called how the Bible Changes Us.

Whenever you get discouraged, you don't need a coffee break,

you need a word break. God gave us the Bible

to encourage us. It is a mood elevator. You say,

how do you know that? Look at this next verse

Romans fifteen, verse four. Everything that was written in the past.

He's talking about the Bible was written to teach us

so that through endurance and the encouragement of the scriptures,

we might have hope. Now I want you to circle

four words in this verse. First everything, second encouragement, third scriptures,

and fourth hope. Everything in the scriptures is for our encouragement.

And oh everything, Yes, everything that was written in scriptures

is meant to encourage you. It's meant for your encouragement.

It is meant to be a mood elevator. Even the

tough parts are there to ultimately encourage your life in

the right direction. The next time you get discouraged, the

next time you feel fatigued, you run out of energy,

You're just out of you know, pizazz. Why don't you

come home and instead of turning on the television, try

reading the Bible and see if that doesn't have a

little bit more Why because this has the power to

change your life. It has the power in it, the

God's power to make changes. Television can tell you what

to do, it doesn't have the power to give you

to do it. Now, this will elevate your mood. And

that's why every day you need to spend a little

bit of time alone with God. We call it a

quiet time. I don't care what you call it, daily, devotional,

personal inspiration. Time doesn't matter. It's a little time when

you get quiet and you spend time with God and

you think about his word, you read his word, and

you talk to him and you just listen. A good

verse is this verse back to Psalm one nineteen one fourteen.

I love this in the message paraphrase, you're my place

of quiet retreat. I wait for your word to renew me.

The word of God is meant to renew you. The

word of God is meant to encourage you. The word

of God is meant to give you hope. Now, if

you're discouraged and you've lost hope, and tells me one thing,

you're certainly not in this book, because if you were,

you would not be discouraged, and if you were, you

would have hope. Because the more you read this book

when you feel things are hopeless, the more you need

to get in the Bible. The more you feel discouraged,

the more you need to get in the Bible. Because

all of these things, and it recreates my life, gives

me a fresh start when my life's fall apart. It

eradicates my guilt for all the stupid things I've done.

It activates my faith, It stimulates my growth, It illuminates

my mind, and it elevates my mood. That's a good thing.

One more, it liberates my potential. It liberates my potential.

Now this is so important because only God, your creator,

knows your potential fully. You don't even know your potential fully.

Your parents don't know your full potential. Your husband or

your wife doesn't know your full potential. Your friends don't

know your potential. Your boss doesn't really know your full potential.

You don't even know the greatness inside you. Only God

knows what you are truly capable of. And so you've

got to spend time with God's word to get out

of the boxes that other people have put you in.

Right now, most people live for the expectations of others.

They live for the approval of others. They worry what

will other people think? Your life has been so limited

by tapes of people who lied to you. Sometimes they

didn't even mean to do it, but they did it.

And sometimes growing up, you heard things like you can't

do that, you'll never be good at that. Why can't

you be like your brother? You're not going to be them.

You're not worth much, you'll never amount to anything. And

you were told all these things, and you believe those tapes,

and you've played them over and over and they lied.

You don't even know the potential you're capable of. You

use such a small fraction of your brain. You don't

need more intelligence. You just need to use the intelligence

you've got. And only God knows the full potential of

your greatness, of the impact of your life. And only

he can unlock that potential. Only he can set you free.

Why because He's got the truth. Jesus said this John

eight thirty one and thirty two. If you continue in

my word, then you are truly disciples of Mine, and

you'll know the truth. And the truth will set you free.

It will unlock you, it will liberate you. It will

make you able to do things you never thought you

could ever possibly do. It'll set you free.

All right.

Now, let me just summarize. Would you like to have

your life recreated if it fell apart, your guilt eradicated

for everything you've ever done wrong, your faith activated so

you'll have more confidence and courage, your growth stimulated so

you'll become all you're meant to be your mind illuminated

so you can make wise decisions, your mood elevated so

you're not down in the dumps, and your potential liberated.

Is anybody interested in those seven things? Yeah? Okay, I am.

I certainly am. It's all right here. You got to

get in this book. This is why we're doing forty

days in the Word. You're not going to have any

of that done for you by television. You're not going

to have any of that done for you by the internet.

You're not going to have any of that even done

for you by your friends. The only way you're going

to have the eradication and the illumination and the liberation

and the elevation and all these different things that God

has said is by getting into this book. It's all

in the Word. So how do I gain these benefits? Well,

we're going to talk about that in depth over the

next several weeks, but let me just give you a preview.

Write these three things down. I've got to learn it,

and I've got to accept it, and I've got to

do it. Number one, I've got to learn it. I've

got to learn the Word of God. You can't do

something you've never learned about. Now Jesus said in Mark

twelve twenty four, your trouble is that you don't know

the scriptures. And it says this to the Pharisees, says,

you know, you, guys, you know what your trouble is.

You just don't know the scriptures. Now follow me on

this logic. What you think is your problem is not

really your problem. Your problem is never your problem. Your

problem is always your response to your problem. Because you

can take two people and they have the exact same problems,

and one overcomes and one fails, one succeeds and one doesn't.

Why the problem is never the problem. The problem is

always your response to the problem. Every problem is an opportunity.

This depends on how you respond to it. It's an

opportunity for growth, opportunity for prayer. It's an opportunity to

trust God more. It's an opportunity to develop in character.

It's an opportunity to see God do a miracle. I

can give you dozens of different opportunities in the problem

that you think it's a problem. The problem is not

the circumstance. The problem is your response. And the reason

why we get into so many problems is we don't

know how to respond correctly to our problems, so we

typically do the opposite of the right thing to do.

There's a book a verse in Proverbs that says, there's

a way that seems right to men, to human beings,

but it always ends in death. In fact, usually if

you want to know what God's will and subject, take

what you naturally do and do the opposite. That's usually

God's will, because what our natural inclination is is almost

always wrong. For instance, if somebody hurts me, they say

something mean to me, or they hit me in the face,

my natural reaction is I'm going to hurt him back,

and I'm going to hurt him back hard. What's that do?

Just upscales the thing. It's not my natural reaction to

forgive it and let it go. And yet that's the

way that you get set free from the past, not

by escalating it. When you hold a grudge, you don't

really hold a grudge. It holds you. It holds you

in a self imposed prison of pain. You are only

hurting yourself when you hold on the grudge. You're not

hurting anybody else. You're hurting you. But it's natural to

do that, Okay, we think that the way to be

liked is to fake it and to pretend that we're

not really who we are, and to try to impress

people by bragging, when the exact opposite, the Bible says

before honors humility. The more you humble yourself, the more

honest you are about your mistakes, the more people you're

endeared to. The exact opposite of human nature is usually

what God wants you to do.

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

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

You can sign up for Pastor Rick's free email devotional

at pastorick dot com. That's pastorick dot com.

Fast Rick says, the Bible isn't meant to just inform us,

It's meant to transform us. That's why it's so important

to study God's Word. Maybe you've never studied the Bible

and you don't even know where to start, or maybe

read the Bible every day, but you're not getting all

God has for you out of the time you spend

with him. That's why Pastor Rick created a very special

Bible study called forty Days in the Word. This life

changing resource will ignite your passion for God's Word and

revolutionize your relationship with Jesus. The forty Days in the

Word Study Kid includes six video sessions on DVD and

a two hundred and six page, two color workbook. In

the workbook, you'll find six easy to learn methods for

reading and meditating on Scripture. These are the very methods

Pastor rick us in his own personal daily quiet time.

You'll also find interactive journaling pages and Bible verse guards

with the twenty Bible versus every believer should memorize. There's

even a special section called how can we know the

Bible came from God? And a guide for choosing which

translation of the Bible is right for you. We'll send

you a copy of the Forty Days in the Word

Study Kit to say thanks for your gift to help

more people learn, love and live God's Word through Daily Hope.

By the way, right now, when you give a gift

to Daily Hope to help take the hope of Jesus

to a hurting world, generous friends of Daily Hope are

going to match your gift up to fifty thousand dollars.

But you only have till midnight on June thirtieth, to

make your gift go twice as far. Go to Pastororrick

dot com or call eight hundred six hundred five zero

zero four, and as a special thank you, we'll send

you the forty days in the Word Bible study kit. Again,

that's Pastororrick dot com or call eight hundred and six

hundred five zero zero four.

Now back to more from God's Word with Pastor Rick Warren.

Usually, if you want to know what God's will and subject,

take what you naturally do and do the opposite. That's

usually God's will because what our natural inclination is is

almost always wrong. For instance, if somebody hurts me, they

say something mean to me, or they hit me in

the face, my natural reaction is I'm going to hurt

him back, and I'm going to hurt him back hard.

What's that do? Just upscales the thing. It's not my

natural reaction to forgive it and let it go. And

yet that's the way that you get set free from

the past, not by escalating it. When you hold a grudge,

you don't really hold a grudge. It holds you. It

holds you in a self imposed prison of pain. You

are only hurting yourself when you hold on the grudge.

You're not hurting aybody else you're holding not hurting you.

But it's natural to do that. Okay. We think that

the way to be liked is to fake it and

to pretend that we're not really who we are, and

to try to impress people by bragging, when the exact opposite,

the Bible says before honors humility. The more you humble yourself,

the more honest you are about your mistakes, the more

people you're endeared to, the exact opposite of human nature

is usually what God wants you to do. Now, we

don't respond to problems correctly, so we make the problems

worth That's why Jesus says, you know what your problem is.

You don't know the scripture, because if you did, then

you'd know how to respond correctly, and you wouldn't be

making the problem worse, you'd be making the problem better.

So you got to learn. Because the Bible tells you

how to act in every situation. Then I not only

learn it, I have to accept it, and that means

I accept its authority in my life. We talked a

little bit about this in their first week. There are

things in the Bible I don't understand, but I accept it.

There are things in the Bible I don't like, but

accept it. There are things in the Bible that are inconvenient,

but accept it. There are things in the Bible I

wish God had not said, but I accept it because

God is God and I'm not. And for me, trying

to understand why God does what he does is like

an aunt trying to understand the Internet. I don't have

the brain capacity. If I understood why God did everything

he did and tells us to do everything he tells do,

i'd be God. But I'm not, and neither are you.

And it's quite arrogant for me to say, I know, God,

you've said this, but I think I know better. And

so to accept the word of God means to say, God,

this is going to be the guidebook for my life

for the rest of my life. I may not like it.

I may not agree with it. It may not be popular,

it may be politically incorrect, it may be hard to do.

I may think it's impossible, but I'm still going to

accept it as that's the right way to do it,

because you're God and this is your word, and I'm

not God, and I'm not setting myself up as my

words better than God's word. So I accept the word

of God. The Bible says this in First Thesalonians two.

When you received the word of God which you heard

from us, Paul says, you accepted it not as the

word of men, but as it actually is the word

of God, which is at work in you who believe.

You got to believe it for God to work it

in your life. So I learn it, and then I

accept it as my authority. And the third thing I

do is I act on it. I act on it.

Jesus said this in John chapter thirteen, verse seventeen. Now

that you know these things, you will be blessed since

you know them. That's not what he says, is it.

Now that you know these things, you will be blessed

if you write them down in your notebook. No, now

you know these things, you will be blessed if you

what you do them. You don't get blessed for the

parts of the Bible you know. You get blessed for

the parts of the Bible you do. So I got

to learn it, then I got accepted. Then I've got

to act on it. When I do that, you know

what happens. My life gets recreated, my guilt gets eradicated,

my moods get elevated, my faith gets activated, my spiritual growth,

it just keeps growing and growing. It gets stimulated, my

potential is liberated. All these things happen when I learn

it and I accept it and I do it. Let's

bow our heads. Would you pray in your heart? God,

I want your word to be the authority of my life.

I don't always agree with it. I don't always like it.

It doesn't always make sense. It certainly isn't always convenient.

Some of what you say, God is not very popular today.

But you don't lie, and the truth never changes. So

I'm going to accept your word even when I don't

understand it, even if it doesn't make sense to my

puny little mind. I'm going to believe that you know

what you're talking about. And God, I not only want

to accept your word, I want to learn it and

I want to do it. And as I learn it

and do it, will you recreate my life? Would you

make the rest of my life the best of my life?

I want to be born again through the word of truth.

And would you set me free from the past by

eradicating my guilt. Would you cleanse me with your word,

use that soap brush and just wash the dirt out

of my life, and the guilt and the shame out

of my life. I don't want to hang on that

garbage anymore. You've said faith comes from your word. Would

you activate my faith as I study and read and

learn your word? Stimulate my growth, build me up with

the word of God and Lord. A lot of times

I get confused and I don't know which way to turn.

But understanding your word brings light to the minds of

ordinary people. And your word is a lamp to my

feet and the light to my path. Would you illuminate

my mind? And when I get down, and when I

get discouraged, and when I feel like giving up, would

you elevate my mood as I look to your word

for incurag as I find the promises that give me hope.

You be the place of quiet retreat. As I wait

for your word to renew my life and father all

the stuff that has me stuck and hold me back

and hinder my progress. I want you to unlock my potential,

liberate my potential, set me free as I continue in

your word. If you've never invited Jesus Christ in your life,

said Jesus Christ, come into my life point the right direction.

I want to learn to love you and trust you

and follow you. I need you in my life. I

want to go your way, not my own. From this

day forward. I want to be born again through the

living Word. Help me to understand you more name I pray.

Amen.

Hi everybody, This is Rick, and I hope you enjoyed

today's broadcast. You know, if you just prayed that prayer

for the very first time, or you just recommitted your

life to Jesus again today, would you let me know

about it. There's something real about sharing your commitment. So

write me Rick at pastorick dot com and say, Rick,

I prayed that prayer of commitment. I gave my life

to Christ. And I'll send you some material that will

help you on your journey with Jesus. And I'll also

pray for you. God bless you.

This is Pastor Rick's Daily Hope. If you've missed any

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

out more about Pastor Rick Warren in this ministry, just

visit Pastorick dot com, where you can listen online. Anytime.

That's Pastor Rick with two rs inthemiddle dot com, and

be sure to sign up for Rick's free daily email

devotional while you're there. Rick will be back to close

out our time today. But first we have some really

exciting news. Generous friends of Daily Hope have offered a

fifty thousand dollars matching grant That means whatever amount you

give to help share the hope of Jesus worldwide will

be matched up to fifty thousand dollars, So twenty five

becomes fifty one hundred dollars becomes two hundred and five

hundred dollars becomes one thousand. Whatever amount you give will

be doubled by the grant. But don't wait because this

opportunity will be gone at the end of this month

and will miss out on any amount left over from

the grant if not matched. Here's Pastor Rick to tell

you more.

You know, I started Daily Hope so I could spread

the good news about Jesus, not just across America but

all around the world. And we want people to know

that God's word is filled with hope and truth, and

the power that we need to follow him every day

is available to every single one you know as well

as I do that the Word of God changes lives.

It's a live it's active, and it breathes new life

and new love into all of our lives. So wherever

you listen to this, whether you listen on the website,

whether you listen on a radio station, or whether you

listen to a podcast, you're a part of the Daily

Hope family and I need your help. We could not

do this without your support. Now, you know, I don't

take any funds from this broadcast. We don't have any

giant million dollar donor who's giving big gifts to this.

It comes from donations from listeners like you. We're one

hundred percent listener funded. Would you continue to pray for

this broadcast and would you continue to support us? And

let write to me, let me hear from you. Absolutely

love reading the stories that are sent to me. So

write me, pray for me, and support this ministry, and

God will bless it, and God will bless you, and

we'll get to heaven and we'll thank God for all

the people going to be in heaven because you cared.

When you give a gift to Daily Hope, you're helping

share the hope of Jesus with people everywhere and right now.

Your gift will be doubled by the fifty thousand dollars

matching grant. Call eight hundred, six hundred five thousand and four,

or you can visit Pastorrick dot com and we'll send

you pastor ricks forty days in the Word study kit

to say thanks. That's eight hundred, six hundred five thousand

and four or Pastorrick dot com. Please be sure to

join us again next time as we look into God's

Word for our daily hope. This program is sponsored by

Daily Hope Ministries and your generous financial support