Rick Warren - How the Bible Changes Us—Part Two

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. In just a few moments, we're going

to tell you how you can go even deeper in

this series with Pastor Rick's video based Bible study called

forty Days in the Word. This study will ignite your

passion for God's Word and revolutionize your relationship with Jesus.

You can take a sneak peek at this valuable tool

by going to Pastorick dot com while you listen to

today's message. That's pastorick dot com. Or you can text

the word Daily to eight hundred six hundred five thousand

and four. That's the word Daily to eight hundred six

hundred five thousand and four. Right now, here's Pastor Rick

Warren with part two of a message called how the

Bible Changes Us.

Some of you know this story that at the end

of the first year of Saddleback Church when Kay and

I started the church in nineteen eighty. At the end

of the first year, I was standing up speaking and

I fainted. I just passed out, and I went into

a period of depression. It was literally my burnout. I

had my midlife crisis at age twenty five. You know,

I wanted to get it over early, so when I

hit my forties, I just went right through it. But

I was working so hard and working eighteen hours a

day and loving every minute of it and not taking

time off, and I just burnt out physically, emotionally, spiritually,

And during nineteen eighty one, for that entire month, I

was depressed for the entire year. It's like I was

walking around with a cloud over my head and I

really didn't know how to get out of it. And

I was doing everything I could, but I was just

going to keep moving forward. You know, as I've said,

many times, what do you do when you're going through hell?

You keep going. You don't want to stay there, You

certainly don't want to make camp. You don't park in hell.

When you're going through hell, you just keep going. And

so my prayer was not, Oh, God, do something really

great in my life. My prayer was, God, get me

through the weekend, and I just kept doing that. But

during that time I was learning things that was preparing

me in that year of darkness, was preparing me to

handle enormous levels of stress that would break most people,

and to be able to manage all kinds of balls.

At the same time. I learned some skills and some

character development. There I would have never learned if I

hadn't gone through a year of depression. Because during that

your depression, I was forced to read this book. And

I was reading it and reading it and reading it

and reading it and reading it because I needed my

faith activated. And as I would read it and read

it and read it, I found myself gaining more and

more courage, gaining more and more strength, gaining more and

more confidence. So I thought, I can do this. My

confidence isn't in me, My confidence is in Christ. But

I can do this because God has promised this, this, this,

and this, and I'll never forget. One of the verses

that really activated my faith is in the Book of Exodus,

chapter twenty three, verses twenty nine and thirty. God is

talking to a guy named Joshua, who was Moses's successor

when Moses died Joshua was given the task of leading

the entire nation of Israel into battle to fight for

the Promised land. They were going to go across the

Jordan River into Jordan into Israel, and they were going

to have to take on some tribes that were already

living there. And Joshua thought, I can't do this me

I have no ability to do. This is too big

a task. The great dream is too big, the goal

is too big, the vision is too big. I can't

do this. I'm inadequate God and he was giving God

all these excuses, and in Exendus twenty three verses twenty

nine thirty, God says to Joshua, Joshua, you know these

enemies that they're bigger than you, But I'm not going

to give you the whole land in the first year.

You're going to take it over a little bit at

a time, little by little. I call it pacing growth,

so that as you take it over, one battle at

a time, you're growing stronger. And then when you're strong

enough to handle it all, you'll get it all. You'll

get all the blessings I intended for you, but you're

not going to get them all at once. And it's

going to happen over your lifetime. And then when I

read that, it was like a promise coming directly to me.

I thought, Okay, I don't have to accomplish this all

in the first year. I'm going to spend the rest

of my life serving Jesus Christ, and I'll do it

on his timetable, at his pace, and he can do

whatever he wants to do with my life. That gave

me confidence to take on enormous goals. What happened The

Word activated my faith. Number four. The fourth thing that

the Bible can do in your life is it stimulates

my growth. It stimulates my spiritual growth. It recreates my life,

It lets me start over, gives me a fresh start,

born again. It eradicates my guilt, wife's the slight claim.

It activates my faith, and then as I start growing,

it stimulates my growth. I love this verse in Acts

chapter twenty, where Paul says to the people in the

city of Ephesus, I commit you to God and to

the world word of his grace. He says, I've got

to leave. He was getting ready to leave, He's never

going to see these people again. And as he's leaving,

the Ephesians he says to him, I'm going to commit

you to God and to the word of his grace,

which can build you up. Circle that that's stimulating my growth.

The word can build you up and give you an

inheritance among all those who are sanctified. What does that mean,

give you inheritance among all those are sanctified. Well, you

know what an inheritance is. An inheritance is what you

get for being part of a family that's rightfully yours. Now,

let's just say your father was Warren Buffett. Okay, and

let's say Warren Buffett was your father, and he writes

a will. What if you went through your and he dies,

and what if you never ever took the time to

read the will. That would be called dumb because you

would not be getting in on all that was rightfully yours.

You would not be benefiting from that which belonged to

you as a child of Warren Buffett. You would not

be able to enjoy the blessings of the Buffet family

because you don't even know about it. When you become

a follower of Jesus, when you put your life in

Christ's and when you trust him for salvation, you're not

just a believer, you're a belonger. You become a part

of God's family, and now you get family privileges, their

family responsibilities, and their family privileges, and you, the Bible says,

have an inheritance, a spiritual inheritance that you're going to

gain from God, not just here on earth, but eternally

in heaven. And by the way, God's richer than Warren

Buffett in every area. Now, what if you go through

your entire life not knowing the power, the opportunities, the blessings,

the benefits that are available to you as a child

of God, and you never even took the time to

know what they were. That would be dumb. Because God says,

I want to stimulate your growth and give you the

inheritance that you have as My child, that which rightly

belongs to you. Let me show you another verse tewod

Timothy three, fifteen, sixteen and seventeen. We looked at this

verse last week. All scripture is God breathed theoonustos God

breathed and is useful. Now, notice it says four things

useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness. Now

here's the purpose of the Bible. So that the man

or woman of God may be thoroughly equipped for every

good work. The purpose of the Bible is to help

you to live out the purpose God has for you life.

The purpose of the Bible is to help you live

out the purpose God has for your life. That you

will be thoroughly equipped, that you'll have all you need.

You'll be fully prepared. You're ready to face life, and

you're not insufficient for life. You've got everything you need

to take on life. And he says, the way God

gets you ready for life, the way God gets you

ready for his purpose is through the Bible. And the

Bible does four things. He said, It's for teaching and rebuking,

and correcting and training. Now, let me explain that in

a little different way. Teaching is God shows me the

path to walk on. That's teaching. Rebuking is when God

shows me how I got off the path and I'm

now in the ditch. That's called rebuking. Correcting is how

I get back on the path the right path for

life for my life. And training is how I stay

on the path and don't fall off in the ditch. Again.

That's what those fourth as. Let me say it again.

The Word of God is profitable for teaching, rebuking, correcting,

and training and righteous. Teaching is it shows me the

path to walk on. Here's the way to make it

in life. Rebuking shows me where I fell off the

path and fell in the ditch. Correcting shows me how

to get back on the right path. Correcting and training

and righteous shows me how to stay on the path.

That's the way the Word of God helps me grow.

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.

Pastor 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 uses in his own personal daily quiet time.

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

with a 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 Kid 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 and six hundred at

five zero zero four, and as a special thank you,

we'll send you the forty days in the word Bible.

Steady care 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.

Now, the fifth way that God uses his word to

change me. In all of these ways, he recreates my life,

eradicates my guilt, activates my faith, and stimulates my growth.

The fifth way is he uses the Bible to illuminate

my mind. God wants to illuminate my mind. Pastor Tom

is going to come and talk about illuminating our minds

with the word of God. So how does it work?

How does God turn the light on? Look at this

next version in your outline. Pal one nineteen one point

thirty says, understanding your word brings light to the minds

of ordinary people. So God wants to use his word

to bring light to every one of our minds. Every

It's not enlightenment, isn't just for one age of people

or one class of people.

God wants to bring light to every single person.

He wants to light up our minds with the truth

of who he is, with the truth of the next step,

next direction to take in our lives, with the truth

of how to handle the feelings I'm having, with the

truth of how to handle the relationship difficulties or the

relationship successes.

That I'm having. He wants to bring light to our lives.

How does he do that?

How does he turn the light on in our lives?

So some of you you may have opened up the

Bible and thought I didn't get any light out of that.

It didn't happen. Sometimes it happens immediately, but more often

the light dawns on you had come slowly. And the

way that it does that. Look at this next verse

up on the screen. Some one nineteen ninety nine says,

I have more insight than all my teachers, for I

meditate on your statutes. Focus on that word meditate. Well,

first on one nineteen. You notice a lot of the

verses are from Some one nineteen. It's not only the

longest chapter in the Bible, it's also a chapter that's

all about the Bible.

So that's why we look at it a lot.

And that reminds us that meditation is the key to

turn the light on many times when you.

Soak your mind in the Word. We learned about this

this last week. Rick talked about it.

All these meditation methods that we're going through. Meditation isn't

losing your mind to the universe. It's focusing your mind

on the Word of God. All of these are so

that God can turn the light on in our lives.

It's what he wants to do in my life. It's

what he wants to do in our lives. And when

you soak your mind in the Word, he turns the

light on. It helps you to see things with a

different perspective, in a different way. And once that happens,

then He gives you the opportunity to do something else.

Some one nineteen one oh five says this, Your Word

is a lamp to my feet and a light to

my path. He turns the light on so that we

can have direction in our lives, a lamp for our feet,

a light for a path. When this was first written,

the lamp was like a candle in a lamp that

they'd carry. Now we would like have a flashlight or

some of you have, like the flashlight on your phone so.

You could read it today.

Your word is an app for my feet, which is

really what this is about. Now, what's he talking about here?

And how does this work? This is one of the

most important lessons of God's Word that I've had to

learn in my life. How does my faith in God's

Word work in practical.

Everyday ways.

It's like a flashlight that I'm holding or an app

flashlight app that I'm holding.

It gives just enough light for the next few steps.

If I'm holding a flashlight, here's the hard lesson I've

had to learn. If I'm holding a flashlight and I

want more light down the path, how do I get

more light down the path? I got to take the

next step. The only way to get more light is

for me to take the next step. There have been

so many times in my life when I've been stuck

waiting for more light from God.

What I want is, God, could you just light.

Up the whole path, like my whole life, like the

next twenty miles would be nice so I could see

where everything's going. But God says, no, I'm just giving

you enough for the next step. You take that step

and then you're gonna get light for the next step.

You take that step, you'll get light for the next step.

And there have been times when I've just said, you

know what, I'm waiting out God. Unless you give me

the twenty miles, I'm not moving. Well, guess what. God's

got a lot more time than I do, a lot

more time than you do. You can wait there a

long time. God's given you just enough light for the

next step. So what's the next step in your life?

Now? To turn the light on in your life.

One of the great things you can do is pray

prayers related to God's Word, related to the Bible. In fact,

one of them is our memory verse for this next week.

So I'm one nineteen verse eighteen our memory verses Open

my eyes that I may see wonderful things in your law.

We've seen a lot. There's a lot of words in

the Bible. For the Bible.

We just looked at law, statutes, word promise, they're synonymous.

They all mean the same thing. This is talking about

the whole of God's word. Open my eyes that I

may see wonderful things in your law. Let's do this

together for a lot of people. The way that it

helps them to memorize a verse is to go through

it phrase by phrase.

So you say the.

Verse reference before and after, go through it phrase by phrase.

It helps you remember it.

So let's do that together Psalm one, nineteen eighteen. And

then let's say together, open my eyes that I may

see wonderful things in your law Some one, nineteen eighteen.

Now let's take it away and see how you do.

Let's just see, okay, Psalm one, nineteen eighteen. Open my

eyes that I may see wonderful things in your law.

You got it. Give yourselves a hand.

The sixth way that God changes my life with his word,

this is a big one. It elevates my mood. It

elevates my mood. And some of you really need a

mood elevator right now because you're down in the dumps

and you're feeling a little grumpy, and you're feeling like

nobody cares, and you're having a pity party of one

and inviting yourself 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 have hope.

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 ricks free daily email devotional.

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

our time today. But first, Pastor 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 you've read the Bible every day,

but you're just not getting all God has for you

out of the time you spend with him. That's why

Pastor Rick created a very special by 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.

Here's rick to tell you more.

To fulfill the purpose that God created you for and

to become the person that God wants you to be,

you must fill your life with His word. Two Timothy

three p. Seventeen says through the Word, we are put

together and shaped for the tasks that God has for us.

You see, God's word is unlike any other word. It's alive.

In John six sixty three, Jesus says, the words that

I have spoken to you are spirit, and they are life.

When God's word comes into your life, you come alive.

When God speaks, things change everything around you. All of

creation exists because God spoken into existence. The Bible tells

us that God's word generates life, creates faith, It produces change,

It frightens the devil, It causes miracles. The Bible tells

us that God's word heals our hurts and builds our

character and transforms our circumstances. The Bible tells us that

God's word imparts joy, It overcomes adversity, It defeats temptation,

It infuses hope, it releases power. It cleanses our minds.

The Bible says God's Word brings things into being and

guarantees our future forever Now. To help you study the

Word of God and to deepen your understanding of this

life changing word, I've created a resource. It's called forty

Days in the Word, and it's a study kit that

you can do by yourself or even better, do it

with a couple friends in a small group. It includes

a DVD study of six sessions, and a workbook and

other instructions on how to memorize scripture, how to meditate

on God's Word, and how to get god God's Word

into your heart and life at a level you have

never had it before. This month, when you give a

gift to help support the ministry of Daily Hope, I

want to send you the forty Days in the Word

study kit. It'll help you study the Bible, but as

I said, it can also be used as a small

group study where you'll learn methods of personal Bible study.

This is all for your gift to Daily Hope. I've

told you before we are one hundred percent listeners supported ministry,

and your financial gift goes directly toward telling people around

the world about the hope of the good News. I

do this for free. I don't get any renunration for

doing this. I do this because I care about God's

word and I care about you. The Bible says we

can't live without the Word of God. We are to

never take it for granted. We are to consider it

an essential part of our lives, as essential as eating

on a daily basis. Job twenty three twelve says I've

treasured the words of his mouth more than my daily bread.

Do you do that? This study kit forty Days in

the Word, can teach you how to treasure God's word

even more than food.

The forty Days in the Word study kit 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 uses in his own

personal daily quiet time. You'll also find interactive journaling pages

and Bible verse cards with the twenty Bible verses every

believer should memorize. There's even a special section called how

we can know the Bible came from God and a

guide for choosing which translation of the Bible is right

for you. Will send you a copy of the Forty

Days in the Word Study 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 thousand and four, and as a special thank you,

we'll send you the forty Days in the Word Bible Study.

Kid Again, that's Pastorick dot com or call eight hundred

six hundred five thousand and four. 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