Rick Warren - Developing Trust—Part One

Hey, everyone, welcome to Pastor Rick Warren's Daily Hope. Now

we're going to continue our series today called building My

Life on Values that last and Rick will press on

and show us how we benefit when we applied the

biblical principles of trust, self control, balance, respect forgiveness, moral purity, fairness, honesty,

and love to our lives. And right now, here's Pastor

Rick with part one of a message called developing trust.

In this series on values, first we talked about developing

your standard, choosing who's going to be your standard for life,

and then we talked about accepting responsibility for your life.

And then the next question that comes up is who

are you going to trust? Now? There have been a

lot of books, a lot of magazines, and a lot

of articles out recently talking about the dramatic decline and

trust in our society, that nobody really trusts anybody anymore.

We are a cynical nation, a doubting nation. We tend

to be wondering what's really the truth, where we are

skeptical of everything and everybody. A recent article I read

this week was talking about the high price of low trust,

so that customers don't trust businesses anymore. Employees don't trust

managers anymore, and nobody trusts the government anymore. And they

did a survey of the trust level in America and

discovered that the least trusted professions in America are now

number one telemarketers, used car salesman, and at the bottom

of the barrel politicians. On the other hand, the two

most trusted professions in America are number one pharmacists and

number two pastors. So I'd like to sell you some

medicine today, folks. Let me let you in a little secret.

You can't always trust pastors, and you can't alway trust

pharmacists because people are people and they will let you down. Now,

what's behind this decline and trust in our society where

we really are skeptical of everything and everybody. We've heard

all these bogus claims, and we've heard all these unkept promises.

Why don't we trust people? The answer is what we

talked about two weeks ago, truth decay. Our society doesn't

value truth anymore. What they value is what works. It

doesn't matter if it's true or not, and truth and

trust go together. In fact, I've ever realized there's only

one letter difference between truth and trust. You trust people

who tell you the truth, and you don't trust people

if you don't think they're telling you the truth. Now,

in a society where most of the people say there

is no such thing as absolute truth, that means you

can trust absolutely no one because you can't depend on

anything or anybody to always tell you the truth if

there are no absolute truths life. We talked about that

fallacy a couple weeks ago. Now it's interesting because that

causes stress in our lives because you were wired to

be a person of trust when God made you. And

God created you. When he designed you, he wired you

in such a way that you have the capacity and

the desire to trust in something greater than yourselves, because

He wanted you to have a relationship with Him. And

I want to say this, if you don't learn to

trust God, you will create something to trust in. It

may be a diploma on the wall that gives me

my security. It may be money in the bank that

gives me my self esteem. It may be a beautiful

husband or wife on your arm. They are my source

of significance. It may be a career, a goal, or whatever.

But you will create something to worship. You will create

something to value, you will create something to trust in. Now,

let me give you a little definition. Anytime I trust

any person or anything more than God, or anytime I

value any person or anything before God, that's called you

might write this down an idol. An idol. That is

a definition of idol. It's when I trust anything or

anything or anyone else more than God. That's called an idol.

The second command of the Ten Commandment says, don't make

any idols. Now. Why is that? Well, another place in

the Bible, in the Book of Deuteronomy, it says this

notice on your outline for your own good, don't sin

by making an idol in any form, he says, for

your own good. Circle that he says, I want you

to have a correct understanding of what I'm like, how

the correct image of me in your mind, because it's

truly for your own good. Now, this morning, I want

to do three things. I want to ask three questions. One,

what happens when I trust something else or someone else

more than God? What happens? Number two? Why does it

seem so difficult to trust God? And number three, what

are the reasons that I really ought to trust God

with my life? Let's look at him this morning. Number one,

What happens when I trust God more than anything else, Well,

there are two negative effects. One I'm disappointed and two

I'm dominated. I am controlled, disappointed and dominated. First, I'm disappointed.

Anytime I expect other people to meet and need in

my life that only God can meet, I'm going to

be disappointed. Anytime you take anything, and we can even

make good things idols. You can make your family an idol,

and there's nothing wrong with your family, But anytime you

look to any single person or any single thing in

life to meet all your needs, you're going to be

let down. It's the idea of you know, if I

could just get married, then I'd be happy. Anybody want

to give a testimony on that. If I could just

find that right person, my life would be totally fulfilled.

That's creating an idol. Or if I could just get

this job, or if I could just make X amount

of money, then I would feel significant, Then I would

be confident, Then I'd feel good about myself. Then life

would be fantastic. You have just created an idol, and

you're going to be discouraged by it. The Bible says this,

and Jeremiah those who make idols are disillusioned always because

they let you down. The Bible says in Hebrews, of

what value is an idol? For he who makes it

trusts in his own creation. He says, it's crazy. We

look at a person in the jungle who carves out

a little God and then bows down and worship it.

We say, that's dumb made it. But we do that

all the time with our careers, with our relationships, with

our bank accounts, and we act as if that's what

gives us meaning in life, that's what gives us significance,

that's what gives us self worth. And you're going to

be disillusioned now. As I said, you create something to worship,

you create something to trust if you don't trust God.

And it's pretty amazing all the things that people will

trust in instead of God. We spend billions of dollars

every year on psychicotlines, horoscopes, palm reading, tea leaves. We

hang little crystals in our in our rooms are we are.

We wear things around our neck and we think that

that's going to ward off all the all the bad things.

Or we put a little statue on our car as

if that little statue can protect us. Look at what

the Bible says. The poor, deluted fool is trusting something

that can give him no help at all. Yet he

cannot bring himself to ask, is this thing, this idol

a lie? He says, we're trusting when we trust in

anything besides God to take care of us. Ultimately we're

going to be disappointed. We're going to be disillusioned, and

then number two, we're going to be dominated. Notice the

Bible says you were controlled circle that word, controlled by

dead idols who led you astray. Now what I want

to say about this is that anything that you value

most in your life. Let's just say if I said, hey,

make a list of the top ten most important things

to you and put them in order. Number one, what's

the most important value in your life? Number two, number three,

and all the way down. Whatever's in first place is

your God. It's your God. And if it's not the God,

you have just built an idol. And whatever is in

first place in your life, whatever you value more most

eventually control. That's why I suggest you better make it God,

because he's the only one wise enough to give you

the right directions. This is how addictions start something becomes

so important and pretty soon I think I'm controlling it,

but it's actually controlling me. Look at the next verse.

The Bible says in the Book of Psalms, those who

make idols end up like them, and so does everyone

who trust them. Whatever you value the most in life,

you're going to become like So. If I value money

most important in life, I'm going to become a materialist.

I can't help it. If I value pleasure most in life,

I'm going to become a hedonist. If I value what

works most in life, I become a pragmatist. If I

value Jesus Christ most in life, I become a Christian.

And on and on and on. Whatever you put in

top value in your life is going to shape you.

And if it's not God, it's going to warp you.

It's going to warp you. Then why do we do this?

Why do we instead of just trusting God? Why do

we start trusting and all these other things to give

our life meaning, significance, et cetera. The reason we create

idols is because we want a God we can control.

What we want to do is we want to shrink

God down so we can manage him. We want to

reduce him to our size so we can put him

in a little box. We want to sign him to

a location. Say hey, this is your box. God. You're

over there, and I'm over here when I need you

come help me. You see, really you don't want We

don't want a God in life. We want a genie. Okay,

that's really what we want. I don't want a God

that I have to serve. What I want is a

God who serves me. I don't want a God that

I have to worship and love. I just want a

God who loves me and lets me do whatever I

want to irregardless of whether it's right or wrong. I

want a genie. I want to control God. I want

to sign him to a place. And people try to

do this all the time, well meaning parents. I've heard

several times in our church after a service, the kids

are running around here and they say, slow down, You're

in God's house now. I want to tell you something.

This is not God's house. Even this big building couldn't

hold God. God can't be contained in a universe. The

fact the Bible says real clearly, God does not dwell

in temples made by man. God has not located anyone location.

Now we would like for this to be God's house.

Why because then he could stay in his house while

we go do what we want to do. Okay, God,

I'm so glad he's not seeing me here at the

Cowboy Boogie, you know. And so we want God to

be localized in one little place. But He's with you

all the time. He's everywhere. And so God says, don't

reduce me, don't make an idol, don't just try to

fit me into your convenience. Now, this is a very

important question you need to ask yourself because it will

determine your values in life. Do I exist for God

or does God exist for me? You have to answer

one of the two ways. Do I exist for God

or does God exist for me? Now? Well, who made who? Well,

obviously God made you, so you exist for God. Now

if you say no, no, God exists for me, you

don't have a God. You have a genie. That's what

you have done. You have created a little figment of

your imagination. You have imaged him, imagined him. You've created

an idol who serves you. Now, this is not new

because from the very beginning man has been trying to

do this a creation. God said, I'm gonna make man

in my own what image? Okay, God says, let's make

man in our image? And now today we do the

opp We've reversed it. Now it's man saying I'm going

to make God in my image. I'm gonna whittle him

down the size. I'm going to create a little fashion,

fashion him in the way that I want. He's going

to be what I want him to be, so I

can do my own thing. You see, the Bible says,

this is the day the Lord has made, and today

culture's got it backwards. This is the Lord the Day

has made. And people all around and going, this is

what God's like, This is what God's like. What are

they doing justifying their lifestyle? They are paring down their

idolizing God. I laughed at this when I read this.

A while back, a guy named Enrique petition the Superior

Court in Marin County, you know, up by the Bay area,

to have his name changed. He now wants to be

called God. So so you know, can you imagine God speaking?

He says, The court held the public hearing to quote

see if anyone could show just cause why he should

not be great, added his request. Now, this isn't anything new.

From the very beginning of time, man has wanted to

be God. It's the very first temptation when the devil

comes to Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden.

He goes, Hey, you know, if you just eat this

one tree, God said, you can eat everything else in

the whole garden, but not one. So it's the minimal

temptation possible. He said, just as one thing's off limits.

Just why so God could give him a choice between

right or wrong. That's why he did it. He says,

if you just eat this one tree, you will be evil. No,

he didn't say that. He said, if you just eat

this one fruit, you'll be God yourself. Give it here. Okay,

I want to be God. Okay, and man has always

wanted to do that, to play God. Now, since you

know you can't be God, the second best thing we

try to do is if I can't be God, then

I will whittle God down to my size and I

will reduce him so it's comfortable for me and fits

my my lifestyle. Now, this is what I call the

ultimate expression of individualism. We talked about individualism in our

in our society. A couple of weeks ago. The ultimate

act of individualism is everybody gets to create their own God.

You create your own God to match your lifestyle, and

he says everything you do is okay, and what you

don't like in other people, those are all the bad things. Okay.

Then I create a God who says all the things

that I like to do are fine, but all the

things I disapprove of that my God says those are wrong.

And we each create our own little god. That's called

making an idol, and God says, don't do that now. Again,

this has been happening for centuries. Did you know that?

Years ago in the Roman Empire, as the decline of

the empire happened, you could create any god you wanted

in order to justify anything you wanted. So, for instance,

if you like to get drunk every day and and

have hangovers, you could create it. You could worship a

god called Bacchus, the god of getting drunk. If you

like to have sex twenty four hours a day with

anyone and everyone in any way, with no standards at all,

total promiscuity, you worshiped a god called Venus. And if

you had a style or lifestyle or habit that you

wanted to justify. All you had to do is create

a god in the Roman pantheon, and then he says,

he says, it's okay. Now we still do this today

in America. We have some people who want to make

a flag waving God who runs around justifying all their

political opinions. God's on our side. It's God in the

flag and me. We have other people who want to

create a status quo God. It basically says, don't rock

the boat. Everything's copa SETTI, just leave it the way

it is. There are certain people who want to create

a success God, which says God wants everybody to be

filthy so we can justify materialism, and on and on

and on. God says, don't do it. God says, don't

reduce me down to size, don't cut me into a

little pieces, misrepresent me. I want people to know the

truth about me. Now do you like to be misrepresented? No?

In fact, when people say things about you that aren't true,

you get ticked off. Why are they doing that? That's

not me? And you know what, God gets ticked off

when we say this is what God's like, but he's not.

He wants everybody to know the truth. About him just

like you do. And he says, don't misrepresent me. Don't

say I'm like this when I'm really this, and he

takes it very, very seriously. Now, there was a book

that came out recently and it's called how Do You

Spell God? And it was written by a Catholic priest,

a Jewish rabbi, and the foreword was written by the

Dali Lama. Now you can't get more politically correct than that, folks, okay.

And in this book, how do you know? How do

you spell God? And by the way, HBO later took

the book and made a special about it. Some of

you you may have seen that. They said how do

you spell God? And their conclusion was, you can spell

God any way you like. Well, isn't that sweet? Okay?

In other words, if I want to think of God

as a fish, that's great. If I want to call

him Charlie Tuona, great, if you want to say, well,

I think God is some bodacious babe, fantastic, and that

we all just create our own little God. Because God

can be interpreted in many, many, many different ways.

I just want to say thank you for join us

today on Pastor Rick's Daily Hope have you ever felt

like you don't have a purpose in life? I think

we've all felt that way, because when you don't know

your purpose in life, well you just kind of end

up drifting and you get bounced around from one storm

to another, and you're just not sure who you were

meant to be. You wind up looking for meaning in

so many of the wrong places and living by values

that the world thinks are important, but they can never

lead to the meaningful life that God desires for you.

So to help you discover your purpose filled life, the

life you were meant to live, Pastor Rick has created

a transformational Bible study called Building your Life on Values

That Last. Because when you base your identity and decisions

on the eternal values revealed in God's Word, well everything

just falls into place and you can lead the life

of true success and significance that you were meant to have.

Go to Pastorick dot com to get your copy of

this great rea. That's Pastorick dot com. Or you could

just text the word hope to seven oh three to

oh nine. That's the word hope to seven oh three

to oh nine, And again, thanks so much for your support,

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next time as we look into God's Word for our

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