Rick Warren - Accepting Responsibility—Part Two

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 apply the

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

and love to our lives. And now let's join Rick

as he shares the final part of a message called

accepting responsibility.

The average American spends six hours a week in shopping

related activities. Some of you blow that statistic out of

the water.

I know you know, I've seen you.

You know, when the tough, when the going gets tough,

the tough go shopping, you know. And and yet it's interesting,

by the way, that the more educated you are, the

more you shop.

So some of you go, see, honey, I'm smart. See

I'm really smart.

I'm getting ready to go out on a little educational

field trip, darling.

God says, that's dumb.

If you're spending all your money and you're not saving anything.

Look at what it says. Let's read Proverbs twenty one

twenty with great guilt. Okay, y, let's read it aloud.

The wise man saves for the future, but the foolish

man spins whatever he gets, ouch.

Spends whatever he gets.

Now you say, Rick, why you're making a big deal

of this, because did you know that the number one

cause of divorce is not adultery, It's not having an affair.

The number one cause of divorce is not abuse, its debt.

Fifty four percent of the divorces in America occur over

financial pressures. We have now decided that the marriage vow

is till debt do us part. And God says that's

not very smart. Now, let me just get real honest

with you. I read a survey this week that said

most baby boomers are going to be flat broke in

retirement and they're going to live in abject poverty. Why

because they're not saving anything. Are you teaching your kids

how to save? Are you teaching them how to make

little three little banks or three little boxes and you

divide up and allowances. This is for spending, This is

for tithing, giving back to God. This is for savings.

And when they get over, you get them, open them

a bank account, and you teach them how to give,

how to save, and how to spend. More important, are

you modeling that or is everything just going out the door?

Regardless of how little your income is. You need to

learn to live on a margin where you live on

less than you make so you can put away some

to save. God says, that's being responsible. Somebody asked John D. Rockefeller,

who at one time was the world's wealth this man,

how did you amass such a fortune? He said, It's

real simple. I've abided bye all my life, he said.

I give the first ten percent as a tithe back

to God. I save ten percent, and I live on

the other eighty percent.

Not a bad starting point.

I would suggest that if you were being haphazard in

your finances, that you might start that agenda returning the

first ten percent to Goddess, he says, saving ten.

Percent and learning to live on the rest.

Why the Bible says this, The fool thinks only about

having a good time now, And like it or not,

God uses money to test you.

He is testing your responsibility.

And when he looks at your finances some of those

rewards in heaven and those responsibilities in heaven, God's going

to say, were you responsible with what I gave you

here on earth? And the Bible also says to whom

much is given, much is required. So you want to

be responsible, start saving your money.

Number two.

If you want to be responsible, one of the ways

is by controlling my reactions. By controlling my reactions, well,

before we get in this point, here's what I want

to do today. I want you to rate yourself on

each of these four areas. Now we're not gonna go

one to ten, but let's just use a kind of

thumbs up or thumbs down. It's like a plus sign

means this is under control in my life. It's doing

great and I feel good about it. Minus means major

warning here, I'm not being very responsible. So give yourself

a plus or minus in the area of the money

right now. Okay, plus sign means yeah, we're saving, we

have a consistent plan for saving, spend and giving or

being no, we have no consistent plan, or we're not saving.

Give yourself a minus now. No peaking. Okay, don't peak

anybody that would be irresponsible. Okay, write that down now.

Number two second way by controlling my reactions. Earlier we

talked about that you cannot control the events. You can't

control the things, the tragedies that happen to you. But

you can control your response and reaction. So God says,

if you want to be responsible, maturity and responsibility are

evident in your life. When you can handle the pressures,

the stresses, the problems, the pains of life without losing it,

without becoming stressed out, without becoming angry and blowing up,

without shrinking into depression. And he says, when people hurt you,

he says, you turn around and you do good to him.

He says, the key to.

Responsibility is learn to control your emotional reactions. Notice these verses.

A fool expresses all his emotions, but a wise person

controls them.

Do you do that?

Of course, the way that we usually express our emotions

is through our words, And so Jesus tells us in

the Book of Matthew, people will be responsible for every

careless word they've said.

I don't like that verse.

That's one of the ones I wish God had left

out of the Bible, because honestly, it says, I, Rick

Warren am going to be held responsible for every careless

word I've said. God is judging the responsibility of my

mouth and yours too. So if you want to be responsible,

he says, you need to put your mind in gear

before you put your mouth in motion. You need to

think before you speak. That's being responsible.

Are you are you?

Are you just a blabber mouth? You just say anything

that floats through your mind, whether whether it's going to

hurt anybody or not, whether it's the right time or not.

Says control my reactions. Look at the next verse. Don't

let evil get the best of you, but conquer evil

by doing good.

He's saying there.

One of the ways you show responsibility is by not

trying to get even with people.

Who hurt you.

See, when somebody shams you or rips you off, somebody

maligns you, slanders you, somebody steals from you, somebody abuses

you or hurts you. When you try to get even

with that person, you know what you've done. You've just

lowered yourself to their standard. You are even with them,

and a person who tries to get even is no

better than the person who just did the wrong. Because

you're even, you're trying to get even. But when you

forgive that person and you move on and say, God,

I'm gonna let you take care of it, I know

you're gonna settle the score.

And I trust you to do that.

That puts you in a superior moral position because you

let God settle the score, which and he, by the way,

has better rea sources than you do to do it.

And so you say, God, I'm going to return good

for evil rather than evil for evil. I'm not going

to try to get even somebody shuts me out of

a car pool lane or something like that. I'm not

going to try to get back at them. I realize

that what they reap, they'll sew and they'll eventually God'll

get even with them. But God, I'm going to return

good for evil. That is responsible, that's controlling your reactions.

So I want you to rate yourself on this one.

Number two, When people tick you off, what.

Do you do?

Irresponsible actions are either to a blow up or b

clam up. Both of them are wrong. Those are inappropriate

ways to deal with anger. Either become a skunk you

smell up the place, or a turtle you withdraw in

and hide.

God does it tell you to be.

A turtle or a skunk. There are appropriate ways to

respond with anger. He says, you do it in calmness,

in love, and in truth. Give yourself a plus or

minus on that one.

Okay. Number three The third way that.

We can be more responsible of just this list I

just picked is by guarding my mind. By guarding my mind,

God has given you your mind, and the Bible says,

as a man thinks in his heart, so is he are.

Our minds control everything else. They influence our thoughts, can

affect our feelings, and our feelings affect our actions. So

it all starts up here. Now, let me.

Relieve you of a little false guilt.

You are not responsible for every little stray thought that

flits or passes through your mind, aren't you glad of that?

Whow Okay, You are not responsible for every little thought

that's gone through your mind, because those can come from

all different things. Conversations you over here, by accident, things

that you see by accident. The devil puts thoughts in

your mind, Oh yeah, all the time, when the devil,

when Satan gives you a thought that's called temptation. When

God puts a thought in your mind that's called inspiration.

And both God and the devil are trying to talk

to you all the time.

They're trying to, you know, give you ideas, good ones

from God, bad ones.

From the devil.

And so you're not responsible. Martin Luther once said it

like this. He said, you can't keep the birds from

flying over your head, but you can't keep them from

building a nest in your hair. And what you are

responsible for are the thoughts that you choose to hold

on to and go over and over and over in

your mind. The one goes through your mind. Oh, let's

think about that one for a while. Like jealousy, like resentment,

and a number and number of other things. Oh, I

like I feel good about feeling so prideful about this

situation and other things. You are not responsible for all

your thoughts, but you are responsible for what you choose

to allow in your mind through your eyes and through

your ears, through the eyegate, the irgate, and God is

going to hold you accountable for what you think about

by allowing to let indo your mind. Now, this is

an area, honestly, that many of you who've been Christians

ten twenty thirty years are still acting very irresponsibly in it.

It amazes me what some people see, much less let

their children see. Almost notice what the Bible says proverb fifteen,

A wise person is hungry for truth, while the fool

feeds on trash. The fool feeds on trash. You might

want to cut that out and put it on your TV.

See.

I know a lot of people who are true believers

in Christ, in God, but they're they're watching trashy TV

shows all the time, and they're listening to trash radio

all the time, and they're watching trashy soap operas and

talk shows, and they're reading trashy magazines and trashy books

and novels, and they're paying good money to go see

deviant behavior as entertainment and seeing trashy movies and hearing

trash talk on those movies. And I've probably heard this

a thousand times. But Pastor Rick, you know, when I

go and I see those kind of things, it just

doesn't phaze me. It doesn't bother me. I can listen

to it. It just doesn't bother me, and it doesn't

affect me. And I want to say, who are you kidding?

Huh? Who in the world do you think you're kidding?

You think you're kidding? God, It does affect you.

Scientists have done study after study after study that says

you never really forget any scene that you may not

recall it consciously, but they can put a probe in

your mind, and you know, stimulate certain parts of your

brain and that idea will come right back up in

living color.

It's all stored there.

And some of you have been storing garbage for years now.

There's an old computer saying that says, garbage in, garbage out.

Whatever you put in your mind is inevitably going to

come out in your behavior and your beliefs. And what

it does is it weakens you, and it weakens your values,

and it lowers you because you've become accustomed to it

so that it doesn't.

Bother you anymore.

And when things don't bother you anymore, that is a

warning light that you've already passed a threshold.

See.

One of the ways Satan tries to get sin and

deviant behavior acceptable is the starting point is it gets

you to laugh at it. It gets you to laugh

at ah, look at Oh, that's funny, that's really funny.

And once you've laughed, your barriers have lowered. That's why always,

any deviant behavior always starts on a situation comedy on

television before it moves to a drama. Always, every time,

study the last forty years of television. Because if Satan

can get you laughing at something that is wrong, that

is sinful, You've already lost a battle.

Listen.

Sin is not funny, folks, It's not funny at all.

It put Jesus on the cross, that's how funny it was.

And it is absolute abhorrent to the nature of God.

And when I sit and I allow things in my mind,

God says you're being irresponsible, and you.

Got to check it out.

Some hey said, well, I just try to be open minded.

Will some of your open minds need to be closed

for repairs. Okay, you need to do a little spring cleaning.

Now.

Some of you say, you know what, Rick, I never

have any desire to read the Bible. You know why

you don't hunger for it because you filled your mind

with trash. There are three things. You can fill your

mind with the truth, which always builds you up. You

can fill your mind with poison, and you know what

that does you pornography and other stuff like that. Or

you can fill your mind with what I call stuffing.

Stuffing is stuff that's neither good nor bad. It's just stuff.

It's trivia. But you know what, if you eat a

whole meal of stuffing, when the steak or the desert

comes on. You don't want any of it because you're

not hungry for it. The Bible says the wise man

is hungry for truth, while the fool feeds on trash.

Your character comes from what you think about, So rate

yourself on this one plus or minus. Have I been

pretty vigilant and I say, there's just certain things I

won't watch. I'll turn the channel, I won't listen to it.

I'm not going to listen to this or that or

whatever or does Is your mind just an open freeway

that anybody who wants to drop garbage in it can

And you'll say, well, it doesn't affect me, or you're

kidding yourself and you're being irresponsible. Give yourself a negative.

That's one you need to work on. Number four a

fourth theory of responsibility. I can be responsible in life

by admitting my mistakes. By admitting my mistakes. Proverbs twenty

eight thirteen says a man who refuses to admit his

mistakes can never be successful. But if he confesses and

forsakes them, he gets another chance. God gives you another chance.

He always gives you more chances if you just confess

and forsake. The Bible says in the Book of Hoseiah.

Don't point your finger at somebody else and try to

pass the blame. So I said earlier. Typically we try

to accuse and excuse. Whenever we blow it, we say,

it's not my fault, it's all your fault. I'm a

victim of circumstances, and.

On and on and on. Now the fact is, folks,

look up here.

I'm doing this message for me because there are many

areas of my life that I am irresponsible in, and

there are many areas of your life that you were

irresponsible in. There's a verse in the Bible that says,

there has never been a person who lived on this

earth who always did what was good and never did

what was wrong. We've all blown it. We've all been irresponsible.

The Bible calls it sin. God doesn't want you going

around with a heavy guilt trip about all the irresponsibility

in your life, but he wants you to go around

with a sense of promise and hope that He will

help you overcome it.

He can even listen.

He can even bring good out of the stupid decisions

that you've made in your life, if you will give

them to him. It's one of the great truths of

God's word, and Tracy is a great example of it.

I want you to hear her story today. Would you

give her a warm welcome.

My name is Tracy, and I'd like to share how

God has forgiven me and healed me from the painful

hearts that came from living irresponsibly for many years. And

I'd like to tell you how God has brought good

out of the bad in my life since I committed

it all to him. I was born when my parents

were in their forties, and by the time I was

four and a half, my dad died of a heart attack,

leaving behind my mom, two brothers, sister, and myself. Soon

a new dad came into my life. He was nice

and funny, and I liked him right away. Unfortunately, he

was also an alcoholic. Years to follow were a roller

coaster of highs and lows. By the time my teen

years hit, I was very bitter, confused, and resentful. Instead

of taking responsibility for myself, I blamed my parents for

my unhappiness and God for letting it happen. Turning my

back on family and God, I searched for love, affection,

and an end to my inner pain. I turned to

a destructive and irresponsible path of drugs and alcohol. When

I couldn't get the pain to go away, I'd settle

for numbness. My search for love took me from one

bad relationship to another, never finding what I looked for,

and destroying myself along the way. I left home at

sixteen and moved in with my sister. She had traveled

a similar path. She understood my pain, but, like me,

hadn't found the answer. Then I met a man I

thought put an end to my search. Once again, I

made someone else responsible for my happiness.

I was afraid to be alone, and he played on that.

By the time we'd been together two years, I was

anorexic and suicidal.

One night we fought and I snapped.

I found myself scared, hopeless, and alone, with the bottle of.

Migraine pills in my hand.

I awoke to having my stomach pumped. My roommate had

found me in time. It was only a week later

that I discovered I was pregnant. For the first time,

I had to think of someone else besides myself. I

had to be responsible for my actions. I was frightened

and alone, and in my desperation I turned to God

for help.

The Lord I had tried so hard.

To alienate had been waiting patiently for me to return

to him, and God was faithful as I faced the

months ahead. He led me back to my family and

stood by me, holding me up when my boyfriend announced,

it's mere.

The baby, and I chose the baby.

The Lord was there when a frightened teenager gave birth.

I would like to say I learned my lesson and

was never irresponsible again, but I'm hard headed and it

hadn't quite sunk in.

Oh. I tried.

I went back to church and I read the Bible,

but it was a shallow effort.

I didn't mature in my faith.

Even more, I still carry guilt and shame from my

failures within me. I hadn't accepted God's complete forgiveness. It's funny,

but the guilt and shame that comes from not living

responsibly can actually cause you to continue living in the

same way. With my deep need to feel accepted, I

went from one bad relationship to another for almost two

more years. Then, in one moment, my entire life was

ripped apart at the seams. I was raped, not by

a stranger, but by someone I trusted. What's worse, he

first tore my toddler from my arms and threw him

in his crib. He then raped and beat me in

full view of my frightened, screaming child. I was so

full of hurt, anger and shame and guilt that I

couldn't even pray for help. Truth was, I was afraid

to pray. I felt I was being punished for my life.

I carried the secret of this event inside me for

many years. I took my son and I moved.

I enrolled in a.

University and got a job. But I soon found that

I was going from daycare to nightcare.

I wasn't my son was.

I missed him, and I was burnt out, so I

quit school. A few months later, I lost my job,

the bills were passed due, and I was all out

of money.

I picked up food.

From an emergency shelter and returned home to find the

guest shut off, dead, winter and snowing. I held my

little son and I cried. My parents offered to take

us in, so I swallowed what was left to my

pride and did it. Then I made another irresponsible decision.

I jumped into a marriage without considering who I was marrying.

I so badly wanted to have a family for my

son that I married a man who was an alcoholic

and a drug abuser. I didn't love him. I just

wanted to create a little postcard family I'd always dreamed of.

Big mistake. This guy quit his job.

Two months before the wedding and since then only worked

to supply his habit. I entered counseling with my pastor,

and all attempts to include my husband failed to make

things worse. I became pregnant and I discovered he'd begun

selling drugs as an easier way to supply his habit.

I tried everything to know avail. Then the final straw came.

He picked my son up from daycare early and took

him with him, selling drugs. He said for company.

I left that night.

In order to shorten my story, let me just say

that through God's tender love, care and forgiveness, the Lord

began to heal the hurts of my life, many of

them self inflicted. About eight years ago, God brought Tim

into my life.

Who truly loved me.

Because I didn't trust anyone anymore, I wouldn't go out

with him, so he called me despite many discouragements every

evening at six point thirty so I could know him better.

Still, it took me six weeks to even agree to

see him.

Today, we are happily married with five kids. Then a

friend suggested that we visit Saddleback Church to hear the music,

knowing that was Tim's soft spot. It took only one

visit and we were hooked. Tim pulled his trumpet out

of storage and now place with the orchestra. It was here,

through Pastor Wick's words and Rick Mutchaw's example of Christian

love that Tim's heart was open to christ I'm so

grateful to have a husband who reads his Bible and

is growing spiritually. One Sunday, Pastor Rick was teaching on

how God wants us to use our experiences to help others.

Of course, with my background, I immediately thought of pregnant teens.

I wanted to bring good out of all of that pain.

I inquired about a group and found they needed a leader.

I've been helping them ever since, and these young women

mean the world to me. I've taken class one on one, two,

one three oh one, and lay pastor training. I'm so

thankful to God for my church family here at Saddleback.

Here I found healing, understanding, and a way to bring

good from the pains of my past. One of my

favorite Bible verses is Second Corinthians one, verses three and four.

Praise be to God and Father of our Lord, Jesus Christ,

the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort,

who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we

can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we

ourselves have received from God. If you feel that God

doesn't love you, or won't forgive you, or can't use

you because you made too many irresponsible decisions in your past,

you're wrong. Jesus Christ can bring good out of the

worst situation, even those we caused ourselves, if we just

give him all the pieces and trust him.

With our lives. Take that first step. Today, He's reaching

out to you in love. Thank you.

Tracy said something really profound. I hope you didn't miss this.

She said, sometimes we feel so guilty and ashamed of

stupid decisions we've made, irresponsible actions that we've taken that

that guilt and that shame actually perpetuates the problem, and

we keep doing what's causing the problem. It goes like this,

I blew it, so I'm bad. Since I'm bad, I'm

gonna blow again. And it becomes this cycle that you

can't seem to get out of. The guilt and the

shame actually keeps you locked in a lifestyle of irresponsibility,

and you make one dumb decision after another.

Now what you.

Need is a power beyond yourself. What you need is

a savior who can forgive your sins, clear your conscience,

and give you the power to break out of that cycle.

And here's the good news. It's the last verse on

your outline.

All of us have fallen short. That's a no brainer.

I don't hold up to my own standards, much less

God than neither do you. And yet God declares us

not guilty if we trust in Jesus Christ, who freely

takes away our sins.

Such a great message by Rick today and every day.

I sure hope you were just as encouraged as I was.

And now here's Rick with an important message.

Hi, everybody, thanks so much for listening today. You know,

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