Rick Warren - Change Your Life by Changing Your Mind - Part Three

Hey, friends, thanks so much for joining us today on

Pastor Rick's Daily Hope, the Bible Teaching ministry of Pastor

Rick Warren. We're so glad to have you with us.

And today, Rick continues in his series called Transformed. Together,

we'll dive into God's word and discover powerful principles that

can truly change our lives from the inside out spiritually, physically, mentally, emotionally, relationally, financially,

and vocationally. You'll experience how God's truth brings real transformation

to every part of your life. All right, well, let's

get started and join Rick for the final part of

a message called Change your Life by Changing your Mind.

The reason why most people are ineffective in life and

actually fail at life and actually don't enjoy life is

because they've never learned how to fight the battle of

the mind. This is so important. I just want to

explain to you one simple thing, how temptation works. Because

Paul says, we're not supposed to be ignorant of how

satan works. We need to know how it works so

you're not caught off guard. So let me explain to

you how temptation works. Because it always uses the same

pattern James one fourteen and fifteen tells us the pattern

temptation comes from the lure of our own evil desires,

and these evil desires lead to evil actions, and then

the evil actions lead to death. I notice temptation is

a process. It's not an isolated event, you know when

people talk about I don't know. It just caught me

off guard. It was just a one night's stand. No

it wasn't. No, it wasn't. There were a lot of

things that you gave into before you got to lowering

that barrier. Temptation is a process and the by Scott

describes exactly how it thinks. And there are four phases.

Write these down. Phase number one is temptation starts with desire.

So number one is desire. If you don't have any

desire for something, it's not a temptation. I have never,

ever in my life been tempted to smoke a cigarette.

Why there's no desire in me. I think they stink. Okay,

somebody asked me one they will smoke and send you

to hell. I said, no, make you smell like you've

been there, but it won't. But it's not going to

send you to hell. Okay, all right, do you remember

when they used to have smoking on airplanes. That was terrible.

I had a friend who used to carry a card

with him and when a guy would light up next

to him on the plane, he'd hand him the card

and said, I notice you smoke. Will I chew? If

you won't blow smoke on me, I won't spit on you. Now,

I've never been tempted because it just didn't smell good

to me. Now, there's a lot of stuff I've been

tempted in that you haven't been tempted in. But it

always starts with an internal desire. Now, he says, there

the lure of our desire. It begins inside you. Temptation

doesn't start out there, doesn't start on TV, doesn't start

on the street corner. It starts inside your mind. And

it often begins with a natural desire, not even an

evil desire. It can begin with a natural desire. You

have a natural desire for sleep. You have a natural

desire for water. You have a natural desire for food.

You have a natural desire for sex. You have a

natural desire to succeed in life. These are all God

given drives. The drive to achieve the drive for sex,

the drive to breed the drive. Those are normal drives.

There's nothing wrong with them. Okay, he listened closely. Temptation

turns a routine desire into a runaway desire, and that's

what makes it bad. It becomes more important than anything else.

It's all you can think about, and any desire out

of control is destructive. Fire in a fireplace can warm,

fire on a cooking stove can cook great food, but

fire uncontrolled can burn your house down. All of God's gifts,

misused and abused, will burn your house down. Any of

them will sex, sleep eating any of those things. They're

good desires, good drives, but misused and abused, they mess

you up. Now. Often, temptation is an attempt to fulfill

a legitimate desire in your life, like I just want

to be loved. There's nothing wrong with that in the

wrong way. But the point is, it's like steel in

a magnet. If there were no desiring me, there would

be no temptations. That makes sense, okay, So temptation doesn't

start out there. It starts in here, in my mind

with desire. Step two in temptation always happens this way

is doubt, And what you do in doubt is you

begin to doubt two things. You doubt that God loves you,

and you doubt that God knows best. Because when you

start to get tempted, you go, did God really say,

don't have sex outside of marriage? Did God really say

forgive the person instead of get even with him? Did

God really say it's more blessed to give than to receive?

And you start doubting God's word. We see this from

the very first temptation and Adam and Eve they're in

a perfect environment. Okay, it's paradise. They have no clothes

and no kids. Hello, how do you mess up that? Really?

Satan comes and says, hey, see that tree over there.

Did God really say you can't eat of that tree?

What is he doing? He's getting you to doubt God's word.

And then he says, God knows that if you eat

that tree, you'll be as smart as he is. What's

he doing? He's getting you to doubt that God loves you,

that God's rules are for your benefit. Every time you

give into temptation, you are believing a lie. You think

you know better, You think God doesn't know best. You

think that you know what will make you happy more

than he does. So there's always the desire, and then

there's the doubt did God really say? Do I really?

Does God really love me? Isn't God just being a

little prudish about this? Is it really true? And on

and on and on. Then the step three is deception.

And the third thing that Satan does is he replaces

God's truth with his lie and he says, God, you

won't die if you eat this God had already said

you eat this fruit, you're gonna die. Now God said,

you can eat anything in the hole in the entire park,

Yellowstone Park called Eden. You can eat anything in the

park except this one tree. What does man do? He

goes immediately to the one tree. It's the minimum amount

of temptation possible, but it allows a choice. Satan changes it. Also.

God says you can't eat a bunch of stuff, and

reason he doesn't want you to because he doesn't want

you to be as smart as he is. He is

giving you a lie. He is deceiving you. Notice it

says in that verse he says, I am lured. He

said temptation comes from the lure of our own evil desire.

Circle the word lure, that's a fishing term. Hey, I'm

enticed he're talking about using bait there. Now, any of

you fishermen, some of you are, The secret of good

fishing is real simple. You got to use the right bait.

Salmon eat a certain kind of bait, and trout eat

another kind of bait, and fish will even change what

they're eating feeding on at different times of the day.

And how many fish are you going to catch with

a bare hook? None? Zero, none, So obviously you got

to put some bait on there. You got to have

a lure question. What kind of bait does Satan use

on you? Do you even know? Do you know the

one he always uses on you? And he keeps coming

back to it because it gets you every time. It

hooks you every single time. It may be from something

long time ago that a parent said to you, but man,

when that thing comes out, you are just so hooked.

You immediately get depressed, or you immediately get angry, or

you immediately get worried. And Satan got her hooked. I

put the right bait on that hook. Satan knows your

weaknesses and he hides the hook. Now, I call this

phased deception because you know why often we know there's

a hook there, but we still keep nibbling. We know

there's a hook, but we still keep nibbling. It's like

people who flirt in the office. How stupid is that.

You know there's a hook there, you know it's gonna

there's only one way it could go bad, but you

still keeping knibbling. You say, I'm an adult, I won't

get hurt. I'll be careful. You're being deceived. And there's

a lure. Now, anybody who's done fishing, Tom's a fly

fisherman knows that lures can when you fly fish, they

can be pretty flashy, pretty flashy. And the flashier the

lure that what was that? That fish goes? What was that?

Holy I'm gonna swim over there. That thing looked it's flashy.

It's shiny.

Man.

That looks like Las Vegas. You know what. Las Vegas

is one giant lure in the desert and it's shiny

and it's bright, and they've got all you can eat

buffets for nothing, and somebody's paying for that, and you're

gonna get hurt, and you know, the poor suckers are

gonna you know, Las Vegas should just be called lost wages,

because next time you're going to tempt to be going

to Las Vega. Just give me your money, okay, just

give it to me, okay, okay, And then you save

the time, save the effort, and we'll use it for good,

all right. Temptation always looks better than it is. Then

Step four is disobedience and defeat. Disobedience and defeat. Now

we've moved from desire. There's something that's I want to

doubt God's word and God's love to deception. I'm believing

the lie that Satan's telling me. It's gonna be Okay,

you can get away with this, it's all right, just

this once. It's not that bad, and I don't know.

And then you go to disobedience and then defeat, and

now it's sin. What began in the mind gets translated

into action and it goes like this, My attention becomes

an attitude, and my attitude becomes an action. Well, you

really spend a lot of time on this, but this

is how it works in the battle for your mind.

I've had guys say to me, what's the danger of

a harmless fantasy? Are you kidding me? Are you kidding me?

It's not harmless. I want you to write this down.

What I flirt with, I'll fall for whatever I flirt with.

It may be a cupcake, I'll fall for whatever I

flirt with, I'll fall for. I need to refocus my attention.

The Bible says, after desires conceived, it gives birth to sin,

and the end result is death. Says the Tragic consequt.

What's death the exact opposite of living? Now, listen, you

are free to choose anything you want in life. You're

free to make your choices, but you are not free

from the consequences of those choices. The moment you make

that choice, you are no longer free because there are

consequences that come to every choice, often unintended consequences, And

what you sow you will reap. And you cannot choose

the behavior and not choose the consequence. Now what am

I saying? The best time to win the battle with

temptation is before it begins. Look at this verse on

the screen. So I'm one nineteen one twelve. I have

made up my mind to obey your laws forever, no

matter what. Until you come to that point, you're just

gonna keep stumbling and stumbling and stumbling and stumbling. I

have made up my mind that's a choice. I have

made up my mind to obey your laws forever, no

matter what. All right, Three things, I said, you got

to make these choices every day. I have to focus,

I have to free, I have to feed. I said. First,

I have to feed my mind constantly on truth, not garbage.

And then I have to free my mind from destructive thoughts.

We talked about how that happens. And the third is,

I must focus my mind on the right things for

mental health, I must focus my mind on the right things.

Three things that will make the most difference in your

mental state. Number one, think about Jesus. Think about Jesus.

You've heard that old cliche. You become whatever you think about.

Most well, you think about Jesus. Guess what you're going

to become like like Jesus. Second time of the two

eight keep your mind on Jesus Christ Hebrews twelve Three.

Think about Jesus. Example, he held on. Are you having

a hard time hold on? He held on while wicked

people were doing evil things to him? So do not

get tired and stop trying. Don't do that. When you

start feeling like you're ready to give up. Think about

what Jesus went through think about Jesus. Number two, think

about others. Think about others. Philippians two four says don't

just think about your own affairs, but be interested in

others too and what they are doing. Do you realize

how counterculture that is everything in the world teaches you

to think about yourself and nobody else. How many times

have you heard this phrase, I've got to do what's

best for me looking out for number one? Yeah, I

could go on down a whole list of these phrases

that basically say, it's all about me, it's all about me,

it's all about me, it's all about me. That's why

when I wrote Purpose Driven Life, I thought, what's the

most counterculture statement I think of in our culture to

begin this book with? And I just said, it's not

about you. That is the most counterculture statement you can

make in our world today. It's not about you. It's

like a slap in the face. So I just thought,

I'll start the book with a slap in the face.

It's not about you. Okay, it's not about you. It's

not about you. It's not about you. It's all about God.

And it's only in giving your life away that you

will understand what it really means to live. So think

about others Hebrews ten twenty four. Let us think about

each other and help each other to show love and

do good deeds. And the best place to practice that

is in your small group. Practice that version in your

small group this week. Let's think about each other. Let's

help each other to show love and do good deeds.

In your small group. That's the laboratory for love. It's

the place to learn and unselfishness. Think about Jesus, think

about others. Number three, Think about eternity. That's the third

one that'll make the biggest difference in your mental state.

Think about eternity, that there's mortal life than just here

and now. The problem that we do today is we

have short term thinking. We only think about what's happening

right now. Colossians three to two. Let Heaven feel your thoughts.

Do not think only about things down here on earth.

King James version says, set your minds on things above,

not upon things on the earth. Let Heaven fill your thoughts. Now,

have you heard this old canard? He's so heavenly minded,

he's no earthly good. That's a bunch of baloney. You

know what I found only the people who are heavenly

minded actually do any good, And those who are most

heavenly minded throughout history are those who've done the most

good on earth bar none. It is not the earthly

minded people who get the most done on earth. It

is the most heavenly minded people who get the most

done on earth for good. It's just not true. He's

so heavenly minded and no earthly good. The problem is

the opposite. We're so earthly minded, we're no heavenly good.

All we think about is budget and baseball and bills

and stuff like that. One Corinthians two nine. No eye

has seen, no ear has erred, and no mind has

imagined what God has prepared for those who love him.

Think about that, and when you start thinking about that,

all of the problems, little nitpicky problems in your life

go see so inferior compared to the glory, the joy,

the pleasure, the enjoyment, the things we have to look

forward to in eternity. I need to feed my mind

on truth every day. I need to free my mind

from those destructive thoughts. I can choose not to think

them by changing the way I think, and then I

can focus my mind on the right thing. And when

I'm focused on the right thing, I don't have time

to pay attention to the wrong thing. When I'm watching TV,

I don't like what I see. I just flipped the channel.

Change your attention. I'm no longer tempted. It's real simple.

Let's vow for prayer. Father, you gave us our minds.

We were made in your image. This is the greatest

gift You've ever given us, the gift of intellect. And

we realize it's our greatest asset, and yet it is

the greatest battleground. And we realize that the world, and

the flesh, and the devil all team up to thwart

our best intentions. Now you pray, just say a simple prayer. God,

help me to put into practice what I've just learned.

Just say, God, help me put into practice what I've

just learned. Help me to make these choices on a

daily basis. I want to feed my mind with truth

all the time. And I want to free my mind

from destructive thoughts by taking every thought captive, to make

it obedient to Christ, to not just let my mind

run wild. Help me to be wise the temptation. Realize

when desire is turning the doubt, to deception, to disobedience.

Just say this, God, I'm going to make up my

mind to obey your word forever, no matter what to

think about Jesus, help me to think about others, help

me to think about eternity, that my life may be

truly transformed in your name. I pray.

Amen, such great words of wisdom from pastor Rick today,

and I hope you were blessed like I was. And

now here's Rick to tell you about a resource that

he created to help you in your walk with Jesus.

Imagine the difference the world would be if lives were

really transformed by the grace of God. Now, it's always

been my goal here at Daily Hope, not just to

show you what God says to do and how to

do it, but to supply you with practical tools for

doing it on a daily basis. So I've created a

special Transformed Bible study Kit. Now, in this kit, there

are a number of resources that I want you to have. First,

seven lessons on DVD that help you go deeper and

explore what the Bible has to say about each of

these seven key areas of your life. And then there's

a two hundred and twenty five page leather bound workbook

filled with tools for personal evaluation, goal setting, daily devotions,

versus to memorize, a place to take notes and journal

information about additional resources. This study kit can be used

not just in your personal life, but as a small

group study guide with your friends. I want to send

the Transformation Bible Study Kit to you as my gift

to tell you how much I love you and to

say thanks for your financial support of Daily Hope.

Now, in this seventh session video and workbook study, Rick's

going to guide you through all the key areas of

life spiritual, physical, mental, emotional, relational, financial, and vocational equipeing

you with practical steps to experience real lasting change with

weekly lessons, daily devotions, and exercises that will help you

dive deeper into God's word. This study is perfect for

personal growth or sharing with your small group. Request the

Transformed Study Kit today when you give a gift to

Daily Hope and join us in bringing the hope of

Jesus to people around the world. Your transformation starts here.

Just go to Pastororick dot com to get your copy

of this great resource. That's pastorick dot com, or you

can just text the word hope to seven oh three

oh nine. Again, that's the word hope to seven oh

three oh nine. And thank you so much for your support.

Your gift to Daily Hope helps us share the hope

of Christ with people everywhere. We hope you'll join us

next time as we continue to look into God's Word

for our daily hope. And this program is sponsored by

past to Rick's Daily Hope and your generous financial support.

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