Rick Warren - The Word of Trust - Part Two

Thanks for joining us here today on Pastor Rick's Daily Hope,

the audio broadcast ministry of Pastor Rick Warren. Today we

continue in a series called the Seven Greatest Words of Love.

There are seven words, in particular that Jesus spoke during

his final hours on the Cross that hold the keys

for finding fulfillment in your life, relationships, and even your career.

Right now, here's Pastor Rick with part two of a

message called the Word of Trust.

When Jesus taught us to pray, he said, you're to

pray like this our father who art in heaven. That

blew everybody's mind, because up to this point, every faith,

every religion, taught that God is distant. God is big,

he's powerful, he's cosmic, he's mighty. He may be merciful,

but you certainly don't call him father. But Jesus changed

it all. He blew the stereotypes, and he said, when

you talk to God, you talk to him like he's

your daddy. In fact, the word he used in Aramic

abba literally means daddy, papa. It's the first word every

Middle East child learns. Abba dad, dad, papa. It's easy

to say. And so Jesus told us when you pray,

start with praying Father. And when Jesus is dying on

the cross his last words there he starts with the

word Father. Now the judgment period for sin is all over.

He's now reconciled to God. He's not talking of some

impersonal force, some uninterested, distant deity. He's talking to Father.

The Bible says this John sixteen twenty eight. Jesus said,

I came from the Father, and I entered the world,

and now I'm leaving the world and I'm going back

to the Father. So what do we know about God

since he wants us to call him father. A lot

of people have a problem with this because they had

bad dads and their dad was distant, Their dad was demeaning,

their dad was destructive, their dad was, you know, detached.

Is that the way our father in heaven is No.

The Bible tells us that God is a caring father.

He's a consistent father. He's a close father, and he's

a capable father. And he loves you more than you

can even possibly imagine. The Bible says in Psalm one

oh three, verse thirteen, as a father has compassion on

his children. So the Lord that's God has compassion on

those who honor him. I don't know what you're going

through today. You may be having a financial crisis, a

physical crisis, a conflict in your marriage. I don't care.

I do care, but I mean, I don't know what

you're going through. But I would say this, you have

a heavenly Father in heaven who is close, caring, competent, capable,

and consistent, and he cares. And if you're going through

the dark days, you need to get your eyes off

the pain and onto the Father Father. That God, who

knows everything that's going in your life, sees everything that's

going on in your life, cares about everything that's going

on in your life, has the power to change everything

in your life and will help you if you will

trust him. I want you to write this down in

your line. God loves me more than I do. That's

probably a shock to some of you. God loves me

more than I do. Did you know that you don't

love yourself as much as God loves you. God loves

you more than you love you because God is love.

God is the essence of all love. It all came

from Him. And no matter what you are facing right now,

you need to say I have a father in heaven

who loves me. That's how he starts. But he doesn't

just love you. And here's the second thing you need

to remember. It's in this sentence. Not only do I

have a father in heaven who loves me? Number two,

my father can be trusted. My father talking about in heaven,

the God of Heaven, he can be trusted. Now, you

may have had a physical father who couldn't be trusted,

and inconsistent fathers produce insecure children. I talked to guy

one time. He said, I didn't know from week to

week whether my dad was gonna slug me or gonna

hug me. I didn't know just whether he was drunk

or not or whatever whatever mood he was in. Inconsistent

fathers produced insecure children. But your heavenly father is not

only one who loves you. He's one you can trust.

You can trust him. And this is the word of

the trust. And Jesus says, Father, I trust my spirit.

I entrust my life into your care. That's why I

call this the word of trust. Now, one of the

greatest decisions you're gonna have to make in life is this,

who are you going to trust? You got to make

that decision. Who are you going to trust? Who are

you going to trust with your life? Okay, let's just

throw out some options and let's vote. How many would say,

I think I'll trust Congress. No, I don't. I don't

see any hands going up on that one. Okay, since

they're in the bottom of the barrel right now with credibility.

How about I think, uh, I'm gonna trust. How about

the media. I think I'm gonna I'm gonna build my

life on what the media says. How about I'm gonna

trust my life to popular opinion? No, how about I'm

gonna trust my life to my emotions. Oh that's a

good one. How reliable are they? Your emotions lie to

you all the time. You know. One of the simplest

things that will help you be a lot happier is this,

Realize you don't have to believe everything your mind tells you.

Not everything you tell yourself is true. A lot of

times you tell yourself things are worse off than they

really are, and a lot of times you tell yourself

they're better off than they really are. You don't you

lie to yourself all the time, and your emotions lie

to you all the time, so I would not highly

recommend that who are you gonna trust with your life?

I want to make a recommendation. I recommend that you

put your trust into someone who A Knows everything, b

will always put your interest first, and see will always

tell you the truth even if it hurts. Now, there's

one person who's always going to God because he's perfect,

and I want to suggest that you always put your

trust in him. Father, I in trust. I'm going to

trust you with my life. I'm going through this dark

period right now. I don't know which way I'm going.

I don't know which way is up. I don't know

where I'm going to be in the next five days,

much less five months. But I'm going to trust my

spirit into your care. So I'm thirty three. Verse four

in the Bible says this, for every word of the

Lord holds true, and everything he does is worthy of

our trust. Friends, you can't say that about anybody. You

can't say that about me, your pastor. I love you,

but you can't trust everything I do because I'm a

fallible human being. You can't trust any human being to

always do the right thing, But you can't trust God.

I saw a bumper sticker the other day and it

said this, God said it. I believe it. That settles it. Okay, fine,

I'm going to make a new bumper sticker that says

God said it. That settles it, whether I believe it

or not. Because truth is not based on whether I

believe it or not. I could say I don't believe

the moon's made a rock, It's still made a rock.

I could say I believe the moon's made of cheese.

Doesn't matter what I believe. What matters is the truth.

God said it. That settles it, whether I believe it

or not. I'm going to put my trust in your word.

Now when Jesus says this, Father, I trust my spirit

in your hands. This word in trust. In Greek, it's

pariti themi pariti themi actually means to deposit. It's the

word that they would use for a safety deposit box.

You know what safety deposit boxes. You go to a bank,

you read a box, and you put your most valuable

property in that box for safekeeping. And in that safety

deposit box, it's locked, it's safe, it's secure, and nobody's

going to get at it. And you've made a deposit

in that safety box that's what this word means to entrust.

You say, God, I'm going to take my life. I'm

going to take the good, the bad, and the in between,

the ugly, the beautiful, every part, and I'm going to

entrust it. I'm going to deposit it in your safety box,

and I'm going to put my life, which is valuable

there for your safe keeping. The point is this, whatever

I give to God, I can trust him to take

care of I can give stuff to other people and

I can't always trust them to take care of it.

But that's one of the things that God says in

this verse. I have a track record of faithfulness, and

he says, I want you to make a deposit in

the safety deposit box in heaven, and I want you

to trust me with stuff. So here's the question. What

do you need to entrust to your heavenly father. What

do you need to trust or in trust to your

heavenly Father. You say, well, I don't know. Well, let

me give you a little hint. Anything you worry about

that's what you need to intrust to your heavenly father.

Anything you worry about, you worried about your health, you

need to trust that to your heavenly Father. You worried

about your future, you need to trust that to your

everything Father. You worry about your marriage or getting married,

or having a baby, or raising the kids, or a

new job, you need to trust. Anything you worry about

needs to be in trusted to your heavenly Father. I've

told you this before. Worry is practical atheism. It's acting

like there's no God, no heavenly Father who loves you

and can be trusted. Every time you worry, it's a

warning light you stop trusting God. It is an evidence

of unbelief. It's a failure to trust. Now the most

difficult time to trust God, of course, that's when you're

in pain. Remember Jesus is on the cross. He's just

had six hours of torture on the cross, and hours

and hours of torture before that. He's an enormous pain,

loss of blood, loss of sleep, no water, dehydrated, bleeding

to death. And in his worst pain, he says, I

intrust And that's when you're in pain that you need

to trust the most. Paul knew this. Look the next verse,

it's up here on the screen. Paul says, I'm suffering

here in prison, but I'm not ashamed of it, for

I know the one in whom I trust, and I

am sure that's confident. I am sure that he is

able to protect and keep. That means put in the

same safety deposit box. I am sure that the one

I trust in he's able to protect and keep what

I've entrusted to him until the day of his return.

That's what it means to trust God. God, I'm gonna

trust you to do what I can't do. I'm gonna

trust you. And the point is that he does the keeping. Now.

You know, sometimes I talk to people and say, you know,

I would follow Jesus Christ, but I don't know that

I could be consistent. I'm afraid I would kind of

flake out. I'm afraid that I'd get weak and I'd

walk away. I'd like to be saved, I'd like to

have experienced salvation in my life, but I'm not afraid

that I can keep my commitment. Let me let you

in an a little secret. You don't do the keeping.

He does it. He does the keeping. You put your

life in the safety deposit box. He turns the key,

he keeps the saying. It is not your job to

keep yourself saved. It is God's job to keep you saved,

to keep to make sure that you make it to heaven.

And God will save whatever I put in that safety

deposit box. Now a lot of people think, well, you know,

but what if I let go. I've told you this

story before. One time we went to the Grand Canyon

and the family we were there and Matthew and Joshua

little boys, and we walked up to the edge and

I grabbed a hold of both hands, and my boys

were both they had this adventuresome spirit. I think they

get it from their mother, but they were risk takers

and they always wanted to get closer to the edge

than I would want them to be. Now they're squirming

and they let go of my hand. Do you think

I'm gonna let go of theirs? Not a chance. Why?

Because I am their loving and your heavenly Father holds

onto your hand. Once you come to Christ and you say,

Jesus Christ, I'm putting my hand in your hand, I'm

trusting you today, he grabs on. Now there are going

to be times in your life you want to let go.

God is not really convenient to believe in you right now.

It's not really convenient to follow the word of God.

Right now, it's not really convenient to be a follower

Jesus Rist. I want to let go. You may want

to let go. He's never letting go. He is able

to keep what you've committed. He does the keeping. You

just do the trusting. Now, while I'm on this, let

me just cover a couple of special occasions people often

ask about, and I don't ever get a chance to

talk about it. People often ask me, well, what about

babies and mentally, you know, ill or mentally incapacitated people

who don't have the capacity to believe in Jesus Christ

and can't commit themselves Christ. Where are they going to

go to head? Where they're going to go when they die?

The answer is, real quick, Heaven. They're going to heaven

a baby. If a baby dies, or someone who's mentally

incapacity to die, they immediately go to heaven. The Bible

says so one sixteen, verse six. The Lord protects the

simple hearted. One example, I could give you a lot

of these. When King David's baby infant son died in

Second Samuel, chapter one, he said, can I bring him

back to me? Can I bring him back? In? The

answers no, I will go to him someday, but he

will not return to me. So if a baby or

a child who has not learned the difference between right

and wrong doesn't have the capacity except the salvation of

God's grace immediately goes into the presence of Gods. That

makes sense. Okay, so there's one. Here's another question. I'm

often asked, what about people who were true believers and

then later on in life stop believing. Are they gonna

fall away? Are they gonna, you know, they kind of

fall away from their faith? Here, what's gonna happen to

those people? Maybe they go join a cult or something,

and what happens to them. The answer is this, they

do not lose heaven. They do lose some reward in heaven,

they do not lose their salvation. Now, let me explain

it this way. I was born into my dad and

mother's family, and I was in that family, and I

had great fellowship with them with joy and love, and

had a great relationship with my parents. But let's say

one day I had decided to become an international drug

runner and I get involved in terrorism and acts of

genocide and all kinds of things. The relationship would be strained,

the fellowship would be broken. But I don't care if

the fellowship is broken. I'm still their son. Nothing will

ever make me not their son. If you have a

child in your family, and your child love loves you

and grows up and learns to love you, and one

day they get mad at you, they walk out of

the house by their own volition, they walk out of

the house, They're still your child. They can't Once you're born,

you can't be unborn. Once you're born again, you can't

be unborn again. You are safe. Does that make sense?

You are safe. You might lose the fellowship, and there

might be strained fellowship between this and we're not talking

to each other, But you're still my daughter. You're still

my son. And the Bible says that, look at this

verse tewod John Chapter one, verse seven eight. Many deceivers.

There are people out there trying to mess everybody up

all the time. Many deceivers who don't acknowledge Jesus as

coming in the flesh have gone out into the world.

So he said, you know not everything you hear out

there's true. Watch out so that you don't lose what

you have worked for. Circle The phrase worked for watch

out that you don't lose what you have worked for, okay,

but that you will be fully rewarded. Now question, do

you work for your salvation? Huh No, So if you didn't,

this is not what he's talking about here. He's not

talking about salvation because you don't work for your salvation.

You don't earn it. We've talked last week. It was

all done for you. You don't work for it. It's

all that. That's the difference between Christianity and every other religion.

Every other religion is a due and they'll have their

list of dos and don'ts. Christianity says, done has already

been done for you on the Cross by Jesus Christ.

He did what we can't do. So he's not talking

about that. He's saying the rewards that you're going to

have in heaven, he could lose some of those. Let

me ask you, this one's very personal to me. What

about believers who commit suicide okay and in a moment

take their own life. And the answer is, if they

were a true believer, they're going to heaven. They're going

to heaven. We'll say, isn't suicide and unpardonable sin? The

answer is no, it is not, it is not. In fact,

the Bible says there's only one sin that is unforgivable,

only one in the entire and it isn't suicide, by

the way. In fact, some of the greatest saints in

history in the Bible were suicidal. Some of them were

very depressed and despair. Some wished at low points that

they'd never been born. David in the Bible, Jeremiah in

the Bible, Job and the Bible also that I wish

that I had never been born. That's pretty depressed. And

they were great believers. And there were three people in

the Bible actually asked God to kill them, to take

their lives. Moses asked God to take his life. Elijah

asked God to take his life. Jonah asked God to

take his life. That's pretty depressed, he said, God, just

kill me, Just kill me. If you feel that much

in despair, you feel that depressed, do not carry it

by yourself. It's not a sin to be sick. It's

not a sin to feel depressed. The Bible says there's

only one unforgivable sin, only one. It's called blasphemy against

the Holy Spirit. What does that mean? What does blasphem

against Holy Spirit. It means rejecting God's grace and rejecting

Christ all the way up to death. It means to

die rejecting Christ. So let me put your mind at ease,

because some of you think, have I ever committed the

unpardonable sin, the unforgivable sin? You wonder about that? Okay?

Number One, if you've ever worried that you committed the sin,

you haven't because if you had, you wouldn't worry about it. Okay,

So if you worry I've done the one unforgivable sin,

you ain't done it. For end. Sorry, the fact that

you're worried about it, you're concerned about it, means you

still have a conscience. So if you've ever worried about it,

you haven't done it. Second thing is, if you're alive,

you haven't committed the sin because you can only commit

it by dying rejecting Christ. So if you're alive, you

cannot commit the sin. You can only commit it by dying,

saying forget you God, and I croak and I die.

Does that ease up anybody's mind a little bit? Here? Okay?

You can't. You can't do it without dying. No. Number Three,

let's go to the third great news. When I'm going

through dark days, I have a father in heaven who

loves me. And when I'm going through dark days, to

remind myself that I have a father in heaven who

can be trusted. He doesn't just love me. I can

trust him with every air of my life. And I

shouldn't worry. I should commit it and trust everything I'm

worried about to him. Number Three, my father is taking

care of things I can't see. This is the third

thing we learned from this passage is that my father

in heaven is taking care of the things that I

can't see. We only see the physical things in life.

We only see the material things in life, but we

know that there's a lot of things going on in

life we can't see. Just because you can't see it

doesn't mean it's not real. It's as real. It's what

you see. You're what you see is limited by your

eyeball and your brain. We know, for instance, right now,

there are radio waves and television waves running through this

building and actually going through your body. You can't see them.

But if you turn on a radio, turn on a TV,

and tune in you can get the picture. They're there,

They're in this air right now. There are all kinds

of radio and television waves going through the air right now.

You cannot see them. Just because you cannot see them

does not make them false. There's far more to life

than just the material. There's far more to life than

just the physical. In fact, the things that are going

to last are not material. All the material stuff. This

chair is not gonna last one day. It'll fall apart

because all material things, according to second law thermodynamics, deteriorate.

This building will want day deteriorate, the trees will deteriorate,

and your body is deteriorating. Hate to tell you that,

but the physical is not getting better. Anybody want to

go a testimony of that right now?

Pastor Rick Warren says that every word Jesus spoke was

important and has life changing power. The words that Jesus

spoke during his final hours on the cross hold the

key to finding fulfillment in your life, career, and relationships.

That's why Rick put together a powerful seven session study

kit called the Seven Greatest Words of Love. Get it

now and unlock the full meaning and amazing blessings of

Jesus' last words before his resurrection, words of forgiveness, assurance, love, trust,

and more. And this is a life changing Bible study

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