RIck Warren - The Awesome Power of Faith Part Two

Hello, and thanks for joining us here on Pastor Rick's

Daily Hope. Well today we continue in our series called

God's Prescription for a Healthy Life. In it, Pastor Rick

will show you how to improve your health physically, spiritually,

relationally and emotionally by applying the five essentials needed for

a more vibrant life. If you want to have what

it takes to live out your calling in life, stay

with us for this amazing series. Now, in just a

few moments, we're going to tell you about the Daniel

Plan DVD study Kit, a sixth session video based study

by Rick Warren, doctor Daniel Aman, and doctor Mark Hyman.

This out of the box approach to a healthy lifestyle

is based on five essentials faith, food, fitness, focus and friends.

You can find out more right now by going to

Pastorick dot com while you listen to today's message, or

you can just text the word daily to eight hundred

six hundred five thousand and four. That's Pastorick dot com,

or the word Daily to eight hundred six hundred five

thousand and four. Right now, here's Pastor Rick with part

one of a message called the Awesome Power of Faith.

You know, for thirty years I've been studying this question,

what kind of person does God bless? What kind of

person does God use? What kind of qualities do you

find in people that He unusually blesses? Because I want

to be a person like that. I hope you do too.

And you know, what I've discovered is that God uses

all kinds of people backgrounds, ages, economic status, language, ethnic everything,

but there is one common denominator you can find in

every single person that God blesses in an unusual way.

It doesn't matter who or where they are, where they're from,

they always have this quality.

In their life.

If you find somebody that God is blessing in an

unusual way, and what is it? It is people who

are not afraid to trust God completely. That is what

I call the faith factor. God blesses people who are

not afraid to trust Him completely, and when you do that,

it produces enormous power in your life, enormous power. Now,

the Bible tells us there's a direct connection between faith

and power. That the more faith you put in God,

the more you let Him steer your life and drive

your life, the more power and the more blessing you're

going to have in it. Jesus illustrated this and Matthew thirteen.

It says he had gone to Nazareth, which was his hometown.

It said Jesus did not do many miracles of power

in his hometown because of their lack of faith. Notice

the connection between faith and power in the Bible. Abraham

is called the father of faith. Why is he the

father of faith? Look at the next verse. Abraham's faith

did not leave him, and he did not doubt God's promise. Instead,

would you read this with me? His faith filled him

with power. Would you like to have more of God's

power in your life? You see, if you don't have

God's power in your life, you're going to be running

on your own energy. And that's why you're tired all

the time. It's why you're always wiped out, why you're

always fatigued. God never meant for you to go through

life just on your own power. It's like having a

laptop unplugged. The battery is eventually going to drain. You

got this much of a battery, and behind you is

God's Santa, no free power plant waiting for you.

To plug in. Now you can do either. You can either.

Run through life on your power, which means you're going

to be tired all the time, or you can plug

into God's power and have enormous amounts of energy that

you never thought possible. So today, what's the secret. It's

through getting more faith. Today we're going to look at

four ways that you grow on faith. These are just

four of maybe hundreds. We could spend an entire year

on this subject. But here are four ways that you

can grow in faith so that God's power can be

more evident in your life, and God's blessing will be

more evident in your life. Whatever you want God to

bless you need to trust Him for a relationship, a job,

or whatever.

So let's look at four ways. Number one.

First, faith is choosing God's dream for my life. Faith

is choosing and believing God's dream for my life. It

all starts with a dream. It all starts with vision,

an idea. What does God want to do in my life?

Proverbs twenty nine eighteen. Would you read it with me?

Where there is no vision, the people perish. I tell

where there's a church with no vision, that people go

to another parish.

Everybody wants to know where it's going. Now.

The point here is this, nothing starts happening in your

life until you start dreaming. God gave you the ability

to dream, to create, to imagine. Nothing happens there, and

dreaming is an act of faith. Everything you see on

the planet started as a dream, started as an idea,

started as a concept. Everything on this campus, this building,

all the other buildings, before they became reality, they were

a dream in somebody's mind. There weren't mine. Somebody else

thought this up. Somebody else thought all the buildings up.

Everything you see first was an idea. It first was

a dream. And so until you get a dream, nothing

becomes reality.

You see.

There are a lot of things in life you can

delegate to other people. You can pay somebody else to

do it, you can get a friend to do it,

you can pawn it off on your kids. But there's

one thing you cannot delegate, and that is trusting God.

I cannot delegate my faith in God to somebody else.

I can't ask my wife to believe God for me.

I can't ask my husband, or my kids, or my

parents to believe God for me. You cannot ask other

people to do that. You have to decide, and you

trust God as much as you choose. It's your choice.

You can trust him a little and trust him a lot.

It's totally your choice. Now, how do you get God's

dream for your life?

Well?

You do three things, and it's the next three verses,

First Ephesians three twenty. God, by his mighty power at

work within us, is able to do far more than

we would ever dare to ask or even dream of,

infinitely beyond our highest prayers, desires, thoughts, or hopes. God says,

think up the biggest dream you can think for your life,

and guess what I can top that. I can do

something bigger in your life than the biggest thing you

could dream of. Now, I want you to circle a

phrase in that dare to ask? Would you circle that?

Here's the first characteristic of dreamers that God blesses dreamers

dare to ask. If you want God's blessing on your

life this year, you must dare to ask for it.

You must say, God, this is my dream, and this

is I'm daring to ask for it.

So what do you do? Well?

You ask God? First, God, what's your dream for my life?

What do you want me to do? And then you

ask yourself what have I always dreamed of doing? Let

me ask you that right now? What's your dream? If

I asked you, what have you always dreamed of doing?

And it probably comes to mind and go and I'm

gonna ask you, why aren't you doing it?

Well?

I don't have the time, and I have the money,

don't have the ability, don't have the dream. So what

you're talking about looking at yourself? Why don't you look

to God? Where do you think that dream came from?

You're listening to Pastor Rick's Daily Hope. Rick 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.

The truth is most of us don't pay much attention

to our health until something goes wrong. We put on

a couple of pounds every year and think no big deal, right,

But a few pounds over five or ten years really

adds up and can even lead to major illnesses like

diabetes and heart disease. That's why Pastor Rick work together

with medical and fitness experts to create the Daniel Plan Study,

the sixth session DVD and workbook study kit from Rick Warren,

Doctor Daniel Aman and doctor Mark Hyman is an out

of the box approach to a healthy lifestyle based on

five essentials faith, food, fitness, focus, and friends. The Daniel

Plan Study gives individuals in small groups the encouragement and

accountability needed to succeed. If you've been watching this scale

go up lately, or your health is in trouble because

of your weight, it's not too late. Join the thousands

of people who've lost weight, improve their health and improved

their relationships through the Daniel Plan. We'll send you a

copy of the Daniel Plan DVD Steady Kid to say

thanks when you give a gift to Daily Hope to

help share the hope of Jesus with people around the world.

Just go to Pastor Rick dot com to get your copy,

or you can call eight hundred six hundred five zero

zero four. That's Pastorrick dot com. Or call eight hundred

six hundred five zero zero four and thank you so

much for your support. There are only three days left

to get this great resource, so contact us today once again.

Here's Rick.

If I ask you, what have you always dreamed of doing?

And it probably becomes mindegol and I'm gonna ask you,

why aren't you doing it? Well, I don't have the time,

don't the money, don't have the ability, don't have the truth.

So what you're talking about looking at yourself? Why don't

you look to God? Where do you think that dream

came from? God puts desires in our hearts. See, I've

always dreamed of d D D. Well, why don't you

go after it? And why don't you ask God? God

blesses people who dare to ask God?

Would you help me this dream?

I've always wanted to, you know, be a whatever, I've

always wanted to go to, whatever, I've always wanted to

accomplish whatever, Well, why don't you ask God for it?

The Bible says you have not because you ask not.

Here's the question I want you to think through. You

might even write this down. What would I attempt for God?

If I knew I couldn't fail? Just ask yourself that,

well would I attempt if I knew I couldn't fail?

Let that expand your vision. It always starts with a dream.

When you get a dream and you set a goal,

goals are statements of faith. I believe I'm supposed to

do this by such and such a date. I believe

God will empower me and so if you want God's

blessing on your life, first you dare to ask. Second,

you believe God's promises. And that's the next verse. You

believe God's promises. The Bible says, I am the Lord,

the God of all people of the world. That's why

we're doing the Peace plan. Is anything too hard for me?

The answer is obviously no. You see, nothing is impossible

with God, and today's impossibility is tomorrow's possibility. It's tomorrow's miracle.

So you never let just because you've got a dream

and say, well it's impossible.

Well so what.

A lot of things that are impossible become possible when

you do it. Never let an impossible situation intimidate you.

Let it motivate you to pray more, to believe more,

to trust more, to experience more, to learn more, to

grow more. That's how you grow. Just because your dream

seems quote impossible, doesn't mean you shouldn't go after it.

God is the God of the impossible. That's where faith works.

Faith always works in the realm of the impossible. Hudson

Taylor said there are three stages to God's will in

your life, impossible, possible, and done, and a lot of

things I've done in my life that were impossible when

I started to do it. But I trusted God, and

first I believed God and I dared to ask, And

second I believed his promises. And we've talked about those

over seven thousand of them in the Bible. You see

Satan's favorite words to you and that dream he've always

dreamed of doing.

His favorite words are you can't do it.

Let me say right now, when you get a dream

and you hear the words you can't do it, those

words aren't from God.

That's not from God. That's from Satan.

And he said you can't do it because he wants

to keep you stuck in mediocrity. And as your pastor,

I want your life to be an embarrassment to the devil.

I want him to look in you and go, oh,

I hate that person because they believe God, they dare

to ask, and they trust God's promises.

I hate that.

If you're going to have God's blessing on your life,

you dare to ask, you believe God's promises. And the

third thing is you dream big. That's the next verse.

God says, ask of me. There's that word ask, and

I will make the nations, your inheritance, the ends of

the earth.

Your possession. What do these?

Says says, Ask me for the world. I mean, that's

about as big as you can get. You ask me

for the world. I'll give you the nations. This is,

by the way, as one of the promises that we're

holding on to for the Peace plan. God says, ask me,

and I'll give you the nations. You see, the size

of your God should determine the size of your goal.

And you haven't really believed God until you've attempted something

that can't be done in the power of the flesh

are done in your own effort. The only way you

really please God is when you're living by faith, which

means you're doing something you can't do on your own power.

So let me just say this.

When you begin to dream and you say, okay, God,

I'm going to take a step of faith this year,

I'm going to go after my dream. First, I'm going

to pray and say, what's your dream for my life?

Then I'm going to think what if I always wanted

to do? What would I attempt if I knew I

couldn't fail? And then I'm going to believe God's promises

and I'm going to dream big and you go out there,

and what's going to happen is you're going to go

out and you're going to start your dream and you're

going to fall flat on your face.

What.

Because there's three parts to a dream, this is very important.

You need to understand this.

When God gives you a dream, the first party gives

you Phase one is what that's when you get the idea.

He gives you an idea of what he wants you

to do. That's phase one. And then you go out

and you start trying to do it and you fall

on your face and you think, well, maybe I just

made that up. And then you come back and say, God,

did I miss your dream? And God says, no, it's

still the dream you just didn't wait for part two.

And part two of the dream is how how am

I going to do it? And the way God fulfills

the dream in your life usually be the exact opposite

of what you thought, okay, because you don't think like

God thinks. And so He's gonna show you how to

fulfill your dream in a way different than you thought

you were gonna fulfill it. And then there comes the

third part and this is the most important of all,

and that's the win. God shows you what he wants

to do in your life, then he shows you how,

and then he shows you when. And it always comes

in phases. And the win is the timing. And God's

timing is always perfect. And a lot of times, well

have you ever been in a hurry when God wasn't

And you go, God, you know, I want this dream

right now? And God says, well, yeah, it's a good dream,

but I'll do it in my timing. It's not like

it's not gonna happen. It's you know, the differens we

know and not yet. You have to learn that as

a little kid between know and not yet. God says

a lot of times, not yet when I tell you

it'll be right, you know, Kay, and I talk about

how we have what we call polaroid vision.

You know, if you look at a boiler picture.

And you hold it up, the longer you look at it,

the clearer it gets. When it first comes out of camera,

it's pretty blurry. When I started Saddleback Church twenty five

years ago, I didn't have envision all of what was

going on here. I just knew this is the right

thing to do. Go start the church. And you know,

the longer I look at the picture, the clearer it gets,

and I go, oh, that's what you had in mind.

That's cool. Oh, and look at that. That's cool too. Oh,

and there's something else coming up. It's kind of like

reading the scroll. You read a little bit and unroll it,

and you read a little bit and unroll it. God's

not going to show you what he's going to do

in your life all at once. If he did, it

scare you to death. So what he does is just

shows you a little bit of the time. So the

dream's going to come in stages and phases. Now, the

question is how big should my dream be? You say, okay, Rick,

I'm supposed to dream big.

I'm supposed to dare to ask.

I'm supposed to believe the promises. I'm supposed to dream big.

How big should my dream be? You ask yourself two questions.

The first question is how much time do I have

to give to it? If it's a dream, you got

a year on it better not be a very big goal.

If it's a dream, here you say, I can give

the rest of my life to this.

You can really dream big.

You see we overestimate what we can do in a year,

and we underestimate what we can do in ten or

twenty or thirty or forty.

So you have to look at you see.

Most people set goals too low and try to accomplish

them too quickly. What you need to do is set

a bigger dream for your life and take a longer

time to do it. I came here at saddle Back.

I said, God, I'll go anywhere in the world and

start at church if you give me the privilege of

spending my entire life in one location. So it's twenty

five years old, I said, I'm going to give my

entire life to one goal, building Saddleback Church.

So you guys are stuck with me. You know.

Sorry, I'm going to be around for a long time

unless God decides otherwise. I haven't read the rest of

the scroll, but my goal is just to say God,

I'll spend my entire life in one place.

Well, you can do a lot.

When you take forty or fifty years to do it,

you can get a lot done. You just take you know,

inch by inch. Anything's a cinch. It's like that old cliche,

how do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.

So you ask yourself how much time do I have?

And that determines the size of the dream. The other

question you ask yourself to decide that your dream is

what am I really shaped to do? Spiritual gifts, heart,

your abilities, your personality, your experiences, the five things that

make you, and just be honest. You must be optimistic

and realistic at the same time. Now, I know you've

heard motivational speakers say you know you can be anything

you want in life. Well, it's not true. And you

probably read some books that say you can be anything

you want in life. It's just not true. Something you

just stand up and say, hello, it's not true. What

you can only be what God shaped you to be.

If you try to be something that you're not shaped,

wired gifted to do, guess what it causes. A little

thing called stress. Stress is when you try to be

something you're not. You you aren't and that's why so

many people. I guess eighty percent of people in the

world are in the wrong job. They're not being they're

not you know how you know when you're shaped to

do something, it's fun, you love to do it, you

get I can't wait to go do that now.

If you have that editude, I can't wait.

If you don't have that attitude, you're likely in the

wrong job because God wired you. When you're doing what

you're shaped to do, you go, this feels good, this

is me, and you're not as stressed.

Stress comes from trying to be something you're not.

I mean, somebody could tell me Rick, you can be

whatever you want to be, and I said, I want

to be an opera star. That would not only stress

me and stress you having to listen to it, and

you create stress for other people around you when you're

doing things that you weren't gifted to do. So you

look at how long you're going to focus on the goal,

and you look at what you're shaped to do. Now,

I want you to write down on your outline in

SD okay inn SD that means no small dreams. I

want to challenge you to dream great dreams for God.

It's your first step in the walk of faith and

it pleases God.

All right. So step one and really.

Getting God's blessing in your life is living by faith.

And how do you do that? First, I get God's

dream for my life.

Second step faith is being willing to risk failure. Once

I get a dream, I got to take some risks

to go after it. And faith is being willing to

risk failure to go after the dream that God has

put in your mind and in your heart. You cannot

go after a dream without taking some kind of risk.

If there's no risk involved, it's not a dream from God.

Because God wants you to live by faith, it'll be

so big that you can't do it on your own.

This is Pastor Rick's Daily Hope. We are so glad

you're with us today and if you'd like to receive

rix free daily devotional, go to Pastorick dot com and

sign up right now. Rick will be back in just

a moment to close out our time today. But first,

the truth is that most of us don't pay much

attention to our health until something goes wrong. We put

on a couple of pounds every year and think no

big deal, right, But a few pounds over five or

ten years can really add up. That's why Pastor Rick

Warren has put together the Daniel Plan DVD study kit.

This sixth session video based study by Rick Warren, doctor

Daniel Ahman and doctor Mark Hyman is an out of

the box approach to a healthy lifestyle based on five

essentials faith, food, fitness, focus and friends. The Daniel Planned

Study Kit gives individuals the encouragement and accountability needed to succeed.

If you've been watching the scale go up lately, or

your health is in trouble because of your weight, it's

not too late to join join the more than fifteen

thousand people who've lost weight, improve their health and improve

their relationships by ordering the Daniel Plan DVD Study Kit.

Let us send you a copy of the Daniel Plan

DVD Studykit as our way of saying thanks for your

financial support of this ministry. Just go to Pastorick dot

com right now to get your copy, or you can

call eight hundred six hundred five thousand and four. That's

Pastorick dot com. Or call eight hundred six hundred five

thousand and four and thank you so much for your support.

There are only three days left to get this awesome

study tool, so contact us today. Here's Pastor Rick with

a letter from one of our listeners.

Today, I want to share a letter from John who

says he's been reading the Daily Hope devotionals for ten years.

Wow. Great John.

John says he uses these written devotionals every morning to

start his daily prayer and Bible reading, and he writes this,

Pastor Rick, I started receiving your Daily Hope devotionals about

ten years ago. Not only did they bless my life

and help me with my daily walk, I would save

them and send them to my friends when issues or

questions would come up. So I look forward every morning

to reading these devotionals, which typically start my daily prayer

and Bible reading. You know, I recently got my boss

signed up for Daily Hope devotionals and it hit me

how powerful they really are. You know, my wife and

I decided to support Daily Hope over and above our

tithe to our church to help you bring one more

to Jesus. Well, John, your message is so special to me.

You have really blessed me with this letter because I'm

glad for three reasons. First, you have grown as a

Christian through Daily Hope. Second, I'm glad that you're using

the Daily Hope to help you study God's word in

a personal basis. And third, I want to thank you

for caring enough to help other people that you have

given generously of your funds and gifts to help us

stay on the air and to allow us to actually

even expand into other stations to take the good news

of hope to places where it is desperately needed.

So John, thank you, thank you, thank you.

If you'd like to let Rick know how this broadcast

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