Rick Warren - My Part in Fulfilling Christ’s Vision Part Three

This is Pastor Rick's Daily Hope, the Bible teaching ministry

of Pastor Rick Warren. Today we continue in a series

called the Awesome Power of Vision. In these lessons, Pastor

Rick shows us how to pursue God's amazing vision for

each of our lives so that we can see our

future with faith and not fear. But first, do you

ever feel like you've lost your spark your joy? In

just a few moments, We're going to tell you about

an exciting new resource that will deepen your relationship with

God and restore your joy. You can take a sneak

peek right now by going to Pastororick dot com while

you listen, and if you want, you can just text

the word Daily to eight hundred, six hundred five thousand

and four to find out more. Right now, here's Pastor

Rick Warren with the final part of a message called

My part in fulfilling Christ's Vision.

Colossians three fourteen says this, most of all, let love

guide your life, for then the whole church will stay

together in perfect harmony. What's skeets my rocket science? Let

love like guide your life. One Peter four to eight

says this powerful in the message love each other as

if your life depended on it. Do you do that?

You do that with other Christians. You love each other's

if your life depends on it. Love makes up for

practically anything, you know. I found that to be true

that Saddle Backed Church. When we had no buildings, we

had no money, we had no we had no big programs,

we had no large staff. You know, we had a

tent on a moonscape and that was about it, And

yet thousands came. Why because people want to be where

love is. If you have a church that genuinely loves people,

genuinely loves each other, you'd have to lock the door

to keep people out. People don't come because of a

fancy program or a fancy preaching or fancy this or that.

They come because their lives are changed by love. Finally,

let me give you one other principle. Then, I think

we all need to work on this year because we're

in an age where there's more division going on in society.

We just have to insulate ourselves from all of that

conflict and love each other because if people like what

they see in us, they'll listen to what we say.

So let me give you one other principle from God's

word that you can use to be an agent of unity,

an agent of reconciliation. Number four Here it is offer

encouragement instead of criticism. All right, just when you're talking

to people, offer encouragement instead of criticism. That is so counterculture.

Our culture doesn't offer encouragement. It offers criticism. That's all

it offers. People make a living being critics. Nobody makes

a living being an encourager. Romans fourteen, verses nineteen and

twenty says this in the message, let's use all our energy. Okay, listen,

let's use all our energy in getting along with each other.

You want to direct your energy in the right way.

Use all our energy and getting along with each other.

Help each other by using encouraging words. Help each other

by using encouraging words. Don't drag others down by finding fault. Okay,

more encouragement, less criticism. Don't drag each other down by

by just finding fault. Now, I know what you're thinking,

you say, Rick, I am all for encouragement. But what

do you do when something is wrong and everybody knows

it and it's just wrong? Do you ignore it? You

don't criticize it, You ignore it. The answer is, of

course not, but listen, And this is the mark of leadership.

You can learn the skill of sharing a rebuke or

pointing out a problem in a positive way. That's a skill. Okay,

you can always learn how to share a rebuke or

point out a negative make a critique, but you say

it in such a positive way that they're able to

receive it. See, there's always two ways to say something.

You can say it the nice way, and you can

say it the not nice way. You've always got a choice.

It is possible to speak a difficult truth in a

positive way. I do it every whey, and I could

teach you how to do that too. And over the

past thirty forty years, I've taught a lot of pastors,

literally hundreds of thousands of them around the world how

to do it, how to talk about a negative concept

in a positive way. One of my questions that I

use in preparing a message, and I teach this in

the preaching seminar, is what is the most positive way

to say it? Why? Why would you be interested in

saying it in a positive way. Well, if you're interested

in being persuasive, then you're going to need to learn

that skill. Why, Because the Bible says it. Proverbs sixteen,

verse twenty one says this, a wise, mature person is

known for his understanding. The more pleasant his words, the

more persuasive he is. That's scripture, that's the Bible. The

more pleasant your words, the more persuasive you'll be. You

might write this down. I am never persuasive when I'm abrasive.

All right, I'm never persuasive when I'm abrasive. If I

say something offensively, it will be received defensively. If I

wanted to, I could get up here every week and

put you on the defense in about thirty seconds and

just tell you all the things you're doing wrong. Yeah,

you're right, that doesn't change anybody. Telling it like it

is doesn't change anybody telling it like it could be.

Does telling it like could be speaking preaching, teaching for faith? Now,

I'll be honest with you, it's not hard to be

negative when so much of our culture is negative. I mean, really,

you're bombarded with a continual diet of criticisms and attacks

and slanders and militias talk on all the cable news channels.

We don't have news anymore on cable. We have three

hours of opinion every night on every channel, just different opinions,

and they're stereotyping, and that hominin attacks on people every

single night on TV and every day on talk radio.

So we live like fish in a culture of seawater.

We live in a culture of negativity. And it's always

easier to stand on the sidelines and take shots than

it is to get involved and make a contribution. But

God warns us over and over and over not to criticize,

not to compare, not to judge each other. He says

that literally one hundred times in scripture. Now you may

not realize this, but when you criticize another believer who

is doing something in faith, and you criticize what another

believer is doing in faith and from a sincere heart

and conviction, you're actually interfering with God's business. Did you

know that when you criticize another fellow Christian, a brother

or sister in Christ who, to the best of their knowledge,

they're doing what they're doing in faith. Maybe you don't

like it, maybe you think it's wrong, but they're doing

it in faith with a clear conscience, and you criticize them,

you are interfering with God's business. That's Romans fourteen. Romans fourteen,

verse four says this, what right do you have to

criticize somebody else's servants? They're not your servant, They're God's servant.

God says, what right do you have to criticize somebody

else's servant? Only the Lord can decide if they are

doing right.

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

back in just a moment with the rest of today's lesson.

If you've missed any part of today's teaching, you can

listen online anytime at past tim That's pastorick dot com.

How do you feel spiritually right now? Maybe you feel

spiritually dry, like you're in a desert, or like you're

just going through the motions. Maybe you've lost your spark,

your joy. God knows how you feel right now. You

are not alone. He knows even David and the Bible

felt like that and Jeremiah twenty nine thirteen. God says,

you will seek Me and find Me when you seek

Me with all your heart. When you seek God intentionally,

it leads to a renewal of your relationship with him.

That's why Pastor Rick created a very special, brand new

resource called Going Deeper with God a personal Renewal Retreat,

and it he'll personally leave you on a spiritual journey

to help you seek God. Together, you and Pastor Rick

will go through a series of audio lessons and after

each session you'll take a little time and to complete

exercises in the Companion workbook. You can do this at

home in short sessions, or you can get away for

a day and do it in one sitting. Through this retreat,

you'll experience a renewal of life within you. God will

restore your joy. As he renews, refreshes, invigorates, and revives

your spiritual life, You'll never be the same again. Will

send you Going Deeper with God a Personal Renewal Retreat

as our way of saying thanks when you give a

gift today to help daily hope, share the hope of

Jesus with a hurting world. Just call eight hundred and

six hundred at five zero zero four or go to

Pastorick dot com to get your copy of this great resource.

That's eight hundred at six hundred, five zero zero four

or Pastorick dot com.

Once again, here's Rick Romans fourteen, verse ten. Here's what

it says Phillip's translation, Why do you criticize your brother's actions?

Why do you try to make him look small? We'll

all be judged one day, not by each other's standards,

or even by our own, but by the judgment of God.

Do you know that when I judge you, if you're

a believer, or when I judge any other believer, four

things instantly happen. The Bible says this. Number one, I

lose fellowship with God. Number two, I expose my own

pride and insecurity. Number three, I set myself up to

be judged by God. And number four I harm the

fellowship of the church. All of those are in the

Book of Romans. A critical spirit is a costly advice.

You advice you can't you can't afford it. You know,

the Bible calls Satan the accuser of the brethren, the

accuser of our brothers and sisters, and that's in Revelation twelve,

verse ten. But in that it's the devil's job to blame,

to complain, it's the devil's job to criticize members of

God's own family, which means when I do that or

when you do that, we're being duped into doing Satan's

work for him because he's the accuser of Christians. And

when I accuse other Christians, when I criticize and I

judge other Christians, when you do that, you're basically Satan

takes a holiday. Well, I don't need to do that.

They're doing it for me. You're being the accuser. Remember,

other Christians, no matter how much you disagree with them,

are not the real enemy. Anytime we spend comparing or

criticizing our fellow believers is time that should have been

spent building up the unity of our fellowship. Now, I've

got a lot more I can say about this, but

our time's up. There at least a dozen more principles

I could teach you about being an asient of unity,

but times up. So let me sum it up with

just two more verses. And in many ways, these two

verses represent the two different choices that you have today

and that you have every day, every single day of

your life. You choose which of these verses you're going

to do now. The first choice is to live a

self centered life, not worry about those who we heard,

and walk around being critical and judgmental of other people,

even other Christians. The second choice is to live a

Christ centered life instead of a self centered life that

cares about what He cares about. Most that we learn

how to really love. Let me show you the two verses.

First one is Galatians Chapter five. Galatians five, verses thirteen

to fifteen says this, you have been called to live

in freedom. You've been called to live in freedom. Not

freedom to indulge your selfish nature, though, but freedom to serve.

Freedom to serve each other in love. God's entire law

is summed up in this phrase. Love your neighbor as yourself.

But if you keep biting, this is scripture I'm reading.

If you keep biting and devouring each other and tearing

each other apart, I call them cannibal Christians, you will

be destroyed by each other. You know what's sad is

that verse describes a lot of Christians in culture today.

A lot of Christians are as mean and demeaning and vitriolic.

And what they put in the comment sections of social media,

you'd expect it from non believers. But what's happened is

the Gospel is not penetrated to character. But there is

an alternative, and it's this next verse. First Peter three

eight First Peter three eight NIV says this, let me

sum it up. For all of you live in harmony

with each other. And then he says, how we live

in harmony. Be sympathetic, love each other as family, have compassion,

and be humble. Okay, he says, the way you live

in harmony with each other is these four things. You

be sympathetic, you love each other's family, you have compassion,

and you be humble. Peter gives us four essential qualities

that we all need to work on this year in

this culture. He says, they're the keys to living in

harmony with Christians that you disagree with. They're the keys

to maintaining unity in the church that God expects us

to protect. Peter tells us that we will get to enjoy. Listen,

we get to enjoy all the benefits of a united church,

a unified church if we do four things. And by

the way, when the church is as unified as the

Book of Acts, then you have the power and the

miracles of Acts. But he says, it takes four things

to enjoy the benefits that God wants to give us

and give our church. Number one, if we sympathize with

each other, set of criticize or antagonize or polarize over

our differences. If we value the most, the thing we

value the most is our relationship to each other in

God's eternal family, instead of any other identity, which isn't

going to last. All those others are temporary. You know,

I said this to somebody the other day. I am

a six foot to white male American overweight, but I

have more in common with a five foot Asian woman

who's a Christian than I do with a six foot

two and a half white guy who's an American. Why

because he's not going to heaven. He's not my brother.

She is my sister for eternity. I'm already a family

member with her. So it has nothing to do with

the externals. It has everything to do with the heart.

And that's the next one. He says, if we show compassion,

if we show compassion instead of derision, if we show

compassion instead of condescension, if we show compassion instead of division,

then we'll have the benefits of unity. And then he says,

if we act with humility, we act with humility instead

of with inflexibility, instead of with irritability, instead of with animosity,

I ended the message last week the first half of

this message on unity with a question and I and

a point that you probably haven't thought about, and I

want to say it again. Jesus is still waiting for

us to be the answer to his prayer. The last

thing Jesus said before he went to the cross is, Father,

may they be one? Where anything but that the church

is not one. It's divided. It's divided by politics, it's

divided by racism, it's divided by all kinds of different stuff.

Jesus is still waiting for his prayer to be answered.

Will we be that generation that answers the prayer, the

prayer that they may be one as we are one? Father?

Will we be that? I'm in? I'm in. I hope

you are too. Let's bow our heads. Father, We've looked

at a lot of scriptures today. We want your church

to not be a thermometer that just looks like the

same thing in culture and just registers what everybody else

is doing around us. We want to be a thermostat.

We want to set the culture. We want to change

the culture. We want to be able to turn in

the temperature up or down. We don't want to be thermometers.

We want to be thermostats, and the only way we're

going to do that is if we do it together.

So I pray that we would have a new commitment

to love each other, regardless of our background, of our race,

of our politics, of our economic status, of our gender,

of all the different things that on the surface divide us.

Help us to realize that the only thing that's going

to last in the entire universe is your church. Your

family is the reason you created the universe, and we

are part of that. Thank you for that privilege. Help

us to love the real Church, not the ideal church.

Now you pray in your heart. If there's something you say, Lord,

I want to be more loving, say that to him.

I want to be more loving. I want to be

an agent of unity. I don't want to be a divider.

I want to be a unifier. If you've never invited

Christ into your life, He's the one who starts making

peace with you, and then you can make peace with others.

Just say, Jesus Christ, come into my life. I want

to get to know you and learn to trust you.

I want to follow you as best I know how.

Forgive me for all stuff I've done wrong, and I

ask you to humbly accept me into your family. I

pray this in your name.

Amen.

Hi everybody, this is Rick and I hope you enjoyed

today's broadcast. You know, if you just prayed that prayer

for the very first time, or you just recommitted your

life to Jesus again today, would you let me know

about it. There's something real about sharing your commitment. So

write me Rick at pastor Rick dot com and say, Rick,

I prayed that prayer of commitment, I gave my life

to Christ. And I'll send you some material that will

help you on your journey with Jesus. And I'll also

pray for you. God bless you.

This is Pastor Rick's daily Hope. We're so thankful that

you've chosen to spend some time with us. If you've

missed any part of this broadcast, just go to Pastorick

dot com and listen online. Anytime. Rick will be back

to close out our time today. But first, how do

you feel spiritually right now? Maybe you feel spiritually dry,

like you're in a desert, or like you're just going

through the motions. Maybe you've lost your spark, your joy.

God knows how you feel. Right now, and you're not alone.

He knows even David and the Bible felt like that.

And Jeremiah twenty nine thirteen, God says, you will seek

me and find me when you seek Me with all

your heart. When you seek God intentionally, it leads to

a renewal of your relationship with him. And that's why

Pastor Rick created a very special, brand new resource called

Going Deeper with God, a personal renewal retreat. Right now,

here's Pastor Rick to tell you more.

Let me ask you a very personal and serious question.

Would you truly like to have a deeper relationship with God?

Not a superficial one, a deep one. Jeremiah twenty nine thirteen.

God says this, you will seek me and find me

when you seek for Me with all your heart. When

you seek God intentionally, it leads to a renewal of

your relationship with him. You're as close to God as

you want to be, and if you want to be closer,

it's up to you. That's why I created a Going

Deeper with God personal Renewal Retreat. Yeah, going Deeper with

God personal renewal Retreat. It's retreat just meant for you

where you can get alone with God and you can

connect with Him in an intimate way that's going to

refresh and renew and revitalize your relationship with God. It's

going to give you a deeper understanding of His love,

and it will also prepare you to be used by

God in the days ahead. Now, as I lead you

through this Going Deeper with God Retreat, my hope is

that God will use it to completely revitalize and re

energize your spiritual life. Together, we'll go through a series

of audio lessons and after each session, you'll just take

a little bit of time to complete the exercises in

the Companion workbook that I've prepared for you. And you

can do this. You can do it at home, you

can do it at school. You can do it in

short sessions, or you can get away for a whole

day and do it all in one setting. My goal

is to strengthen your relationship with God, deepen your commitment

and surrendered Him in affirm your commitment to live for

His glory. You know, maybe you've never thought about this,

but God, you're ready to go deeper with you. He's

just waiting on you. Now. I want to help you

get started by sending you a copy of Going Deeper

with God today and when you partner with Daily Hope

Hope to take the word of God these positive messages

to people all around the world. My team is going

to send you this very special spiritual growth tool just

to say thanks. I hope you'll take advantage of this Today.

We'll send you Going Deeper with God, a personal renewal

retreat as our way of saying thanks. When you give

a gift today to help Daily Hope share the hope

of Jesus with a hurting world. Just call eight hundred

six hundred five thousand and four or go to Pastororrick

dot com to get your copy of this great resource.

That's eight hundred six hundred five thousand and four or

Pastorick dot com. Be sure to join us next time

as we look into God's word for our daily hope.

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