Rick Warren - Seeing Your Future with Faith, Not Fear Part One

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

of Pastor Rick Warren. Today we begin a series called

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

shows us how to pursue the amazing vision God has

for each of us 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

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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 part one of a message called seeing

your Future with Faith not Fear.

I want to begin with a mini series on clarifying

God's vision for your future. So I'm going to teach

a short series on vision, the power of Vision. I

want you to be able to say to God, I

fulfilled the vision that you gave me for my life.

You can't fulfill your.

Life vision, of course, until first you see it and

then you understand it. Proverbs twenty nine, verse eighteen says this,

where there is no vision, the people perish.

Now what does that mean?

Well, there are at least three results of not having

a vision for your life. I want you to write

these down. An unclear vision leads to three things. It

leads to indecision, it leads to division, and it leads

to a collision. First, an unclear vision leads to indecision.

Do you remember this verse from our study of James

James Chapter one, verse eight double minded people? People can't

make up their minds. They waver back and forth and

everything they do. Without a vision for your future, you're

just drifting. You wander, you ramble through life. You're not

really living, You're just existing. You don't have any goal

or purpose or plan or meaning. You just kind of

let life happen to you. When you don't have a vision,

you waste time and you missed opportunities. You don't make

the most of what you've been given. And without a vision,

you're a poor steward of life. End up just coasting

and you're all and you know when you're coasting, you're

always headed downhill, so it causes this indecision. Second, an

unclear vision leads to division.

Division.

It causes people to go different directions, in different ways,

to be divided on things. If you aren't sure where

you're headed, don't expect anybody else to go with you,

or to marry you, or to agree with you, or

to partner with you, because everybody's just going to head

off in a different direction because no one has a

clear path. You know, this lack of clear vision is

one of the causes of all the division in America

right now. Here's an interesting verse from Proverbs twenty eight,

verse two. In the message, it says this, when a

country is in chaos, everybody has a.

Plan to fix it.

Okay, they're all going in different ways, different directions, division,

but it takes a leader of real understanding to straighten

things out. Vision is the answer to division. The third

thing that happens when you don't have a clear vision

for life.

Is a collision.

In other words, without a clear direction for your life,

it is inevitable that at some point in your life

you're going to crash into some kind of dead end.

You know, for many people, when you think about it.

I've met a lot of people. Life's just a series

of collisions, relational collisions, confrontations of financial crashes, personal crisis.

Just one afternoon.

They go from one dead end relationship to the next,

or from one dead end job to the next. Life's

kind of like a bumper car ride. Just keep bumping

into everybody else and you get hit from all sides. Now,

the Bible warns us of the damage of not following

God's vision for our lives. One Timothy one nineteen says this,

and God's word translation. Some people have refused to let

their faith guide their conscience, and their faith has been

destroyed like a wrecked ship.

That's a collision.

On the other hand, having a vision for your future

requires hard work. That's why a lot of people don't

have one. It requires faith, It requires thinking, it requires

prayer and seeking God, all the things we're going to

talk about in this series. If you just make up

a vision for your life, well that's no better than coasting.

What you want is God's vision for your life, and

that is the result of seeing things clearly, seeing with

eyes of faith rather than eyes of fear. We're going

to look at that today in just this introduction message.

You know, in the Bible, Jesus has a lot to

say about your vision, about how you see things, and

about blindness. In fact, in the Bible, blindness is always

a metaphor for having a closed mind. When he talks

about people who are blind, he's talking about their minds

are closed. They're not open to new ideas, They're not

open to.

What God wants to say.

Matthew, Chapter six, Verse twenty two and twenty three is

the verse we'll come back to in this series on vision,

because Jesus said this, Listen closely look at this verse.

Your eyes are the lamp of your body. And if

your eyes are open and good, your whole body will

be full of life light.

But if your vision.

Is bad, I just got new glasses. I've got good

vision again. If your vision is bad, your whole life

will be full of darkness. And he says, and he says,

if the light that you think you have is really darkness,

is the worst kind of darkness you can have. Now

Jesus is saying that if you don't really see things clearly, correctly, truthfully,

you may think you're living in the light, but you're not.

You're really living in the darkness, and you're missing all

the wonderful things that God has in store for you

for your future because you just can't see it. Now,

we've all heard the expression what you see is what

you get, and in many ways, that's actually a biblical statement.

We're going to look at the implications of that idea

through many scripture verses during this series on vision. But

what I want to do today is just introduce a

series on God's vision for your future future. And I

want us to go back to a story in the

Old Testament that involves Moses and the Jewish slaves who

had been freed by God from four hundred years of

slavery in Egypt. Now here's the background of the story.

We're going to look at numbers thirteen and numbers fourteen.

Here's the background in the Book of Numbers. God had

promised these freed slaves a homeland of their own, and

he calls it the Promised Land. I'm going to set

you free from Egypt, and I'm going to take you

to the Promised Land. It represented their future, It represented

their inheritance that God wanted them to enjoy.

It would become the land of Israel.

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

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

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How do you feel spiritually right now 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 Maasta Rick

will go through a series of audio lessons and after

each session you'll take a little time 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

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That's eight hundred and six hundred five zero zero four

or Pastorick dot com.

Once again, here's Pastor Rick.

Now after crossing the desert, they've gone through the Red Sea,

crossing the desert, all these free slaves that come to

the edge of the promised land. And so Moses chooses

twelve representatives, one from each of the twelve tribes, to

go ahead of everybody else and spy out the land.

And he says, won't you go in, check it all

out and return with the vision report? This is a

fact finding mission. In other words, it's a vision trip,

and Moses says, go into the new land that represents

our future and find out everything you can. Find out

what it's like, see everything you can see. Then come

back and report to us on everything you have seen.

This is a vision trip. Numbers thirteen, seventeen to twenty

says this. Moses gave them men these instructions as he

sent them out to explore the new land. Go northward

through the Negev into the hill country and see what

that land is like. And find out whether the people

living there are strong or weak, few or many? What

kind of land do they live in? Is it good

or bad? Do the towns have walls? Are they unprotected?

How's the soil? Is it fertile or poor? Are there

mini trees? Enter the land boldly and bring back samples

of the crops you see. If you're taking notes, circle

that phrase you see now, why did Moses do this?

Because Moses was a great leader.

Why did he send these spies on a vision trip

and ask for a report? Here's the reason. Listen to

this if you're a leader. This is really important before

people can succeed with the goal they have to see

the goal. If you're a leader, you need to understand

that we can only accomplish the impossible if we first see.

It in our minds.

Everything that's ever been accomplished in history started as an

idea in somebody's mind. First, you have to imagine it.

You have to see it. Sometimes you have to taste it,

but you definitely have to visualize it. And that's why

I'm going to teach you a new series on getting

God's vision for your life now numbers chapter thirteen, verse

twenty one, twenty three says this, So they sent spies in.

They spied it out the land all the way from

the wilderness up to Hebron, and there they saw circle

that word. They saw the Almanites and the she Shites,

and all the Tumites, all the families descended from Anak. Now,

by the way, don't confuse these tribes with the termites

and the parasites and the satellites and the stalactites. Those

are different tribes completely. But it says what they came

to Eskol. They cut down a cluster of grapes so

large that it took two of them to carry it

back on a pole. Can you imagine that a cluster

of grapes. They also took samples of pomegranates and figs.

This promised land was so fruitful and so incredibly prosperous.

They're bringing back giant fruit. You know, I grew up

in northern California, in the Redwoods and in the wine country,

and as a kid, every season I cut grapes and

vineyards at harvest. But I never saw a cluster grace

so large that it took two men to carry it.

This is supernatural. This is miracle growth. Prop numbers thirteen,

twenty five, twenty six. Is this after seeing? There's the

word seeing. This is a vision trip. After seeing the

land for forty days, the men returned to Moses and

Aaron and the people of Israel waiting at Kadesh in

the wilderness of Parenne. They reported of the whole community

what they had seen, and they showed them the fruit

they had taken from the land. Now, all this sounds

really promising, but there's problem, and it has to do

with their vision. That's why we're sharing this story. Two

of the spies, there were twelve spies. Two of the spies,

Joshua and Caleb, looked at their future with eyes of faith.

But the other ten of the.

Twelve spies looked at their future with the eyes of fear.

Are you looking at this new year with eyes of

fear or with eyes of faith?

Are you expecting more of the same?

Are you expecting God to do something great in your

life this new year? How you see this year will

make all the difference in the world. And this story

shows us what happens when your vision of the future

is based on fear instead of faith. Okay, so let's

get into this now. You know the story looking at

the future with fear, which ten of the twelve spies did,

causes all kinds of problems. In fact, this story illustrates

oh five or so of the traps, maybe six that

we fall into. Why don't you write these down? Here's

what happens when you look at the new year, or

you look at the future with fear instead of faith.

Number one we learned from this story. I overemphasize the

negative when I look at the future in fear. I

overemphasize the negative in life Versus twenty seven to twenty eight.

It says this was their report to Moses. We arrived

in the land you sent us to to see, and

it is indeed a magnificent kind, the land flowing with

milk and honey. Here's some of the fruit as proof,

but a circle the word butt, because now what you

get the butt you're going to see with eyes of fear.

Here's the conflicting information. But the people living there are powerful,

and their cities and towns are fortified, and they're very large.

And we also saw the Anakin, the descendants of Anak

who lived in the desert. Now, the Anakin were of

the tribe of Skywalker, and the forest was strong with them.

If you believe that, I've got some land to sell

you too.

When you overemphasize the negative, it creates a lot more

stress in your life when you're looking at everything with fear. Look,

you worry that the glass is always half empty, instead

of being happy and grateful, the glass is still half full.

Look at what you have left, not what you've lost. Now,

of course, life is filled with negatives. Everything is broken

by sin on this earth. Not all news is positive.

But you do have a choice in choosing what you're

going to focus on, what you're going to emphasize, and

that is going to directly affect your happiness in this

new year. So the spies brought back conflicting news to

the spies had eyes of faith and they gave positive news, okay,

But ten of the spies had eyes of fear and

they delivered negative news. By the way, I think that

ratio in news is probably still true today. For every

one positive news story, you're going to hear five negative

news stories. And experts tells that negative news spends spreads

about ten times faster on social media and positive news.

So I focus on the negative when I'm looking with

eyes of fear. Number two second trap, I pay too

much attention to what other people are doing. I pay

too much attention to what others are doing. Numbers thirteen

twenty nine says this. They're focusing not on the beauty

and the value of the land. They say the Malakites

live in the Negativ and the Hittites and Jebisites and

Amorites live in the hill country, and the Canaanites live

near the sea and along the Jordan the Jordan River.

What are they saying here? What's the point? It's a

scarcity mentality. What they're saying is there won't be enough

for us this year. All the good land is already

taken by other tribes. There's really no room for us

in this promised land. There aren't enough resources for everybody. Now,

if you look at this new year with eyes of fear,

you too are going to develop a scarcity mentality, which

is going to create stress in your life, like there's

not enough.

And you say, all the good.

Experiences are gone, all the good jobs are already taken,

all the good houses already bought, all the good husbands

are married. You're going to look around as a scarcity mentality. Now,

you gotta look with the eyes of faith. Number three.

Third trap that we see from this story when we

look at the future with fear instead of faith. I understand,

excuse me, I underestimate the abilities that God has given me.

I underestimate the abilities God has given me when I

look at the future with fear, because seeing life with

eyes of fear causes you to bury your talents. You

know that story that Jesus told Number thirteen thirty one.

The men who had gone with Caleb said, we can't

circle that. We can't we can't attack those people. They

are stronger than we are. They're underestimating their own ability.

Did you know that people who always say I can't

and the people who always say I can are both right.

Why?

Because fear creates self fulfilling prophecies. You got a vision

based on fear rather than faith. It's gonna limit you

for your entire life. You're gonna miss opportunities, you're gonna

waste talent that God has put inside you, and you're

gonna set yourself up with self fulfilling and self defeating predictions.

You know this happened.

Job says in Job three twenty five he said, what

I have always feared has happened to me, and what

I have dreaded has now come to be. Let me

ask you a very personal question. What are you setting

yourself up for in this new year? What are you

setting yourself up or in just with your attitude, how

are you seeing yourself? Are you looking at your own

abilities as I'm inadequate, I'm incapable. Are you looking at

your life in faith or in fear? The spies with

fear based vision saw themselves as inadequate two and thirty

three They said, the land we explored devours those living

in it? What a what a hyperbole? The land we

explored devours those living in it.

He says.

All of the people we saw there are of great size.

He says, we saw giants there. The Hebrew word is

nephelim for a giant. By the way, the Hebrew are

for handsomest, Pastor Rick, in Hebrew, we seemed like grasshoppers

in our own eyes, and we looked the same to them.

You see what they're saying. We see ourselves.

As insects waiting to be devoured. That word devouring Hebrew

actually means to eat up. They said, these people are

going to eat our lunch.

This is Pastor Rick's Daily Hope. We're so happy that

you've chosen to study along with us today. If you'd

like to receive rix free daily devotional, go to Pastorick

dot com and sign up right now. Rick will be

right 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

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going to give you a deeper understanding of His love,

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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's ready to go deeper with you.

He's just waiting on you. Now.

I want to help you get started by sending you

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hope of Jesus with a hurting world. Just call eight

hundred six hundred five thousand and four or go to

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