RIck Warren - God’s Prescription for Health Part 1

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. In just a few moments, we're going to

tell you about Pastor Rick Warren's best selling book called

The Daniel Plan. This amazing book will revolutionize the way

you look at health, food, and friendships forever. 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

Daily to eight hundred six hundred five thousand and four.

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

message called God's Prescription for Health.

This week, I want us to look at your physical

health and we're gonna look at God's Prescription for physical help.

Now.

Before we look at this, I need to begin with

a confession. I grew up in a family where we

were taught you don't drink, smoke, cuss, chew, or run

around with girls that do.

So.

In my lifetime, I've never smoked a cigarette. I've never

tasted alcohol. I've never taken an illicit drug. But I

love pasta, and that's why they call me pasta rick.

All right, Now, we all have our drug of choice,

and my drug of choice.

Has been food.

Now, I grew up in a family with the centerpiece

that literally dominated all the other furniture in our house

was the dining room table. Now I'm not just talking

about a little kitchenette. This thing was twelve maybe fourteen

feet long. It was at least five feet wide. I'm

not making this up. It was a four inch thick

slab of a single piece of redwood. I grew up

in northern California, in the Redwoods, in a little town

called Redwood Valley, and we had a lumberman who actually

milled this from a single tree. The dining room table

at the Warren home dominated not just the dining room,

but the room and every other room of the house,

and every major function of our house. Revolved around that table.

Every happy memory in my life growing up was connected

to food. Every sad memory in my life was connected

to food. Everything between those two extremes was connected to food.

And so while we didn't drink some custome, we certainly

did enjoy a lot of food. My mom liked to cook,

my dad grew at least an acre in garden, We

raised their own cattle, and there was always plenty on

the table. And I have to be honest with you,

I've never really paid much attention to my health until

my mid twenties. I was as skinny as a bean pole.

I mean, I was one of those guys you hate

who you could literally eat everything and not gain an ounce.

And that's why it was. And then I got married.

Now I'm not blaming k she has no responsibility that

she's an incredible cook, but I don't know. Something slowed

down in me and I started packing on the palace

and honestly, never really did pay much attention to my

health until this year. I had a little epiphany, a

Damascus road experience. The light kind of finally clicked on

in my mind. And it happened the day that a

few months ago I baptized on a single day, over

eight hundred of you.

Now, by the way, at the end of that day.

I was stith, can shoot, I think I'm going to

become a Catholic. I like this thing about the sprinkle

little water, you know, this thing about dipping them underwater. Shoot,

Methodist Presbyterian, I like that. You know, forget what Jesus did.

Let's just do it the easy way. Okay, let's just

throw a little water on. Let me get a fire

hydrant and you know, gota maybe we'll throw in a

car washed.

With it, you know, And no, we're not going to

do that.

But after baptizing eight hundred people in our church by immersion,

I realized we're all getting heavy. This is your father's saddleback.

And so I started doing a little research on this,

and I discovered that nearly seven in ten Americans, sixty

nine percent of Americans are overweight.

Overweight.

I discovered that diabetes and heart disease have exploded as

pandemic diseases because of weight related issues. We now have

eighty million people in America who are diabetic or pre diabetic.

That's phenomenally large number compared to even just ten years ago.

I studied some CDC Center for Disease Control statistics and

learned that in nineteen ninety five, there was not a

single state in all fifty states that had more than

twenty percent obese in their state. Today, there's not a

single state that doesn't have at least twenty percent obese

in their state. We are packing on the pounds. And

then as I thought about globally, as we've traveled around

the world in these one hundred and ninety five nations

in the last seventy seven years, and you know, peace

stands for plant churches, equipped leaders, assist the poor, care

for the sick, educate the next generation and the sea,

and care for the sick. We have focused almost exclusively

on infectious diseases for the past seven years in the

Peace Plant and so we've helped people with measles and

mumps and malaria and yellow fever and typhus and polio

and aids and their infectious diseases, water born eye diseases

and things like that. And I discovered that actually infectious

diseases in the world are actually going down, and chronic

diseases are going up. In other words, by the end

of this decade, twenty million people a year will die

from infectious diseases in the world. Now, that's unacceptable, but

fifty million a year will die from weight related diseases.

More people are.

Going to die from diabetes and from heart disease than

from infectious diseases, a totally manageable problem. And then I

discovered another amazing statistic that right now globally in the world,

as many people are dying from obesity as are dying

from malnutrition first time in history, one point one billion.

In each category.

As many people today are dying from being overweight as

are dying from malnutrition in the world today. So I'm thinking,

I cannot ask our church to get healthy. If I

don't get serious about this, if I don't do something

about myself, I cannot. I've never asked you to do

anything that I haven't already modeled. Now the truth is,

you already know what to do. This is not rocket science.

It's not brain surgery. To get healthy, you've got to

eat healthy, and you've got to eat less.

You've got to get moving.

You've got to move it okay, You've got to get

proper sleep, and you've got to lower the stress and

get more rest in your life. This is not rocket science.

You know this, so there's nothing I can teach you

on that today. But what I want to do today

is to focus on the motivation, the.

Why why do you not stick?

And why do I stick with get in shape programs,

get healthy programs, diets, exercise and whatever. How many times

have you set a resolution to get in shape and

a month later it's out the window? And the reason

why is if you don't have the right motivation, you

will not stick with it.

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 pastorick dot com. That's pastorick dot com.

Thanks for joining us today for Pastor Rick's Daily Hope.

A short time back, God put it on Pastor Rick's

heart to connect with the team of leading health experts

to create the Daniel Plan.

Meet Joel.

I tried to lose weight. I tried to make the changes,

and nothing seemed to work because it was all based

on my willpower. When I started with the program, I

immediately noticed changes mainly because I wanted to be healthy.

I had the tools to eat properly, I understood exercise,

and I had motivation. I saw that I could get

healthy finally, that I could make the changes that I

tried my whole life to make.

More than one hundred and eighty thousand people are following

the Daniel Plan to lose weight, increase their energy, and

improve their relationships, all while growing closer to the Lord.

With the Daniel Plan, I've lost seventy five pounds and

I've reached what I think is my ideal weight where

I feel healthy. In fact, I just recently competed in

an Ironman triathlon competition that's one hundred and forty point

six miles of racing. When I found the Daniel Plan

and its principles, I was given the tools to finally

make the changes.

Let Pastor Rick send you a hardcover copy of his

best selling book, The Daniel Plan today as his way

of saying thanks for your financial gift to this listener

supported me ministry.

Go to pastor Rigg.

Dot com or call eight hundred six hundred five thousand

and four right now. That's pastorrig dot com with two

rs in the middle or call eight hundred six hundred

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Once again, here's Pastor Rick.

All right, first, let's look at what God says about

the importance of your physical health. And the Bible says this.

First Corinthians, chapter six is the classic passage on the body.

Here it is on the screen. Everything is permissible for me,

but not everything is beneficial. Everything is permissible for me.

In other words, I got the freedom to do anything,

but I will not be mastered by anything. What does

God saying here? He said, you know some things in life,

they're just not necessarily wrong. They're just not necessary. Does

that make sense? Okay, You're free to do whatever you want,

but not everything is beneficial or or. And I'm not

gonna be mastered by anything. I'm not gonna let it

dominate me. I'm not gonna be addicted to anything. Food

is for the stomach, and the stomach for food, but

God's going to destroy both. In other words, they're not

gonna last forever. So that's not the real reason you're here.

Then he says, the body is not meant for sexual immorality,

but for the.

Lord, and the Lord for the body.

By his power, God raised the Lord from the dead,

and he's gonna raise us up.

I mean, He's gonna physically raise up your body.

Do you not know that your bodies are members of

Christ himself? Now flee, The Bible says, from sexual immorality.

All other sins a man commits are outside his body.

But he has sent sexually sins against his own body.

It's a different class. Do you not know that you're

your body is a temple? This is where that phrase

comes from. Do you not know that your body is

a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you,

whom you have received from God. You are not your own.

You were bought at a price Jesus paid for you. Therefore,

honor God with your body. Now, this passage teaches us

six radical counterculture things about your body.

You need to write these down.

This is the exact opposite of what culture teaches you today,

what the media teaches you today about your body.

Okay, here they are number one.

The first thing is that God expects me to manage

my body. God expects me to manage my body.

Now I'm not the owner. I'm the manager.

God is the owner of my body, but I am

the manager. The Bible word is the word steward. Stewardship

is the Old English word for management, and we're talking

about the stewardship of health today. In other words, I

cannot blame other people for how I use or misuse

or abuse my body. I can't blame anybody else. I'm

the manager. My body is a gift from God on loan.

God owns it and then he loans it to me.

And one day I'm going to give an account. One

day I'm going to stand before God and he's going

to say, what did you do with what I gave you? Okay,

We've talked about this many times, that life is a test,

It is preparation for eternity, and God is seeing what

he can trust you with. What did you do with

the help I gave you? What did you do with

the mind I gave you? What did you do with

the opportunities, the abilities, the freedom, the wealth, all the things?

What did you do with what I gave you. And

one of the things is going to say is what

did you do with the body that I gave you?

And God is watching to see what you do.

So I'm a.

Caretaker of my body. God expects me to manage it.

Number two, my body is God's property. Now that's fighting

words here in America because all of us were taught

growing up. My body is my own body, and it's

my body, and I'll do what I want to with it,

and God says, no, you won't. It's not your body.

It's my body. I just loaned it to you. It's

not yours because you didn't create it. Everything that you

see was created by God and the creator owns it all.

You don't own anything. It's loaned to you. Just like

we talked about your money last week. You don't own

your money. It's loaned to you for about eighty years.

It was somebody else before you were born. It's going

to be somebody else after you die. You just use

it while you're here. He owns it and he loans it.

And my body is God's property. The body, the Bible says,

is not meant for sexual limorlity, but for the Lord.

Why because it's his and the Lord for the body.

In other words, I don't have the right to just

share my body with anybody, and neither do you. Now

that's a radical concept. See what Americans do today that

make the common mistakes that the Greeks did, which is

called dualism. Back in the days of Aristotle and Socrates

and Plato, the Greeks believed in dualism, which was we separate.

The mind and the body.

And they said, you know, really what matters is just

that your spirit or your mind, your spirit is.

Right with God.

And if your spirit is right with God, doesn't really

matter what you do with your body. They devalued the body.

In fact, they taught the body is evil, so really

it doesn't matter if you mess up your body because

it's just evil. What only really matters is your spirit.

And the Bible says that's absolutely false.

Your body is not evil.

Your body is holy because God made it, and everything

God makes he makes for a purpose. God has never

made anything else without a purpose. And so don't compartmentalize that.

You know, all it really matters is my spirit, not

my body. It both matters.

That's a myth.

Now I have to admit that growing up in a

church home, I never in my entire life heard a

single sermon on the body, not one. I've never heard one.

I've heard him talk about the importance of your spirit,

the importance of your soul, the importance of your mind,

the importance of your character, the importance of your values.

I'd never heard a single sermon on the importance of

your body. So most Christians have no theology of health.

But the fact is God owns your God He's the

boss of your body. You may not like it, but

it's a truth. God owns it and expects you to

manage it well. Number Three, the third thing this passage

teaches is that my body will be resurrected after I die.

My body will be resurrected after I die. Now, God

never waste anything. He never wastes a hurt. If you'll

give it to him, He'll take even the hurt things

in your life and turn them around and use them

for good. He doesn't waste any God recycles and God says,

I'm not you think that body gave you that's just it. No, No,

we're gonna We're gonna recycle it. Right now, you're living

in version one point oh. In heaven, you're gonna get

version two point oh, but you will have a body.

Some people think that when you get to heaven you're

just gonna be this. I'm more for a spirit, just

kind of floating around like me, the forest be with you.

Other people think they're gonna be angels. You're not going

to be an angel. Angels or angels. People are people.

A lot of times people get their idea of heaven

is white, robe wings, playing a harp, sitting on a cloud.

Friends.

To me, that would be hell. I can't think of

anything more boring than that. And why is heaven all white?

Now?

Who do you think created color? God did? Who do

you think created taste buds?

God did?

Who do you he ain't created all the sights and

sounds and gave us music?

God did?

Who do you think created all of beauty and gave

us eyes to see it?

God did?

And if the world is broken and it's this beautiful,

what do you think Heaven's going to be? Like multicolor extravaganza?

Like you can't believe? Not some white cloud thing?

Okay, all right now, the Bible says this one Corinthia

six fourteen by his power. God raised the Lord from

the dead, and he will raise us up. Also, do

you see how important your body is? God says, I'm

not through with this. You know, I'm gonna resurrect your body. Said, well,

what is it gonna get all the kid in the ground? Well, yeah,

or you might be cremated. But God says, I'm still

going to resurrect it. I'm gonna put it together in

version two point zero. And he can do anything if

you created a universe, he said, what's my resurrected body

going to be?

Like, well, we don't really know. We do know that.

After Jesus was resurrected and he walked around Jerusalem for

forty days one time was seen by five hundre people

and talk to them different people that he could actually

his body had some kind of capability to dematerialize, because

he could appear in a room without walking through the door.

That'd be kind of cool, okay, kind of like Star Trek,

you know, de materialized. But everybody recognized him. They recognized him,

and so that gives us a clue that when you

get to heaven, you're going to have a different kind

of body than you've got right now. But everybody's going

to know who you are. You're still going to be you.

You're just going to be you version two point zero

with no blemishes, perfect in every form. You're going to

be you in perfect format. Now, no, I want you

to circle on this phrase. The phrase by his power.

By his power, God raised the Lord from the dead. See,

this is one of the three reasons why we don't

stick with diets, one of the three reasons we don't

stick with our get healthy programs, And the first reason

is we use willpower instead of God power. Now, willpower, friends,

works for about three weeks, and then you get tired

and you go off the diet, you start smoking again

because willpower is not enough to change.

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

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

any part of this broadcast, including portions we didn't have

time for today, just go to Pastorrick dot com and

listen online anytime. Rick will be back to close out

our time today. But first, after baptizing more than eight

hundred people in one afternoon, Pastor Rick quickly realized just

how out of shape he was and everyone else in

that baptismal pool. Soon afterward, God put it on Rick's

heart to connect with a team of leading experts to

create The Daniel Plan, a powerful Bible based program that

has helped more than fifteen thousand people lose weight, increase

their energy, and improve their relationships, all while growing closer

to the Lord. Stop starving yourself to lose weight and

then blaming yourself for putting it back on. Start enjoining

whole health Today. Let Pastor Rick send you a hardcover

copy of his best selling book, The Daniel Plan today

as his way of saying thanks for your financial gift

to this listener's supported ministry. Call eight hundred six hundred

five thousand and four to get this powerful resource, or

you can visit Pastorick dot com today. There are only

two days left to get this awesome study tool, so

please contact us today again. That's eight hundred six hundred

five thousand and four or Pastorick dot com. Here's Pastor

Rick with a letter from one of our listeners.

Today.

I 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

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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

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I decided to support Daily Hope over and above our

tithe to our church to help you bring one more

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

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

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