Rick Warren - 9 Divine Promises for Those Who Give from the Heart

One scholar did a study and he counted over 8,000

different promises of God in the Bible. The Bible tells

us that God is a promise-making and a promise-keeping God.

He makes promises in the Bible to literally everybody. Now,

God's promises are like a divine insurance policy. And in

an insurance policy, when you know what's covered, then you

don't sweat it when that circumstance happens in your life

or that illness or that accident. When you know what's

covered in the policy, you relax. On the other hand,

if you don't know what's covered in the insurance policy,

if you're ignorant of it, you worry. And one of

the problems that we have today is people don't know

the promises of God, so they spend a lot of

time worrying. Today, we're gonna begin a new series that

I'm calling God's Amazing Promises. And each week, we're gonna

look at a different set of God's promises to you.

We'll look at promises of God's help, promises of wisdom,

of power, promises of forgiveness and guidance, promises of salvation

and blessing and heaven, promises of guidance and salvation, of success,

of victory, and many, many other benefits. You can't afford

to miss this. this series on God's amazing promises. Now

I want to begin the series by explaining three fundamental

facts about the promises of God. The first one is this.

God wants me to build my life on his promises.

God doesn't want you to live a life built on

petty rules. He wants you to live a life built

on great promises. And we're going to look at many

of these 8,000 promises in God's word to you, God's

insurance policy to you. Number two, God makes two kinds

of promises in scripture, and we're gonna look at both. First,

he makes unconditional promises, and then he makes conditional promises.

The unconditional promises, there are no strings attached, and no

matter what you do, when God promises something unconditionally, it's

going to happen. For instance, God has made an unconditional

promise about the second coming of Jesus Christ. It's not

gonna be dependent on anything that you or I do.

That's an unconditional promise, and we'll look at many of those.

But God also makes conditional promises. And these promises are

based on your faith and your obedience. And God says,

if you do this, then I will do this. It's

not automatic. These promises aren't automatically yours. You have to

meet a requirement or a circumstance or a condition. And

if you don't meet that requirement, then you forfeit the promise.

In other words, there's a premise to every promise that's conditional.

And we'll look at what some of those conditions are. Now,

the third thing I want to say about God's promises

is that God makes promises for us for two different reasons.

The first reason God gives us all these 8,000 promises

in the Bible is to teach us to trust him

in difficult times, to teach us to trust him in

difficult times. The Bible says in Psalm 119 verse 50,

Psalms 119:50

when I'm hurting, I find comfort in your promises that

lead to life. You know, if you weren't in ever

bad circumstances, you wouldn't need the promises of God. If

everything went great in your life, you wouldn't need the

promises of God. Psalm 119, 114 says this, you, God,

you're my refuge and shield, and your promises are my

only source of hope. So as I said, if things

always went great in your life and everything always looked great,

you wouldn't need any promises. It's when the situation looks hopeless,

that's when you need a promise of God. It's when

situations seem like they're all falling apart, That's when you

need a promise of God. So God first gives us

promises to help us get us through the tough times

in life, the difficult times, the times when we're hurting,

or it just looks like maybe he's not even around.

We hold on to his promises. The second reason God

gives us promises is to make us more like him.

We've talked about this many times that God's number one

goal in your life is to make you like Jesus.

One of the ways that he does that is through

the promises in this book. The Bible says that God,

in 2 Peter 1, verse 4, God has made great

2 Peter 1:4

and marvelous promises so that his nature would become part

of us. Look at that verse again. God has made

great and marvelous promises. Okay, all of these promises are

in the Bible. So that, here's the reason, his nature

would become part of us. The more you trust in

God's promises, the more it's gonna change your life. That's

why we're gonna do this series on God's amazing promises.

You grow more like Jesus through God's promises. In fact,

I'll just be real frank, you can't become like Jesus

without trusting God's promises. The Bible tells us that God

works in our lives through promises. Now, let me give

you a quiz. Can you guess what subject in the

Bible God makes more promises about than anything else? Can

you guess what subject in the Bible God makes more

promises about than anything else? It's not faith. It's not prayer.

It's not love. It's not patience. It may surprise you

that God makes more promises in the Bible about generosity

or giving than anything else. Now, why is that? Why

does God make more promises about being generous and being giving? Well,

there's a couple reasons. First, because God is generous and

he wants us to become like him. God wants his

children to take on his qualities. Everything we have in

life is because of the generosity and grace and giving

of God. In John chapter one, Verse 16, I love

this in the message prayer phrase. Look up on the screen.

It says, we live off his generous bounty. Gift after

gift after gift. Everything you and I have in life

is because of God's generosity. So God just wants us

to become like him. He wants his children to be

like father, like son, like father, like daughter. Second reason

God wants us to learn generosity is because giving is hard.

And the reason giving is hard is because it challenges

our selfishness. I don't want to give anything to anybody

else or to God. I want to spend it all

on me. So it's hard. So God gives rewards for

us learning to be like him. God is a generous God.

Everything you have in life is because of the generosity

of God, and he wants us to become like him.

So to kick off this series on God's amazing promises,

we're going to start with the most frequent promises in

the Bible, the promises about generosity. In fact, there are

so many of them, we couldn't possibly cover the hundreds

and hundreds of promises about this. So I've just picked

out nine categories. That's all we have time for. We're

gonna have to go through this fairly quickly anyway. But

let me give you nine rewards that God promises to

me and promises to you if we learn to be

generous with our money, right? Let's look at nine different

rewards that God promises to us if we learn to

be generous with our money. As I said, I could

give you hundreds of promises about generosity, but we only

have time for these nine. We're gonna go through them

pretty quickly, all right? So write these down fast. Number one,

God promises good things will happen to me. when I'm generous,

when I learn to give like God gives. God promises

that good things will happen to me. Psalm 112 verse

five says, good will come to him who is generous. Good,

good things come to him who is generous. Proverbs 22

verse nine, generous people will be blessed. That's a promise

of God. So if you want God's blessing in your

life and you want God's goodness in your life and

you want good things to happen to you, the Bible

says giving generosity unlocks the key. God promises that good

things will happen to me when I'm generous. Number two,

God promises my children will be blessed if I learn

how to give like God gives. That's covered in Psalm

Psalms 37:26

37 verse 26. It says there in the NIV translation,

the godly are always generous. That's a mark of godliness.

If you're not generous, you're not godly, because God is generous.

The godly are always generous, and notice, their children will

be blessed. Now I want you to notice that when

you learn to be generous, when you learn to give

the way God gives, that blessing not only blesses you now,

good comes into your life, but God says it gets

passed on to the next generation. Now do you want

your kids to be blessed by God? Do you want

the next generation in your family to be blessed? Then

you need to learn how to be generous. I'm expecting

God's blessing on my kids and on my grandkids because

Kay and I have been generous all of our lives.

We learned generosity early on. God says, I will bless

your kids if you are generous. I know many of

you use the Daily Hope devotionals as part of your

regular Bible study. And so I want to share some

exciting news. We've put 365 of the best devotionals into

a brand new book that we're calling The Daily Hope Devotional, Purpose, Peace,

and Promise for Every Day. This devotional book is designed

with clear, practical, biblical teaching to help you make knowing

God your number one priority. I believe it will help

you stay focused on God throughout the day as he

provides you with real purpose, lasting peace, and his unfailing promises.

Imagine starting every day like that. This book is a

great way to share the hope you have in Jesus

with your friends, co-workers, and relatives. I hope you'll get

a copy for everyone you know.

Be sure and request your copy when you partner with

Daily Hope to take the Word of God to a

hurting world.

Third promise of God. God promises he will bless my

work and my business if I learn to be generous.

Not just my family, but also my business. Let me

show you a couple of verses about this. Proverbs 3

Proverbs 3:9

verse 9 says this. Honor the Lord by giving him

the first part of all your income. We honor God

by giving him the first part of all our income.

That's called tithing, we'll talk about that later. But he

says then, that was the premise, here's the promise. Then

your barns will be filled to overflowing and your vats

will overflow with the finest wines. Now I doubt any

of you have a barn to fill or vats to

fill with the finest wine. But let's put this in

a cultural context. In the Bible times, Everybody was a farmer.

Almost everybody was a farmer. So when you looked inside

a person's barn and you looked inside their vats, that

represented their business. It represented their investments. It represented their livelihood.

And what God is saying here is if you learn

to be generous, God says, I will bless your business.

I will bless your work. I will bless your career.

I will bless your investments. I will bless you. how

you make a living. A verse that goes right along

with that is Proverbs 11, 25 that says, a generous

man will prosper, will prosper. A generous man will prosper

and he who refreshes others will himself be refreshed. Question,

those of you who have your own business or your

own store or your own shop, do you want your career,

your business to prosper? Well, of course you do. Do

you want your business to be more profitable? Of course

you do. Well, if you want God's help in your business,

not just your family, but in your business, you have

to fulfill the premise of his promise. And God says,

the person who is generous will profit, will be blessed

in what he does. Let me show you another verse

here on the screen. Deuteronomy chapter 15, verse 10. I

Deuteronomy 15:10

love this in the message. It says this, give freely.

and give spontaneously. Okay, that's the premise. Don't have a

stingy heart. The way you handle matters like this triggers

God's blessing. Look at that on the screen. The way

you handle matters. If you're generous with your money, you're

not a stingy heart, it triggers God's blessing in everything

you do, in all your work, that's your job, that's

your business, and Ventures. Some of you are venture capitalists.

Some of you are serial entrepreneurs. Do you want God's

blessing to be triggered in your work, in your ventures,

in everything you do? Well, the Bible says generosity triggers

God's blessing on your work. These are amazing promises. God

says good will come to you, your kids will be blessed,

and your work, your career, your job will be blessed.

Generosity triggers God's blessing on on your job. Let me

give you a fourth promise. God's promises that if I

learn to give like he does, I'll be happier. Now,

everybody knows this except people with a stingy heart. You

already know this already. Jesus said in Acts chapter 20

Acts 20:35

verse 35, Paul, or Lucas talking here, and he says,

remember the words of our Lord Jesus himself who said,

There is more happiness in giving than in receiving. You know,

when I was a little kid, I honestly didn't believe

that verse because I'd rather get Christmas gifts when I

was a little kid than when I was older. I

didn't want to give them, I wanted to get them.

But that's a mark of maturity. And maturity comes when

you realize that there's actually more happiness in giving than

in receiving. So here's the fourth promise. If you learn

to give generously, God says, you'll be happier. You'll be happier,

you get your business blessed, you get your family blessed,

your children blessed, and you get blessed, good will come

to your life. Number five, God promises that if I

learn to give like he does, generously, my influence will increase.

My influence will increase. Here's another promise, Proverbs 11, 24.

The message says this, the world of the generous gets

larger and larger. The world of the stingy gets smaller

and smaller. If you want your world to get larger,

learn to be generous. If you want your world to

get smaller and more compact and harder heart and build

walls around you, then just be a stingy person. But

if you learn to be generous, the Bible says the

more generous you are, the larger and larger your world

will get. I could give a personal testimony about this one,

how that God teaching me generosity in my life actually

expanded my influence into areas I never, ever thought would

be possible, into fields and into countries and around the world,

simply because I was faithful in little things, then God

gave me more, and I was faithful in that, and

God gave me more, and I was generous with that,

and more and more, And I could tell you a

personal testimony that this promise is true. Your world expands

the more generous you become. All right, number six. God

promises that if I learn to give like he gives,

and if I learn to be generous, I will end

up with more. This is part of the economy of God. Now,

we don't give to get more. I don't give to

get a blessing. I actually give to be a blessing.

But the truth is, you can't out-give God. And God

plays this little game and says, let's see who can

out-give the other person. You give to me and I'll

give to you and you give to other people and

I'll give to you and we'll see who wins. God says,

I promise you, and he says this over and over

and over in scripture, that I will end up with

more if I learn to be generous. Let me show

you some verses. Luke 6, verse 38. These are the

Luke 6:38

words of Jesus himself. Jesus says, give and it will

be given back to you. And notice, in full measure.

You don't get a little back. You get it all

back and more. Give and it will be given back

to you. In full measure. God's going to make sure

he outgives you. Given it will be given to you

in full measure. And what you receive will need to

be pressed down and shaken together. What's that talk about? Well,

let's say if you're getting grain and people are pouring

grain in your sack and you've paid for a whole sack,

you're going to shake it like this and then you're

going to press it down so you can get the

maximum amount of grain or coins or anything else into

that sack. And he's saying, God wants to give you

so much, you have to press it down, you have

to shake it together to make more room because God

wants to give you more than your sack can hold.

He says, what you receive will need to be pressed

down and shaken together, but it will still, notice, it

will still run over and be poured into your lap.

That makes me think of a lottery. It's just pouring in,

it's pouring into your lap. And then he summarizes it.

Jesus summarizes this, this way. The way you give to

others is the way God will give to you. Whoa.

We could just stop right there in the message and

have you go home and think about this. That the

way I give to others is the way God will

give to me. God is waiting for me to be generous.

He wants me to prime the pump. Why? Because he

wants me to learn to be like him. I can't

be like Christ without giving. God so loved the world

that he gave. You've heard me say this many times.

You can give without loving, but you cannot love without giving.

You spell love G-I-V-E. God so loved the world that

he gave. And so if we're going to be loving,

then we've got to learn to be giving. We've got

to learn to be generous. So he says, Give and

it will be given to you, and the way you

give to others is the way God will give to you.

That's promise. And he says, if you're generous, God will

give you more than you can handle. Let me show

you some other verses about this, that God, I'll get

back more than I actually gave out. Proverbs 11, 24

says this. Some people give generously and end up with more,

while other people don't give what they should, and end

up poor. That actually rhymes. Some people give generously and

end up with more, and while others don't give what

they should, they end up with being poor. He's saying,

you are determining how much I can bless your life.

Proverbs 19, verse 17 says this. If you're a businessman,

Proverbs 19:17

you need to star and circle this verse. Being generous

to the poor is like lending to the Lord, and

God will pay you back for what you've done. He's

saying that giving is an investment, that when you try

to give it away, God says, I'm going to pay

you back. He says, when you're generous to the poor,

it's like lending to the Lord, and God will pay

you back. In one of the translations of this verse,

it says, and God pays great interest on your loan.

It's like loaning to the Lord. So you're not really

giving that money away because God says, I'm gonna pay

you back with interest. Giving is an investment. Number seven,

in the promises of God about giving and generosity. God

promises that if I learn to give like God tells

me to give, God promises to meet all my needs.

Now that just sounds too good to believe. It just

sounds too good to be true. But over and over

and over in scripture, God says, if you'll put me

first in your money, and if you'll learn to be

generous and not tight-fisted, not tight-wad, open-handed, open-hearted, I will

meet all your needs. Philippians chapter four, verse 17 and 19,

Paul says this, I want you to have the good

that comes from giving. Circle that, I want you to

have the good that comes from giving. The whole reason

I'm teaching this message is because I love you, and

I want you to have the good that comes from giving.

I know the good that comes from giving. I've been

doing it all my life. I've been blessed all my

life because I've learned the good that comes from giving.

Most of you know Kay and I are reverse pilers.

We give away 91% of our income, and we live

on 9%. Now, we didn't start there, but how are

we able to live that way? The good that comes

from giving, God just says, I'm not going to let

you out give me. And the Bible says this, I

want you to have the good that comes from giving.

My God will use his wonderful riches in Christ Jesus

to give you everything you need. Wow. Do you believe

that verse? If you don't, you ought to just take

an exacto knife and cut it out of your Bible.

Jesus said, I will make sure you get everything you need. Now,

notice he didn't say, I'll give you all your greed.

He says, I'll give you everything you need. There are

some things I think I need that I really don't need.

God says, all your needs will be met. Doesn't say

all your greeds, all your desires, all your lusts will

be met. You know, it's not like, well, I want

a Rolls Royce. That's not a need. But he said,

I will give you everything you need if you learn

to be generous. Look at a couple other verses. Again,

there's so many of these verses. I had to cram

them on your outline and still left out so many.

Proverbs 28, verse 27 says this. He who gives to

Proverbs 28:27

the poor will lack nothing. Circle that, will lack nothing.

If you want to lack nothing in your life, emotionally, physically, spiritually, mentally,

then you need to learn how to give to the poor.

But he who gives to the poor will lack nothing,

but he who closes his eyes to their needs will

receive curses. When you're driving along and you come up

to a stoplight and there's a homeless person on the side,

do you just kind of keep looking forward and you

close your eyes to what is on your side? The

other night, Kay and I took our eldest grandchild, Kaylee,

for her 16th birthday up to see Phantom of the

Opera in L.A., And we turned under an underpass bridge.

And I believe there were probably 20 people camped out

in tents living under that. Every bone in my body

wanted to stop right there. There were cars behind us

and we couldn't because I'm going, I can't turn my

eye to this. And I know that Kay, every time

she sees a homeless person, she stops, she rolls down

her window and she helps them out. That's one of

the reasons God has blessed us. is because he says

you'll lack nothing. But if you close your eyes to

the needs of the poor, your life's cursed. I know

many of you use the Daily Hope devotionals as part

of your regular Bible study. And so I want to

share some exciting news. We've put 365 of the best

devotionals into a brand new book that we're calling the

Daily Hope Devotional. Purpose, peace, and promise for every day.

This devotional book is designed with clear, practical, biblical teaching

to help you make knowing God your number one priority.

I believe it will help you stay focused on God

throughout the day as he provides you with real purpose,

lasting peace, and his unfailing promises. Imagine starting every day

like that. This book is a great way to share

the hope you have in Jesus with your friends, co-workers,

and relatives. I hope you'll get a copy for everyone

you know.

Be sure and request your copy when you partner with

Daily Hope to take the Word of God to a

hurting world.

Amen.