Rick Warren - How To Keep Your Tank Filled Instead of Running on Empty—Part Two

Hello, everybody.

Thank you so much for joining us here on Pastor

Rick's Daily Hope with Rick Warren. Well, today we're continuing

in this timely series called Strategies for Stressful Times. In

this series, Pastor Rick shares timeless truths from God's Word

that will help you manage stress, overcome worry, and experience

the peace and stability that only God can provide. And

now let's jump in with part two of a message

called How to Keep Your Tank Filled. instead of running

on empty.

What does Jesus have to say about all this? What

does Jesus have to say when we come to him

with an emptiness in our lives, an empty soul, an

empty heart, empty of character? How does Jesus respond when

you say, I got nothing to give? I'm all out

of gas. I'm living on fumes. What does Jesus do

when you come to him in your emptiness? Does he

scold you? No. Does he judge you? No. Does he

reprimand you? Say, oh, you should be full. No. In fact,

he does the exact opposite. Jesus says this in Matthew

Matthew 11 · chapter mention

chapter 11. Look at this. Matthew chapter 11, verses 28

Matthew 11:28–30

to 30. He says this. If you're tired, I would

assume that includes a lot of people sitting here right

now and those who are listening in Daily Hope. If

you're tired from carrying heavy burdens, come to me. Come

to me. And I will give you a whole lot

more to do. Oh no, that's not what he says.

He didn't say come to me and I'll give you

a whole bunch of new things to do. No, he

says I will give you what? Rest. Anybody like that?

That's what Jesus says when you come to him with

your emptiness. Come to me and I will give you R-E-S-T.

Now he's not talking about physical rest. You can get that.

He's talking about emotional and spiritual rest. You can be

physically rested and still feel empty inside. We're not talking

about physical emptiness today. You know, the last two days,

you know what I did? Each of our grandkids, when

they turn 10, Kay and I take them on a

10 on a two day trip to wherever they wanna

go in California. And it's on your 10th birthday. The

last of our grandkids turned 10, Claire turned 10 this week.

And so we said, wherever you wanna go in California,

some have gone to San Francisco, some have gone to Tahoe,

Claire decided two days of Disneyland. I walked my tushy

off for the last two days. First day we walked 9.2 miles,

I measured it. Over 30,000 steps in Disneyland. We've been

on every ride you can possibly imagine. And we were

there for two days. I'll be honest with you guys.

I'm tired today. But that doesn't have to do with

my emotional state. It doesn't have to do with my

mental or spiritual state. I'm just tired. So thank you guys.

Figure it all out on your own. Goodbye. No, no,

you know, you can be physically tired, but not spiritually

empty and not emotionally empty, or you could be physically fit.

Some of you are physically fit. You look like it,

but you're emotionally empty or you're spiritually empty. So Jesus,

when he says, come to me and I'll give you rest,

he's talking about rest for your soul. In fact, he

says that later in the passage. If you're tired of

carrying heavy burdens, come to me. and I will give

you rest. Take my yoke upon you, then learn from

me for I'm gentle and humble in spirit and you

will find rest for your soul. That's the refilling your tank.

For the yoke I share with you is easy to

wear and it makes the load light, the load is light.

Now I want you to circle, if you're taking notes,

circle the word come Circle the word take and circle

the word learn. These are the first steps. And we're

gonna look at those steps on how to keep your

tank filled. Take notes on this. Here are the steps

that Jesus tells us what to do. Ready? Step number one,

get fed up with how I've been feeling. Get fed

up with how I've been feeling. Nothing is gonna change

in your life until you get dissatisfied with it, dissatisfied

with the way that you feel right now. You have

to come to the point in your life, my friends,

where you say, I'm not gonna live this way anymore.

I've had enough. I'm not gonna stay this way anymore.

I'm going to change. I'm gonna do something about the

way that I feel. Nothing happens until you get desperate.

You see, it's just too easy to put up with

everything you're going through even when you don't like it

simply because it's familiar. It's uncomfortable. It may be even painful.

It may be even empty, but it's familiar. So what

is it that's going to cause you to finally get

fed up with your current situation, your current circumstance, and

the way that you've been feeling about it? I've talked

to thousands and thousands and thousands of people about this

issue over the last 42 years as Saddleback Pastor. And

I've discovered... that there are only three times when people really,

really change. Three things change people. Pain, perspective, and no

other choice. Pain, perspective, and no other choice. You're not

gonna change the situation you're in. You're not gonna change

the way you feel until you either have enough pain

or you change your perspective or there's no other choice.

Now let me show you just three Bible examples of

what I just said. First, Solomon. Solomon says this about pain.

In Proverbs chapter 20, verse 27 and 30, he says this.

Proverbs 20:27

The Lord gave us a conscience and a mind, so

we cannot hide from ourselves. I know when I'm in pain.

I know when I'm empty. But he says, sometimes it

takes a painful situation to make us change our ways.

Everybody agree with that? Sometimes it takes a painful situation

to make us change our ways. You see, we don't

change when we see the light. We change when we

feel the heat. And when the heat's on, we never

change until the fear of change is exceeded by the pain.

And that's why you stay with situations and circumstances and

stay even with the feelings of emptiness and dissatisfaction in

your own life because you're not in enough pain yet.

You haven't hit the bottom. It hadn't gotten that bad

yet for you. And until you get so discomfortable, so dissatisfied,

we only change when our pain is greater than the

problem or the fear of change. So pain will cause

you to change. Number two, we get this from the

story of the parable of Jesus' parable of the prodigal son.

The story of the lost son. You remember that guy?

He's a young kid and he says, dad, I want

my inheritance now. I'm leaving. And he leaves, takes all

of his inheritance and goes to Las Vegas, downtown strip

and spends all his money on wine, women and song.

And he says this. It says there about the situation.

He wasted everything he'd been given on foolish living until

he was broke, miserable and starving. He had to get

a job feeding pigs. Now you remember, pork is anathema

for Jews. This guy's Jewish. And what's he doing? He's

feeding pigs. So he's got not only a dirty job,

he's got a job he's not supposed to even be doing.

He had to get a job feeding pigs and he

became so hungry, he was willing to eat the pig's food.

You gotta be pretty hungry to eat pig slop. But finally,

he came to his senses. That's perspective. I've been teaching

you on perspective every week in this series on strategies

for stressful times. We talked about it last week, how

you gotta have God's perspective. He came to his senses,

and that's when we change. He came to his senses

and he said to himself, what's saying to himself? Self-talk,

you talk to yourself all the time. He said to himself, self,

this is not right. I don't have to stay this

way if I don't want to. Finally, he came to

his senses and he said to himself, why am I

living like this? At my father's home, even the hired

servants eat better than I do. So he decided to

get up and go home to his father. Solomon says

pain will motivate me. And the prodigal son says a perspective. Hey,

I don't have to live this way. The people who

work for my dad eat better than I do. I

can go home and just be a servant. And that

would be better than what I'm living right now. So

pain and perspective. But Job, I mean Jonah, the third guy,

gives us an example of how we change when we

finally have no other choice. And when Jonah hits bottom,

and I mean literally bottom, he's thrown overboard on a ship,

he sinks to the bottom of the ocean, And in

Jonah chapter two, we have Jonah's prayer at the bottom

of the ocean. And one of the things he says

in Jonah 2.7, one of my favorite verses in the Bible,

when I had lost all hope, I turned my thoughts

once again to the Lord. When you don't have any

other choice, that's when you turn to the Lord. Now,

nothing is gonna change in your life. That emptiness is,

that despondency, that depression, that feeling of unfulfillment, nothing's gonna

change till you get dissatisfied with the way you are.

And it'll either be pain, or it'll be perspective from

what we talk about here, or it'll be you have

no other choice. But sometimes it requires all three. Now,

that's why Jesus starts his solution to your emptiness by

saying this. Look on the screen. If you're tired... In

other words, if you're not tired of the way you're living,

Jesus doesn't have anything to offer you. Let me just

be honest with you. If you're satisfied with the way

you're living right now, Jesus has nothing to offer you.

If you're self-satisfied, even smug about what happens happening in

your life, go, I don't need anything. Nothing needs to

improve in my life. Jesus has nothing to offer you.

On the other hand, if you are tired, that means

I get fed up. I am tired of living the

way I'm living. If you're tired from carrying heavy loads,

if you're not tired of trying to solve all the

problems by yourself, Jesus can't help you. So let me

ask you, are you tired? Are you tired of running

on empty? Are you fed up with the emptiness that

you've been feeling in your life? And are you willing

to do something about it? As I said, we don't

change until we feel the heat. You have to come

some point in your life where you go, I have

had enough. I refuse to live this way any longer.

It is a point of dissatisfaction. All right? Now, let

me ask you a personal question, friend to friend. Do

any of you, you don't have to raise your hand

on this, but do you feel you're at a breaking

point right now. If you do, I want you to

write this down. I'm gonna put it on a screen.

Write this down. A breakdown is the door to a breakthrough.

Just write that down. A breakdown is always the door

to a breakthrough. There is no breakthrough until you have

the breakdown. The breakdown of my pride, my arrogance, my self-sufficiency.

A breakdown... when I realized I can't do this on

my own. A breakdown is always the door to a breakthrough.

And I want you as your friend to have a

breakthrough now. Now let me give you another thing to

write down. Write this down underneath it. I can't make

a comeback until I admit my setback. I can't make

a comeback until I admit my setback. If you're unwilling

to admit that you have a setback and that you're

empty and that you need God's help in your life,

nobody can help you right now. I can't have a comeback.

Every comeback requires a setback first, but you got to

admit it. Now, once you've done this first step, which

is get fed up. I'm fed up with the way

I've been feeling. Now you're ready for step two. It's

real simple. Three words. Come to Jesus. Write that down.

Come to Jesus. That means you bring the good and

the bad in your life. You bring the frustrating and

the painful. You bring the shameful things in your life.

You bring the exhausting things in your life. You bring

everything to Jesus and you come to Jesus. Jesus says this,

if you're tired, okay, I'm fed up. If you're tired

from carrying heavy loads, heavy burden, come to me and

I'll give you rest. Now notice who you're to come

to and what you're to come to. He says, come

to me and what he gives you back. Who do

you come to? Jesus. What does he give you back? Rest.

Now notice, friends, it doesn't say come to religion. Religion

can't help you. He doesn't say come to rules. Rules

can't help you when you're empty. He doesn't say come

to rituals. Rituals can't help you when you're empty. He

doesn't say come to regulations. Regulations don't help you when

you're empty. He says come to me. Come to me.

The antidote to your emptiness, the antidote to your overload,

the antidote to all the ucky things that you're feeling

right now, that overloaded soul, that empty soul, It's not

a plan for time management, okay? It's not a program

for stress relief. It's not a philosophy. It's not a program.

It's not a pill. It's a person. Come to me.

You come to Jesus. Not to religion or anything. You

come to Jesus. Now, I've studied scripture all my life,

and you know what I've discovered? That in the Bible,

people came to Jesus for a lot of different reasons,

some of them good, some of them bad. Some came

for forgiveness, some came for healing, some came to Jesus

for advice, some came for eternal life, some because they

had a question. You know what? Jesus didn't care why

people came to him as long as they came to him.

Jesus doesn't care why you come to him, just that

you come to him. Look at this verse on the screen,

John 6, 37. Jesus says, whoever comes to me, I

will never leave. Now notice what Jesus promises. Look at

the next thing he says. He says, come to me

and I will give you rest. What kind of rest?

Rest for your soul. That's much deeper than physical rest.

Your problem right now is probably not overloaded muscles. Some

of you probably need your muscles a little, you need

to use them a little bit more. What you have

is not overloaded muscles. What you have right now is

an overloaded mind. You have an overloaded spirit, you have

an overloaded soul. And we need rest, not from physical

work probably, but from tension. We need rest from anxiety.

You know what I'm talking about? We need rest from hurry.

We need rest from worry. Now that's a different kind

of rest, as I said. It's not just sleep. How

you unwind when you're physical tired is one way. How

you unwind when you're exhausted and overloaded emotionally I don't know.

What do you do? What do you do when you're physically,

I mean spiritually and emotionally, mentally exhausted? What's your first choice?

Watch a movie? Do your hobby? Do an exercise? Go

do a sport? You know what? Those are all good things.

Those are all good things, but none of them can

restore your soul. Only God can. can restore your soul.

That's why Jesus said, if you got soul emptiness, you

got soul depression, you got soul overload, come to me.

Isaiah 40, look at this verse on the screen. He

gives power to those who are tired and worn out

and he offers strength to the weak. So when you're

empty inside, let me just point out the differences. When

you're empty inside, you know what culture says? The world says,

when you're empty inside, you need to do more. You

need to have more. You need more things. You need

to make more money. That's why you're empty. Make more money.

Get more things. Do more things. Travel to more places.

Culture says the antidote to your emptiness is go, go, go, go, go, go,

go more. Jesus said, no, don't go. Come. Come to me.

Come just as you are.

Hey, if you're looking for daily encouragement from God's word,

I'd like to invite you to download the Daily Hope app.

It's designed to help you grow in your faith every day.

It has easy access to devotionals, audio messages you can

listen to anywhere and video teaching right at your fingertips.

You can even search for topics that matter to you

and set a daily reminder so you never miss time

with God. Just search Daily Hope in the Apple App

Store or Google Play, and I hope it's a real

blessing to you. Be sure to join us next time

as we look into God's Word for our Daily Hope.

This program is sponsored by Pastor Rick's Daily Hope and

your generous financial support.