Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Hey there, and welcome back to Pastor Rick's Daily Hope. Today,
Rick continues in his series called Connecting with God the
Lord's Prayer. In this series, Rick shows us what it
means to be truly spiritually connected to God and to
each other through the power of God's love and God's word.
(00:22):
All right, let's get right into it with Pastor Rick
and the final part of a message called the Prayer
of Surrender.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
Now. I remember when I was a little kid that
the only time our classroom in school was quiet was
during a test because the teacher would say, children, no talking,
no talking, take your pencils, fill out your test. And
even the teacher would be quite a be totally silent.
(00:52):
The teacher is silent when the test is being given.
Here's the point when God is silent in your life.
You're going through a test when you don't hear God,
and you can't hear me. I don't even know God's
(01:12):
not even. God feels like a million miles away right now,
and I can't get any answers and I'm not hearing anything.
This is a test. The teacher is always silent when
you're going through a test. And when God is silent
in your life. You are being tested, your faith being tested.
(01:36):
Will I let go of control, or well I grab
on more tightly? Will I learn to be content? You
see what you need when you're going through the pain
you're going to go through this next week, or this
next month, or this next year. You don't really need
God's explanation. You need God's presence. You need God's presence
(01:57):
in your life. You need God's love in your life.
And the Bible says this, surrender yourself to the Lord
and wait patiently for him. That's what you need to do.
That's learning to be content. By the way, let me
just ask you a question. What are you angry with
God about? But you don't want to admit it? You know,
(02:20):
you just kind of hold You're really ticked off at God.
You got a grudge against him, but you don't really
want to admit it. But it's there and it keeps
you from being close to God. What are you angry
with God about? Maybe you're angry with God about the
way he made you. You're angry with God about your appearance.
(02:40):
Why did you make me look like this? God? I
could have done a better job than this. Why did
you give me the parents? You gave me. I'll tell
you why I gave you the parents you gave you,
because they had just the right DNA to create you,
and he was more interested in you than how good
(03:00):
a parent they were. You wouldn't have been made if
it had been any other two parents. Maybe you're angry
with God because you're disappointed in your marriage. I saved
myself for this boy. That is nervous laughter. I'm hearing
(03:23):
you're angry with God because you're single. You're angry with
God because your business failed. You're angry with God because
your kids aren't turning out the way you wanted them
to turn out. You're angry because the neighbor's lawn is
greener than yours. You have an unfulfilled dream. Friend, You
(03:44):
just need to realize all you're doing is hurting yourself
and your discontent is robbing you of inner peace. If
you want serenity in the storm, and we're getting ready
to go through a major storm, then you've got to
surrender and you've got to learn to be content. Number three.
(04:06):
Surrendering to Jesus not only means letting go of control
of the stuff I can't control anyway, and learning to
be content of the stuff. I don't understand it. Surrendering
Jesus means laying down my plans. Laying down my plans.
I don't know if you've noticed it, but I've sure
(04:27):
noticed it that my plans get changed a lot. I
make all these great plans, and then they just get changed.
I find that my problems frequently sabotage my plans. My
problems detour my plans. And I got all these great
plans that I want to do, and then all these
(04:48):
problems come up. How inconvenient is that? You see? Ias
is a reality of life. You can it's a theological truth.
Ias is a fact of life. You see what's ias?
It's always something that's not in the Bible. But it's true.
(05:12):
It's always something ias. It's always something. And you have plans,
but you also have problems. And the problems are like
all these planes that want to land in your life,
and there's like a line of fifty of these planes
waiting to land. And once you get problem number one
(05:34):
landed and taken care of, problem number two moves up
to first place, and problem number three moves into second place.
And once you get problem number two landed, number three
becomes number one, and number four becomes number two, and
number five becomes number three, and that's called life. And
(05:54):
the rest of your life you're gonna be landing planes.
You're either you're in a problem right now, or you
just got out of one, or you're getting ready to
go into a new one. That's called life. And so
you have to lay down your plans because problems aren't
always gonna cooperate with your plans. Now, why don't my
(06:19):
plans always work out? Or why do I have so
many problems? Well, there are three reasons. First, you make
bad choices, and so do I. We don't always use
our time wisely, so we get rushed, we get pressured,
we get deadlines we can't meet. We don't use our
time wises. We don't use our money wisely. We get
(06:41):
over in debt and over extended. We don't eat right,
we don't rest right. We make all kinds of bad decisions,
and so we can't blame problems on God. Most of
them we just caused by our own choices. But secondly,
you have an enemy and his name is Satan. Satan
wants to defeats you, and before you even wake up
(07:02):
in the morning, he's already planning how to mess up
your life. If you wake up in the morning and
don't meet the devil face to face, it just means
you're head in the same direction, okay, because he wants
to he wants to to to dupe you. But not
only that, we just live in an imperfect world, Adam
(07:24):
blew It. Sin entered the world, and everything on this
planet is broken. Nothing works right. Your body doesn't work
right all the time, your relationships don't work right all
the time, the economy doesn't work right all the time,
the weather doesn't work right. Nothing works right all the
time because we're on a broken planet because of sin,
(07:49):
and so as a result, sometimes you have problems. Just
nobody's fault. We're just part of planet Earth. It's nobody's fault.
One day, Jesus is walking down the street with his followers,
his disciples, and they saw a man who had been
blind from birth. And the disciples asked this question. Up
(08:09):
here on the screen, they said, Lord, who's sin caused
this man to be born blind? The man his sins
or his parents sins? And Jesus replied, neither sinned, notice,
and was anybody's fault? He said This happened so that
(08:30):
the work of God could be displayed in his life.
The work of God could be displayed in his life.
Now listen very closely. God wants to display his work
in your life. There's going to be problems in your
life this year. You're going to have problems, and that's
(08:53):
why we got to stick together. It's more important to
stick together in a storm than any other time. When
the mountain climbers are climbing Mount Everest, they link, they connect,
They hook up to each other so that if one
of them falls off the cliff, everybody else can pull
him back to safety. This is not the year to
be a lone ranger. This is the year to get connected.
(09:15):
Get connected to a group, Get connected to this church,
get connected to God, get connected to a group of
men or women around you. This is the time to
be in community in a storm. You don't want to
be facing a blizzard on your own. And God wants
to display the work of God in your life in
this year of tough times. What is God's work in
(09:39):
your life? What does he want to do in your
life this next year? More than anything else, I'll tell
you what he wants to do. He wants you to
learn to be unselfish. Life is about learning to be unselfish.
It's the number one lesson. We spent forty days on this.
We called it forty days of Love. That more than
(10:01):
anything else, God wants you to learn to be like him.
God is love, and in order to be like God,
that means I've got to learn to love like God.
I've going to learn to be unselfish like God. And
we are born naturally self centered. We think about ourselves
more than anybody else. And life and maturity is all
about growing up and learning to be other person centered
(10:21):
instead of self centered. God says, I want you to
learn the work of God. I want you to learn
to be unselfish. And so I'm going to test you.
I'm going to see if you'll really think about others.
And most people never get this. And God says, I'm
going to give you all kinds of things. I'm going
(10:42):
to give you a certain amount of time that you
can use to live. I'm going to give you a
certain amount of money. I'm going to give you a
certain amount of talents. I'm going to give you a
certain amount of opportunities. I'm going to give you a
certain amount of freedom, and then I'm going to watch
and see if you spend it all on yourself. I'm
going to watch and see if you ever learn that
(11:03):
life is all about love. It's about giving, not getting,
It's about sharing not being served. Jesus said this up
here on the screen, Luke sixteen, I tell you use
your worldly resources to get a great plasma TV. Sorry
(11:23):
I misread that one use your worldly resources to benefit
what others and make friends. He says, the number one
use of money is to use it in relationships, help
other people make friends. And of course the best friends
are the ones you make for eternity. If you use
money to get people to know Christ, they're going to
(11:45):
be your friends forever. They will be eternally grateful. It
will be eternally grateful. This week, somebody in our church
send a check in to be spent on helping orphans
and the poor and people with ags. I'm going somebody
gets it. God says, I'm gonna watch you in this way.
(12:05):
He says, your generosity stores up a reward for you
in heaven. That's not just money, it's every area of life.
He says, I want you to learn to be a giver,
not a taker in life. On the screen, Jesus said,
if you insist on saving your life. In other words,
(12:25):
I'm gonna control it. I'm gonna hold it back. I'm
gonna hoard it. I'm gonna hoard my time, hoard my money,
ord my relationships, ord my energy. It's all about me.
If you insist on saving your life, you will lose it.
Only those who throw away their lives for My sake
and for the sake of the Good News will ever
(12:46):
know what it means to really live. What does it
mean to throw away your life? What does it mean
to lay down my plans? What does that mean? I mean, really,
how do I do this? I lay down my plans
and I lose my life by using my life, my time,
my money, my energy for the benefit of other people.
(13:09):
God says, that's my boy, that's my girl. Look at
these verses on your outline. First John three sixteen. We
all know John three sixteen. God so loved the world
he gave a son we don't know. First John three sixteen.
That says, this is how we know what love is.
Jesus laid down his life for us, and we ought
(13:30):
to lay down our lives. For our brothers. You doing
that for anybody? Are you laying your down your life
for anybody else? That's what it means to surrender. I
lay down my plans, my life. My surrender. You offer
yourself to God for his purposes. Look at the next verse,
(13:51):
give yourselves to God. Surrender your whole being to him
to be used for righteous purposes. Life of purpose, be
driven by purpose. Give yourself to God and surrender yourself
to him. To say, God, any way you want to
use me, by the way, you'll get the adventure of
a lifetime. Now what happens when I do this? What
(14:13):
happens when I say, Okay, God, I'm not gonna live
for me. I'm gonna live for you and for other people.
I'm gonna learn to lay down my life. I'm going
to learn to lay down my plans. Look at what
God says next verse. God will give you all you
need from day to day if you live for Him
and make the Kingdom of God your primary concern. Thy
(14:37):
Kingdom come, Thy will be done in my life? How
do I make the Kingdom of God my primary concern?
I care about the things God cares about? What does
he care about most people? God doesn't care about money.
God doesn't care about fame. God doesn't care about a
lot of things we care about. God cares about people,
(14:59):
and he says, that's the Kingdom of God. Laying down
my plans and he says, I'll take care of all
your needs. Now there's the fourth thing, surrendering, which is
the key to serenity. If you want peace in your
heart no matter what happens this next week. Surrendering to
Jesus Thy Kingdom, Come, I will be done means I
(15:19):
let go of control, I learn to be content. I
lay down my plans. And the last thing it means
is leaving the future to God. Surrender means leaving the
future to God. I'm not going to try to live
in the future. I'm going to live today, one day
(15:41):
at a time, and I'm going to leave it to Him.
And I'm going to side in advance that I'm going
to leave the results of my life up to God.
It's not up to me. The results of my life
are going to be up to God. Proverbs three. Trust
in the Lord. That's a serenity verse. Trust in the
Lord with all your heart, and don't lean on your
(16:02):
own understanding. I'm not going to lean on me. I'm
going to lean on God in all your ways. Acknowledge him,
and he will make straight your paths. What does that
mean he'll make straight your past. It means this. He's
going to keep you on the right track. That's what
it means when God says I'll make straight your paths,
he says, if I choose to trust in the Lord
(16:26):
and I don't listen to what I think is best,
I listen to what God think is best, and I
acknowledge him in every air of my life and my
career and my family and my sports and every area
of my life. Try to say, this is your area. Lord.
He says, he will make straight your past. He will
keep you on the right path. You're not going to
(16:46):
flame out. You're not going to fall out, You're not
going to fall into the ditch. I will keep you
in the right direction. I'll keep you from heading in
the wrong way. That's what God wants you to do. Now,
just get real, blunt. Would you like to have less
stress and more serenity in this season of your life?
(17:11):
And of course the answer is yes, Am I gonna
do what I think is best? Or am I gonna
do what God tells me to do. Am I gonna
do what I think is right? Or am I gonna
obey God's word? Look at this next verse. I love
this verse. The Lord takes care of those who obey him,
(17:33):
and he gives them eternal rewards that last forever. Now,
that would be good enough if all of a sudden
God just said, you know what, trust me, and I'm
gonna give eternal rewards in heaven. But he doesn't just
say that. He says they will survive through hard times
and will have more than enough even in a time
(17:57):
of famine of lack. He says, not only are you
gonna get eternal rewards, he says, you'll survive in the
hard times and I'll take care of it. You're gonna have
mourn enough. But there is one condition. You gotta obey me.
You got ol baby. So here's a question. What area
(18:17):
of your life is not surrendered to God? Oh, you
surrendered the kitchen in the living room, But what about
the bedroom of your life? What about the closet of
your life? What about the garage of your life? What
air of your life have not surrendered? Some of you
have not surrendered your sex life? He said, I know
(18:40):
God says sex is only for marriage, but I'm gonna
do it my way, and that's why you're under stress.
Some of you have not surrendered your finances to God.
I know God says that I should give the first
ten percent back to him and tithing, but I can't
afford to tithe, and that's why you're under stress. Some
(19:02):
of you have not surrendered your relationships to God. I
know I should forgive that person who hurt me, but
I'm not about to forgive him, and that's why you're
under stress. Some of you have a secret sin that
you have not surrendered to God. You have a habit
you have not surrendered to God. You have a hurt
or a hang up that you have not surrendered to God.
(19:24):
Some of you have never surrendered your life to Jesus Christ.
You've never surrendered yourself to be baptized, find a church family.
What area of your life is not surrendered to him?
You see? Surrender is holding up the white flag and say, God,
the war's off. I'm not going to fight you anymore.
(19:44):
I want serenity, not stress. Aren't you tired of being
at war with God? I would think so. Surrender is
the ultimate expression of faith. Now I'm not going to
I'm not gonna you know, the wool over your eyes.
I'll be honest with you. Here's what Jesus said, Luke fourteen.
You must give up everything you have to be my follower.
(20:08):
When you come to Jesus, you give up everything you've got,
and then you never had it so good. Yeah, you
give it all up because whatever's number one in your life,
that's what you give it to. But notice the benefit
next verse, Jesus also said this, But let me assure
you that no one has ever given up anything for
(20:32):
love of me, and to tell others the good news.
Who won't be given back a hundred times over? And oh,
by the way, in the world to come, he shall
have eternal life. God says, do you know, whatever you
give up for me, I'm going to restore it one
hundredfold in your life. By the way, do you know
(20:53):
what a hundredfold is? You know what that rate is?
Interest rate? It's ten thousand percent. Interest. Is not a
hedge fund in America that'll give you ten thousand percent.
There certainly is no bank, there's no derivatives, there's no franchise.
So I highly recommend you give it all to God
because He will restore it and multiply it and say,
(21:16):
I'm going to restore it one hundredfold in your life.
That's an amazing thing. That's bower heads. Father. So many
people listening right now are stressed out by uncontrollable circumstances,
uncooperative people, and unexplainable pain, and we look for solutions
(21:41):
and we look for explanations, when really what we need
to look for is you. I pray that today those
who are experiencing deep stress will experience the serenity of surrender. Father.
There's some here who held out for so long they
don't even know how to let go help them to
(22:07):
relax in your love right now.
Speaker 1 (22:13):
Amen, Hey, thanks so much for being with us today
and listening to Pastor Rick's Daily Hope. I hope that
you were just as blessed as I was from today's broadcast.
And now here's Rick to tell you about today's offer.
Speaker 2 (22:33):
You know, I've been a pastor for over three decades,
and I've been teaching the Word of God for over
four decades, and over all that time, I couldn't count
the number of people that I've talked to, and the
number one questions that people ask. They've come to me,
they come back over and over and over again. I've
noticed that people tend to ask the same questions. All
(22:53):
of these common questions have common solutions, and they're all
found in God's Word. So I sat down and I
took the most common questions that I've been asked over
forty five years in ministry, and I began to answer
them according to scriptures. And I wrote a little book
called God's Answers to Life's Difficult Questions. It provides simple,
(23:17):
straightforward answers that you can apply right away. In fact,
this will get you the answers to probably questions you're
asking yourself right now. You say, well, what are those questions? Well,
let me just give you a few of them. How
do I cope with stress? Have you ever asked that one?
How do I rebound from a failure? Have you ever
asked that one? How can I be more confident in
(23:40):
the crisis that I'm going through? How do I live
above average? Why is this happening to me? How can
I overcome loneliness? And how do I change the things
that I want to change in my life? Well? I
answer those questions in this book God's answers to life's
difficult questions. You'll discover the simple truths that God has
(24:02):
given to us from his word. And it's just my
way of saying thank you for supporting Daily Hope with
your financial gifts. You know we're a listener supported ministry.
We don't have any giant secret donors that fund this.
I don't do this for a salary. We do this
for free as a ministry to you and as a
ministry of spreading the word of God around the world.
(24:24):
Thanks for listening today, Join me next time as we
continue to look into God's word for our daily hope.
Speaker 1 (24:30):
Just go to pastor Rick dot com to get your
copy of this great resource. That's Pastorrick dot com. Or
you can just text the word Hope to seven oh
three oh nine. Again, that's the word Hope to seven
oh three oh nine. And thank you so much for
your support. Your gift to Daily Hope helps us share
the hope of Christ with people everywhere. This program is
(24:53):
sponsored by Pastor Rick's Daily Hope and your generous financial support.
Speaker 2 (25:02):
We
Hey there, and welcome back to Pastor Rick's Daily Hope. Today,
Rick continues in his series called Connecting with God the
Lord's Prayer. In this series, Rick shows us what it
means to be truly spiritually connected to God and to
each other through the power of God's love and God's word.
(00:22):
All right, let's get right into it with Pastor Rick
and the final part of a message called the Prayer
of Surrender.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
Now. I remember when I was a little kid that
the only time our classroom in school was quiet was
during a test because the teacher would say, children, no talking,
no talking, take your pencils, fill out your test. And
even the teacher would be quite a be totally silent.
(00:52):
The teacher is silent when the test is being given.
Here's the point when God is silent in your life.
You're going through a test when you don't hear God,
and you can't hear me. I don't even know God's
(01:12):
not even. God feels like a million miles away right now,
and I can't get any answers and I'm not hearing anything.
This is a test. The teacher is always silent when
you're going through a test. And when God is silent
in your life. You are being tested, your faith being tested.
(01:36):
Will I let go of control, or well I grab
on more tightly? Will I learn to be content? You
see what you need when you're going through the pain
you're going to go through this next week, or this
next month, or this next year. You don't really need
God's explanation. You need God's presence. You need God's presence
(01:57):
in your life. You need God's love in your life.
And the Bible says this, surrender yourself to the Lord
and wait patiently for him. That's what you need to do.
That's learning to be content. By the way, let me
just ask you a question. What are you angry with
God about? But you don't want to admit it? You know,
(02:20):
you just kind of hold You're really ticked off at God.
You got a grudge against him, but you don't really
want to admit it. But it's there and it keeps
you from being close to God. What are you angry
with God about? Maybe you're angry with God about the
way he made you. You're angry with God about your appearance.
(02:40):
Why did you make me look like this? God? I
could have done a better job than this. Why did
you give me the parents? You gave me. I'll tell
you why I gave you the parents you gave you,
because they had just the right DNA to create you,
and he was more interested in you than how good
(03:00):
a parent they were. You wouldn't have been made if
it had been any other two parents. Maybe you're angry
with God because you're disappointed in your marriage. I saved
myself for this boy. That is nervous laughter. I'm hearing
(03:23):
you're angry with God because you're single. You're angry with
God because your business failed. You're angry with God because
your kids aren't turning out the way you wanted them
to turn out. You're angry because the neighbor's lawn is
greener than yours. You have an unfulfilled dream. Friend, You
(03:44):
just need to realize all you're doing is hurting yourself
and your discontent is robbing you of inner peace. If
you want serenity in the storm, and we're getting ready
to go through a major storm, then you've got to
surrender and you've got to learn to be content. Number three.
(04:06):
Surrendering to Jesus not only means letting go of control
of the stuff I can't control anyway, and learning to
be content of the stuff. I don't understand it. Surrendering
Jesus means laying down my plans. Laying down my plans.
I don't know if you've noticed it, but I've sure
(04:27):
noticed it that my plans get changed a lot. I
make all these great plans, and then they just get changed.
I find that my problems frequently sabotage my plans. My
problems detour my plans. And I got all these great
plans that I want to do, and then all these
(04:48):
problems come up. How inconvenient is that? You see? Ias
is a reality of life. You can it's a theological truth.
Ias is a fact of life. You see what's ias?
It's always something that's not in the Bible. But it's true.
(05:12):
It's always something ias. It's always something. And you have plans,
but you also have problems. And the problems are like
all these planes that want to land in your life,
and there's like a line of fifty of these planes
waiting to land. And once you get problem number one
(05:34):
landed and taken care of, problem number two moves up
to first place, and problem number three moves into second place.
And once you get problem number two landed, number three
becomes number one, and number four becomes number two, and
number five becomes number three, and that's called life. And
(05:54):
the rest of your life you're gonna be landing planes.
You're either you're in a problem right now, or you
just got out of one, or you're getting ready to
go into a new one. That's called life. And so
you have to lay down your plans because problems aren't
always gonna cooperate with your plans. Now, why don't my
(06:19):
plans always work out? Or why do I have so
many problems? Well, there are three reasons. First, you make
bad choices, and so do I. We don't always use
our time wisely, so we get rushed, we get pressured,
we get deadlines we can't meet. We don't use our
time wises. We don't use our money wisely. We get
(06:41):
over in debt and over extended. We don't eat right,
we don't rest right. We make all kinds of bad decisions,
and so we can't blame problems on God. Most of
them we just caused by our own choices. But secondly,
you have an enemy and his name is Satan. Satan
wants to defeats you, and before you even wake up
(07:02):
in the morning, he's already planning how to mess up
your life. If you wake up in the morning and
don't meet the devil face to face, it just means
you're head in the same direction, okay, because he wants
to he wants to to to dupe you. But not
only that, we just live in an imperfect world, Adam
(07:24):
blew It. Sin entered the world, and everything on this
planet is broken. Nothing works right. Your body doesn't work
right all the time, your relationships don't work right all
the time, the economy doesn't work right all the time,
the weather doesn't work right. Nothing works right all the
time because we're on a broken planet because of sin,
(07:49):
and so as a result, sometimes you have problems. Just
nobody's fault. We're just part of planet Earth. It's nobody's fault.
One day, Jesus is walking down the street with his followers,
his disciples, and they saw a man who had been
blind from birth. And the disciples asked this question. Up
(08:09):
here on the screen, they said, Lord, who's sin caused
this man to be born blind? The man his sins
or his parents sins? And Jesus replied, neither sinned, notice,
and was anybody's fault? He said This happened so that
(08:30):
the work of God could be displayed in his life.
The work of God could be displayed in his life.
Now listen very closely. God wants to display his work
in your life. There's going to be problems in your
life this year. You're going to have problems, and that's
(08:53):
why we got to stick together. It's more important to
stick together in a storm than any other time. When
the mountain climbers are climbing Mount Everest, they link, they connect,
They hook up to each other so that if one
of them falls off the cliff, everybody else can pull
him back to safety. This is not the year to
be a lone ranger. This is the year to get connected.
(09:15):
Get connected to a group, Get connected to this church,
get connected to God, get connected to a group of
men or women around you. This is the time to
be in community in a storm. You don't want to
be facing a blizzard on your own. And God wants
to display the work of God in your life in
this year of tough times. What is God's work in
(09:39):
your life? What does he want to do in your
life this next year? More than anything else, I'll tell
you what he wants to do. He wants you to
learn to be unselfish. Life is about learning to be unselfish.
It's the number one lesson. We spent forty days on this.
We called it forty days of Love. That more than
(10:01):
anything else, God wants you to learn to be like him.
God is love, and in order to be like God,
that means I've got to learn to love like God.
I've going to learn to be unselfish like God. And
we are born naturally self centered. We think about ourselves
more than anybody else. And life and maturity is all
about growing up and learning to be other person centered
(10:21):
instead of self centered. God says, I want you to
learn the work of God. I want you to learn
to be unselfish. And so I'm going to test you.
I'm going to see if you'll really think about others.
And most people never get this. And God says, I'm
going to give you all kinds of things. I'm going
(10:42):
to give you a certain amount of time that you
can use to live. I'm going to give you a
certain amount of money. I'm going to give you a
certain amount of talents. I'm going to give you a
certain amount of opportunities. I'm going to give you a
certain amount of freedom, and then I'm going to watch
and see if you spend it all on yourself. I'm
going to watch and see if you ever learn that
(11:03):
life is all about love. It's about giving, not getting,
It's about sharing not being served. Jesus said this up
here on the screen, Luke sixteen, I tell you use
your worldly resources to get a great plasma TV. Sorry
(11:23):
I misread that one use your worldly resources to benefit
what others and make friends. He says, the number one
use of money is to use it in relationships, help
other people make friends. And of course the best friends
are the ones you make for eternity. If you use
money to get people to know Christ, they're going to
(11:45):
be your friends forever. They will be eternally grateful. It
will be eternally grateful. This week, somebody in our church
send a check in to be spent on helping orphans
and the poor and people with ags. I'm going somebody
gets it. God says, I'm gonna watch you in this way.
(12:05):
He says, your generosity stores up a reward for you
in heaven. That's not just money, it's every area of life.
He says, I want you to learn to be a giver,
not a taker in life. On the screen, Jesus said,
if you insist on saving your life. In other words,
(12:25):
I'm gonna control it. I'm gonna hold it back. I'm
gonna hoard it. I'm gonna hoard my time, hoard my money,
ord my relationships, ord my energy. It's all about me.
If you insist on saving your life, you will lose it.
Only those who throw away their lives for My sake
and for the sake of the Good News will ever
(12:46):
know what it means to really live. What does it
mean to throw away your life? What does it mean
to lay down my plans? What does that mean? I mean, really,
how do I do this? I lay down my plans
and I lose my life by using my life, my time,
my money, my energy for the benefit of other people.
(13:09):
God says, that's my boy, that's my girl. Look at
these verses on your outline. First John three sixteen. We
all know John three sixteen. God so loved the world
he gave a son we don't know. First John three sixteen.
That says, this is how we know what love is.
Jesus laid down his life for us, and we ought
(13:30):
to lay down our lives. For our brothers. You doing
that for anybody? Are you laying your down your life
for anybody else? That's what it means to surrender. I
lay down my plans, my life. My surrender. You offer
yourself to God for his purposes. Look at the next verse,
(13:51):
give yourselves to God. Surrender your whole being to him
to be used for righteous purposes. Life of purpose, be
driven by purpose. Give yourself to God and surrender yourself
to him. To say, God, any way you want to
use me, by the way, you'll get the adventure of
a lifetime. Now what happens when I do this? What
(14:13):
happens when I say, Okay, God, I'm not gonna live
for me. I'm gonna live for you and for other people.
I'm gonna learn to lay down my life. I'm going
to learn to lay down my plans. Look at what
God says next verse. God will give you all you
need from day to day if you live for Him
and make the Kingdom of God your primary concern. Thy
(14:37):
Kingdom come, Thy will be done in my life? How
do I make the Kingdom of God my primary concern?
I care about the things God cares about? What does
he care about most people? God doesn't care about money.
God doesn't care about fame. God doesn't care about a
lot of things we care about. God cares about people,
(14:59):
and he says, that's the Kingdom of God. Laying down
my plans and he says, I'll take care of all
your needs. Now there's the fourth thing, surrendering, which is
the key to serenity. If you want peace in your
heart no matter what happens this next week. Surrendering to
Jesus Thy Kingdom, Come, I will be done means I
(15:19):
let go of control, I learn to be content. I
lay down my plans. And the last thing it means
is leaving the future to God. Surrender means leaving the
future to God. I'm not going to try to live
in the future. I'm going to live today, one day
(15:41):
at a time, and I'm going to leave it to Him.
And I'm going to side in advance that I'm going
to leave the results of my life up to God.
It's not up to me. The results of my life
are going to be up to God. Proverbs three. Trust
in the Lord. That's a serenity verse. Trust in the
Lord with all your heart, and don't lean on your
(16:02):
own understanding. I'm not going to lean on me. I'm
going to lean on God in all your ways. Acknowledge him,
and he will make straight your paths. What does that
mean he'll make straight your past. It means this. He's
going to keep you on the right track. That's what
it means when God says I'll make straight your paths,
he says, if I choose to trust in the Lord
(16:26):
and I don't listen to what I think is best,
I listen to what God think is best, and I
acknowledge him in every air of my life and my
career and my family and my sports and every area
of my life. Try to say, this is your area. Lord.
He says, he will make straight your past. He will
keep you on the right path. You're not going to
(16:46):
flame out. You're not going to fall out, You're not
going to fall into the ditch. I will keep you
in the right direction. I'll keep you from heading in
the wrong way. That's what God wants you to do. Now,
just get real, blunt. Would you like to have less
stress and more serenity in this season of your life?
(17:11):
And of course the answer is yes, Am I gonna
do what I think is best? Or am I gonna
do what God tells me to do. Am I gonna
do what I think is right? Or am I gonna
obey God's word? Look at this next verse. I love
this verse. The Lord takes care of those who obey him,
(17:33):
and he gives them eternal rewards that last forever. Now,
that would be good enough if all of a sudden
God just said, you know what, trust me, and I'm
gonna give eternal rewards in heaven. But he doesn't just
say that. He says they will survive through hard times
and will have more than enough even in a time
(17:57):
of famine of lack. He says, not only are you
gonna get eternal rewards, he says, you'll survive in the
hard times and I'll take care of it. You're gonna have
mourn enough. But there is one condition. You gotta obey me.
You got ol baby. So here's a question. What area
(18:17):
of your life is not surrendered to God? Oh, you
surrendered the kitchen in the living room, But what about
the bedroom of your life? What about the closet of
your life? What about the garage of your life? What
air of your life have not surrendered? Some of you
have not surrendered your sex life? He said, I know
(18:40):
God says sex is only for marriage, but I'm gonna
do it my way, and that's why you're under stress.
Some of you have not surrendered your finances to God.
I know God says that I should give the first
ten percent back to him and tithing, but I can't
afford to tithe, and that's why you're under stress. Some
(19:02):
of you have not surrendered your relationships to God. I
know I should forgive that person who hurt me, but
I'm not about to forgive him, and that's why you're
under stress. Some of you have a secret sin that
you have not surrendered to God. You have a habit
you have not surrendered to God. You have a hurt
or a hang up that you have not surrendered to God.
(19:24):
Some of you have never surrendered your life to Jesus Christ.
You've never surrendered yourself to be baptized, find a church family.
What area of your life is not surrendered to him?
You see? Surrender is holding up the white flag and say, God,
the war's off. I'm not going to fight you anymore.
(19:44):
I want serenity, not stress. Aren't you tired of being
at war with God? I would think so. Surrender is
the ultimate expression of faith. Now I'm not going to
I'm not gonna you know, the wool over your eyes.
I'll be honest with you. Here's what Jesus said, Luke fourteen.
You must give up everything you have to be my follower.
(20:08):
When you come to Jesus, you give up everything you've got,
and then you never had it so good. Yeah, you
give it all up because whatever's number one in your life,
that's what you give it to. But notice the benefit
next verse, Jesus also said this, But let me assure
you that no one has ever given up anything for
(20:32):
love of me, and to tell others the good news.
Who won't be given back a hundred times over? And oh,
by the way, in the world to come, he shall
have eternal life. God says, do you know, whatever you
give up for me, I'm going to restore it one
hundredfold in your life. By the way, do you know
(20:53):
what a hundredfold is? You know what that rate is?
Interest rate? It's ten thousand percent. Interest. Is not a
hedge fund in America that'll give you ten thousand percent.
There certainly is no bank, there's no derivatives, there's no franchise.
So I highly recommend you give it all to God
because He will restore it and multiply it and say,
(21:16):
I'm going to restore it one hundredfold in your life.
That's an amazing thing. That's bower heads. Father. So many
people listening right now are stressed out by uncontrollable circumstances,
uncooperative people, and unexplainable pain, and we look for solutions
(21:41):
and we look for explanations, when really what we need
to look for is you. I pray that today those
who are experiencing deep stress will experience the serenity of surrender. Father.
There's some here who held out for so long they
don't even know how to let go help them to
(22:07):
relax in your love right now.
Speaker 1 (22:13):
Amen, Hey, thanks so much for being with us today
and listening to Pastor Rick's Daily Hope. I hope that
you were just as blessed as I was from today's broadcast.
And now here's Rick to tell you about today's offer.
Speaker 2 (22:33):
You know, I've been a pastor for over three decades,
and I've been teaching the Word of God for over
four decades, and over all that time, I couldn't count
the number of people that I've talked to, and the
number one questions that people ask. They've come to me,
they come back over and over and over again. I've
noticed that people tend to ask the same questions. All
(22:53):
of these common questions have common solutions, and they're all
found in God's Word. So I sat down and I
took the most common questions that I've been asked over
forty five years in ministry, and I began to answer
them according to scriptures. And I wrote a little book
called God's Answers to Life's Difficult Questions. It provides simple,
(23:17):
straightforward answers that you can apply right away. In fact,
this will get you the answers to probably questions you're
asking yourself right now. You say, well, what are those questions? Well,
let me just give you a few of them. How
do I cope with stress? Have you ever asked that one?
How do I rebound from a failure? Have you ever
asked that one? How can I be more confident in
(23:40):
the crisis that I'm going through? How do I live
above average? Why is this happening to me? How can
I overcome loneliness? And how do I change the things
that I want to change in my life? Well? I
answer those questions in this book God's answers to life's
difficult questions. You'll discover the simple truths that God has
(24:02):
given to us from his word. And it's just my
way of saying thank you for supporting Daily Hope with
your financial gifts. You know we're a listener supported ministry.
We don't have any giant secret donors that fund this.
I don't do this for a salary. We do this
for free as a ministry to you and as a
ministry of spreading the word of God around the world.
(24:24):
Thanks for listening today, Join me next time as we
continue to look into God's word for our daily hope.
Speaker 1 (24:30):
Just go to pastor Rick dot com to get your
copy of this great resource. That's Pastorrick dot com. Or
you can just text the word Hope to seven oh
three oh nine. Again, that's the word Hope to seven
oh three oh nine. And thank you so much for
your support. Your gift to Daily Hope helps us share
the hope of Christ with people everywhere. This program is
(24:53):
sponsored by Pastor Rick's Daily Hope and your generous financial support.
Speaker 2 (25:02):
We
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