June 10, 2025 • 25 mins
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Hey, friends, thanks so much for joining us today on
Pastor Rick's Daily Hope, the Bible Teaching ministry of Pastor
Rick Warren. We're so glad to have you with us.
And today, Rick continues in his series called Transformed. Together,
We'll dive into God's Word and discover powerful principles that
can truly change our lives from the inside out spiritually, physically, mentally, emotionally, relationally, financially,
(00:31):
and vocationally.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
You'll experience how God's.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
Truth brings real transformation to every part of your life.
And now let's join Rick for the final part of
a message called from Stressed to Blessed number six.
Speaker 3 (00:47):
In the next verse a Psalm twenty three, David says,
I'm gonna let God be my defender. Let God be
my defender. Now. Another common source of stress is conflict, opposition, criticism, attacks.
(01:08):
And there are people in your life who simply don't
like you. There are people you work with they criticize you,
maybe out of jealousy, maybe out of fear. But maybe
there are people in life in your own family. Maybe
there's a family member who will not let you enjoy anything.
They just are always ragging on you. They're always putting
you down. They never have a positive word. If you
(01:31):
have any success, they downplay it, they minimize it. And
you've had these people in your life and they're always
attacking you, and they're always putting you down, and they're
always criticizing you. And when that happens, your natural response
is what attack back, criticize back, retaliate, get even. But
(01:55):
when you get even with somebody who's criticizing you, it
puts you on the same level. Now, if you've forgive them,
it puts you above them. But if you get even,
you're no better than they are. Now, because of the
pluralization in our society, we have people around us all
the time who totally disagree with us, people who live
(02:16):
with around you and work around you, who don't agree
with you and don't like you, and maybe don't even
like Jesus. And as a result, they will criticize you
and they will put you down. And there are other
reasons too too, not just because of that, but in
our society today, our civilization is losing its civility. The
(02:43):
world is getting more rude. Would you agree with that?
And one of the things that's causing that is the Internet.
Because the Internet allows you to hide behind anonymously, behind
the screen and spout all kinds of vile things against
other people, and things that people would never say to
you face to face. They wouldn't have the curious say.
(03:03):
They'll spout off and they will minimize you and belittle you,
and they'll be rude to you, and they'll criticize you,
and they will attack you on the internet. All they
are doing is revealing the smallness of their heart. Little
people be little people. Little people be little people. Great
(03:25):
people make people feel great. So when somebody is always
belittling other people, they are just revealing the smallness of
their heart that they have a little not for a
heart and they have to be little others thinking that's
going to make them feel better. How do you handle
rude people? How do you handle mean people? You don't?
(03:49):
You let God handle them. You let God be your defender. Now,
David is a pro at this because David knows what
it means to be attacked, not just emotionally or verbally,
but literally physically. In the story of King David, David,
as a young man, was anointed by Samuel, God's prophet
(04:11):
to be the next king of Israel, but it was
done in secret, so nobody knew about it. David knew
about it, his family knew about it. He knew he
was the rightful king. But then for the next years,
the better part of much of his life, he spends
it running from the first king who wants to kill him.
And he's hiding in caves, and he's being maligned, and
(04:33):
he's being demeaned, and he's being put down, and rumors
are being told about him. He's being criticized constantly. And
yet he never would say a bad word against the king.
He would never attack back, he would never retaliate. He
only said good. And God was preparing David to be
the king after his own heart. And David says, so
(04:57):
I'm twenty three verse five. Look at this verse you
prepare a table before me, in the presence of my enemies,
and you anoint my head with oil. My cup overflows.
What's David talking about here? It's a metaphor. He saying,
you know what, God is so good to me. He says,
(05:18):
I'm gonna give you, David, a banquet in front of
your enemies, and I'm going to anoint your head with oil,
which is a symbol that says I'm going to say
to the world, this is my guy. Back off, this
is the guy I've chosen. This is the guy who's
going to be the next leader. He anoints my head
with oil. My cup overflows. God, you are so good
to me, in spite of my attackers, in spite of
(05:40):
my critics, you just keep blessing me and blessing me
and blessing me. And he says, I'm just gonna trust you,
and I'm gonna let you be my defender. Saw I'm
eighteen verse one and two. David says this how I
love you. Lord. You are my defender against criticism and
everything else. You are my protector. You are my strong fortress.
(06:03):
In you, I am safe. You protect me like a shield.
Does David sound stressed out there? No, but he's riding
this in a cave. I'm not worried. God's in control.
God is my defender. I don't have to defend myself.
God will take care of me. Let me tell you something.
It takes a lot of faith to rest when you're
(06:25):
under attack. It takes a lot of faith to trust
God and just not defend yourself. When you're being maligned,
you're being misunderstood. You're being misjudged in your office by
other workers, Rumors are spreading about you, or people saying
things about you online. When that happens, everything in you
(06:48):
wants to rise up, saying I've got to do something
about this, I got to correct this, I got to
teach the truth when you're under attack. But it takes
faith to rest God. It also takes humility. It takes
humiliy to not retaliate, but to let God be your defender.
You are most like Christ when you remain silent under attack.
(07:13):
Jesus was constantly attacked, and who is the attack by
the religious people. The religious people did not like Jesus.
Common ordinary, everyday people they loved Jesus. The prostitutes, the pimps,
the tax collectors, the crooks, the thieves, the poor, all
(07:35):
the outcast people, the lepers, they all loved Jesus. It
was the religious people who could not stand Jesus. They
called them a glutton, They called them a drunk. They
called him a son of the devil, they called him
the devil himself. They said he came from the devil.
They said he's a false leader, false prophet, and on
and on and on. Jesus never ever retaliated, He never
(08:00):
got him back, he never corrected them. He just remained silent.
In fact, even right before he goes to the cross,
the saddest Sees and the Pharisees take Jesus into custody.
They make him a prisoner. They take him to the
Roman governor Pilot and they say the pilot, this guy
is trying to overthrow Rome. Now they couldn't even find
(08:23):
any witnesses to corroborate this. It was just a total
bogus lie. It was an attack. This guy is trying
to overthrow Rome. He wants your job. He's trying to
get rid of you. Pilot looks at Jesus, goes, is
that true? Is what they're in right? And Jesus, it
says quote. He spoke not a word unto him. He
(08:48):
wouldn't even dignify the accusation with the response. He remained
silent because he had entrusted himself to the care of
the Father. You are most like Christ when you remain
silent in criticism. Now tell you a little secret, and
I've learned this from experience. When you do this, you
(09:11):
end up gaining more power, more authority, more influence, more anointing.
Your critics actually end up helping you. They think they're
hurting you by criticizing you, but when you respond correctly,
it actually helps you. Because when people criticize you unjustly, falsely,
and they say all kinds of mean things about you,
(09:34):
Jesus said this blessed to you. When men shall revile
you and persecute you, and say all manner of evil
against you falsely, for my sake, rejoice and be exceeding glad,
for great is your reward in heaven. Not only are
you going to be rewarded in heaven, but God gives
you when you refuse to retaliate, but you respond in love.
(09:56):
You say nothing but good things about your critics. When
you do that, God gives you more power, gives you
more influence, gives you more authority, and gives you more anointing.
Your critics end up actually helping you. Is that cool
or what? So? Then that's how you can thank God
for your critics, Because thank you God for these critics,
(10:18):
because it allows me an opportunity to be more like Jesus,
which means I'm going to get more love, more power,
more grace than my life more blessing, and they end
up actually causing you to be more blessed than before.
You're blessed, not stressed. Peter has a good way to
say this one Peter four nineteen. So, if you're suffering
according to God's will, keep on doing what is right.
(10:42):
By the way, notice some suffering is God's will. Some
people say, well, suffering is never God's will. Well, they
just haven't read the Bible, because it says it right there.
Some suffering is God's will. If you're suffering according to
God's will, keep on doing what is right and trust
yourself to the God who made you, or he will
never fail you. Now, there's one more common source of stress,
(11:06):
and that is fearing the future. And so the seventh
thing David says in this beautiful psalm is I expect
God to finish what he starts in me. I expect
God to finish what he starts in me. Now, are
you a person who's afraid of the future? Are you
(11:27):
a what ifer? You're always what ifing? What if this happened?
What if this went wrong? What if that went bad?
What if? What if? What if? If? You're a what ifer?
It leads to enormous amount of stress in your life.
It's unnecessary stress. Because here's what David says. So I'm
(11:48):
twenty three verse six. Surely goodness and love. Goodness and
love will follow me all the days of my life.
That's what I've got to look forward to. Goodness and
love will follow me all the days of my life,
and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.
I'm going to heaven anyway. You know, when a shepherd
(12:10):
has a flock of sheep, he uses a couple of
sheep dogs. He's leading it from the front, and the
sheep dogs are at the back, keeping everybody kind of
in line. And these twin sheep dogs of mercy and
love or goodness and love, or like little sheep dogs
in your life following along through your life? Is that
what you expect? Are you? When you can eave to
(12:34):
look at your future on two ways? You could say, man,
what if everything goes wrong? What if I don't have
enough money, what if I lose my job, what if
somebody walks out on me? What if? What if? What if?
What if? You can do that, or you can look
at the future and say, surely goodness and love will
follow me all the days of my life and I'll
dwell in the house of the Lord forever. Those are
your options. You need to see it from God's viewpoint,
(12:56):
or you can see it from your fearful anxiety. How
do you lower the stress? You say, I'm going to
expect God to finish what he starts, and even if
everything went wrong in my life, I'm still going to heaven.
I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. Now,
what do you expect? What you expect? There's a word
(13:17):
for that. It's called a goal. And that's why I remember.
I'm trying to get you each week to set one
goal during fifty days of transformation. If you don't set goals,
you're not living by faith, because goals are statements of faith.
Set a goal for your physical health and your spiritual
Next week, we're going to look at emotional and mental
(13:39):
and spiritual, all these other areas. He said, I'm just
tired of the pace I've been living. I can't maintain this.
It's not sustainable, it's not satisfying, it's not even any fun.
And we'll deal with those in the weeks ahead. I
don't know what burden you're caring. I don't know what's
weighing you down? But I do know the answer. The
(14:04):
last verse on your outline, Jesus says this, come to me.
Come to me, not come to church, not come to class,
not come to clinic. Come to me. Jesus says, all
you that are weary and carrying heavy burdens, and I
(14:25):
will give you more work to do. I think some
people actually think that's what the verse says. Come to me,
if you're weary and carrying heavy burdens, and Jesus says,
I will give you what circle that rest rest. Take
(14:46):
my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I'm
gentle and humble in heart, and you'll find rest for
your souls, for my yoke is easy and my burden
is lieing. For many years I never understood that verse
first place. As a kid, I didn't know what a
yoke was. I thought it was like the part around
(15:09):
the egg, okay, right in the middle of the egg.
A yoke is a board that is stretched with two
arches in it, that you put over two cattle, so
the two cattle will pull a cart. The value of
a yoke is it halves the load. Without a yolk,
(15:32):
you got one cow, got to pull that entire load
by itself. But if you yoke up the cow with
another cow, then the two cows together pull the load together,
and the load is half as heavy. That makes sense.
So when Jesus says, take my yoke up on you,
I didn't know. I just thought it was like sounded
(15:53):
to me like, oh, he's gonna give me something else
I gotta deal with. Take my yolk. I got a
heavy enough burden myself. Lord, I don't need to take
your problems on me. That's not what at all that
he's saying when he says take my yoke upon you.
He's not saying I'm going to give you my problem.
Jesus doesn't have any problems. He said, take my yoke
(16:17):
upon you. I'm going to share your problem. I'm going
to share your load. I'm going to take your stress
and I'm going to pull it with you. Wow. Now
he says three verbs in this verse. He says come,
(16:38):
he says, learn, and take. He says, come to me Jesus,
and he says, take the yoke on you. Team up
with me, and then learn how I do it. This
is going to lighten your load. This is going to
(16:58):
reduce your stress. This is going to make it easier
for you to navigate. Now write this down. When I'm
yoked with Christ, we move together, because you're obviously yoked together.
We move together in the same direction and at the
same speed. And those two are the problems that you have.
(17:20):
You're going in the wrong direction and you're going at
the wrong speed. But when yoke up with Christ, you
will go in the right direction, and you will go
at the speed that you can handle. And when you're
yoked to Christ, you're not going to go off in
a ditch, because he's going to keep you on the
right path. And when you're yoked to Christ, you're not
going to run too fast and burn yourself out. Because
(17:44):
you're yoked to Christ. You need to come to him.
Now that's bower heads Lord. I know there are many
people who are tired and worn by the pace of
modern living. And I know, Father, that of these different
stresses that we've looked at, so many of them can
(18:08):
be seen right here in our midst today. We know
that many people are stressed out, stressed out by worry,
by fear, by conflict, by criticism, by indecision, by the
rudeness of people around them, by a crowded schedule, by
(18:30):
overwork all of these different things. And Lord, if we
just do it your way, life would be so much easier.
If we would practice the Ten Commandments, if we would
keep the sabbath, to rest our bodies, refocus our spirit,
recharge our emotions. If we would fill our souls with
beauty not ugliness. If we would hear sounds of beauty
(18:55):
and see scenes of beauty rather than filling our mind
with so much negative news and negative talk shows and
all of the conflict that is in the media. Today, Lord,
I pray that each of these steps that David took
that we would take today. Now you pray, Would you pray? Say,
(19:20):
Dear God, in your mind, just say I want to
look to you to meet all my needs. I know
that there's no person who could possibly meet all my emotional, spiritual, mental,
physical needs. The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not
want and God, starting today, I'm going to obey your
(19:42):
instructions about rest. You make me lie down in green pastures,
help me to fill my soul and my surroundings with beauty,
with art, with music that you have given for the
expression of emotions. Thank you that you make me lay
down in green meadows and beside calm, quiet waters. And Father,
(20:07):
those things that I don't know what to do. And
when I'm just confused and I lack the wisdom, help
me to go to you for guidance. Father, I need
your wisdom in the days ahead. And when I go
through dark valleys, help me not to be afraid of
(20:29):
the shadow, but to turn to the light and look
into your eyes Jesus. And when I'm ready to give up,
you know what I should do. And Father, when I
feel like I'm under attack, and when I feel like
others are against me, would you be my defender. Help
(20:51):
me to speak no words of unkindness, but to return
good for evil, to pray for those who persecute, to
love those who hate, to do good to those who
do evil. Would you be my defender, my protector, my fortress.
(21:11):
Would you protect me like a shield and let me
trust you? And God, I'm going to expect you to
finish what you start in me. And rather than what
if in the future, I'm going to say, surely, goodness
and mercy will follow me all the days of my life,
(21:32):
and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. Jesus,
you said to come to you, So I come to you,
and I want to take your yoke on me. I
want to team up with you. I want to learn
of you, and I want to move forward in the
direction and in the pace that you choose. Slow me down, Lord,
(21:56):
that I may see your plan for my life. Jesus Christ,
I invite you to take over every area of my
life and my mind and replace my stress with your serenity.
In your name, I pray amen.
Speaker 2 (22:18):
Hey, if you've just prayed along with Rick to accept
Jesus in your life, Rick would love to hear from you.
Just email Rick at Pastorick dot com. And now this
is really one of my favorite parts of the broadcast.
This is letters from our listeners, and now here's Rick.
Speaker 3 (22:35):
Today. I want to share with you a very special
testimony from one of our listeners named Marquita, and thanks
to Daily Hope and your support, she recently asked Jesus
Christ to be the leader of her life. Here's her story. So,
Pastor Rick, I wanted to let you know that I
have prayed the prayer of salvation that you included in
(22:55):
the Deepening the Eyes of Faith message. I've been listening
to your messages for years. In fact, my child wouldn't
even be here today if it weren't for your words.
You wrote, there may be accidental parents, but there are
no accidental children. Well, I've given birth to a beautiful
baby girl, and she's the light of my life. In fact,
(23:17):
it now hurts to remember a time that I was
fighting to decide whether I was going to have her
or not. But I repeated your words throughout my pregnancy.
There are accidental parents, but they're no accidental children. And
although I'm a single mom today, with the support of
my family, we're thriving. I want to make sure that
she grows up to find her purpose and to serve God.
(23:40):
So thanks for renewing my faith in God. And as
I still try to find and fulfill my purpose, please
pray for me and my child. Wow, Marquita, you are
so right. God does have a plan and a purpose
for every single baby. There are no accidental babies. So
(24:02):
I want to take a moment right now and just
pray for you in this broadcast. Pray for you and
for your daughter. Lord, I'm asking you right now to
put your hand of protection, your hand of blessing, your
hand of guidance on Marquita and her daughter, and I'm
praying for both of them to know your purpose, to
(24:24):
feel your presence, to discover your power, to live in
your plan for each of their lives. In Jesus' name.
Speaker 1 (24:36):
Amen, you know when you give a gift to Daily Hope,
you're helping share the hope of Jesus with people everywhere,
and right now, your.
Speaker 2 (24:45):
Gift will be doubled by the fifty.
Speaker 1 (24:47):
Thousand dollars matching grant. So please go to Pastororrick dot
com or text the word hope to seven h three
to ZHO nine. Again, go to Pastorrick dot com or
just text the word hope to seven Zho three Zho nine.
Speaker 2 (25:04):
Be sure to join us next time as we look
into God's word for our daily hope.
Speaker 1 (25:09):
This program is sponsored by Pastoris's Daily Hope and your
generous financial support
Hey, friends, thanks so much for joining us today on
Pastor Rick's Daily Hope, the Bible Teaching ministry of Pastor
Rick Warren. We're so glad to have you with us.
And today, Rick continues in his series called Transformed. Together,
We'll dive into God's Word and discover powerful principles that
can truly change our lives from the inside out spiritually, physically, mentally, emotionally, relationally, financially,
(00:31):
and vocationally.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
You'll experience how God's.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
Truth brings real transformation to every part of your life.
And now let's join Rick for the final part of
a message called from Stressed to Blessed number six.
Speaker 3 (00:47):
In the next verse a Psalm twenty three, David says,
I'm gonna let God be my defender. Let God be
my defender. Now. Another common source of stress is conflict, opposition, criticism, attacks.
(01:08):
And there are people in your life who simply don't
like you. There are people you work with they criticize you,
maybe out of jealousy, maybe out of fear. But maybe
there are people in life in your own family. Maybe
there's a family member who will not let you enjoy anything.
They just are always ragging on you. They're always putting
you down. They never have a positive word. If you
(01:31):
have any success, they downplay it, they minimize it. And
you've had these people in your life and they're always
attacking you, and they're always putting you down, and they're
always criticizing you. And when that happens, your natural response
is what attack back, criticize back, retaliate, get even. But
(01:55):
when you get even with somebody who's criticizing you, it
puts you on the same level. Now, if you've forgive them,
it puts you above them. But if you get even,
you're no better than they are. Now, because of the
pluralization in our society, we have people around us all
the time who totally disagree with us, people who live
(02:16):
with around you and work around you, who don't agree
with you and don't like you, and maybe don't even
like Jesus. And as a result, they will criticize you
and they will put you down. And there are other
reasons too too, not just because of that, but in
our society today, our civilization is losing its civility. The
(02:43):
world is getting more rude. Would you agree with that?
And one of the things that's causing that is the Internet.
Because the Internet allows you to hide behind anonymously, behind
the screen and spout all kinds of vile things against
other people, and things that people would never say to
you face to face. They wouldn't have the curious say.
(03:03):
They'll spout off and they will minimize you and belittle you,
and they'll be rude to you, and they'll criticize you,
and they will attack you on the internet. All they
are doing is revealing the smallness of their heart. Little
people be little people. Little people be little people. Great
(03:25):
people make people feel great. So when somebody is always
belittling other people, they are just revealing the smallness of
their heart that they have a little not for a
heart and they have to be little others thinking that's
going to make them feel better. How do you handle
rude people? How do you handle mean people? You don't?
(03:49):
You let God handle them. You let God be your defender. Now,
David is a pro at this because David knows what
it means to be attacked, not just emotionally or verbally,
but literally physically. In the story of King David, David,
as a young man, was anointed by Samuel, God's prophet
(04:11):
to be the next king of Israel, but it was
done in secret, so nobody knew about it. David knew
about it, his family knew about it. He knew he
was the rightful king. But then for the next years,
the better part of much of his life, he spends
it running from the first king who wants to kill him.
And he's hiding in caves, and he's being maligned, and
(04:33):
he's being demeaned, and he's being put down, and rumors
are being told about him. He's being criticized constantly. And
yet he never would say a bad word against the king.
He would never attack back, he would never retaliate. He
only said good. And God was preparing David to be
the king after his own heart. And David says, so
(04:57):
I'm twenty three verse five. Look at this verse you
prepare a table before me, in the presence of my enemies,
and you anoint my head with oil. My cup overflows.
What's David talking about here? It's a metaphor. He saying,
you know what, God is so good to me. He says,
(05:18):
I'm gonna give you, David, a banquet in front of
your enemies, and I'm going to anoint your head with oil,
which is a symbol that says I'm going to say
to the world, this is my guy. Back off, this
is the guy I've chosen. This is the guy who's
going to be the next leader. He anoints my head
with oil. My cup overflows. God, you are so good
to me, in spite of my attackers, in spite of
(05:40):
my critics, you just keep blessing me and blessing me
and blessing me. And he says, I'm just gonna trust you,
and I'm gonna let you be my defender. Saw I'm
eighteen verse one and two. David says this how I
love you. Lord. You are my defender against criticism and
everything else. You are my protector. You are my strong fortress.
(06:03):
In you, I am safe. You protect me like a shield.
Does David sound stressed out there? No, but he's riding
this in a cave. I'm not worried. God's in control.
God is my defender. I don't have to defend myself.
God will take care of me. Let me tell you something.
It takes a lot of faith to rest when you're
(06:25):
under attack. It takes a lot of faith to trust
God and just not defend yourself. When you're being maligned,
you're being misunderstood. You're being misjudged in your office by
other workers, Rumors are spreading about you, or people saying
things about you online. When that happens, everything in you
(06:48):
wants to rise up, saying I've got to do something
about this, I got to correct this, I got to
teach the truth when you're under attack. But it takes
faith to rest God. It also takes humility. It takes
humiliy to not retaliate, but to let God be your defender.
You are most like Christ when you remain silent under attack.
(07:13):
Jesus was constantly attacked, and who is the attack by
the religious people. The religious people did not like Jesus.
Common ordinary, everyday people they loved Jesus. The prostitutes, the pimps,
the tax collectors, the crooks, the thieves, the poor, all
(07:35):
the outcast people, the lepers, they all loved Jesus. It
was the religious people who could not stand Jesus. They
called them a glutton, They called them a drunk. They
called him a son of the devil, they called him
the devil himself. They said he came from the devil.
They said he's a false leader, false prophet, and on
and on and on. Jesus never ever retaliated, He never
(08:00):
got him back, he never corrected them. He just remained silent.
In fact, even right before he goes to the cross,
the saddest Sees and the Pharisees take Jesus into custody.
They make him a prisoner. They take him to the
Roman governor Pilot and they say the pilot, this guy
is trying to overthrow Rome. Now they couldn't even find
(08:23):
any witnesses to corroborate this. It was just a total
bogus lie. It was an attack. This guy is trying
to overthrow Rome. He wants your job. He's trying to
get rid of you. Pilot looks at Jesus, goes, is
that true? Is what they're in right? And Jesus, it
says quote. He spoke not a word unto him. He
(08:48):
wouldn't even dignify the accusation with the response. He remained
silent because he had entrusted himself to the care of
the Father. You are most like Christ when you remain
silent in criticism. Now tell you a little secret, and
I've learned this from experience. When you do this, you
(09:11):
end up gaining more power, more authority, more influence, more anointing.
Your critics actually end up helping you. They think they're
hurting you by criticizing you, but when you respond correctly,
it actually helps you. Because when people criticize you unjustly, falsely,
and they say all kinds of mean things about you,
(09:34):
Jesus said this blessed to you. When men shall revile
you and persecute you, and say all manner of evil
against you falsely, for my sake, rejoice and be exceeding glad,
for great is your reward in heaven. Not only are
you going to be rewarded in heaven, but God gives
you when you refuse to retaliate, but you respond in love.
(09:56):
You say nothing but good things about your critics. When
you do that, God gives you more power, gives you
more influence, gives you more authority, and gives you more anointing.
Your critics end up actually helping you. Is that cool
or what? So? Then that's how you can thank God
for your critics, Because thank you God for these critics,
(10:18):
because it allows me an opportunity to be more like Jesus,
which means I'm going to get more love, more power,
more grace than my life more blessing, and they end
up actually causing you to be more blessed than before.
You're blessed, not stressed. Peter has a good way to
say this one Peter four nineteen. So, if you're suffering
according to God's will, keep on doing what is right.
(10:42):
By the way, notice some suffering is God's will. Some
people say, well, suffering is never God's will. Well, they
just haven't read the Bible, because it says it right there.
Some suffering is God's will. If you're suffering according to
God's will, keep on doing what is right and trust
yourself to the God who made you, or he will
never fail you. Now, there's one more common source of stress,
(11:06):
and that is fearing the future. And so the seventh
thing David says in this beautiful psalm is I expect
God to finish what he starts in me. I expect
God to finish what he starts in me. Now, are
you a person who's afraid of the future? Are you
(11:27):
a what ifer? You're always what ifing? What if this happened?
What if this went wrong? What if that went bad?
What if? What if? What if? If? You're a what ifer?
It leads to enormous amount of stress in your life.
It's unnecessary stress. Because here's what David says. So I'm
(11:48):
twenty three verse six. Surely goodness and love. Goodness and
love will follow me all the days of my life.
That's what I've got to look forward to. Goodness and
love will follow me all the days of my life,
and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.
I'm going to heaven anyway. You know, when a shepherd
(12:10):
has a flock of sheep, he uses a couple of
sheep dogs. He's leading it from the front, and the
sheep dogs are at the back, keeping everybody kind of
in line. And these twin sheep dogs of mercy and
love or goodness and love, or like little sheep dogs
in your life following along through your life? Is that
what you expect? Are you? When you can eave to
(12:34):
look at your future on two ways? You could say, man,
what if everything goes wrong? What if I don't have
enough money, what if I lose my job, what if
somebody walks out on me? What if? What if? What if?
What if? You can do that, or you can look
at the future and say, surely goodness and love will
follow me all the days of my life and I'll
dwell in the house of the Lord forever. Those are
your options. You need to see it from God's viewpoint,
(12:56):
or you can see it from your fearful anxiety. How
do you lower the stress? You say, I'm going to
expect God to finish what he starts, and even if
everything went wrong in my life, I'm still going to heaven.
I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. Now,
what do you expect? What you expect? There's a word
(13:17):
for that. It's called a goal. And that's why I remember.
I'm trying to get you each week to set one
goal during fifty days of transformation. If you don't set goals,
you're not living by faith, because goals are statements of faith.
Set a goal for your physical health and your spiritual
Next week, we're going to look at emotional and mental
(13:39):
and spiritual, all these other areas. He said, I'm just
tired of the pace I've been living. I can't maintain this.
It's not sustainable, it's not satisfying, it's not even any fun.
And we'll deal with those in the weeks ahead. I
don't know what burden you're caring. I don't know what's
weighing you down? But I do know the answer. The
(14:04):
last verse on your outline, Jesus says this, come to me.
Come to me, not come to church, not come to class,
not come to clinic. Come to me. Jesus says, all
you that are weary and carrying heavy burdens, and I
(14:25):
will give you more work to do. I think some
people actually think that's what the verse says. Come to me,
if you're weary and carrying heavy burdens, and Jesus says,
I will give you what circle that rest rest. Take
(14:46):
my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I'm
gentle and humble in heart, and you'll find rest for
your souls, for my yoke is easy and my burden
is lieing. For many years I never understood that verse
first place. As a kid, I didn't know what a
yoke was. I thought it was like the part around
(15:09):
the egg, okay, right in the middle of the egg.
A yoke is a board that is stretched with two
arches in it, that you put over two cattle, so
the two cattle will pull a cart. The value of
a yoke is it halves the load. Without a yolk,
(15:32):
you got one cow, got to pull that entire load
by itself. But if you yoke up the cow with
another cow, then the two cows together pull the load together,
and the load is half as heavy. That makes sense.
So when Jesus says, take my yoke up on you,
I didn't know. I just thought it was like sounded
(15:53):
to me like, oh, he's gonna give me something else
I gotta deal with. Take my yolk. I got a
heavy enough burden myself. Lord, I don't need to take
your problems on me. That's not what at all that
he's saying when he says take my yoke upon you.
He's not saying I'm going to give you my problem.
Jesus doesn't have any problems. He said, take my yoke
(16:17):
upon you. I'm going to share your problem. I'm going
to share your load. I'm going to take your stress
and I'm going to pull it with you. Wow. Now
he says three verbs in this verse. He says come,
(16:38):
he says, learn, and take. He says, come to me Jesus,
and he says, take the yoke on you. Team up
with me, and then learn how I do it. This
is going to lighten your load. This is going to
(16:58):
reduce your stress. This is going to make it easier
for you to navigate. Now write this down. When I'm
yoked with Christ, we move together, because you're obviously yoked together.
We move together in the same direction and at the
same speed. And those two are the problems that you have.
(17:20):
You're going in the wrong direction and you're going at
the wrong speed. But when yoke up with Christ, you
will go in the right direction, and you will go
at the speed that you can handle. And when you're
yoked to Christ, you're not going to go off in
a ditch, because he's going to keep you on the
right path. And when you're yoked to Christ, you're not
going to run too fast and burn yourself out. Because
(17:44):
you're yoked to Christ. You need to come to him.
Now that's bower heads Lord. I know there are many
people who are tired and worn by the pace of
modern living. And I know, Father, that of these different
stresses that we've looked at, so many of them can
(18:08):
be seen right here in our midst today. We know
that many people are stressed out, stressed out by worry,
by fear, by conflict, by criticism, by indecision, by the
rudeness of people around them, by a crowded schedule, by
(18:30):
overwork all of these different things. And Lord, if we
just do it your way, life would be so much easier.
If we would practice the Ten Commandments, if we would
keep the sabbath, to rest our bodies, refocus our spirit,
recharge our emotions. If we would fill our souls with
beauty not ugliness. If we would hear sounds of beauty
(18:55):
and see scenes of beauty rather than filling our mind
with so much negative news and negative talk shows and
all of the conflict that is in the media. Today, Lord,
I pray that each of these steps that David took
that we would take today. Now you pray, Would you pray? Say,
(19:20):
Dear God, in your mind, just say I want to
look to you to meet all my needs. I know
that there's no person who could possibly meet all my emotional, spiritual, mental,
physical needs. The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not
want and God, starting today, I'm going to obey your
(19:42):
instructions about rest. You make me lie down in green pastures,
help me to fill my soul and my surroundings with beauty,
with art, with music that you have given for the
expression of emotions. Thank you that you make me lay
down in green meadows and beside calm, quiet waters. And Father,
(20:07):
those things that I don't know what to do. And
when I'm just confused and I lack the wisdom, help
me to go to you for guidance. Father, I need
your wisdom in the days ahead. And when I go
through dark valleys, help me not to be afraid of
(20:29):
the shadow, but to turn to the light and look
into your eyes Jesus. And when I'm ready to give up,
you know what I should do. And Father, when I
feel like I'm under attack, and when I feel like
others are against me, would you be my defender. Help
(20:51):
me to speak no words of unkindness, but to return
good for evil, to pray for those who persecute, to
love those who hate, to do good to those who
do evil. Would you be my defender, my protector, my fortress.
(21:11):
Would you protect me like a shield and let me
trust you? And God, I'm going to expect you to
finish what you start in me. And rather than what
if in the future, I'm going to say, surely, goodness
and mercy will follow me all the days of my life,
(21:32):
and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. Jesus,
you said to come to you, So I come to you,
and I want to take your yoke on me. I
want to team up with you. I want to learn
of you, and I want to move forward in the
direction and in the pace that you choose. Slow me down, Lord,
(21:56):
that I may see your plan for my life. Jesus Christ,
I invite you to take over every area of my
life and my mind and replace my stress with your serenity.
In your name, I pray amen.
Speaker 2 (22:18):
Hey, if you've just prayed along with Rick to accept
Jesus in your life, Rick would love to hear from you.
Just email Rick at Pastorick dot com. And now this
is really one of my favorite parts of the broadcast.
This is letters from our listeners, and now here's Rick.
Speaker 3 (22:35):
Today. I want to share with you a very special
testimony from one of our listeners named Marquita, and thanks
to Daily Hope and your support, she recently asked Jesus
Christ to be the leader of her life. Here's her story. So,
Pastor Rick, I wanted to let you know that I
have prayed the prayer of salvation that you included in
(22:55):
the Deepening the Eyes of Faith message. I've been listening
to your messages for years. In fact, my child wouldn't
even be here today if it weren't for your words.
You wrote, there may be accidental parents, but there are
no accidental children. Well, I've given birth to a beautiful
baby girl, and she's the light of my life. In fact,
(23:17):
it now hurts to remember a time that I was
fighting to decide whether I was going to have her
or not. But I repeated your words throughout my pregnancy.
There are accidental parents, but they're no accidental children. And
although I'm a single mom today, with the support of
my family, we're thriving. I want to make sure that
she grows up to find her purpose and to serve God.
(23:40):
So thanks for renewing my faith in God. And as
I still try to find and fulfill my purpose, please
pray for me and my child. Wow, Marquita, you are
so right. God does have a plan and a purpose
for every single baby. There are no accidental babies. So
(24:02):
I want to take a moment right now and just
pray for you in this broadcast. Pray for you and
for your daughter. Lord, I'm asking you right now to
put your hand of protection, your hand of blessing, your
hand of guidance on Marquita and her daughter, and I'm
praying for both of them to know your purpose, to
(24:24):
feel your presence, to discover your power, to live in
your plan for each of their lives. In Jesus' name.
Speaker 1 (24:36):
Amen, you know when you give a gift to Daily Hope,
you're helping share the hope of Jesus with people everywhere,
and right now, your.
Speaker 2 (24:45):
Gift will be doubled by the fifty.
Speaker 1 (24:47):
Thousand dollars matching grant. So please go to Pastororrick dot
com or text the word hope to seven h three
to ZHO nine. Again, go to Pastorrick dot com or
just text the word hope to seven Zho three Zho nine.
Speaker 2 (25:04):
Be sure to join us next time as we look
into God's word for our daily hope.
Speaker 1 (25:09):
This program is sponsored by Pastoris's Daily Hope and your
generous financial support
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