Daily Hope - Rick Warren

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Hello, and welcome to Pastor Rick's Daily Hope. This is
the Bible teaching ministry of Rick Warren. Hey, we're so
glad you've joined us today. We're continuing a powerful series
called Radicalis Developing Spiritual Roots, And in this series, Rick
will show you how to grow deep in your faith,
stay grounded in God's word, and become everything He created

(00:25):
you to be. So let's join Rick right now for
the final part of a message called Radical Love.

Speaker 2 (00:31):
The Book of Titus says the free gift, it's free
gift of eternal salvation is offered to who who everyone.
Notice there's no mention of religion there. He does say
this is only offered to this religion or to that religion,
or to this group or to that group or that nationality.
It says, this is offered to everyone, the friends. I

(00:53):
don't really care what your religious background is. You may
be Catholic, Protestant, you may be Jewish, you may be
Muslim or Mormon, or Buddhist or Baptist or Hindu. You
may be atheist or agnostic. I don't really care what
your religious background is. Jesus still died for you the
free gift of eternal salvation is offered to everyone. Doesn't

(01:17):
matter at all what your religious background is, because it's
not about religion. It's about a relationship to Christ. Look
at the next verse. It makes no difference who you
are or where you're from. If you want God and
you're ready to do as he says, the door is open.
He says, there regardless of your ethnic background, regardless of

(01:37):
your economic background, regardless of your educational background, doesn't matter
who you are, what you've done, or who you've done
it with, or how long you did it. Scott says,
I'm not interested in that. It's all about whoever believes
on Him shall not perish. He says, it's about what
I've done for you. It's not about what you do
for me. It's amazing grace for every ray. Jesus is

(02:00):
an equal opportunity savior. How do I accept this offer?
Whoever believes in Him shall not perish. We'll notice the
next verse. The Bible says this, If you confess with
your mouth Jesus is Lord, and you believe in your
heart that God raised him from the dead, that's what

(02:20):
Easter is all about.

Speaker 3 (02:21):
You will be saved. Now.

Speaker 2 (02:23):
The problem with that verse we don't understand the meaning
of the word lord because we don't. We're not in
a feudal system today. We're in a democracy in America.
We elect our presidents and our congressmen and our senators.

Speaker 3 (02:36):
So we're not in a world.

Speaker 2 (02:37):
Of kings and queens and lords and ladies and your lordship.
We don't have vassals and counts and serfs and knights
and pages and lords. So the word lord is not
a word that we use it frequently in our language.
So what does it mean when I say I'm going
to confess Jesus is my lord. What's the modern component

(02:59):
to it? The modern comparison is, Jesus is my manager,
my CEO, the chairman of my board. He's my boss,
he's my supervisor. He's calling the shots in my life.
Jesus is sitting in the driver's seat in my car.

(03:21):
Jesus is the pilot of my plane. He is directing it.
When you say Jesus is lord, the best description of
that is you put on a sign that says I'm
under new management. I'm under new management. See before I
opened my life to Christ, I was managing my own life.
Wasn't doing a very good job of it because I

(03:42):
was managing my own life. So I kept hitting a
bunch of dead ends. I had broken relationships, had a
lot of stress, a lot of worry, a lot of difficulty.
I had a lot of regrets in my life, unnecessary tension.
I really wasn't quite sure of what my purpose in
life was because I was managing my own life. And
at one point I said, Okay, time out. I'm not
doing that hot a job. Whether I think, I'm gonna

(04:02):
go with God because he made me, He loves me,
he created me, He knows what'll make me happy more
than I do.

Speaker 3 (04:10):
He sent his son to die for me. He wants
me to live with him in heaven.

Speaker 2 (04:13):
I think I'll let him be the manager of my
life under new management. That's what it means to say
Jesus is the lord of my life. He says, if
you'll do that, if you'll say that, and then if
you will believe in your heart God raised him for
the dead. Notice it doesn't say believe in your head,
believe in your heart. Why because a lot of people

(04:34):
miss heaven by eighteen inches. They got it up here
in their brain, but they don't have it here in
their heart. In other words, they have an intellectual understanding
of Jesus, but they have no heart or emotional commitment.
So he just said, oh, I believe in Jesus.

Speaker 3 (04:48):
Isn't enough.

Speaker 2 (04:50):
Oh I believe Jesus died on the cross. I believe
he rose fer sins, and I mean to shoot the
devil believes that.

Speaker 3 (04:57):
But you're not gonna find him in heaven of America.

Speaker 2 (05:00):
Say, oh, shoot, I believe Jesus was who he said
he was. Our whole calendar split into AD and BC
by the life of Christ. But that's not enough. What
does it really mean to believe? The word here in
Greek and the original translation means it's pistevo or pastuo.
It means to trust in, to cling to, to rely on.

(05:22):
It means to have a relationship with That's what God
wants is a relationship with you. I could mention a
bunch of famous people that I could say I know
that person. You would know who I'm talking about, But
I don't really know them. I don't know what makes
them tick. I don't know their internal workings. I certainly
don't have an intimate relationship with him. But I know

(05:44):
Jesus Christ. I've known him for forty years. He's my
best friend. I talked to him all the time, just
like I'm talking to you. In fact, I was talking
to him about you just a few minutes ago. And
I don't have to close my eyes and I don't
have to say the Now I've developed the friendship that
I can hear God speak to me in my heart
and in my head, and I can talk to him.
And you can do this too. God sent Christ not

(06:07):
to give you a religion. God sent Christ to give
you a relationship. In fact, what did Jesus come to do?
Look on the screen. Jesus said this. I didn't come
to judge the world, but to save it. Now, that's
a whole, big different picture of God than most people have.
Most people think God sits up in heaven waiting to
catch you doing something wrong just so he can judge you,

(06:29):
just so he can tell you what you did wrong,
just so he can put you down, just so we
can tell you should have done this, you should have
done that, you must do this, you shouldn't have done that,
you shouldn't have done that. Friends, that's not God, that's
your parent. Don't confuse an unpleasable parent with God. A
lot of people take their idea of their parents and
put it on God and think God is unpleasable.

Speaker 3 (06:50):
God is not mad at you. He's mad about you.

Speaker 2 (06:52):
God so loved the world that he sent his son
to die for you. Nobody's ever sent anybody to die
for you except God. That whosoever believes in him. That's
the great gift. I did not come to judge the world,
but to save it. And it really doesn't matter what
you've done. You know, over the many years here at Saddleback,

(07:14):
over twenty thousand adults have said, I confess Jesus as
my Lord. I believe in my heart. I'm opening my
life to Christ. I'm stepping across the line. I'm becoming
a part of God's family. Over twenty thousand people just
in this church, over one thousand of them have come
across this stage and told their stories. And those you've

(07:35):
been here for years know that you've heard the most
amazing stories you've ever heard of life transformation. Only God
can make those changes. I thought this Christmas we'd put
the testimony on video. Leo was a Cuban mafia in Miami.
He was a drug runner, making a lot of money

(07:56):
selling cocaine and then he found how to opened his
life to Christ and it was revolutionized and changed. I
want you to hear his story. Listen to this.

Speaker 4 (08:07):
I was born in Cuba and at the age of eleven,
my parents brought us to the United States. We lived
in the city of New Orleans, where I lived there
for over twenty years. There I went to school, and
in nineteen seventy seven, after having graduated from high school,
I decided to move to Miami. This was the disco mecca,

(08:28):
something that I was very involved in that was really
my lifestyle. I met a man named Manny who would
turn out to be my best friend. One night, as
we went out, we walked into this club and there
was this guy that was causing a lot of attention
and had all the girls around him, and as we
got closer, it turned out to be Manny's uncle. He

(08:49):
invited us to his table and we hung out that night,
and it wasn't long before he offered us if we'd
be interested in come to work for him. We would
get on a fast boat and we will drive out
to the open ocean where we will meet a mother boat.
This boat would unload these big pailts of drugs and

(09:10):
we will hold them in and we would get paid
big amounts of money. After a while, we graduated to
working out to be distributing cocaine. And if we're making
a lot of money running the boats, this time of
money duplicated and here we are money and I out
there the disco with more money in our pockets than

(09:31):
we know what to do well. There was a lot
of competition, and there was a lot of bloodshed, and
the streets of Miami got very dangerous, and I found
myself caught up in this business of money and blood.
I would literally walk over their bodies and left person
that I knew behind to die. I spent close to

(09:54):
three or four years as a fugitive. Peace wasn't part
of my life. Love wasn't part of my life. Was
something that was foreign because you didn't trust anybody. It's
during this time that I was hiding out. If you
were in the bar, that I meet this beautiful girl
that is tay years younger than me. I wasn't now

(10:16):
to meet anybody. I wasn't out for a relationship, and
I kind of actually ran away from her, even though
there was a sense that there was something special about her.
In nineteen eighty nine, the law finally caught up with
me and I ended up doing close to five years
in a federal institution in Tallahassee. I got out of

(10:36):
prison and I did my time. While at a restaurant
one night, I ran into Doris's stepfather and this is
when he breakicing the news that Doris has been waiting
for me all this time and she never gave up,
and she invited me to come to church with her.
Next day, he I'm sitting at church, and I'm sitting

(10:57):
by myself because she was part of the choir. And
I don't know how this came about, but next thing
I know, I was up front, crying like a baby,
giving my life to Jesus. I had a hard time
understanding why will God receive me after the lifestyle that
I lived, How he will love on me and accept me.

(11:21):
That beautiful girl that I met that dark night in
my life is today my wife. Come June sixth, it
will be a fourteenth anniversary out of this love union.
We have two beautiful children, Samuel, or my little man,
he's thirteen, and Teresa, my baby girl, she's seven. So,
as I have shared this with you, I only had

(11:43):
done it with one thing in mind. And it's known
that if I went through all of these changes, and
I did all of this, and yet he received me.
I know that doesn't matter what it is that you've done.
Doesn't matter what it is that you have gone through,
or even someone you love that will hold you, that
will keep you away from that will separate you from

(12:04):
the love of our most wonderful creator, the Lord Jesus Christ.

Speaker 2 (12:10):
Now you may think God would never accept me, Well,
he accepted Leo. Only God can make changes like that. Now,
let's review the greatest verse in the world. God so
loved you, the greatest love that he gave his only
begotten son, the greatest sacrifice. Nobody's ever made that kind

(12:32):
of sacrifice for you, that whoever believes in him should
not perish. That's the greatest offer. But have eternal life.
That's the greatest gift. You know, you get a lot
of gifts at Christmas that don't last six months, much
less sixty years. Some of your gifts, most of your
gifts you can't even remember what you got last year.

(12:53):
This is a gift that will last forever, eternal life.
Now what does that mean, you say, Well, is like
going to heaven. Oh yeah, it involves heaven. But eternal
life is far more than just duration. It involves donation.
It's a quality of life. In fact, there are three
parts to eternal life. It begins the moment you open
your heart to Christ. It's your past, it's your present,

(13:14):
in your future. It's three dimensional. Now listen very closely.
When you invite Christ into your life and accept this salvation,
three things happen. You get your past forgiven, you get
a purpose for living, You get a home in heaven.
It takes care of your past, your present, your future,
past forgiven, everything you've ever done wrong, wiped out purpose
for living while you're here on earth, home in heaven

(13:37):
for eternity. Where are you going to get a deal
like that? Only God can make that kind of offer
to you. And it is the free gift. And it's
what Christmas is all about. Do you know why we
give gifts at Christmas? It's because God gave us the
first gift, the first gift of his son, Jesus Christ,
and we give gifts in response to that. The whole

(13:57):
idea of gift giving started because God gave you the
first gift. Now, how silly would it be to go
Christmas after Christmas, after Christmas, after Christmas, after Christmas, after Christmas,
and never open your biggest gift, God's gift to you
the whole reason for Christmas.

Speaker 3 (14:14):
God so loved the world that he gave.

Speaker 2 (14:17):
His son that if you will believe in Him, you
will not perish, but have everlasting life, past, forgiven, purpose
for living home in heaven. Look up what the Bible says,
because Jesus was raised from the dead, we have been
given a brand new life. That's the past completely, you know,
wiped out. Get a new life, have everything to live

(14:37):
for that's the present, and have a future in heaven.
That's the future, and the future starts now. I wonder
how many of these dimensions are you living in right now?
Has your past been forgiven? Are you still carrying around grilt, regrets, resentment,
and grudges? Don't carry those into the new decade? Leave

(14:57):
them here, let them go the God. Are you living
with a purpose in life or you're just going to
be in drifting around being pressured. So you'll either live
by purpose or live by pressure in life? How about heaven?
Are you certain of your home in heaven? Are you
afraid of death. I'm not afraid of death. I've been
afraid of death for years. He says, I want to

(15:18):
give you these things, and not only that, you become
a part of God's family. The Bible says this, God's
unchanging plan has always been to adopt us into his
own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ.
Now follow me very closely on this. Everybody in the
world is created by God. Everybody in the world is

(15:41):
loved by God. But not everybody in the world is
in the family of God. Because that's a choice. God's
not going to force you to love him. You must
choose to love his son to get in his family,
and he's not going to force you to do that.
You see, when you were born physically, you automatically became
a part of the human You didn't have a choice. Sorry,

(16:02):
you're part of the human race, but you didn't become
a part of any specific family till somebody chose to
take you home from the hospital.

Speaker 3 (16:11):
You must choose to be a.

Speaker 2 (16:12):
Part of God's family. Now, what would keep me from
accepting this gift. Well, there are a couple of things.
One of them is feared. I wish somebody had told
me a long time ago that I didn't have to
have all my doubts answered and all my questions saw
before I began a relationship with Jesus Christ, I would
have done it a whole lot sooner. I just didn't

(16:34):
understand that. You see, I've been a friend of Christ
for over forty years now, and I read this book,
the Bible. There's still a lot of stuff in here
I don't understand. There's still things I have doubts about.
I have questions about. In fact, I've made a list,
and when I get to Heaven, I'm going to ask God, now,
why did you do this? And why did you say this?
And why did you do that? And you see, if

(16:55):
I had been God, I wouldn't have done that. You
ought to be glad I'm not God. I'm glad you're
not God. But there are a lot of things I
don't understand that I have doubts I have questions about.

Speaker 3 (17:06):
So what.

Speaker 2 (17:08):
That didn't stop me from enjoying a relationship with Christ.
There's not a single other area in your life where
you have to have everything figured out before you enjoy
the bit of it. You certainly didn't understand what it
meant to be a parent before you became a parent.
I mean, you get on planes all the time. I
doubt you understand how the physics of aerospace and aerodynamics.

(17:34):
I certainly don't know how a multi ton engine can
fly up in the air, but I still trust the
plane to get me somewhere. You don't understand how all
a plane works, but you trusted to get you somewhere.
I don't understand how right now there are radio and
TV waves coming through this auditorium and with sound and pictures,

(17:55):
and they're actually going through your body right now. I
can't prove it, but they are. But if I have
a tune or I can tune it in, and it
doesn't stop me from watching television just because.

Speaker 3 (18:03):
I don't understand how it works.

Speaker 2 (18:07):
I don't understand internal combustion doesn't stop me from driving
a car. Shoot, I don't understand the chemistry of digestion
or taste buds, but it doesn't stop me from eating
a cinnabon. How about if I said I'm never gonna
eat till I understand digestion, well, I'm never gonna happen.

(18:28):
You don't have to understand it all. You just have
to enjoy what you got, and over the time you'll
get to understand it.

Speaker 3 (18:34):
Better and better.

Speaker 2 (18:36):
One of my favorite stories in the Bible is this
guy comes to Jesus one day and he's just an
honest guy, and he says, Lord, my daughter's sick and
I really.

Speaker 3 (18:45):
She needs to be healed.

Speaker 2 (18:48):
And Jesus looks at the guy and says, do you
believe I could heal her? And I love this guy
because he's honest, he's authentic. He says, well, I want
to believe. Help with my doubt. That's a classic answer,
I want to believe. Help me with my doubt. And

(19:08):
Jesus says that's good enough, bam, and he heals her.
Did you know that you can say that today, this Christmas,
that gift that's been under the Christmas tree every year
of your life and you've never unwrapped it, the gift
of salvation. You can say, I want to believe, help
me with my doubt, and Jesus will say that's good enough.
The other reason that keeps us from making that acceptance

(19:31):
of God's gift Christmas gift us is actually hurt because
when we get hurt, and everybody gets hurt in life,
we typically build walls around us, and we say it,
I'm never again gonna let any woman hurt me. I'm
never gonna again let any man hurt me. I'm never
gonna again let anybody get close to me. I'm not
gonna get suckered. I'm not gonna And we build up

(19:52):
these walls, and sometimes we even build up barriers against God.
Now God hadn't hurt you. Other people have hurt you.
We say, well, my brother died, so you get mad
at God. Or I had a friend who died in
the war, so you get mad at God. God didn't
cause that. Most of it happens in the world is
not God's will. That's why we were to pray Thy
will be done on earth. Most of the things that

(20:14):
happen is my will, your will, and the will of
other sinful people, and all the problems God's going.

Speaker 3 (20:18):
Why are you guys doing that?

Speaker 2 (20:22):
Now you can stop it, real simple, take away your
free will and everybody else's.

Speaker 3 (20:27):
But he wants us to have a choice.

Speaker 2 (20:32):
Maybe you've been hurt in a marriage, Maybe you've been
hurt in a business. Maybe you've been hurt by a
friend who betrayed you. Maybe you've been hurt by religion,
maybe by a church. Maybe you've been hurt by saddleback church,
this church.

Speaker 3 (20:48):
I'm sorry. I'm sorry if you've been hurt. But let
me give you a little friendly advice.

Speaker 2 (20:55):
Don't ever let the sins of other people keep you
from God.

Speaker 3 (21:00):
That's stupid. God didn't hurt you.

Speaker 2 (21:04):
Don't ever let the sins of other people keep you
from God. You know, Kay went shopping this week for
Christmas shopping. When she came home, she'd been to Macy's
and I was interested that the cover of the Macy's
bag says A million reasons to believe. That's interesting Christmas,

(21:25):
a million reasons to believe. But you know the truth is,
you don't need a million reasons to believe. You only
need one reason to believe. God loves you. He made you,
he created you, He loves you. He sent his son
to die for you, and he did it all because

(21:45):
God so loved you.

Speaker 3 (21:49):
It's bow our heads. Father.

Speaker 2 (21:54):
I want to thank you for your amazing love for us,
for your grace. I thank you that you love us
even when we don't deserve it. Thank you that, even
when we don't feel it, that you are consistent when
we're inconsistent. And Lord, there are people here today who
know about you, but they don't really know you. They
don't have a friendship with you like I do. They
don't have a personal relationship with you. You seem distant,

(22:17):
detached to them. So today I pray that they will experience,
not just know, but experience your love completely and receive
your Christmas gift. Now you pray, just doesn't matter what
you say, just say yes to God. Say yes, you're
confessing Jesus as the Lord of your life. He said, Well,

(22:39):
I don't know what to pray. Okay, I'll say some
words and if this makes sense to you, you say
me too.

Speaker 3 (22:44):
God.

Speaker 2 (22:48):
Dear God, I haven't talked to you in a long time,
maybe never, But I thank you for loving me, thank
you for wanting me, thank you for creating me. I
admit that I often take your love and the good
things you've done in my life for granted, and I'm sorry,
and I want to be more grateful this Christmas. I

(23:11):
want to accept the Christmas gift of your son, Jesus Christ.

Speaker 3 (23:16):
God.

Speaker 2 (23:16):
I don't understand it all, but as much as I
know how, I want to open my life to you.

Speaker 3 (23:23):
I want to be under new management.

Speaker 2 (23:26):
Jesus Christ, I need you to be my savior because
I know I'm not perfect and I could never get
into heaven on my own. So I want to ask
you to forgive my past. I ask you to give
me a purpose in the present, and I ask you
to give me a home in heaven in the future.

(23:47):
And I want to learn to trust you and love you. Amen.

Speaker 1 (23:56):
Wow, thank you Rick for that amazing message. And you
know people are being transformed by these messages every day,
but that's only because of your partnership with us. In fact,
here's Rick to share some important news with you.

Speaker 2 (24:10):
Let's be honest about this time of year. At the
end of every year, there are so many ministries that
ask for you to support them in the end of
your giving. And you know what, we believe in every
ministry that proclaims the name of Jesus, and we thank
God for them. And I know it can be difficult
to decide who to give to, So let me just

(24:31):
give you some biblical foundations for giving, some simple guidelines
for end of your giving. You might think of these
three or four things. Number one, give to the ministry
that God tells you to support.

Speaker 3 (24:44):
Go to God.

Speaker 2 (24:45):
Pray to him, ask him, say God, who do you
want me to support?

Speaker 3 (24:49):
And you know what?

Speaker 2 (24:49):
I support you giving to whoever God tells you to
give to. And if it's not Daily Hope, I still
support you to give to who God tells you to
give to. So pray and ask God. Second, never give
when you feel pressured. The Bible says in Corinthians that
we are to never give under pressure or compulsion or
under guilt. So if you ever feel guilty about giving,

(25:11):
don't give because God tells you in the Word not
to give at that time. Give because you want to give,
not out of guilt or pressure. Number three, give to
where you support and believe in the goals of that
particular ministry. Now every ministry has different goals. But if
you believe in and have a heart for going to

(25:33):
the last, the least, and the loss, this would be
a ministry you should consider supporting and then finally give
where your gift will be multiplied. For instance, at the
end of every year, there is a donor to Daily
Hope who offers to give a matching grant to apply
to any donation that we receive before the end of

(25:53):
the year. Now what this means is that for every
dollar you are able to give this month to Daily Hope,
it's going to be doubled. That donor will match it.
That multiplies your gift. Like the little boy who brought
his loaves and fishes to Jesus, and Jesus read the
five thousand. If you give twenty five dollars to Daily
Hope this month, the matching grant will match it at

(26:15):
twenty five dollars. If you're able to give one hundred dollars,
the matching grant will add another one hundred dollars. That
multiplies your gift. I would consider that as a factor
in where to give during this month. Now let me
just say this. If you can't help us financially, that's okay,
I understand, but I would ask that you pray for us.

(26:37):
I'm so grateful for those of you who are a
financial supporter of this ministry that monthly giving, month after month.
It means so much to me, it means much to God,
but it means so much for eternity to those who
are hearing the good news for the very first time.
And so you and I are partners together in reaching
people for Christ all around the world. Closing, let me

(27:00):
just ask you to continue to pray, pray for me
as I pray for you, and pray that God's word
will be taught clearly, with compassion, with clarity, with simplicity
in this new year, and then it will not only
help you as you listen to these broadcasts, but it
will help us reach people for Christ and disciple believers

(27:21):
and build churches all around the world, especially in the
tribes that have never heard the name of Christ. Thanks
for your generosity, thanks for your prayers, and God bless.

Speaker 1 (27:31):
You all this month, every dollar you give to help
Daily Hope share the transforming love of Jesus with people
around the world will be matched up to one hundred
thousand dollars. You can give right now by going to
Pastorrick dot com, or you can just text the word
hope to seven oh three to oh nine. Again, that's

(27:52):
pastor Rick dot com. Or just text the word hope
to seven oh three oh nine and thank you so
much for your so be sure to join us next
time as we look into God's Word for our daily hope.
This program is sponsored by Pastorc's Daily Hope and your
generous financial support