Rick Warren - Learn From the Past to Walk Forward With God Part 2

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
We've been looking at the life of Daniel, who lived
about twenty five hundred years ago. At fifteen years of age,
he was taken as a prisoner of war to the
Babylonian Empire with about twenty five percent of the Jewish nation.
But there he just continued to pass every test of life,
and when he was eighty five seventy years later, he
is the second most powerful man in the most powerful

(00:22):
empire in the world. Daniel had developed his reputation as
being the go to guy because he was the wisest
man in the empire. In fact, let's go back and
let me show you what the queen and the King
said about this guy here on the screen. The queen
said this, this man Daniel, has a sharp mind, and

(00:42):
he's filled with knowledge and understanding, and he can interpret dreams.
He can explain the meaning of mysteries being solved difficult problems.
So call for Daniel and he'll tell you what it means.
And so they put out the call, SOS, bring Daniel in.
And when he gets into the the banquet hall, this
is what the king said the next verse. I have

(01:04):
heard Daniel that the spirit of God is in you,
that you possess brilliant knowledge and extraordinary wisdom, not incredible reputation.
I mean, think about that. Note those three things. He says,
You've got God's spirit in you. You are You're brilliant
in your knowledge, and you're extraordinary in your wisdom. Wouldn't

(01:25):
you like to have people say that about you? Yeah, well,
if you would, you picked a good weekend to come
to church, because that's what we're going to look at.
How do you become wise? Like Daniel? God used this guy,
Daniel because he was wise. But wisdom is a choice,

(01:46):
and you can choose to become wise through learning and
through study and dedication and prayer. And the Bible's got
a lot to say about wisdom and learning. We could
spend an entire six months on this one, but let
me just show you one verse. Here's a verse up
here on the screen job chapter eight, Verse eight, verse nine.

(02:07):
It says this, ask the former generations and find out
what their fathers learned. For we were born only yesterday
and we know so little. He says, I want you
to go out and ask the former generations. You need
to learn the lessons of people who came before you.

(02:27):
Become a student of history, the more you understand what's
happened to pass, It's all been done before, just in
various fronts. Well, we saw that three hundred years ago,
we saw that nine hundred years ago, we saw that
fifteen hundred years ago. And the more you know it
builds your your foundation. The Bible says, listen to the
past generations and learn from them, and learn from biographies,

(02:50):
which is why so much of this book, the Bible,
it's stories. It's filled with biographies. Now these aren't These
aren't fairy tales Little Peter Cottontale and you know, Jeopardy
Rabbit or something. These are real people. Moses was real,
and Ebiconezer was real, Daniel was real, Jesus was real.
These are people that actually happened. And the reason I

(03:11):
love the Bible because it always tells the truth. It
didn't just share the good stuff about them. He tells
all of the you know, the bad stuff too, is
he goes, well, okay, then I can relate to that.
In fact, all of these life lessons that are in
this book you need. And the more you know these,
the wiser you're going to be. The wiser you're going

(03:32):
to be. In fact, look at this next verse on
your outline. Why what the Bible says about itself? First Corinthians,
chapter ten. These things talking about the stuff that's in
the Bible. These things occurred as examples to warn us
and to keep us from wanting to do the same
evil kind of things they did. For the scripture says

(03:53):
that we should avoid drunken party, sexual immorality, worshiping things
that aren't God. We should test. We should not test
the Lord's patience or grumble and complain as some did,
and they died. And he said these things happened as examples,
and they were written down as warnings for us. So

(04:14):
these are the first two things. Make a commitment to
never stop learning, learn the lessons of the prior generations.
Number three, the Bible says, maintain a humble attitude that
honors God. Maintain throughout your life a humble attitude that
honors God. I said it earlier. Humility and teachability actually

(04:34):
go together. Be humble or you'll stumble. The more humble
you are, the less you'll stumble. The Bible says, pride
goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall. Now,
humility begins by simply realizing you're not God. If you
ever get under stress, repeat this three times and call
me God is God and I'm not. God is God,
and I'm not. God is God and I'm not. You

(04:56):
need to realize you're not God, and you need to
realize you need God. That's humility. If you don't realize that,
you're not a humble person. Now, the Bible says in
Proverbs fifteen this verse thirty three, reverence for the Lord
is an education in itself. You must be humble before

(05:17):
you can ever receive honors. So he said, you know,
you want to start out with a lifelong goal to
be wise. Get to know God. And the more you
get to know God, the more you get to know
His word, You're going to simply be a wiser person.
You'll be wiser in relationships. You'll be wiser in the
way you manage your money. You'll be wiser in handling conflict,

(05:38):
You'll be wiser in diffusing problems. You'll just be wiser
in a whole lot of different areas because you're not
simply depending on your own intellect. You're getting the wisdom
of God, the wisdom of the ages. And he says,
maintain a humble attitude. By the way, do you know
what the first mark of humility to God is in baptized? Yeah,

(06:00):
being baptist. Being baptized as a humble statement said God
your God, and I'm not. And I recognize this. Have
you ever been baptized? If you haven't, I would encourage
you to do so. Now. I know some people say, well,
you know, I don't want to get my hair wet.
That's called pride. That's called pride. Sorry, that's the very
reason you need to do it. It's a statement of humility.

(06:23):
I know some people say, well, I was baptized as
a baby. Terrific, that's fantastic. That was a wonderful statement
of faith by your parents. Do you even remember it? No,
it was their decision, not yours. You need to make
your own decision in baptism too. In addition, you know

(06:44):
how old Jesus was when he was baptized. He's thirty.
He was thirty. It was this all adult decision, wasn't
his parents' decision? Now, when he was a baby, his
parents took him to the temple had him dedicated. His
adult baptism did not invalidate what happened when he was
a baby. It's not like one or the other. He
did both. If you have not been baptized the way

(07:06):
Jesus was, I'm going to be baptizing. Actually next week
we have a pool out of here. We got a
short shower, shower, towers, towels and stuff like that. And
so what I do, the Bible says, baptism is a
picture of two things, of Jesus dying, being buried in
the ground, and being raised again. And it's also a
picture of you dying to all your sins are forgiven,
and beginning a new perspective in new life. And so

(07:30):
just as Jesus was dyed, was buried in the ground
three days and rose again, I take you and put
you under the water, leave you there three days, just
seeing if you're listening and if you and raise you up.
The Bible says this James, Chapter four, verse six. God
opposes the proud, but he gives grace to the humble.

(07:53):
Why does God oppose the proud because they're unteachable. They
think they know it all they can't learn humility? Is
then I can learn from anybody. You can teach me.
Can I teach you? Can other people teach you humility?
Means you can learn literally from anybody. Now, Number four,
the fourth key to wisdom is to refuse to fill

(08:17):
my mind with garbage. Refuse to fill my mind with garbage.
You know, we're all worried about water pollution and air pollution,
and we ought to be. We're to take care of
the planet, But those very people are often not even
worried about the pollution they allowed in their mind. The concepts,

(08:40):
the words, the thoughts that are actually harmful to your
life on television and movies and books, and actually, when
it comes down to what you feed your mind is
as important as what you feed your body. So what
do you need to eat more of? What do you
need to eat less of? In the content that you
fill your mind with, there's basically four kinds of content

(09:05):
you can fill your mind with. You can fill it
with a poison. Poison is stuff that will kill you.
There are concepts that will actually derange you, or degrade you,
or demoralize you, or defeat you. There are self defeating
thoughts that you tell yourself. There are self defeating thoughts
that other people tell you. That stufs, poison, pornography is poison.

(09:28):
You don't fill your mind with that kind of stuff,
so you stay away from that. But then a lot
of stuff is just junk food, and a lot of
stuff that's on TV I call it the equivalent of
mental twinkies. There's no nutritional value in it. It's just there.
And yeah, you can eat junk food, but you're not
going to be very wise watching the Kardashians. I don't

(09:52):
know that it's going to make anybody smarter doing that.
Then the third thing you can fill your mind with
is brain food, and that's good stuff. Now, the people
who are on the stage just now, they deal in
brain food, and they teach you stuff about life. They
teach you stuff about you know, science and math and
history and English and geography. That's brain food. That's good stuff.

(10:13):
You need to fill your mind with, you know, stuff
that educates you makes you a stronger and more rounded person.
But then you also need an addition of brain food.
You need superfood. And that's what this is. This is superfood.
It can teach you stuff that you're not going to
get anywhere else in how to relate to life and

(10:34):
how to relate it answers the fundamental questions like who
am I? Where am I? Where did I come from?
Where am I going? Does my life matter? Is their
purpose to my life? Is there meaning? Am I significant?
Those kind of questions are in this book. Their answers
are right there.

Speaker 2 (11:01):
If you want to live a life full of purpose
and joy, then you need to transform the way you think.
And to help you do this, Pastorik created a brand
new set of scripture cards with fifty two hand selected
verses from his series Rethinking your Life. These verses will
guide you into a deeper understanding of your purpose and faith,

(11:23):
and you'll find yourself gaining the strength to overcome temptation
and conquer discouragement. When you allow God's word to transform
your mind, you'll see your life through his eyes, apply
his wisdom, and step into a life of purpose and joy.
This set of beautifully designed cards will help you memorize

(11:44):
scripture so you can recall God's word when you need
it the most. And today, when you give a gift
to help daily hope, take the hope of Jesus to
a world in need. Will send you the Rethinking your
Life scripture card set to say thanks.

Speaker 1 (12:08):
Okay. Number five The fifth thing, and this is the
most important of all. If you're gonna learn to be wise.
You must put into practice what I've already learned. Put
into practice what I've learned. God doesn't teach you the
second thing about life until you actually act on the
stuff you already know. God is not in the business

(12:29):
of simply satisfying your curiosity. And I'll tell you fifteen
really cool things about life. Now. He tells you one thing,
and he waits for you to act on it. Once
you act on it, then you get to go to
the next step. Once you act on that, you get
to go to level stage two and three and four
and five. You have to apply the truth. You have
to act on the truth. You have to internalize what
you've learned. There's a guy go out on TV right now.

(12:52):
This goes like this. Say, you're not really a firefighter
until you've fought a fire, and you're not really an
actor until you've actually act in something. You're not really
an author till you actually authored a book. And I
would say you're not really a believer in God until
you start living by what you claim to believe. I
have to act on it. I have to apply it.

(13:13):
I have to internalize it. I want you to write
this down on your outline I haven't learned it until
I do it. I haven't learned it until I do it.
If I were to say, do you believe the Bible,
A lot of you say, sure, raised I believe the Bible.
I said, well, do you do it? Well? No, then
you don't really believe it. You only believe the things
in life that you actually do. The Bible says you're

(13:37):
to forgive your enemies. Do you believe that yet? Do
you do it? No, then you don't really believe it.
I only believe what I actually do, and I haven't
really learned until I do it. Now, bel Shazar, this guy,
this king, he loses everything because he failed to do
this last point. He failed to put into practice what

(13:57):
he had seen and learned, and he pridefully refuses to
learn the lessons of the prior generation. Remember, this guy
is the grandson of the most famous king of the
biggest empire of that day, nebucon Nezer. He saw nebucon
Nezzer literally lose his mind for about seven years out
of pride. He saw all the mistakes his grandfather made.

(14:17):
He saw his grandfather come back and correct those things.
He saw the good and the bad, and his life
and he chose to ignore God. He chose to ignore
the lessons. He chose to be prideful and throw parties.
And God said, okay, you know, I might understand if
you didn't know this, but you know this, and so

(14:38):
your kingdom is being taken away. It's going to be divided.
And Daniel was the one guy in the empire who
had the courage to point it out. Look up here
on the screen. Here's what the Bible says. Daniel said
to King Belshazzar, even though you knew, you knew what
happened to your father, You knew all that happened to

(15:01):
your father, and never can answer. Now, actually you need
to understand it. Never can answer was his grandfather. But
in Babylonian culture you called any predecessor father, so they're
using the predecessor term here. He said, you knew what
your predecessor did, you didn't learn, but you didn't learn
from his life, and you still refuse to humble yourself

(15:23):
before God, who rules from heaven. Now, notice on that
verse he says you knew, and he says you didn't learn.
Is there a difference between knowing and learning. Yes, you
know a lot of things, but you haven't learned it
to you put into practice. I can go to a
marriage seminar and learn all about how to have a
good marriage and come home. And if I put the

(15:44):
seminar on the shelf and I don't know anything about it,
I haven't learned a thing. It's like if I say,
you know, I want to lose some weight, I'm going
to get a diet book down and I start reading
it and underlining while I'm eating my Twinkies and my
Wuacamolean chips and coke float. Man, I feel so healthy
just reading this book. Has it changed anything in my life? Nothing?

(16:06):
Not a thing, not a zip zero. I haven't learned
it until I do it. Do you know certain foods
are bad for you, but you eat him anyway? Yeah?
I can know about God and never learn to trust him.
That's the difference. The Bible says wisdom comes not from

(16:29):
the knowing, wisdom comes from the doing. So here's the
big lesson of this story. Why don't you write it down?
If I don't humbly learn from the generations before me,
this King Belshazer didn't, then I'm going to end up
making the same mistakes. If I don't humbly learn from

(16:49):
the generations before me. I will end up making the
exact same mistakes. And you learn a lot of things
and have a lot of head knowledge, but not heart
and knowledge. Some people say some people are going to
miss having by eighteen inches because they got it in
their head. They don't have it in their heart. They
know that they haven't learned. They haven't learned it. You know,

(17:14):
true confession. I went to school a lot a long time.
I went to school for twenty four years, get my master's,
get my doctorate, and in my field, the languages you
have to learn took a long time, and I will
say I've forgotten a lot of it, but I have
never forgotten the most important thing. So let me tell

(17:36):
you what I learned in twenty four years of school.
This is the most important thing to learn. You were
made by God, and you were made for God. And
until you understand that life is never going to make sense.
You were not made for you. You were made by
God and for God. And until you understand that life

(17:59):
is never going to make sense. Here's what the Bible says.
Look up here on the screen one Timothy six twenty one.
Some people have missed the most important thing in life.
They don't know God. Do you. You might know string theory,
you might know chaos theory, you might know quantum physics.

(18:20):
That if you don't know God, sorry, you missed the
purpose of your life. Some of you, students, your honor students, congratulations,
you get straight a's. Congratulations. But at the end of
your life and all of our lives, God's going to
give us a final test. And the good news about
that it's an open book test. Okay, all the answers

(18:43):
are here, So you had an entire lifetime to prepare
for God's final test. It's an open book test. And
on that test, God is not going to say, did
you show me your report card? You get straight a's,
and God's not gonna say how'd you do in your career.
God's not gonna say, let me see your bank account balance.
He's not gonna say any of those things. He's going

(19:04):
to say this, did you get to know me? Were
we friends? Did you build a relationship with my son
who I sent to earth to die on the cross
for you? You know you know about it, but did
you learn it? You know about it, but did you
learn it? Did you build you had the religion, did
you have the relationship? Let me ask a real question, said,

(19:27):
do you have God in your life? Oh? Yeah, Oh yeah, yeah,
I've got God in my life. Really, has he made
any big changes? Has he transformed your life in any way? No? No,
but God's in here. Oh yeah, God's He's never changed
in it. No. Let me just say this as I'm

(19:48):
not an authority on a lot of things, but i
am an authority on human behavior because I've dealt with
people for forty five years, tens and tens of thousands
of people. God is big, and God is really really
really really really big, and somebody who's just really really
really really really big can't come into your life without

(20:09):
it making a really really really big change. So you
may have gotten something, but you didn't get God. You
might have gotten religion, but you don't have a relationship.
Some people have missed the most important thing in life.
They don't know me. Would you like to get to
know them? That I can help you do? It starts

(20:31):
with humility. That's power heads. Would you pray a simple prayer?
It doesn't really matter what you say, Just talk to God.
The most important thing is that your attitude is humble.
You might just start with the thing God, I've never
really said this to you. You're God and I'm not,

(20:53):
and I need you in my life. I'll pray a
little prayer right now. If you want to follow me,
you can just say these words too. Just go me
to God. What Rick's saying. That's me. I agree with that.
So if you want to pray it, you can just
say it too. Dear God, You're not said aloud, say
it in your mind. He knows your thoughts. Dear God,

(21:13):
I know you made me, I know you love me,
and I know about you, but I really want to
know you personally, and I want you in my life.
And so today, as humbly as I can say it,
I open my life to you. I want to start

(21:35):
the journey of learning. And I want that to be
a lifelong journey of learning, not just about the world,
but about you, and about others and about myself. And
I want to learn more and more about you every day.
And so I want to take these five statements of

(21:57):
growing in wisdom, and I want to begin this process today. First,
I want to make a commitment to never stop learning,
to learning more about you and more about life and
anything else you want to teach me. Help me to
learn the lessons of prior generations to not make the
same mistakes they did. Help me to maintain a humble

(22:23):
attitude that honors you. God. Help me to be more
discriminating in what I allow in my mind. To refuse
to put junk in my mind, but to fill it
with brain food and superfood. And then, most of all,
help me to practice what I've learned. I don't want

(22:45):
to get to the end of my life at the
final exam and how you say you didn't pass, so
as best I know how, I humble myself when I
ask you today to accept me into your family. I
want to learn you to love you. I want to
learn to trust you. I want to understand what Jesus
you came to do. And I simply pray this in

(23:09):
your name. Amen. Hi everybody, this is Pastor Rick. Because
of the generous support of many of you Daily Hope listeners,
we're able to offer Daily Hope devotionals for free worldwide.

(23:30):
In fact, today I have a note from Paul in
Kenya that shows how God is at work through the
Daily Hope devotionals. Paul wrote me. He said, I'd like
to sincerely thank you for the free gift of your
daily hope devotionals. May God receive all the glory. For
some time now, You're inspiring and encouraging messages, along with

(23:51):
scripture references, have helped me push through some really tough
times and get closer to God. However, Paul writes, the
best part is that my faith in God has now
grown to the point that He recently gave me the
strength and wisdom to accept His free, undeserved gifts to
grace and salvation. By accepting and confessing Jesus Christ as

(24:13):
my Lord and Savior, I feel like a new being,
and I yearn to keep growing more and more in
God's word and in wisdom, surrendering my life to His
will alone. So please hold my hand in this journey
to the glory and honor of God to Christ Jesus Paul,
without a doubt, I will hold your hand as you

(24:37):
journey with Jesus. There is no greater decision that you
could have made than believing and receiving Jesus Christ. So congratulations.
You're my brother in Christ, and I want to encourage
you to be on the lookout every day to see
how God guides you, how God directs you. It's an
exciting journey. And by the way, keep studying His word

(24:57):
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I'm so thankful that Daily Hope devotionals helping you to
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Daily Hope tv dot com and sign up today.

Speaker 2 (25:32):
If you want to live a life full of purpose
and joy, then you need to transform the way you think.
And to help you do this, Pastor Rick created a
brand new set of scripture cards with fifty two hand
selected verses from his series Rethinking Your Life. These verses
will guide you into a deeper understanding of your purpose

(25:54):
and faith, and you'll find yourself gaining the strength to
overcome temptation and conquer discouragement. When you allow God's word
to transform your mind, you'll see your life through his eyes,
apply his wisdom, and step into a life of purpose
and joy. This set of beautifully designed cards will help

(26:14):
you memorize scripture so you can recall God's word when
you need it the most, and today when you give
a gift to help daily hope, take the hope of
Jesus to a world in need, will send you the
Rethinking your Life scripture card set to say thanks.