Rick Warren - Trusting God in Chaos, Even If It Feels Impossible

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Now you know, folks, today, it seems like that all
the values that create a healthy society have been turned
upside down. You agree with this. It seems like everything's
being shaken. Our economy and the foundations of our economy
are being shaken. The way we've done government in America
for hundreds of years is being shaken. Our freedom, our

(00:23):
freedom of speech and conscience and religion being shaken. Marriages
are being shaken, Families are being shaken, so many things.
Education is being shaken. The foundations of our moral and
ethical values are being shaken. Now we're living in a
time of great upheaval, when there's a lot of shakiness

(00:45):
going on. But I'm not here to talk about doom
and gloom because this book is not about doom and gloom.
It's about the answer. It's about the answer to those
and God says, no matter how bad the world gets,
in a rapidly changing world, and even in a decaying culture,

(01:06):
God says, I want you to survive, and not only that, thrive,
and not only that, I want you to succeed. What
should you do when your life is upended, when your
world is shaken up by a death, a divorce, a failure,

(01:28):
a bankruptcy, and a hundred other things that could up
in your life. How can you thrive in this culture?
First suggestion when your life is thrown into chaos, when
your world is shaken up. Number one, don't be surprised
by adversity. Now here's what the Bible says in one

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Peter four twelve. Dear friends, don't be shocked or surprised
when you suffer painful tests and trials, as if something
strange is happening to you. He said, you know, shakeups
are a normal part of life in a broken world.
We do not live in heaven. In heaven, everything's perfect,

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everything's done great, there are no tears, no sorrows, no suffering.
But on earth everything is broken because of sin. Every
relationship is broken, every body is broken. We don't have
healthy minds, the weather's broken, the economy is broken, and
so we shouldn't expect things to be perfect here on earth.
And when something bad happens in your life, instead of

(02:31):
going why me, you might want to say why not me?
I live here on earth and this is not heaven
that's coming later, and so there are going to be sufferings.
There are going to be trials, and don't be surprised
by it. Jesus said it like this, John sixteen thirty three.

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Jesus said, in this world you might experience difficulties. Well,
that's not what he said. In this world you what
circle that will? Now if Jesus said it, you can
count on it. You will have problems in life. You
are going to face adversity. You are going to have

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times where your world is tossed upside down and everything
is shaken and bacon and flying, and you don't know
which way is up. In this world, you will experience difficulties.
Jesus promised that, but he said, take heart, I have
conquered the world. He said, I've told you this so
that in trusting me, you will be unshakeable and deeply

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at peace. Jesus warned us that adversity is going to
be a part of life. Don't let it blow you away.
Don't be surprised, don't be shocked. But you need to
be unshakable. I'm telling you so you won't cave in.
Now you know what the typical response is when you
go through a crisis. The typical union human response when

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I or you go through a crisis is this. The
first thing we do is try to figure out who's
to blame. That's the last thing you need to work on,
whose fault is it. As long as you're fixing the blame,
you can't fix the problem. To blame is to be blame.
That's how you spell blame. And so when you when
you blame other people, you're not You're just perpetuating the problem.

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You're not solving anything. Politicians love to blame each other.
These groups and that groups blame each other. You know
what blame is not blame is blame. And instead instead
of asking whose fault it is, you need to be
asking what should I do now? Just so you'll know,
let me tell you there are four sources of the

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problems in your life. The first source of the shakeups
in your life is your own nature, your old nature,
which is your own biggest problem. You might want to
write next to that. Roman seven. Roman seven is the
classic chapter explains how you are the biggest problem to you,
and I won't go into that. The second source of

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the problems in your life is the world, the world
and the world. Your nature is within you. The world
is around you, and it wants to pull you down
and The primary way the world tries to pull you
down is through ridicule and through withholding approval. We are
desperate for the approval of other people, and so we
will lower our standards, and we'll change our convictions, and

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we'll give in and give up simply because we want
somebody to like us. You don't need the world's approval
to be happy. You're as happy as you choose to be.
You don't need the world's approval. But the world causes
a lot of problems in your life too. The third
source of problems is, of course Satan. The devil is
real evil incarnate, and the moment you wake up in

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the morning, he's plotting to discourage you, to defeat you,
to create doubts, depression, discouragement, distractions, all these different things.
When you get up in the morning, if you don't
meet the devil head on, it just means you're headed
the same direction because he's been planning to take you down.
He hates you. God has a good plan for your life.
He's got a bad plan for your life. Okay, so

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my old nature, the world, the flesh and me, and
the devil, they all work on me. But the one
I want to talk to you about this weekend. Is
the fourth source of problems in your life, and it's God. God. Yes,
some of the problems and pressures and difficulties you have
in life actually come from God. God will sometimes shake

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up your life for very good reasons. And that's why
I want to cover this in detail, because this is
the one that's unexpected, and I want you to look
at that now. It really doesn't matter where your problems
came from. They could be caused by the devil, they
could be caused by the world, They could be caused
by you. They could be brought on in your life

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by God. It doesn't really matter. God will use every
one of them for your good if you will trust him.
You mean, even the bad thing in my life, even
my own sins. Yes, even God can use those for
good in your life. He can turn crucifixions into resurrections.
He can bring good out of bad. Anybody and bring
good out of good. But God can change even bad

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things into good if you will trust him. So, regardless
of the source of your shaking. What's got you all
shaken up? I lost my job, I can't get married.
I want this and it hasn't happened. I have this
dream and I'm hitting the barrier. Regardless of whatever is
shaking you up, God wants to use it for good,
So the source isn't nearly as important as your response.

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Now here's the second step based on that. Anytime the
world your world is shaken up. Number two, look for
ways that God might use it for good. Look for ways.
I look for ways that God might use it in
my life for good, because He wants to use everything,

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even the bad things in your life. He wants to
bring good out of even those And if you want
to succeed and thrive rather than just survive in a
hostile culture, you need to look for ways that God
takes the things that shake you up and can use
them for good. Jeremiah twenty nine to eleven says this.
God says, the plans I have for you are plans
for good and not to harm you. Their plans to

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give you hope and a future. The devil has bad
plans for your life, and therefore bad and for destruction.
God has plans. His plans are always good, there to
give you hope and there to give you a future.
Sometimes God shakes things up. I'm talking about in your life.
Sometimes shakes things up in my life to inspect me,

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to inspect me. And what I mean by that is
God will bring a problem in my life that reveals
a motivation that's out a whack, or a character or
a thought or an emotion or a motive. He examines
and he checks it out, and he does it all
the time. You've got a fear, you've got a wrong motivation,
you've got a value, you got a misperception, there's some
lie that you're believing. God uses problems to inspect you. Now,

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of course, God already knows what's going on in you.
He doesn't need any problem to tell him what. He
knows you better than you do. When God allows a
problem in your life is because He wants you to
know what's out of whack. And sometimes when things are
just flying off the wall and you're in a crisis
and you know yours just your whole world is shaken,

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God is saying, I want you to see what I
want you to work on in your life. We're going
to inspect this in your life. Jeremiah seventeen ten says this,
The Lord searches our hearts and examines our deepest motives.
So he can give to each person his right reward
according to how he has lived. Now, notice God examines

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your motives. Listen to this. Why is always more important
than what in life. What you do in life is
not nearly as important to God. That's why you do it,
Not what you do, but why you do. There are
a lot of things you can do in life. God say,
that's fine, go ahead and do that. I made you.
You could do that or that or that or that.

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That'd you all be fine with me? I just want
to know why are you doing it? God looks at
the heart, He looks at the motivation. You see. What
matters in your maturity spiritually is not how high you
jump when you feel God in a worship concert. The
test is how straight you walk when you don't feel
God during the rest of the week. And I have

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no emotion, I'm in the desert, I'm in a dry period,
I'm in the wilderness. Will you trust me? Will you
obey me? You see what God is saying is that
the problems that come into your life, they're a measuring tool,
and your reactions to difficulty actually measure your faith and
a bunch of stuff. Your reactions to difficulty. Measure your faith,

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measure your commitment, measure your mature. They measure your integrity.
What does this problem reveal about me? When your whole
life is being shaken and everything you're on shaky ground,
the foundation is unstable, what does this problem reveal about me?

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Here's another reason. Sometimes God shakes things up in your life,
not to inspect you, but to correct you. God wants
to correct me. And here's a very important verse Hebrews
Chapter twelve, verses eight to twelve, eight to eleven. God
corrects all of his children, and if he doesn't correct you,

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then you don't really belong to him. WHOA So if
you can sin and get away with it, you should
doubt am I really in God's family? God corrects his children,
and if he doesn't correct you, then you don't really
belong to him. God corrects us for our own good,
because He wants us to be holy as he is. Now.
It's never fun to be corrected. How many of you

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agree with that part of the Bible? It's never fun
to be corrected. In fact, at the time it's always painful.
But if we learn to obey by being corrected, we
will do right and live at peace. He Ultimately it's
for your good so you can live at peace. Job

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chapter five, verse seventeen. Consider yourself fortunate when God all
Powerful chooses to correct you. He says, it's a privilege.
It's an honor to be corrected by God because it
just means he loves you. I don't know why, but
sometimes God has to lay us flat on our back
before we look up to him. And God wants to

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teach you about himself, and he wants you to teach
you about yourself. And some lessons really you're only going
to learn through failure. You know, don't touch the stove,
you don't touch it a second time, because you learn
by being burned. And sometimes you know some things in line.

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You don't learn the value of money until you've lost it.
You don't learn the value of friendship till you've lost it.
So here's the question, what is this problem teaching me?
Instead of going why me? Instead of asking why, you
should ask what. Don't ask why? When you go through problems,

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ask what What should I be learning? Not why is
this happening to me? But what should I be learning?
Sometimes God shakes things up to direct me, to direct me,
He wants to point us in a new direction. He
wants to guide us down a different path. Proverbs sixteen,
verse nine. A person may plan his own journey. You

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got your own life plan out there, but the Lord
directs his steps. So you have all your plans, but
the Lord is going to direct your steps. Question, how
does God direct your steps? Real simple problems, That's how
he directs your steps. Have you noticed that problems often

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change your plans? Have anybody had that happened in their life?
Your problems change your plans? What is God doing? He's
redirecting you. He inspects you, he corrects you, and he
directs you when things are flying off the wall. Pain
is a powerful motivation to change. Proverbs twenty, verse thirteen

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says this, Sometimes it takes a painful experience to make
us change our ways. And every one of you could
give a testimony on that verse. We rarely think about
the direction of our lives when things are going good.
When your life's going good, you got it on cruise control.
You're not even thinking about your goals. You're not even

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thinking about God. You're not thinking about anything but cruise control.
This is fun. I'm in the driver's seat right now,
but all of a sudden, you have a traffic jam
or car accident. All of a sudden, it gets your attention,
and God gets our attention many times, and he changes
the direction. One of the values of pressure and problems

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and crisis in your life is it forces you to
think about stuff you wouldn't normally think about on your own.
You want to just live in denial, and you would
just like to take that part of your life that
needs changing and just forget it and go on with
your life and go, well, I just isolate that over here.
I'll compartmentalize it and that'll be just fine. But it
doesn't work. What is a problem in your life that

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you're pretending isn't a problem. What's the big problem, the
big elephant in your life, in your marriage and your relationship.
Then you're just very well, it's not a problem. I
know we got that there, but we've had it in
this relationship all this time. No, it's still a problem.

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And God will use difficulty to correct you, inspect you,
and redirect you if he needs to. We would rarely
change unless we had problems. We postponed difficult decisions. We
put it off. I mean, if you had a disease
that didn't hurt you. You'd never go to the doctor

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about it. You just let it keep taking over your
life until you die. Pain gets your attention. We ignore
youll illnesses if they didn't hurt. So God uses problems
to prod us and to poke us, and to push
us and to prompt us, and he uses things to
direct us. Write this down. Question where is this problem

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leading me? You want to ask yourself. You want to
get the most out of your problems. Where is this
problem leading me? Sometimes God shakes things up to protect us.
Did you know that? Sometimes pain protects you from something
worse that you're going through a problem, But it's actually

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preventing you from a bigger problem. It's keeping you from
greater harm. You might have wanted a certain job at
a certain business and it didn't happen, and God was
protecting you because he knew that there was a relationship
there that was going to mess you up, and he
kept you out of that situation. Sometimes a problem is

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a blessing in disguise. Honestly, there will be times you
have problems when you did the right thing, not the
wrong thing. Not every problem is because you did something wrong.
Sometimes you have a problem because you did the right
thing job thirty six, Verse sixteen. God led you away
from danger. God often does this and you don't even

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realize it. God has led you away from danger, giving
you freedom. Problems are the preparation for success, and it
really comes down to a matter of faith. Will you
trust God? There are people in this world who intend
to harm you. Not everybody's nice in this world. There
are evil people, There are mean people. There are people

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who don't like you because you're a Christian, or because
of a moral stance or an ethical decision you've made,
because you won't go with the flow and won't party
with the crowd, and they think you're too good, or
they think you're self righteous, and they misjudge you and
on and they want to bring you down. They mean
it for bad, but God means it for good. Now.

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Sometimes God removes a harmful person in your life and
it breaks your heart. Don't run after him, some of you.
That's all you need to hear. You just need to
hear your pastors say that sometimes there's a harmful person
in your life, but you're you're addicted to them, and

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God will remove them from your life. Don't run after them.
God has shake things, taking things up to protect you.
So ask this question, how could this problem protect me?
How could this problem be protecting me? What's being prevented?
What could be worse in my life? Then? What's than
this problem? Well, there are a lot of things that

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could be worse, all right. Number five. The fifth way
that God shakes things up in your life, and the
fifth reason for shaking things up in your life is
not to correct me or inspect me or direct me.
But God uses things and problems to perfect me, to

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make you more like Jesus Christ, to grow your character,
to grow you up. Pain is the high cost of growth.
If you want to grow up, you want to be mature,
there is no way to do it without pain. Pain
is the cost of growing up. You can't grow up

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on easy street. And see, we want the product without
the process. It is a cliche, but it is true.
There is no gain without pain. There is no maturity
without growing pains. And the very thing that discourages you
is the very thing that God is using to develop you.

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One Peter five ten. The Bible says this, after you
have suffered a little, while the God of all grace,
who calls you to share his eternal glory. God's going
to share his glory with you. In union of Christ,
will himself perfect you. Circle that will perfect you and
give you firmness and strength and a sure foundation. God

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is not interested in making your life easy on this earth.
He's interested in growing your character. The easy part comes
for eternity. You're in school right now. You're in school,
and in school, God says, there are eternal rewards coming,
and I'm going to perfect you. So knowing that God
can even use the bad things in my life to

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inspect me, to direct me, to correct me, and to
even perfect me, what should be my response? Romans Chapter
five tells us we can rejoice. We can rejoice. We
can rejoice when we run into problems and trials, for
we know it's perspective that they're good for us. We

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run into problems with drivers, we know they're good for us.
They help us learn to be patient, and patience develops
strength of character, boom in us, and helps us trust
God more each time we use it. So here's the
fifth question, how can I grow from this problem? So

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God is saying, he said, don't be surprised when you
have adversity in the world, you will have tribulation, Jesus said,
realize that I can use it five different ways. Okay,
I can inspect you, and I can correct you, and
I can direct you, and I can protect you, and
I can perfect you. I can use all these different

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ways in what's going on in your life. And so
what's the third suggestion here? It is, finally, trust God
for what I don't understand. When there's a problem in
my life. This one does not make sense. I don't
get it. I don't see the perfection. I don't see

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the inspection. I don't see the correction. I don't see
the protection. I don't see the perfection. This problem does
not make sense. Then I trust God for what I
don't understand, knowing that he has my best interest in heart.
Proverbs three five and six. Trust the Lord with all
your heart doesn't say intellect heart. Trust the Lord with

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all your heart. Don't depend on your own understanding. Honor
the Lord in everything you do, and he will give you.
What's the word circle that success. I want you to
be a success in life. God wants you to be
a success in life as your pastor, as your spiritual coach.

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It is my goal, my job, my role to help
you succeed in every area of the life that God
has given you. I want you to be a success,
not just survive when times are tough, not just survive
in a hostile culture to Christians, but to thrive and
actually get promoted and have greater influence and be used

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by God an amazing way. Let me close with little
self evaluation. Why don't you ask these questions to God
in your mind? Here's the first one to say, are
you using these problems to inspect me? You know the
ones I'm going through right now? Are you using these
problems to inspect me? If so, what does it reveal

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about my life? Is there a weakness? Is there a
misplaced priority in my life? Is there someplace I've compromised
the truth and you're trying to show it to me?
And then say, Lord, are you using this problem to
correct me? If so, what do you want me to learn?

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I'm not gonna ask why why is this happened to me?
I'm gonna ask what what do you want me to learn?
What do you want me to know? Lord? Are you
using this problem not just inspect the correct or you
use this problem to direct me? If so, what's the direction?
What do you want me to change? What's the new direction?

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Where where do you want me headed? Lord? Are you
using this problem to protect me? Did that thing not
happen because you knew something that I didn't know and
I was walking into a bigger trap, a bigger problem,
a bigger fiasco, a bigger difficulty, and you protected me.

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It is so Lord that I was just going to
tell you I trust you, I know that you know best.
Thank you for protecting me. And God, I want you
to protect me. And when there's something that I want
that would be bad for me, don't let me have it.
I want your will more than my will. And then say, Lord,

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are you using this problem to perfect me? You see,
God's at work in your life even when you don't
recognize it or even understand it. God has work in
your life is not dependent upon you understanding it. So
I want you to pray this prayer very say, Dear God,
I want to trust you with all my hearts. Just

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stay it in your mind. I trust you with all
my heart, not my Intellectum, I'm not going to depend
on my own understanding. God. I want to honor you
in everything I do. Work, home, anywhere else. And if
I trust you and I don't depend on my own understanding,

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and I honor you and everything I do, You've promised
to give me success, and I'm going to believe that.
Jesus Christ, I want to trust you with all of
my life as best I know how, and I'm doing
it today. In your name, I pray Ameno