Speaker 1: Hey, everyone, Welcome to Pastor Rick Warren's Daily Hope. Now
Speaker 1: we're going to continue our series today called Building My
Speaker 1: Life on Values that last, and Rick will press on
Speaker 1: and show us how we benefit when we apply the
Speaker 1: Biblical principles of trust, self control, balance, respect forgiveness, moral purity, fairness, honesty,
Speaker 1: and love to our lives. I don't know about you,
Speaker 1: but I am so excited to hear what Rick shares
Speaker 1: today with part one of a message called Accepting Responsibility.
Speaker 2: If I were to ask you today, what's your greatest ability,
Speaker 2: I wonder what some of you would say. You might say,
Speaker 2: you know, I'm good at mechanics, I'm good with math.
Speaker 2: Some of you might say I'm good at sewing, or
Speaker 2: surfing or channel surfing.
Speaker 3: But you say, well, I'm good at all of this.
Speaker 2: But I want to suggest you this morning that your
Speaker 2: greatest ability is responsibility. You say, huh, yeah, your greatest
Speaker 2: ability is responsibility. Responsibility is the ability to respond to life.
Speaker 2: It's one of the greatest gifts that God has given you.
Speaker 2: God created you and made you a human being, and
Speaker 2: what makes you a human is the ability to choose
Speaker 2: your response to life, and so you can respond in
Speaker 2: many different ways to stress, to problems, to crises, to opportunities,
Speaker 2: to relationships, and it's all your choice. A couple weeks ago,
Speaker 2: we talked about how most of your life is out
Speaker 2: of your control. You didn't choose where you were born
Speaker 2: or when you were born, in all those different things,
Speaker 2: and you don't choose a lot of the circumstances and
Speaker 2: events that happened to you. But you do have the
Speaker 2: freedom to choose how you react to life. You do
Speaker 2: have the freedom to choose how you respond. And because
Speaker 2: you have that choice, because you have the freedom to
Speaker 2: respond and you are able to respond, you are response able.
Speaker 3: You're responsible.
Speaker 2: Justice Lewis Brandeis, who was one of the Supreme Court justices,
Speaker 2: once said that responsibility is the great developer. It builds
Speaker 2: your character, it's what helps you grow. Churchill called it
Speaker 2: the price of greatness. If you want to do something
Speaker 2: great with your life, you have to become a responsible person.
Speaker 2: So today we're beginning a series on ten values on
Speaker 2: which you build as pillars of your life, a successful
Speaker 2: and a significant life. And we have to start with
Speaker 2: personal responsibility, because, folks, this is the foundation, this is
Speaker 2: ground zero, this is the bottom line. If you don't
Speaker 2: get this one, you may well forget the rest of
Speaker 2: the series, because you can't build any of the other
Speaker 2: values in your life if you don't personally accept responsibility
Speaker 2: for your choices, your character, and your values.
Speaker 3: This is what it all starts with.
Speaker 2: If I get that point down, then the rest can
Speaker 2: be built in a successful and a significant life. Now,
Speaker 2: it's very obvious that in the last forty years there's
Speaker 2: been a dramatic decline in the acceptance of personal responsibility
Speaker 2: in our society. Nobody wants to accept responsibility for anything anymore.
Speaker 2: In fact, we want to accuse and excuse. We want
Speaker 2: to accuse other people it's all their fault, and we
Speaker 2: want to excuse ourselves it's not my fault. And we
Speaker 2: live in this blaming and accusing and excusing society where
Speaker 2: nobody wants to really own up to anything. Now, what
Speaker 2: causes that? What's happened in our society? Well, last week
Speaker 2: I said that our beliefs determine our behavior, and our
Speaker 2: behavior determines what we.
Speaker 3: Become and what our society becomes.
Speaker 2: And so we talked about the ideas of individualism and
Speaker 2: secularism and relativism and how that has influenced our value system.
Speaker 2: There are three values that are very prevalent today, three
Speaker 2: beliefs that are the antithesis of personal responsibility. I've written
Speaker 2: them there on your outline. We just need to look
Speaker 2: at them for a second. The first one is what
Speaker 2: I call the rights mentality, the second is the victim mentality,
Speaker 2: and the third is the entitlement mentality. Now, the rights
Speaker 2: mentality basically goes like this, I have my rights, and
Speaker 2: that's all I'm interested in my rights. Would you agree
Speaker 2: that today our society is obsessed with personal rights. Listen
Speaker 2: to this John Leo, talking in US News and World Report.
Speaker 2: Today American politics is a wash in rights talk. We
Speaker 2: have criminal rights, computer rights, animal rights, children's rights. We
Speaker 2: have victims rights, abortion rights, housing rights, privacy rights, the
Speaker 2: right to know the sex of a fetus, the right
Speaker 2: to not be tested for AIDS, and the rights to
Speaker 2: not inform anybody.
Speaker 3: If we have been infected.
Speaker 2: Recently, we have acquired the right to die, and according
Speaker 2: to some rather imaginative theorist, a damage fetus also has
Speaker 2: a right not to be born. He says, our culture
Speaker 2: has reached the point where the obsession with individual rights
Speaker 2: is making it hard for us to think socially. And
Speaker 2: he suggests that along with our bill of rights, that
Speaker 2: we really need a bill of responsibilities. And I want
Speaker 2: to say, John, we already have one. It's called the
Speaker 2: Ten Commandments. That's what it is.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 2: We hear a lot today about rights, and we don't
Speaker 2: hear very much about responsibilities. We hear a lot about entitlements.
Speaker 2: We don't hear much about obligations. We hear a lot
Speaker 2: about myself, we don't hear much about what it does
Speaker 2: to other people. And we certainly hear a whole lot
Speaker 2: more about choice than we hear about commitment. So this morning,
Speaker 2: I want us to look at this value of why
Speaker 2: do I need to be a person of responsibility? Well,
Speaker 2: first there's this rights mentality. The second we have called
Speaker 2: what I call the victim mentality, And the victim mentality
Speaker 2: basically goes like this, none of my problems are my fault.
Speaker 2: In fact, they're all your fault, and we blame. And
Speaker 2: you've heard me say many times you spell blame, be lame,
Speaker 2: and every time you blame somebody else for the unhappiness
Speaker 2: in your life, you are being lame. Recently, there have
Speaker 2: been a number of books out on this. This one's
Speaker 2: called a nation of victims, the decay of American culture,
Speaker 2: and listen to this. Here's some examples. An FBI agent
Speaker 2: embezzel's two thousand dollars from the government, and then he
Speaker 2: loses it all in an afternoon of gambling in Atlantic City.
Speaker 2: He's fired, but he wins reinstatement after court rules that
Speaker 2: his affinity for gambling with other people's money is quote
Speaker 2: a handicap, and thus as a handicap, it is protected
Speaker 2: under federal law. There's another fired for consistently showing up
Speaker 2: late at work. A former school district employee sues former employers,
Speaker 2: arguing that he is the victim of what his lawyer
Speaker 2: calls quote chronic lateness syndrome.
Speaker 3: I'm a victim.
Speaker 2: In Framingham, Massachusetts, a young man steals a car from
Speaker 2: a parking lot and is killed while driving it. His
Speaker 2: family then sues the proprietor of the parking lot for
Speaker 2: failing to take steps to prevent such thefts.
Speaker 3: It's your fault. It's your fault that I stole a car.
Speaker 2: A man who, by his own admission, has exposed himself
Speaker 2: between ten thousand and twenty thousand times and been convicted
Speaker 2: of flashing on more than thirty occasions, is turned down
Speaker 2: for a job as a park attendant in Dane County,
Speaker 2: Wisconsin and because of his arrest record, but he sues
Speaker 2: on the grounds that he never exposed himself in a park,
Speaker 2: only in libraries and laundromats. Now, the Wisconsin employment officials,
Speaker 2: ever accommodating to the expansion of human rights, agreed to
Speaker 2: make an initial determination of probable cause that the flasher
Speaker 2: was the victim of quote illegal job discrimination.
Speaker 3: We are a nation of victims.
Speaker 2: None of it's my fault, it's everybody else's fault, and
Speaker 2: I have my rights. And then comes the third antithesis
Speaker 2: to personal responsibility, and that's what I call the entitlement mentality.
Speaker 2: And the entitlement mentality basically says I deserve it. The
Speaker 2: world owes me a living. And this is a kind
Speaker 2: of a strange combination that came about from a generation
Speaker 2: of baby boomers who were all raised seventy six million
Speaker 2: of them on the most second most popular book ever sold.
Speaker 2: And in that book, it basically says, leave the little
Speaker 2: tyrant alone. If he wants to throw jello around the
Speaker 2: living room, go ahead. You don't want to harm his creativity,
Speaker 2: and so a whole generation grew up not thinking I
Speaker 2: am my brother's keeper. They're not even thinking I'm my
Speaker 2: own keeper. It's you ought to take care of me.
Speaker 2: And you couple that with the rapid expansion of government
Speaker 2: intervention in the last forty years, which basically says we'll
Speaker 2: take care of you from cradle to grave. And we
Speaker 2: have people saying I have a right not to work,
Speaker 2: and so therefore you should pay me to not work.
Speaker 2: This is produced what Time magazine calls busy bodies and
Speaker 2: cry babies. What's happening to the American character? And inside?
Speaker 2: It says? A cover article says a nation of finger pointers.
Speaker 2: It says twin malformations are cropping up an American character,
Speaker 2: a nasty intolerance, and a desire to blame everyone else
Speaker 2: for everything else. Now that's the kind of world we
Speaker 2: live in. It says, I'm not responsible for anything. It's
Speaker 2: not my fault. In start contrast to that, notice what
Speaker 2: the Bible says, They're on your outline Ephesians chapter five.
Speaker 2: Let's read this aloud together, live life with a sense
Speaker 2: of responsibility, not as those who do not know the
Speaker 2: meaning of life, but as those who do now circle
Speaker 2: sense of responsibility. God says, you are to live your
Speaker 2: life with a sense of responsibility. But more important than that,
Speaker 2: I want you to notice, he says. The reason, he says,
Speaker 2: because you know the meaning of life. And the point
Speaker 2: of this verse is this. If you live your life
Speaker 2: in a responsible way, it means you probably know the
Speaker 2: meaning of life. You figured it out. Why did God
Speaker 2: put me here? On the other hand, if you are
Speaker 2: living an irresponsible life, it just means one thing, you
Speaker 2: don't know the meaning of life.
Speaker 3: You don't know your purpose.
Speaker 2: You don't know why God puts you on this planet
Speaker 2: in the first place. Therefore, the key to living a
Speaker 2: more responsible life is to figure out why am I here?
Speaker 2: What did God put me on this earth for? So,
Speaker 2: the first thing we have to deal with is why
Speaker 2: should I live a responsible life?
Speaker 3: There are three reasons. You might write these down.
Speaker 2: The first reason I need to learn to live a
Speaker 2: responsible life is because God is watching me. Because God
Speaker 2: is watching me, the Bible says this in the Book
Speaker 2: of Hebrews. Nothing in all the world can be hidden
Speaker 2: from God. Everything is open before him and to him.
Speaker 2: We must explain the way we have lived. He says,
Speaker 2: God sees it all, and God is going to judge
Speaker 2: us one day and evaluate our lives on how did
Speaker 2: we live?
Speaker 3: Now, If you don't get anything else that I say.
Speaker 2: This morning, get this life is a test of responsibility.
Speaker 2: That's why you're going through all this. God puts you on,
Speaker 2: He plans you thought you up, puts you on earth,
Speaker 2: and He is testing your responsibility. And if you've been
Speaker 2: around at saddleback for any length of time, this is
Speaker 2: all material. We've gone over this before that whether you
Speaker 2: live sixty, seventy, eighty, ninety or one hundred years, that's
Speaker 2: just a little millimeter on the yardstick of eternity.
Speaker 3: When you die, that's not the end of you.
Speaker 2: You're going to live on for eternity one of two places,
Speaker 2: Heaven or Hell. And how you do, what you do
Speaker 2: with your life and the decisions you make here are
Speaker 2: going to influence your return and you will spend far
Speaker 2: more time on that side of death and on this side. Now,
Speaker 2: what's going on in this fifty to one hundred years
Speaker 2: that I live here on Earth. Well, as I've said before,
Speaker 2: this is the warm up act for eternity. This is
Speaker 2: the dress rehearsal. This is where you get the parts right, folks.
Speaker 2: Right now you're in preschool. You're in preschool, and God
Speaker 2: is testing your responsibility for what's going to happen later on.
Speaker 2: And God puts you on this earth primarily for two reasons.
Speaker 2: One to get to know him personally through his son
Speaker 2: Jesus Christ, and two to develop character, to become more
Speaker 2: like God the way God is in character, to develop
Speaker 2: the values and the responsibility behind all of that. And
Speaker 2: that's the foundation. If you're not responsible, you can't build
Speaker 2: the values. Now, why is God interested in my character?
Speaker 2: God couldn't care less about your achievements. What he's interested
Speaker 2: in is your character. God couldn't care much less about
Speaker 2: your bank account. What he's interested in is your character.
Speaker 3: Why. Because it's the only thing you're gonna take with
Speaker 3: you when you die.
Speaker 2: You're not taking anything else. You didn't come into this
Speaker 2: world with anything. I've been there in the birth of
Speaker 2: all three of my kids. None of them came in
Speaker 2: chomping a cigar, holding the Cadillac or anything else. They
Speaker 2: came in totally naked, with nothing. And you know what,
Speaker 2: when you die, you're gonna die and leave it all behind.
Speaker 2: So everything you have here, all your material possessions are
Speaker 2: really just on loan to you for sixty eighty ninety years.
Speaker 2: They're not really yours. You just get to use them,
Speaker 2: then you pass them on to somebody else. But the
Speaker 2: one thing you will take with you is your character.
Speaker 2: And God is evaluating are you responsible? And the Bible
Speaker 2: says that in eternity that we will be rewarded accordingly
Speaker 2: to our responsibility and our relationship to Christ here on earth.
Speaker 2: Once you've settled that issue of yes, I know God,
Speaker 2: and I know a son Christ, and I am a
Speaker 2: follower of him, then the issue becomes what did you
Speaker 2: do with what I gave you? God has made an
Speaker 2: investment in you when he created you. He gave you talents,
Speaker 2: he gave you abilities, he let you live in this
Speaker 2: particular time in history. He's given you certain opportunities. These
Speaker 2: are all things He's given you, and he expects a
Speaker 2: return on his investment. Notice what the Bible says, each
Speaker 2: of us will have to give a personal account to God.
Speaker 2: That means nobody's going to do it for you. Your
Speaker 2: wife can't do it for you, the pastor can't do
Speaker 2: it for you. You will give a personal account. And
Speaker 2: I want to tell you that one day God is
Speaker 2: going to do an audit on you. Not on your finances,
Speaker 2: but God's going to do an audit on your life,
Speaker 2: and he's going to say, what did you do with
Speaker 2: what I gave you? Were you responsible? Did you use
Speaker 2: your time, your money, your influence, your mind?
Speaker 3: Did you use your.
Speaker 2: Relationships, your opportunities, and all of the things that I
Speaker 2: gave you.
Speaker 3: Did you use them wisely? Or did you just use
Speaker 3: them selfishly?
Speaker 2: That's reason enough, folks, if there were no other reason
Speaker 2: for being responsible. It's the fact that one day I
Speaker 2: am going to be accountable to God for how responsible
Speaker 2: I lived my life. Daniel Webster once said, I'm the
Speaker 2: most important idea I ever thought was when I realized
Speaker 2: the day I realized that I am personally and individually
Speaker 2: accountable to God for how I lived. Now, notice it
Speaker 2: says here God knows everything, nothing is hidden. That means
Speaker 2: He's seen everything you've ever done. It's interesting because when
Speaker 2: we rationalize our irresponsibility, one of the ways we do
Speaker 2: it is nobody will ever know. Nobody will ever know,
Speaker 2: so I, you know, I can throw this trash down,
Speaker 2: nobody ever knows, so I can steal this stuff nobody
Speaker 2: will ever know. So I can read this material or
Speaker 2: on and on and on, but God knows, and he's
Speaker 2: the only one that really matters. You may be able
Speaker 2: to fool everybody in this room, your family, your boss,
Speaker 2: and everybody else, but that doesn't matter who you're living.
Speaker 2: The responsibility for the responsible life for is God and
Speaker 2: he sees it all. So that's the first reason, and
Speaker 2: that's enough. But there are two other reasons you need
Speaker 2: to live a responsible life. Number two, because others are
Speaker 2: affected by my life. Because other people are affected by
Speaker 2: my life. You see, none of us lives to ourselves alone.
Speaker 2: We are all interdependent. We're not independent, we're not dependent,
Speaker 2: but we are interdependent on each other. First, Corinthians tells
Speaker 2: us in the Bible people should be concerned about others
Speaker 2: and not just about themselves. Now, back in the sixties,
Speaker 2: during the kind of the hippie movement, and I lived
Speaker 2: up in the Bay Area, and then I lived north
Speaker 2: of it too, and there used to be these beautiful
Speaker 2: Peter Max psychedelic posters, some of you remember these, And
Speaker 2: one of them kind of had a sixties mantra on
Speaker 2: it that went kind of like this. It said, I
Speaker 2: was not put on this planet to live up to
Speaker 2: your expectations, and you were not put on this planet
Speaker 2: to live up to my expectations. So let me do
Speaker 2: my thing and you do your thing, and if perchance
Speaker 2: we happened to meet, that's groovy.
Speaker 3: You.
Speaker 2: Now we don't say it in such a corny way anymore,
Speaker 2: but the attitude is still around and it goes like this.
Speaker 2: It's in Billy Joel's songs. I don't care what they say.
Speaker 3: This is my life.
Speaker 2: Or is that great theologian Sammy Davis Junior said, I
Speaker 2: Gotta be me or its theological partner Sinatra, I did
Speaker 2: it my way, And the basic idea behind these type
Speaker 2: of songs are I live my life the way I
Speaker 2: want to, And what's it to you?
Speaker 3: Because if it.
Speaker 2: Hadn't hurt you, or if you don't know about it,
Speaker 2: who cares? It's my life and it really doesn't matter
Speaker 2: what I do because it doesn't affect you. The problem
Speaker 2: is you're wrong. You're wrong. Every decision you make affects
Speaker 2: somebody else, even the secret ones, even the secret ones,
Speaker 2: because it changes you, and you then influence other people
Speaker 2: by the changes in your life. You may not see
Speaker 2: the visible results, but every choice you make influences somebody else,
Speaker 2: and every time you're irresponsible, it hurts somebody else.
Speaker 3: Because we're all on this same planet.
Speaker 2: When somebody in your family has a problem, it's not
Speaker 2: their problem, it's the family's problem because it influences everybody
Speaker 2: in their family, one kid, whether the kids on drugs
Speaker 2: or the dad's under stress. Believe me, it affects everybody
Speaker 2: in the family. There is no such thing as a
Speaker 2: non affecting decision. You all the time with your life
Speaker 2: influence your family, parents, kids, brothers, sisters, moms, dad's, husband's wives.
Speaker 2: The choices you make influence your friends. They influence the
Speaker 2: people in your neighborhood, They influence friends at church, They
Speaker 2: influence society at large in major and minor ways. But
Speaker 2: we are all interconnected because we're on this planet together.
Speaker 2: I mean, if I were to ask five of you
Speaker 2: to say, hey, are four of you volunteer to go
Speaker 2: with me after service today, Let's go over to Lake
Speaker 2: Mission Viejoll And I've got a rowboat over there, and
Speaker 2: we're gonna go out and catch some rays. Well, just
Speaker 2: row out in the middle of the lake and just
Speaker 2: relax for a while. So I get four of you
Speaker 2: to go with me. We got an eight foot boat.
Speaker 2: We get over there and I say, okay, now, each
Speaker 2: of you, here is your foot and a half space.
Speaker 2: Here's your space. Here's your space. Here's your foot and
Speaker 2: a half, here's your foot and half. This is my
Speaker 2: space over here.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 2: So we go out. We row out into the middle
Speaker 2: of the lake. We're out there, relaxing, getting a tan.
Speaker 2: Twenty minutes into the boat trip, I pull out a
Speaker 2: wood drill and start drilling a hole in the bottom
Speaker 2: of the boat in my space. You say, what are
Speaker 2: you doing, Rick, And I say, I'm drilling a hole.
Speaker 3: You say, why what are you doing? You can't do that.
Speaker 3: I said, don't worry about it. It's my life. This
Speaker 3: is my space.
Speaker 2: I'm not drilling it on your You got your own space.
Speaker 2: You want to drill a whole, fine, you don't want
Speaker 2: to drill a home five. What's good for you is fine,
Speaker 2: But what's good for me is fine. And I'm gonna drill.
Speaker 2: I want to drill a hole in my space. You say,
Speaker 2: you don't understand something.
Speaker 3: Rick.
Speaker 2: We're all in the same boat, and if the boat
Speaker 2: goes down, we're all going down with it. And that's
Speaker 2: why it's totally irresponsible to say I can live any
Speaker 2: lifestyle I want. It doesn't matter to you. It does
Speaker 2: matter to me because it affects me and it affects
Speaker 2: other people around. And the Bible teaches we affect other
Speaker 2: people by our lives. Now, see, it's interesting that when
Speaker 2: we are irresponsible, the two most common excuses rationalizations we
Speaker 2: give are number one, nobody will know about it, and
Speaker 2: number two, it won't hurt anybody.
Speaker 3: And you're wrong on both accounts. You're wrong.
Speaker 2: A man can say, oh, I can get away with
Speaker 2: this because my wife'll never know. I can do this
Speaker 2: and it won't hurt my wife, and kids can say
Speaker 2: oh I can do this, it won't hurt my parents,
Speaker 2: and employees say, you know, I can do this because
Speaker 2: it's a big company. It won't hurt anybody, And you're wrong.
Speaker 2: So you need to be responsible because God is watching
Speaker 2: and because other people are affected. But there's a third reason,
Speaker 2: and this is even a positive point here, and that
Speaker 2: is I need to be responsible because God rewards it,
Speaker 2: and boy does he reward it. Deuteronomy twenty eight, verse
Speaker 2: two says this in the Bible, you will experience all
Speaker 2: of God's blessings. If you obey the Lord circle that
Speaker 2: word all, God says, you will not believe what I
Speaker 2: will pour out on your life. If you will live
Speaker 2: responsibly with your time, with your money, with your relationships,
Speaker 2: with your every area of your life, I will bless
Speaker 2: you in ways you cannot even imagine. One of the
Speaker 2: ways that God rewards us when we are responsible is
Speaker 2: he gives us greater responsibility. The next verse, Jesus says,
Speaker 2: to those who use well what they are given, even
Speaker 2: more will be given. And so if you use your influence,
Speaker 2: well guess what. You become more influential. And if you
Speaker 2: use your possessions, well, guess what. God will provide more
Speaker 2: of them. Why should God give you more money when
Speaker 2: you're not responsible with the finances you've got right now?
Speaker 2: He doesn't have any obligation to help you when you're
Speaker 2: living irresponsibly in that area or any other area. But
Speaker 2: he says, on the other hand, if you will be responsible,
Speaker 2: I will bless your socks off in a way you
Speaker 2: can't imagine. Now, if that's the case, how do I
Speaker 2: become a more responsible person?
Speaker 3: Look on the back of your.
Speaker 2: Outline anytime you want to talk about responsibility. There's a
Speaker 2: certain book you have to go to in the Bible.
Speaker 2: You know, the Bible's made up of sixty six different
Speaker 2: books inside, and there's an entire book of the Bible
Speaker 2: written about how to live a responsible life. It's called
Speaker 2: the Book of Proverbs. Proverbs has thirty one chapters in it.
Speaker 2: That means if you read one chapter a day, you'd
Speaker 2: read through the book.
Speaker 3: Once a month.
Speaker 2: I want to challenge you today to read through read
Speaker 2: a chapter a day of Proverbs for the rest of
Speaker 2: your life. It means you'll go through it about twelve
Speaker 2: times a year, and each time you read through it,
Speaker 2: read through it in a different translation, and then get
Speaker 2: another one, read through another one, then another one, because
Speaker 2: you'll get more and more out of it. This is
Speaker 2: the book that teaches you how to live. It teaches
Speaker 2: you things like how do you build strong relationships. It
Speaker 2: talks about how to handle wealth. It talks about how
Speaker 2: to build a business. It talks about how to get
Speaker 2: along with other people to save your marriage. It talks
Speaker 2: about child raising. It talks about what to do when
Speaker 2: you fail, what to do when you succeed. It's an
Speaker 2: amazing storehouse of God's wisdom and so you have to
Speaker 2: go to Proverbs when you look a bit responsible living. Now,
Speaker 2: that's interesting to me that in our culture we actually
Speaker 2: idolize irresponsible people. You take the most irresponsible people in
Speaker 2: the world, and we say, oh, look at them, aren't
Speaker 2: they cute. They just you know, thumb their nose to
Speaker 2: convention and to the law and everything else.
Speaker 3: And they really are.
Speaker 2: Oh they're free spirits. They're unique, and they're the ones
Speaker 2: who get all these awards and glory and their picture
Speaker 2: on magazine covers, and we call them great. Well, God
Speaker 2: has another word for irresponsible people. It's a four letter
Speaker 2: world word. He calls them a fool. A fool sixty
Speaker 2: nine times. The word fool is used in the Book
Speaker 2: of Proverbs, and the same guy who wrote Proverbs wrote Ecclesiastes,
Speaker 2: the next book, and it's used twenty three times in
Speaker 2: that book. Now, when we use the word fool, we
Speaker 2: usually mean stupid, dumb, low IQ, uneducated, unsophisticated, naive, not
Speaker 2: very smart. But when God uses the word fool, he
Speaker 2: says it means irresponsible, irresponsible. He says, you know what,
Speaker 2: you can have a low IQ and not be a fool.
Speaker 2: You can have little or no education and not be
Speaker 2: a fool. But if you are irresponsible, God says, in
Speaker 2: light of the meaning of life and why you put
Speaker 2: you on earth, you're foolish if you live irresponsibly. So
Speaker 2: sixty nine times in the book he says, here's what
Speaker 2: a fool does, and on the other hand, he contrast says,
Speaker 2: here's what a wise person, a responsible person does. Now
Speaker 2: we don't have time to go into all sixty nine
Speaker 2: of those today, so let me just give you four
Speaker 2: to get started. Four ways to get started on being
Speaker 2: a more responsible person. And your homework this week is
Speaker 2: to go find the other sixty five and write them down,
Speaker 2: because they're all there. Okay, Number one, let's just get
Speaker 2: real practical. How can I be a more responsible person?
Speaker 3: Number one?
Speaker 2: By saving my money? By saving my money, God says,
Speaker 2: if you're not saving any of your money for the future,
Speaker 2: you are being a fool.
Speaker 3: You're being irresponsible.
Speaker 2: For instance, the average Japanese citizen saves twenty five percent
Speaker 2: of their income in Japan. The average European saves fourteen
Speaker 2: to fifteen percent of their income. The average American saves
Speaker 2: less than five percent of his or her income. Why,
Speaker 2: because we have bought into this instant gratification society that says,
Speaker 2: I've got to have it now, buy now, pay later,
Speaker 2: live for today, enjoy it all now, and don't worry
Speaker 2: about tomorrow. And as a result, the average American puts
Speaker 2: thirteen hundred dollars on his credit card for every one
Speaker 2: thousand dollars he makes. What's wrong with this picture? I'll
Speaker 2: tell you what it is. He's acting like the government. Okay, now,
Speaker 2: only the government can get away with that. It's called
Speaker 2: deficit spending because they got a little machine in the
Speaker 2: back that prints the money. And unless you have one
Speaker 2: of those in your garage, you're headed for trouble. You're
Speaker 2: headed for trouble. Deficit spending, and so we spend, spend, spend,
Speaker 2: and Americans are not saving any thing.
Speaker 3: That says that's foolish.
Speaker 1: Hey, thanks so much for listening to today's show. I
Speaker 1: don't know if you're like me, but sometimes I feel
Speaker 1: like Rick is talking to me at the exact moment
Speaker 1: about the exact thing that I need help with. And
Speaker 1: now here's Rick to tell you about a resource that
Speaker 1: he created to help you in your walk with Jesus.
Speaker 2: Did you know that everything you do and every decision
Speaker 2: you make is based on your values. Today, so many
Speaker 2: people are confused about what they're meant to be and
Speaker 2: what they're supposed to do with their lives because they're
Speaker 2: looking in the wrong places and they're living by values
Speaker 2: that are at odds with God's values. In fact, I
Speaker 2: believe living with values is the number one conflict and
Speaker 2: cause of stress in our lives today. So what's God's solution. Well,
Speaker 2: he wants us to live by his eternal values, the
Speaker 2: values that he teaches in the Bible. Now, I have
Speaker 2: prepared a new resource that I want to tell you
Speaker 2: about today to help you develop and apply God's values
Speaker 2: in your life. It's a resource I'm calling Building your
Speaker 2: Life on Values that Last. It's a self guided study
Speaker 2: that I believe will help you grow spiritually. It'll help
Speaker 2: you understand what matters most in your life, and it
Speaker 2: will help you to follow God's eternal plan for your life.
Speaker 2: Building your Life on Values at Last is going to
Speaker 2: help you in ways You've never imagined, and I help
Speaker 2: you learn what God has to say about trust, self control, balance, responsibility,
Speaker 2: respect forgiveness. It will help you understand what the Bible
Speaker 2: says about moral purity and fairness. And honesty and love,
Speaker 2: and I will show you some practical ways to make
Speaker 2: the changes you need to make to get back on
Speaker 2: track so that you're living by God's values, not by
Speaker 2: the world's pressures. Here's the best news. You don't have
Speaker 2: to do this in your own strength. God is going
Speaker 2: to give you the power and the ability to make
Speaker 2: the changes He wants you to make. You're really gonna
Speaker 2: want to get this tool. It's got a beautiful leather
Speaker 2: like cover. It's filled with beautiful artwork and application exercise
Speaker 2: and a lot of space for you to write down
Speaker 2: your thoughts, your responses, your ideas to what God is
Speaker 2: teaching you. This is something you're gonna keep for a
Speaker 2: long long time. It's a comprehensive study tool that I
Speaker 2: believe is gonna help you go deeper as you follow Jesus.
Speaker 2: And I'm proud to carry one of these myself. I
Speaker 2: hope you'll get one today.
Speaker 1: Go to pastorick dot com to get your copy of
Speaker 1: this great resource. That's pastorick dot com. Or you could
Speaker 1: just text the word hope to seven oh three to
Speaker 1: oh nine. That's the word hope to seven oh three
Speaker 1: to oh nine. Be sure to join us next time
Speaker 1: as we look into God's Word for our daily hope.
Speaker 1: This program is sponsored by Daily Hope Ministries and your
Speaker 1: generous financial support.