Speaker 1: Well, hello, and welcome to Daily Hope with Pastor Rick Warren. Today,
Speaker 1: Rick's going to kick off a new series called Building
Speaker 1: My Life on Values that Last. In these inspiring lessons,
Speaker 1: Rick shows us practical ways to apply the Biblical principles
Speaker 1: of trust, self control, balance, respect forgiveness, moral purity, fairness, honesty,
Speaker 1: and love. Now, here's Pastor Rick with part one of
Speaker 1: a message called Choosing My Standard.
Speaker 2: What are your values? Your values are your core beliefs
Speaker 2: that shape everything you do in life. There are a
Speaker 2: lot of people who say, you know, it really doesn't
Speaker 2: matter what you believe, But that's just not true, folks.
Speaker 2: It is not true. It does matter what you believe
Speaker 2: your beliefs. Let's get this. Your beliefs determine your behavior,
Speaker 2: and your behavior determines what you become. So the kind
Speaker 2: of person you are, if you look at his foundation,
Speaker 2: is based on the things you've chosen to value. In
Speaker 2: other words, your convictions in life determine your conduct, and
Speaker 2: your conduct determines your character. So whatever you want to
Speaker 2: be in life, you better figure out quick what your
Speaker 2: values are because they determine your stress level, your success,
Speaker 2: your salvation, and many many other things. Now, if you
Speaker 2: want to build a lasting life of success and significance,
Speaker 2: you must build it on lasting values. And that's what
Speaker 2: we're going to look at in this series. Now, one
Speaker 2: thing that basically everybody in our society agrees with today,
Speaker 2: whether you're liberal or whether you're conservative, Democrat, Republican, independent,
Speaker 2: whether you are religious or irreligious, a Christian or an
Speaker 2: Unchristian or an atheist, or whatever be'st the majority of
Speaker 2: people say that our society today is in a stage
Speaker 2: of spiritual or not spiritual, but moral decline. There's a
Speaker 2: decaying of values in our society. Many studies, many surveys
Speaker 2: say that over eighty percent of Americans say that the
Speaker 2: number one problem in America now is not the economy,
Speaker 2: but it's the decline and decay of moral values. George
Speaker 2: Gallup just recently did a poll and discovered that Americans
Speaker 2: today are more interested in values than at any other
Speaker 2: time in the past sixty years. It's a very very
Speaker 2: hot item. In fact, I asked my researchers who helped
Speaker 2: me with studying for messages to go. I said, go
Speaker 2: out and find me. Just see if there are any
Speaker 2: current articles in magazines, not religious ones, but just secular
Speaker 2: magazines that deal with the concern about the moral decline
Speaker 2: and decaying and values in America. Just find some recent ones,
Speaker 2: and they came back with three hundred and fifty articles.
Speaker 2: I thought i'd read you just a few of the titles.
Speaker 2: These are out of all the major national magazines. These
Speaker 2: are the titles. Is the US morally in trouble? Can
Speaker 2: we save our culture? The character deficiency syndrome? Fighting to
Speaker 2: fill the values gap? The decline of a nation, a
Speaker 2: nation of liars, the moral obtuseness in America living in
Speaker 2: the new dark ages, a nation of finger pointers blaming
Speaker 2: everyone else. How moral deprivation breeds kids with attitudes, morals
Speaker 2: and mixed signals. The People magazine sin Pole, I'd like
Speaker 2: to read that one the new dangers of relativism shifting
Speaker 2: realities are moral makeover, the spiritual void, and drug use
Speaker 2: when winning is the only thing signs of hope amid
Speaker 2: moral decay. Why is common courtesy less common? Beyond materialism?
Speaker 2: The sexual revolution reconsidered faultiness, the lack of responsibility in
Speaker 2: our society, and how in disregard for the truth has
Speaker 2: become epidemic in America. And what we discovered is that
Speaker 2: every single national magazine has devoted at least one cover
Speaker 2: to this issue of values and moral decline in the
Speaker 2: last two years. Now, this crisis can be seen in many,
Speaker 2: many areas. I've just listed five of them. There, politics, business, entertainment, education,
Speaker 2: even religion. FI said, take some time right now and
Speaker 2: write down the current scandal in each of these areas.
Speaker 2: You'd be able to do it because of this crisis
Speaker 2: that's going on. Now, what is the cause of all
Speaker 2: of this? Why is there so much concern about this
Speaker 2: in our society? Well, we're today We're going to look
Speaker 2: at the cause of moral decline, the cause of why
Speaker 2: people aren't building their lives on values, the cost of
Speaker 2: it to our families and ourselves. And we're going to
Speaker 2: look at the cure. And the next week we get
Speaker 2: into all of the problems. This is just I mean,
Speaker 2: all of the solutions. This is just the the introduction.
Speaker 2: What is the cause of the crisis of values in
Speaker 2: our society? Two words? Would you write this down? Truth decay?
Speaker 2: Not truth decay, but truth decay. And the fact is
Speaker 2: we no longer value the truth, excuse me, in America.
Speaker 2: Instead we value two other things. We value Convenience is
Speaker 2: it easy, and we value pragmatism. Does it work? Today
Speaker 2: people really don't care about the truth. In fact, some
Speaker 2: people even question is there such a thing as truth?
Speaker 2: Universal truth? And they say, what I want to know
Speaker 2: is does it work? And is it easy? And if
Speaker 2: it works in my life? And if it's easy, I
Speaker 2: don't care if it's true or not, that's good enough
Speaker 2: for me. Now. In the generation that fought World War
Speaker 2: War two, those people, when they did wrong, they knew
Speaker 2: they were doing wrong, and they chose. They said, I
Speaker 2: know this is wrong, but I'm going to do it anyway,
Speaker 2: and they would do it. There was no disagreement what
Speaker 2: was right or wrong or what was true. Today, though
Speaker 2: it's very different. We have an entire generation of young
Speaker 2: people and children who don't even know the difference between
Speaker 2: right and wrong. And there are parts of our society
Speaker 2: today say there's no such thing as right and wrong.
Speaker 2: What may be right for you may be wrong for me,
Speaker 2: and what may be right for me may be wrong
Speaker 2: for you. So there are no standards by which you
Speaker 2: can evaluate your life or evaluate your behavior. Now, what happened?
Speaker 2: Why is it that in just one generation's time, we
Speaker 2: went from general agreement on this is true. Today. If
Speaker 2: I stood up and said this is true, and this
Speaker 2: is true, and this is true, and this is right,
Speaker 2: and this is wrong, there would be all kinds of
Speaker 2: controversy about it. And it just happened in one generation.
Speaker 2: What happened we were sold a bill of goods. We
Speaker 2: fell for three very destructive philosophies that have replaced truth
Speaker 2: in our society. You might write these down, and then
Speaker 2: we're going to all explain the implications in your life.
Speaker 2: The first of these destructive philosophies is individuality, our individualism.
Speaker 2: An individualism says basically, this live for myself, that only
Speaker 2: I can be the standard of my life. Only I
Speaker 2: can judge what's really true, only I can judge what's right,
Speaker 2: and only I can judge what's wrong. And you don't
Speaker 2: have any place in telling me what's right or wrong
Speaker 2: or true, because I basically am my own god and
Speaker 2: I live for myself. And have you ever heard this phrase,
Speaker 2: I've got to do what's best for me. That's called individualism.
Speaker 2: I'm A recent survey by the Wall Street Journal of
Speaker 2: executives across America discovered that when executives in America have
Speaker 2: an ethical crisis about forty four percent of them say
Speaker 2: I consult with myself, and only three percent say I
Speaker 2: consult with God. See they're saying I set myself up
Speaker 2: as the standard. Now, this is nothing new. Individualism has
Speaker 2: gone on in nations for centuries, millenniums. In fact, thousands
Speaker 2: of years ago, the nation of Israel fell prey to this.
Speaker 2: If you ever want to read the dark ages of
Speaker 2: the Nation of Israel, read the Book of Judges, because
Speaker 2: it was a time of total chaos. Why was it chaos?
Speaker 2: We'll look at this verse on your outline, Judge is
Speaker 2: twenty one. In those days, Israel had no authority, in
Speaker 2: other words, no king or anybody else. So the people
Speaker 2: did read the rest with me whatever seemed right in
Speaker 2: their own eyes. Does that sound vaguely contemporary? I'll just
Speaker 2: do whatever I think is right. And if there are
Speaker 2: no judges, there are no standard, there's no rule, there's
Speaker 2: no law, there's no absolutes, then hey, I can do
Speaker 2: whatever I want. Now that's an easy philosophy to hold
Speaker 2: on to because it means I never have to feel
Speaker 2: guilty because I don't have to marry up to my
Speaker 2: standards or your standards anybody else. And if you say,
Speaker 2: well this is right, then even well, that may be
Speaker 2: right for you, but for me, I am an individual
Speaker 2: and I run my own life. And that's the first philosophy.
Speaker 2: The result of it in the nation of Israel was anarchy,
Speaker 2: and that's going to be the result of if America
Speaker 2: keeps going that way here, because I'm only thing that
Speaker 2: matters is me. The second philosophy that we've bought into
Speaker 2: is called secularism, and secularism can be summarized in three words.
Speaker 2: God is unnecessary. Doesn't mean I don't believe there is
Speaker 2: a God. Oh yeah, I believe there is a God.
Speaker 2: I just don't need him in my life. And for
Speaker 2: the last forty years, we have been systematically removing God
Speaker 2: from every area of public life, out of the schools,
Speaker 2: out of the government, out of the media, out of
Speaker 2: the newspapers, out of all of the different areas is
Speaker 2: the public opinion in life, and we've basically relegated God
Speaker 2: to Sunday mornings. Oh. I believe in God, but it's
Speaker 2: just he's just a little slice over there. And then
Speaker 2: I really lived the rest of my life because God
Speaker 2: isn't necessary. I've got it all together on my own.
Speaker 2: You see, again, this has all happened in just forty years.
Speaker 2: Forty years ago, most school rooms had the Ten Commandments
Speaker 2: hanging on the wall a standard of moral authority. And
Speaker 2: forty years ago, many, if not most school rooms, classes
Speaker 2: began with prayer. And forty years ago, the majority of
Speaker 2: people in America went to church. More people went to
Speaker 2: church than didn't go to church. Now today that's exactly
Speaker 2: the opposite. It's flip flopped. Obviously, there's no Ten Commandments
Speaker 2: or prayer in schools, and the majority of people don't
Speaker 2: go to church today than do. And the number one
Speaker 2: purveyor of value used today is not God or Bible
Speaker 2: or church or even parents. It's television. And so in secularism,
Speaker 2: God's been removed from the mainstream. This has talked about
Speaker 2: in the Book of Romans, Chapter one. It says they
Speaker 2: exchange the truth of God for a lie, and they
Speaker 2: worshiped created things rather than the Creator. That's called today, folks, materialism.
Speaker 2: When you worship things instead of the God who created everything.
Speaker 2: That's why there'll be more people at the beach and
Speaker 2: at the mountains today than worshiping their tan than they
Speaker 2: are in church worshiping God. And we hear about all
Speaker 2: of these uneducated tribes in some dark forest. So we say,
Speaker 2: isn't it sad that these tribes they get a little
Speaker 2: piece of wood and they carve it into an idol,
Speaker 2: then they bow down in front of it and they
Speaker 2: worship it. How uneducated. But Americans have idols too that
Speaker 2: we worship. The only difference is our idols have chrome
Speaker 2: on them, okay, And they have a little thing out
Speaker 2: on the front of the hood that says, this is
Speaker 2: how much I paid for this car. And a lot
Speaker 2: of people worship their boat, their house, their career, and
Speaker 2: anything that is created, rather than worshiping God. So God
Speaker 2: is unnecessary and I live for myself. The third philosophy
Speaker 2: that we've fallen prey to is called relativism. Relativism, now
Speaker 2: that doesn't mean you have bad relatives sty at your
Speaker 2: house for weeks. You can summarize relativism in two words.
Speaker 2: It's the words no absolutes, no absolutes, And the idea
Speaker 2: behind relativism kind of goes like this. You know, what's
Speaker 2: true for me may not be true for you, and
Speaker 2: what's truth for you may not be truth for me.
Speaker 2: Therefore what's right for me may not be right for you.
Speaker 2: What's right for you may not be right for me,
Speaker 2: And nobody can say what's right or wrong because all
Speaker 2: truth is relative and it just you know, it's kind
Speaker 2: of vague out there. Now. Again, that's a great way
Speaker 2: to live if you don't want to have any guilt,
Speaker 2: because then you say, well that's your standard. Well my
Speaker 2: standard's this, And if I don't measure up to God's standard,
Speaker 2: will I just lower the bar a whole bunch And
Speaker 2: then I say, oh, look, how great I am. Now
Speaker 2: this is a problem, and it comes up in a
Speaker 2: lot of familiar phrases. For instance, have you ever heard
Speaker 2: this one? It doesn't matter what you do as long
Speaker 2: as you're sincere, And it doesn't matter what you believe
Speaker 2: as long as you're sincerely believe it. Are you familiar
Speaker 2: with this? And it doesn't matter what you believe as
Speaker 2: long as you're sincere. And whenever I hear that, I
Speaker 2: want to go, oh, really, have you thought through the
Speaker 2: logical extension that oh really, it doesn't matter what you
Speaker 2: believe as long as you're sincere. You can be sincerely
Speaker 2: wrong and be sincere. I mean, let's say this, let's
Speaker 2: say this, cup, I think this cup is filled with
Speaker 2: water for me to drink, but it's really filled with
Speaker 2: sulfuric acid, just kidding. And I could drink that thinking
Speaker 2: it was water but sulfuric acid, and I would be
Speaker 2: sincerely dead. It does matter what you believe. How about this.
Speaker 2: Let's say after church, you're gonna go get on the
Speaker 2: freeway and you go up what you sincerely believe is
Speaker 2: the on ramp to the freeway, but the truth is
Speaker 2: it's really the off ramp. Now is sincerity enough to
Speaker 2: keep you from having an accident? No? Does the truth
Speaker 2: matter in that situation? Absolutely it does. Because you're getting
Speaker 2: ready to have a major collision that may take your life.
Speaker 2: It takes more than to sincerity. And so while you're
Speaker 2: driving up this on ramp, which is really an off
Speaker 2: ramp the freeway, some guy's coming off the off ramp.
Speaker 2: He rolls down his window and he's irately yells to you,
Speaker 2: wrong way. And if you believe in relativism, you say, well, now,
Speaker 2: who are you to tell me what's wrong? Who made
Speaker 2: you the judge of my life? I mean, it may
Speaker 2: be true for you, but it may not be true
Speaker 2: for me. I mean, for you, this may be an
Speaker 2: offramp for me, it's an on ramp. Okay, So don't
Speaker 2: be so judgmental and narrow minded. And you know, let
Speaker 2: me tell you something. When people tell you the truth,
Speaker 2: they're not judging you. They're being kind, they're being kind.
Speaker 2: And there are very few people who will level with
Speaker 2: you today and say, look, you're blowing it. You go
Speaker 2: down that train, you're gonna miss it. You're gonna heading
Speaker 2: for a major head on collision. And when people go
Speaker 2: through a major crisis, like you know, should I move
Speaker 2: in with this guy, or should I get a divorce,
Speaker 2: or should I you know, take drugs or in any
Speaker 2: kind of ethical crisis, and people already and go, well,
Speaker 2: you know, you just whatever's best for you. They don't
Speaker 2: love you, because people who tell you the truth are
Speaker 2: those who love you. They're not judging you, they're just
Speaker 2: telling you the truth. Now, there's another phrase that relativism uses,
Speaker 2: and it goes like this, there are no absolute truths
Speaker 2: in life. There are no absolutes. Have you ever heard
Speaker 2: this one? Any of you ever heard this one? Yeah?
Speaker 2: Most of Yeah. Whenever somebody says to me there are
Speaker 2: no absolutes. In fact, that was in a class one
Speaker 2: day as a high school student, and the teacher stood
Speaker 2: up in a philosophy class. He said, there are no
Speaker 2: absolutes in life, And I said, are you absolutely sure? Now, folks,
Speaker 2: let me tell you something. Don't ever let anybody con
Speaker 2: you with pseudo intellectualism, with statements like it doesn't matter
Speaker 2: what you believe as long as you're sincere and there
Speaker 2: are no absolute truths. That, folks, is not only illogical,
Speaker 2: it's irrational. In the first place. It's illogical because that
Speaker 2: statement in itself is an absolute There are no absolutes.
Speaker 2: You've just stated one, which means obviously that one's wrong.
Speaker 2: Take that through now and think that through. You cannot
Speaker 2: make an absolute statement that there are no absolutes. That's illogical.
Speaker 2: But more than that, it's just pure irrational, because the
Speaker 2: fact is, the whole world proves that the world is
Speaker 2: built on things that you can depend on because they
Speaker 2: are absolutely true. For instance, there is an absolute truth
Speaker 2: called gravity. Are you familar with this one? What if
Speaker 2: all of a sudden, say every eight or nine minutes,
Speaker 2: God turned off gravity, cute, A'll be floating up in
Speaker 2: the ceiling here. Okay, But one of the reasons we
Speaker 2: build chairs is because you can depend on gravity to
Speaker 2: pull you down as something needs to hold you up.
Speaker 2: When NASA, NASA makes a rocket launch to the moon,
Speaker 2: you know the moon's over here. They don't aim the
Speaker 2: rocket toward the Moon. They aim the rocket way over here.
Speaker 2: Why because the Moon is moving and so is the Earth,
Speaker 2: and so they have to aim at a place where
Speaker 2: there isn't even a moon yet, so that by the
Speaker 2: time the rocket gets there, the moon's there. Now, how
Speaker 2: do they figure that out? Because God has established the
Speaker 2: entire universe on some universal laws that are always true
Speaker 2: and can always be depended on, and you never have
Speaker 2: to doubt that. Well, maybe one time it won't be true. No,
Speaker 2: God always makes these laws true, and truth is ongoing now.
Speaker 2: For instance, Let's say you got a bronchitis or sore throat,
Speaker 2: and you get a prescription and you walk and say,
Speaker 2: here's the prescription that the doctor gave me for my bronchitis.
Speaker 2: Ten minutes later, the pharmacist comes back and gives you
Speaker 2: medicine for schizophrenia. I don't need this. Well, you know
Speaker 2: there are no absolutes, so I thought this medicine would
Speaker 2: be as good as any other. In fact, you look
Speaker 2: a little neurotic, And so I thought you could take this,
Speaker 2: you know, and I know that there's a certain thing
Speaker 2: that says only eighty mgs of this medicine, but I
Speaker 2: thought three thousand megagram would be MG's would be exactly
Speaker 2: what you need. So I know this is five times
Speaker 2: over the limit of axilent dotes. It may kill you,
Speaker 2: but I don't care, because it really means truth is evasive,
Speaker 2: and it may be true for that doctor, but not
Speaker 2: for me. So now, when you go to a pharmacist,
Speaker 2: are you interested in absolute truth? Yes, you want just
Speaker 2: the right amount of just the right medicine, because not
Speaker 2: any medicine will do, and every medicine is not equal,
Speaker 2: and every medicine is not valid, and every medicine is
Speaker 2: not equally good for you. You want the one. See. Truth
Speaker 2: is narrow, folks, that's why it's called the truth. And
Speaker 2: God says, I want you to know the truth. I mean,
Speaker 2: what if there were no traffic laws. What if, for instance,
Speaker 2: let's say, stop signs meant stop whenever you feel like it.
Speaker 2: What if the line in the middle road meant stay
Speaker 2: on this side if you want to, we would have
Speaker 2: no world. You'll all be dead even people, even philosophers,
Speaker 2: who claim there are no absolutes in life, get very
Speaker 2: interested in absolutes when they're being violated. For instance, if
Speaker 2: all of a sudden, my neighbor says, I don't believe
Speaker 2: there are any absolutes, so I start building an extension
Speaker 2: to my house twenty feet onto his property. All of
Speaker 2: a sudden, he's very there needs to be a law here. Well,
Speaker 2: there cannot be any law unless there are some absolute
Speaker 2: things that are right and wrong. So don't let anybody
Speaker 2: con you, because we have been conned by individualism. Live
Speaker 2: for myself, secularism, God is unnecessary. And relativism, which is
Speaker 2: there are no absolutes. You see now in today's society
Speaker 2: in relativism, which is the prevailing attitude. The highest value
Speaker 2: in our society is tolerance, tolerance, because we value tolerance
Speaker 2: more than truth. You don't want to say the truth
Speaker 2: because you may hurt somebody, you may offend somebody. They
Speaker 2: may disagree with you. And what we're supposed to do
Speaker 2: is tolerate each other. The worst sin in our society
Speaker 2: is to be intolerant. The worst labeled to be labeled
Speaker 2: is to be labeled judgmental. You're narrow minded, you're judgmental,
Speaker 2: you're intolerant. Now would you write this down. It's not
Speaker 2: judgmental to tell the truth. It's not judgmental to tell
Speaker 2: the truth. You say, well, I believe that this lifestyle
Speaker 2: is the right way. Oh no, but I believe this
Speaker 2: lifestyle is the right way. Well, God says this lifestyle
Speaker 2: is the right way, and he's telling the truth. He's
Speaker 2: not being judgmental, he's just telling the truth. It's not
Speaker 2: judgmental to tell the truth. In fact, not only that, tolerance,
Speaker 2: the word tolerance has been redefined in our society. Go
Speaker 2: look up the word tolerance in a dictionary, and this
Speaker 2: is what it used to mean. Tolerance used to mean
Speaker 2: I will respect you and treat you with dignity even
Speaker 2: though iviolently disagree with you. That's what tolerance means. I'll
Speaker 2: respect you and treat you in dignity even though I
Speaker 2: disagree with what you believe.
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