Speaker 1: This is Pastor Rick's Daily Hope, the audio broadcast ministry
Speaker 1: of Pastor Rick Warren. Well, today we continue in our
Speaker 1: series called fifty Days of Faith. In these lessons, Rick
Speaker 1: looks into God's word to discover the true meaning of
Speaker 1: faith and explore ways we can strengthen it. But first, today,
Speaker 1: when you join our partner and Hope family by signing
Speaker 1: up for automated monthly Giving, we'll send you a special
Speaker 1: welcome gift as our way of saying thanks. To find
Speaker 1: out more, go to Pastorick dot com while you listen
Speaker 1: to today's message, or simply text the word hope to
Speaker 1: eight hundred, six hundred five thousand and four. That's the
Speaker 1: word hope to eight hundred six hundred five thousand and four.
Speaker 1: Right now, here's Pastor Rick Warren with part one of
Speaker 1: a message called how to Keep on Believing?
Speaker 2: Have you ever been in a hurry when God wasn't
Speaker 2: there's difficult things in life. Is to sit in God's
Speaker 2: waiting room. God's waiting room is when there's something beyond
Speaker 2: your control that you can't speed up. An answer to prayer,
Speaker 2: a miracle, a change in a situation, and you want
Speaker 2: it to change, but it is totally out of your control,
Speaker 2: and you have to wait on God. The Bible says
Speaker 2: in Ecclesiastes three to eleven, God does everything just right
Speaker 2: and on time, but people can never completely understand what
Speaker 2: he's doing. Boy, is that the truth? We don't know
Speaker 2: always what God is doing, and we certainly don't know
Speaker 2: when He's going to do it, and so much of
Speaker 2: life we spend waiting on God's timetable. Today, we're going
Speaker 2: to conclude the fifty Days of Faith series by looking
Speaker 2: at how do you keep on believing while you're waiting
Speaker 2: on God? And we're going to look at Abraham. If
Speaker 2: any man had to wait, it was Abraham. God gave
Speaker 2: him a promise that he'd have a baby who would
Speaker 2: become a great nation, which later became the nation of Israel.
Speaker 2: But Abraham had to wait one hundred years for that baby.
Speaker 2: That's a long time to wait. What do you do
Speaker 2: while you're waiting on God? The Bible says five things.
Speaker 2: Number one, you need to first understand the six phases
Speaker 2: of faith. God always takes you through a predictable phase
Speaker 2: and stages of faith, and we spend a message on
Speaker 2: each of these phases. We're not going to go into
Speaker 2: that in detail. You might want to get the series,
Speaker 2: but let's just review it this morning. How God always
Speaker 2: works in your life. The first phase of faith is
Speaker 2: when God gives you a dream, an idea, an ambition,
Speaker 2: a goal. God gives you a dream. In at age
Speaker 2: seventy five, God gave Abraham a dream. He said, I'm
Speaker 2: going to make you into a great nation. But that's
Speaker 2: just a start. Phase two is a decision, and a
Speaker 2: decision is when you decide to act on that dream.
Speaker 2: A dream without a decision is worthless. And every dream
Speaker 2: of God has a risk to it. It has a
Speaker 2: part that you have to to take a step of
Speaker 2: faith out. Abraham had to leave his existing homeland and
Speaker 2: go to a place where he never knew. He had
Speaker 2: never heard of, never heard of, never been there, and
Speaker 2: so he took a risk. And when God gives you
Speaker 2: a dream, it says this is what I want to
Speaker 2: do with your life. There's going to come a point
Speaker 2: you have to make the decision to say, Okay, God,
Speaker 2: I'm going to go after your dream for my life,
Speaker 2: not my own dream. Once you've done that, you move
Speaker 2: into phase three. And phase three is delay because the
Speaker 2: dream is never fulfilled instantly. When God gives you an
Speaker 2: idea of what he wants to do with your life,
Speaker 2: and when he actually fulfills it, there is always a
Speaker 2: time gap because He wants to grow you, he wants
Speaker 2: to build you up. Eleven years after God gave Abraham
Speaker 2: his dream, Abraham still didn't have a child. And when
Speaker 2: he's eighty six, it says, but Sarah still had not
Speaker 2: born any children. What's happened in those eleven years. The
Speaker 2: answer is nothing. He was just waiting on God. He's
Speaker 2: tempted to doubt, tempted to despair, tempted to take detours,
Speaker 2: but God says, no, You're gonna wait for the fulfillment
Speaker 2: of the dream I've given you. Then comes along phase four,
Speaker 2: and that is difficulty. God not only lets you wait
Speaker 2: for a while, but while you wait, he lets you
Speaker 2: have some problems. Isn't that fun? And so you go
Speaker 2: through the stage of difficulty, where things go from bad
Speaker 2: to really bad, to worse to impossible. And you notice
Speaker 2: that at age ninety nine, Abraham still didn't have a son.
Speaker 2: He's ninety nine, his wife Sarah is eighty nine, and
Speaker 2: still it says, how can a son be born to
Speaker 2: a man my age. Now what's worse is that God
Speaker 2: changed Abraham's name. His name originally was Abram, and God
Speaker 2: changed his name to Abraham, which means father of a
Speaker 2: great nation. Now imagine this. He walks into a seven
Speaker 2: to eleven. The guy says, what's your name, father of
Speaker 2: a great nation?
Speaker 1: Oh?
Speaker 2: How many kids you have? None? How old are you?
Speaker 2: Ninety nine? That's kind of embarrassing folk. It's a test
Speaker 2: of his faith. But eventually god fulfills the dream and
Speaker 2: at age one hundred and his wife is ninety Sarah,
Speaker 2: they have a miracle baby and they name him Isaac,
Speaker 2: which means laughter, because they laughed at that thought. I mean,
Speaker 2: Sarah's ninety years old. We know she didn't believe God
Speaker 2: when God said you're pregnant because she laughed. Any woman
Speaker 2: who really believed God at ninety and figured she was
Speaker 2: pregnant would have cried. But she laughs, and God laughs,
Speaker 2: and Abraham laughs, and Isaac is named Laughter. And they
Speaker 2: have a miracle boy. And I think this is great.
Speaker 2: But then comes the most difficult phase of faith of
Speaker 2: all number five, dead end. And at dead end, God
Speaker 2: allows your dream to seemingly die. Abraham was asked to
Speaker 2: give up the miracle child. God says, I want you
Speaker 2: to sacrifice him back to me. Now get this. Abram
Speaker 2: wakes one hundred years, gets a baby, he starts to
Speaker 2: grow up, and God says, by the way, now, I
Speaker 2: want you to give him back to me. I want
Speaker 2: you to sacrifice into me. Heybraham's thinking, what kind of
Speaker 2: God is this? Is this a cruel joke? He's asking
Speaker 2: me to sacrifice the very dream child that was promised
Speaker 2: to me. And he looks he feels pretty hopeless. How
Speaker 2: do you know when you're at a dead end, you
Speaker 2: feel hopeless. Some of you are at a dead end
Speaker 2: in your marriage right now. Some of you are at
Speaker 2: a dead end and getting married. Some of you are
Speaker 2: at a dead end when you look at your budget,
Speaker 2: when you look at your career, when you look at
Speaker 2: your friendships, your relationships. Some of you are at a
Speaker 2: physical dead end and your health is falling apart. And
Speaker 2: when you're at this stage, you start to doubt God's
Speaker 2: wisdom and love and you say, why is this happening
Speaker 2: to me? It's out of your control. Well, congratulations, God
Speaker 2: is getting you ready. He is preparing you for the
Speaker 2: final phase of faith, which is deliverance. And the greater
Speaker 2: the dead end, the more hopeless of the situation, the
Speaker 2: greater the deliverance is going to be, the more of
Speaker 2: a miracle. It'll be you go, Wow, that was God.
Speaker 2: Only God could have done that. And so God is
Speaker 2: getting you ready for a miracle, the miracle of deliverance. Now,
Speaker 2: everybody in this room, God's going to take you through
Speaker 2: these six phases of faith many many times in your life,
Speaker 2: over and over again. You'll go from dream to decision,
Speaker 2: to delay, to difficulty, to dead end to deliverance, and
Speaker 2: then they'll do it again, and then they'll do it
Speaker 2: again to keep you growing in your faith. In fact,
Speaker 2: everybody here is at one of these stages right now.
Speaker 2: Some of you are in the dream phase, you're getting
Speaker 2: an idea. Some of you are in the delay phase
Speaker 2: or the difficulty or the dead end phase. But you
Speaker 2: have to understand how God works. If you're going to
Speaker 2: learn to be patient and keep on believing when you're
Speaker 2: waiting on God. The second thing you do when you're
Speaker 2: waiting for deliverance is you remember what God can do.
Speaker 2: Remember what God can do. The situation may be out
Speaker 2: of your control, but it's not out of God's control.
Speaker 2: So you don't focus on what you can't do. You
Speaker 2: focus on what God can do. What can God do? Well,
Speaker 2: look at this verse Romans four seventeen. Read it with me.
Speaker 2: Abraham believed in God, who gives life to the dead
Speaker 2: and who creates something out of nothing. Folks, that verse
Speaker 2: right there is the definition of a miracle. So write
Speaker 2: the word miracle out to the side, because in a miracle,
Speaker 2: here's what happens. Either God gives life to something that's dead,
Speaker 2: or he creates something out of nothing. And that's what
Speaker 2: it's all about. Though. That's what God can do. He
Speaker 2: can give life to a dead career, a dead marriage,
Speaker 2: dead dreams, dead finances, and he can bring something out
Speaker 2: of nothing. Jesus said, anything as possible if you have faith. Now,
Speaker 2: I want you to notice something. This is very important.
Speaker 2: What did Abraham put his faith in? Look at that verse.
Speaker 2: Did he believe in Did he believe in himself? No?
Speaker 2: Did he believe in his feelings? No? Did he put
Speaker 2: faith in faith, you know, like I'm just put faith
Speaker 2: in faith. No? Did he practice positive thinking? No? He
Speaker 2: believed in God. Now I believe in positive thinking. We've
Speaker 2: talked about this many times. But positive thinking and faith
Speaker 2: are not the same thing. You hear these songs about
Speaker 2: positive thinking, like I believe that for every drop of
Speaker 2: rain that falls, a flower grows. Folks, that's belowne. If
Speaker 2: every drop of rain produced a flower, the world would
Speaker 2: be covered with flowers. We'd be tiptoing through the tulips.
Speaker 2: It's just not true. And positive thinking works in one situation.
Speaker 2: It works in situations where you have control over the situation. If,
Speaker 2: for instance, you believe you're going to do a good
Speaker 2: job at something, you'll probably do a better job than
Speaker 2: if you didn't believe it. But positive thinking is worthless
Speaker 2: in things, things that are out of your control.
Speaker 1: You're listening to Pastor Rick's Daily Hope. Rick will be
Speaker 1: back in just a moment with the rest of today's lesson.
Speaker 1: You can sign up for Pastor Rick's free email devotional
Speaker 1: at pastorick dot com. That's pastorick dot com.
Speaker 3: The Bible says children are a gift from the Lord.
Speaker 3: Do you have kids, grandkids, nieces, nephews, or kids in
Speaker 3: your neighborhood that need to know God loves them and
Speaker 3: has a good plan for their lives. You can help
Speaker 3: them get closer to God. By encouraging them to read
Speaker 3: God's Word. That's why we're so excited to tell you
Speaker 3: about a very special resource just for kids called God's
Speaker 3: Big Plans for Me. It's a storybook Bible by Pastor
Speaker 3: Rick Warren. This two hundred and twenty three page hardcover
Speaker 3: children's book includes forty well loved Bible stories to help
Speaker 3: kids engage with God's word. Each Bible story has an
Speaker 3: introduction from Pastor Rick that helps young readers understand the
Speaker 3: Word of God and a closing thought with a practical
Speaker 3: step boys and girls can take to discover God's Big
Speaker 3: Plans for them. Their eyes will light up as they
Speaker 3: turn the beautifully illustrated pages and really start to get
Speaker 3: what God wants to say to their young hearts and minds.
Speaker 3: God's Big Plans for Me is so much more than
Speaker 3: just a book filled with cute pictures of Bible characters.
Speaker 3: It's a fun and effective way to introduce children to
Speaker 3: God's everlasting truth. This book makes a great gift. You'll
Speaker 3: want to get a copy for every child in your life,
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Speaker 1: Now, let's get back to today's lesson. Here on Pastor
Speaker 1: Rick's Daily Hope.
Speaker 2: Positive thinking works in one situation. It works in situations
Speaker 2: where you have control over the situation. Positive thinking is
Speaker 2: worthless in situations out of your control, especially when you
Speaker 2: come to a dead end in life. When you come
Speaker 2: to a dead end, you need more than just a
Speaker 2: nice happy thought. You need faith in God. You know,
Speaker 2: I could say, you know, I believe I look like
Speaker 2: Brad Pitt. I could say it all the time. I
Speaker 2: want anyone's going to make me look like Brad Pitt.
Speaker 2: What's going to happen is the only thing that changes
Speaker 2: circumstances is faith in God. Faith in God works when
Speaker 2: things are out of your control. Now here's a little secret.
Speaker 2: Most of life is beyond your control. So you need
Speaker 2: faith in God far more than you need just kind
Speaker 2: of happy positive, you know, think pretty thoughts. When you
Speaker 2: get to a dead end, you need to remember what
Speaker 2: God can do. Lotus is verse. What is impossible with
Speaker 2: men is possible with God. The third thing you do
Speaker 2: when you're waiting on God is rely on God's promises.
Speaker 2: Rely on what God has promised. The Bible says in
Speaker 2: Romans four eighteen, when hope was dead within him, Abraham
Speaker 2: went on hoping in faith. He relied on the word
Speaker 2: of God. Circle the phrase when hope was dead within him?
Speaker 2: Have you ever felt that way that hope was dying
Speaker 2: inside of you? How do you know when hope is
Speaker 2: dying inside of you? You start using the word never.
Speaker 2: I'm never gonna get married, We're never going to have
Speaker 2: a baby. I'm never going to be happy again. I'm
Speaker 2: never going to change. Abraham went on hoping in faith
Speaker 2: circle the phrase hoping in faith. This isn't just wishful thinking,
Speaker 2: This isn't just positive thinking. This is hoping in faith,
Speaker 2: faith in God. You keep on believing. How do you
Speaker 2: keep on believing when you feel like doubting, when you
Speaker 2: feel like giving up? Well, it says there he relied
Speaker 2: on God's word and nothing is more reliable. Now, I
Speaker 2: hope you've gotten this by now in the fifty Days
Speaker 2: of Faith, every single message we've talked about, You've got
Speaker 2: to get into God's words. If you're going to be
Speaker 2: a man of faith, if you're going to be a
Speaker 2: woman of faith, you have to get God's promises in
Speaker 2: your life. Even here, once again we hit it again,
Speaker 2: rely on what God has promised. He relied on the
Speaker 2: word of God, and that's what kept them going when
Speaker 2: Hope wanted to give up. You need to read this book,
Speaker 2: study this book, memorize Bible verses. Later on, you could
Speaker 2: pull up this week's memory verse because this is the
Speaker 2: last week I gave you too. This week Matthew nineteen
Speaker 2: twenty six. With God, everything is possible and Glatians five
Speaker 2: to six. The only thing that counts is faith expressing
Speaker 2: itself through love. When you get the promises of God
Speaker 2: in your life, you will be able to hope in
Speaker 2: faith rather than giving up. Now, when you come to
Speaker 2: a dead end, rely on the promises. Notice this next verse.
Speaker 2: While God was testing him, and that's what waiting is.
Speaker 2: It's a test. Abraham still trusted in God and his promises,
Speaker 2: so he offered his son Isaac. Now this is a test.
Speaker 2: Isaac grows up and God says, I want you to
Speaker 2: give him back to me. I want you to sacrifice
Speaker 2: them to me. But Abraham didn't panic. I would have,
Speaker 2: but Abraham didn't panic. God said, give me your son back,
Speaker 2: sacrifice them to me. But he didn't panic. For three reasons,
Speaker 2: the Bible tells us. One, he believed that God would
Speaker 2: raise him from the dead Hebrews eleven nineteen. Second, when
Speaker 2: he's telling a servant, we're going up the hill to
Speaker 2: make the sacrifice, he says, will be back, not I'll
Speaker 2: be back, but we'll be back. He fully intended the
Speaker 2: son to come back with him. And Third, when his
Speaker 2: little boy, Isaac is walking up the hill with him,
Speaker 2: and he says, Daddy, where's the lamb We're going to sacrifice.
Speaker 2: Abraham says, the Lord will provide. He had every intention
Speaker 2: and no doubt that God was going to spare his
Speaker 2: son or resurrect him from the dead. Why he had
Speaker 2: the promises of God. Now here's the big test in
Speaker 2: your life. What are you going to do when God
Speaker 2: says to you, I want you to sacrifice your greatest dream.
Speaker 2: That is the ultimate test of faith. When God says
Speaker 2: the thing you value most in life, what you want
Speaker 2: most in life, what you crave most in life, will
Speaker 2: you offer it on the altar? To me, this is
Speaker 2: a test. Will you do what Abraham did? Will you
Speaker 2: hope against hope? Will you hope in faith? And will
Speaker 2: you rely on the promises of God? Look at the
Speaker 2: next verse Romans four eighteen. Though it seemed Abraham's hope
Speaker 2: could not be fulfilled, he did become the father of
Speaker 2: many nations, exactly as God has promised. Notice the word seemed.
Speaker 2: Things are never as bleak as they seem if you
Speaker 2: look at them from God's point of view. The disciples
Speaker 2: follow Jesus around for three years, and they thought he
Speaker 2: was going to bring in the kingdom and set up
Speaker 2: a king and they all be rulers. And one day
Speaker 2: they look up and Jesus is hanging on the cross
Speaker 2: and he's dead. You talk about a dead end. They
Speaker 2: are devastated. He's the Messiah, He's the son of God.
Speaker 2: How in the world could he be hanging on a cross?
Speaker 2: They didn't know that Easter was just a couple days away.
Speaker 2: God specializes in turning dead situations around and resurrecting situations
Speaker 2: that look hopeless when we rely on the promises of God.
Speaker 2: Notice circle the word exactly. He says. He became the
Speaker 2: father many nations exactly as God had promised. A promise
Speaker 2: is only as good as the integrity of the promiser,
Speaker 2: and God cannot lie. The fourth thing you do when
Speaker 2: you're waiting on God, recognize the facts in faith. Face them,
Speaker 2: but face them in faith. Recognize the facts of your
Speaker 2: life in faith. Romans four, nineteen and twenty says, without
Speaker 2: weakening in his faith, he it's Abraham faced the facts
Speaker 2: that his body was as good as dead and Sarah's
Speaker 2: womb was also dead. He's been pretty blunt here, yet
Speaker 2: he didn't waver with unbelief. God's word translation says through faith.
Speaker 2: He regarded the facts. Abraham recognizes that he and his
Speaker 2: wife are beyond child bearing years. He's ninety nine, his
Speaker 2: wife is eighty nine, and it is a medical impossibility
Speaker 2: that they're going to have children. Now, he doesn't deny
Speaker 2: the facts. He faces them with faith. This is very,
Speaker 2: very important at this. Faith does not ignore reality. Faith
Speaker 2: does not pretend you don't have a problem. Faith does
Speaker 2: not act like it's no difficulty. Faith is not denial.
Speaker 2: Please hear that, because people think it is. Let me
Speaker 2: give you definition of faith. Faith is facing the facts
Speaker 2: in your life without being discouraged by them. That's faith.
Speaker 2: It's not denying you have problems. It's not denying you
Speaker 2: have difficulties. It's not denying you're facing a dead end
Speaker 2: or a hopeless situation. From a human standpoint, it is
Speaker 2: facing the fact of problems in your life without being
Speaker 2: discouraged by them. That is true faith. Some of you
Speaker 2: are facing cancer. Some of you have loved ones who
Speaker 2: are facing cancer. Right now. You cannot deny the diagnosis,
Speaker 2: but you can defy the verdict. Big difference. You cannot
Speaker 2: deny the diagnosis. I don't have cancer, Yes you do.
Speaker 2: They don't have cancer. Yes, they do. You cannot deny
Speaker 2: the diagnosis. That's fantasy, it's denial. But you can defy
Speaker 2: the verdict, and you can find and say we're going
Speaker 2: to work at this and we're going to do all
Speaker 2: we can to beat it and defy the verdict. You see,
Speaker 2: this is very important because there's a brand of Christianity
Speaker 2: out there that says, deny all your problems and just smile, smile, smile.
Speaker 2: That's not Jesus, that's Pollyanna. You know. It says, you know,
Speaker 2: I'm not sick. Positive confession. I'm not sick. I got
Speaker 2: one hundred and four temperature, but I'm not sick. Or
Speaker 2: you know, I'm not in debt. I'm on the verge
Speaker 2: of bankruptcy, but I'm not in debt. Faith is not
Speaker 2: asking you to deny reality. It never does. Faith asks
Speaker 2: you to face the reality in your life without being
Speaker 2: discouraged by it. It's not living in denial. Faith is
Speaker 2: not clinging to the past. Faith is not stubborn foolishness.
Speaker 2: Please understand this. If you're still waiting for eight tracks
Speaker 2: to make a comeback, let it go. It's over. It
Speaker 2: isn't coming back. If you're still waiting for that special
Speaker 2: guy or girl to invite you out on a date,
Speaker 2: that person from high school and it's your fiftieth reunion.
Speaker 2: Let it go. That puppy's not coming home, just let
Speaker 2: it go. If you're hoping that dimpled Chads will elect
Speaker 2: you president, let it go, let it go. Grieve deeply,
Speaker 2: but let it go.
Speaker 1: This is Pastor Rick's Daily Hope. Rick will be right
Speaker 1: back to close out our time today. But first, over
Speaker 1: the last couple of years, we've all experienced world wide
Speaker 1: changes and events that have impacted us in profound and
Speaker 1: sometimes unimaginable ways. For many of us, those changes will
Speaker 1: impact our lives for years to come. Pastor Rick believes
Speaker 1: that now more than ever, people need God's word and
Speaker 1: the hope that it brings. That's why he'd like to
Speaker 1: invite you to become a partner in Hope. Here's Rick
Speaker 1: to tell you more.
Speaker 2: One of the reasons that I started Daily Hope is
Speaker 2: to take the message of hope not just across our country,
Speaker 2: but all around the world to people who need a
Speaker 2: shot of encouragement, who need the message and word of
Speaker 2: hope in a discouraging day, and that message can only
Speaker 2: be found in Jesus, would you help me with this?
Speaker 2: I really need your help. I can't do it by myself,
Speaker 2: and I'd like to ask you to become my partner
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Speaker 2: As a Partner in Hope, you can help me broadcast
Speaker 2: these life transforming messages from God's Word, not just here
Speaker 2: in America, but in podcasts and online and literally all
Speaker 2: around the world.
Speaker 1: To become a partner in Hope with convenient, automated monthly giving,
Speaker 1: just go to Pastorick dot com or call eight hundred
Speaker 1: six hundred five thousand and four. When you do, we'll
Speaker 1: send you a special bonus welcome gift and God's Big
Speaker 1: Plans for Me storybook Bible to say thanks again. That's
Speaker 1: Pastorick dot com or call eight hundred six hundred five
Speaker 1: thousand and four. There's only two days left to become
Speaker 1: a Partner in Hope and receive your special welcome gift.
Speaker 1: So don't wait and don't forget to let us know
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