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 applied the
Speaker 1: biblical principles of trust, self control, balance, respect forgiveness, moral purity, fairness, honesty,
Speaker 1: and love to our lives. And right now, here's Pastor
Speaker 1: Rick with part one of a message called developing trust.
Speaker 2: In this series on values, first we talked about developing
Speaker 2: your standard, choosing who's going to be your standard for life,
Speaker 2: and then we talked about accepting responsibility for your life.
Speaker 2: And then the next question that comes up is who
Speaker 2: are you going to trust? Now? There have been a
Speaker 2: lot of books, a lot of magazines, and a lot
Speaker 2: of articles out recently talking about the dramatic decline and
Speaker 2: trust in our society, that nobody really trusts anybody anymore.
Speaker 2: We are a cynical nation, a doubting nation. We tend
Speaker 2: to be wondering what's really the truth, where we are
Speaker 2: skeptical of everything and everybody. A recent article I read
Speaker 2: this week was talking about the high price of low trust,
Speaker 2: so that customers don't trust businesses anymore. Employees don't trust
Speaker 2: managers anymore, and nobody trusts the government anymore. And they
Speaker 2: did a survey of the trust level in America and
Speaker 2: discovered that the least trusted professions in America are now
Speaker 2: number one telemarketers, used car salesman, and at the bottom
Speaker 2: of the barrel politicians. On the other hand, the two
Speaker 2: most trusted professions in America are number one pharmacists and
Speaker 2: number two pastors. So I'd like to sell you some
Speaker 2: medicine today, folks. Let me let you in a little secret.
Speaker 2: You can't always trust pastors, and you can't alway trust
Speaker 2: pharmacists because people are people and they will let you down. Now,
Speaker 2: what's behind this decline and trust in our society where
Speaker 2: we really are skeptical of everything and everybody. We've heard
Speaker 2: all these bogus claims, and we've heard all these unkept promises.
Speaker 2: Why don't we trust people? The answer is what we
Speaker 2: talked about two weeks ago, truth decay. Our society doesn't
Speaker 2: value truth anymore. What they value is what works. It
Speaker 2: doesn't matter if it's true or not, and truth and
Speaker 2: trust go together. In fact, I've ever realized there's only
Speaker 2: one letter difference between truth and trust. You trust people
Speaker 2: who tell you the truth, and you don't trust people
Speaker 2: if you don't think they're telling you the truth. Now,
Speaker 2: in a society where most of the people say there
Speaker 2: is no such thing as absolute truth, that means you
Speaker 2: can trust absolutely no one because you can't depend on
Speaker 2: anything or anybody to always tell you the truth if
Speaker 2: there are no absolute truths life. We talked about that
Speaker 2: fallacy a couple weeks ago. Now it's interesting because that
Speaker 2: causes stress in our lives because you were wired to
Speaker 2: be a person of trust when God made you. And
Speaker 2: God created you. When he designed you, he wired you
Speaker 2: in such a way that you have the capacity and
Speaker 2: the desire to trust in something greater than yourselves, because
Speaker 2: He wanted you to have a relationship with Him. And
Speaker 2: I want to say this, if you don't learn to
Speaker 2: trust God, you will create something to trust in. It
Speaker 2: may be a diploma on the wall that gives me
Speaker 2: my security. It may be money in the bank that
Speaker 2: gives me my self esteem. It may be a beautiful
Speaker 2: husband or wife on your arm. They are my source
Speaker 2: of significance. It may be a career, a goal, or whatever.
Speaker 2: But you will create something to worship. You will create
Speaker 2: something to value, you will create something to trust in. Now,
Speaker 2: let me give you a little definition. Anytime I trust
Speaker 2: any person or anything more than God, or anytime I
Speaker 2: value any person or anything before God, that's called you
Speaker 2: might write this down an idol. An idol. That is
Speaker 2: a definition of idol. It's when I trust anything or
Speaker 2: anything or anyone else more than God. That's called an idol.
Speaker 2: The second command of the Ten Commandment says, don't make
Speaker 2: any idols. Now. Why is that? Well, another place in
Speaker 2: the Bible, in the Book of Deuteronomy, it says this
Speaker 2: notice on your outline for your own good, don't sin
Speaker 2: by making an idol in any form, he says, for
Speaker 2: your own good. Circle that he says, I want you
Speaker 2: to have a correct understanding of what I'm like, how
Speaker 2: the correct image of me in your mind, because it's
Speaker 2: truly for your own good. Now, this morning, I want
Speaker 2: to do three things. I want to ask three questions. One,
Speaker 2: what happens when I trust something else or someone else
Speaker 2: more than God? What happens? Number two? Why does it
Speaker 2: seem so difficult to trust God? And number three, what
Speaker 2: are the reasons that I really ought to trust God
Speaker 2: with my life? Let's look at him this morning. Number one,
Speaker 2: What happens when I trust God more than anything else, Well,
Speaker 2: there are two negative effects. One I'm disappointed and two
Speaker 2: I'm dominated. I am controlled, disappointed and dominated. First, I'm disappointed.
Speaker 2: Anytime I expect other people to meet and need in
Speaker 2: my life that only God can meet, I'm going to
Speaker 2: be disappointed. Anytime you take anything, and we can even
Speaker 2: make good things idols. You can make your family an idol,
Speaker 2: and there's nothing wrong with your family, But anytime you
Speaker 2: look to any single person or any single thing in
Speaker 2: life to meet all your needs, you're going to be
Speaker 2: let down. It's the idea of you know, if I
Speaker 2: could just get married, then I'd be happy. Anybody want
Speaker 2: to give a testimony on that. If I could just
Speaker 2: find that right person, my life would be totally fulfilled.
Speaker 2: That's creating an idol. Or if I could just get
Speaker 2: this job, or if I could just make X amount
Speaker 2: of money, then I would feel significant, Then I would
Speaker 2: be confident, Then I'd feel good about myself. Then life
Speaker 2: would be fantastic. You have just created an idol, and
Speaker 2: you're going to be discouraged by it. The Bible says this,
Speaker 2: and Jeremiah those who make idols are disillusioned always because
Speaker 2: they let you down. The Bible says in Hebrews, of
Speaker 2: what value is an idol? For he who makes it
Speaker 2: trusts in his own creation. He says, it's crazy. We
Speaker 2: look at a person in the jungle who carves out
Speaker 2: a little God and then bows down and worship it.
Speaker 2: We say, that's dumb made it. But we do that
Speaker 2: all the time with our careers, with our relationships, with
Speaker 2: our bank accounts, and we act as if that's what
Speaker 2: gives us meaning in life, that's what gives us significance,
Speaker 2: that's what gives us self worth. And you're going to
Speaker 2: be disillusioned now. As I said, you create something to worship,
Speaker 2: you create something to trust if you don't trust God.
Speaker 2: And it's pretty amazing all the things that people will
Speaker 2: trust in instead of God. We spend billions of dollars
Speaker 2: every year on psychicotlines, horoscopes, palm reading, tea leaves. We
Speaker 2: hang little crystals in our in our rooms are we are.
Speaker 2: We wear things around our neck and we think that
Speaker 2: that's going to ward off all the all the bad things.
Speaker 2: Or we put a little statue on our car as
Speaker 2: if that little statue can protect us. Look at what
Speaker 2: the Bible says. The poor, deluted fool is trusting something
Speaker 2: that can give him no help at all. Yet he
Speaker 2: cannot bring himself to ask, is this thing, this idol
Speaker 2: a lie? He says, we're trusting when we trust in
Speaker 2: anything besides God to take care of us. Ultimately we're
Speaker 2: going to be disappointed. We're going to be disillusioned, and
Speaker 2: then number two, we're going to be dominated. Notice the
Speaker 2: Bible says you were controlled circle that word, controlled by
Speaker 2: dead idols who led you astray. Now what I want
Speaker 2: to say about this is that anything that you value
Speaker 2: most in your life. Let's just say if I said, hey,
Speaker 2: make a list of the top ten most important things
Speaker 2: to you and put them in order. Number one, what's
Speaker 2: the most important value in your life? Number two, number three,
Speaker 2: and all the way down. Whatever's in first place is
Speaker 2: your God. It's your God. And if it's not the God,
Speaker 2: you have just built an idol. And whatever is in
Speaker 2: first place in your life, whatever you value more most
Speaker 2: eventually control. That's why I suggest you better make it God,
Speaker 2: because he's the only one wise enough to give you
Speaker 2: the right directions. This is how addictions start something becomes
Speaker 2: so important and pretty soon I think I'm controlling it,
Speaker 2: but it's actually controlling me. Look at the next verse.
Speaker 2: The Bible says in the Book of Psalms, those who
Speaker 2: make idols end up like them, and so does everyone
Speaker 2: who trust them. Whatever you value the most in life,
Speaker 2: you're going to become like So. If I value money
Speaker 2: most important in life, I'm going to become a materialist.
Speaker 2: I can't help it. If I value pleasure most in life,
Speaker 2: I'm going to become a hedonist. If I value what
Speaker 2: works most in life, I become a pragmatist. If I
Speaker 2: value Jesus Christ most in life, I become a Christian.
Speaker 2: And on and on and on. Whatever you put in
Speaker 2: top value in your life is going to shape you.
Speaker 2: And if it's not God, it's going to warp you.
Speaker 2: It's going to warp you. Then why do we do this?
Speaker 2: Why do we instead of just trusting God? Why do
Speaker 2: we start trusting and all these other things to give
Speaker 2: our life meaning, significance, et cetera. The reason we create
Speaker 2: idols is because we want a God we can control.
Speaker 2: What we want to do is we want to shrink
Speaker 2: God down so we can manage him. We want to
Speaker 2: reduce him to our size so we can put him
Speaker 2: in a little box. We want to sign him to
Speaker 2: a location. Say hey, this is your box. God. You're
Speaker 2: over there, and I'm over here when I need you
Speaker 2: come help me. You see, really you don't want We
Speaker 2: don't want a God in life. We want a genie. Okay,
Speaker 2: that's really what we want. I don't want a God
Speaker 2: that I have to serve. What I want is a
Speaker 2: God who serves me. I don't want a God that
Speaker 2: I have to worship and love. I just want a
Speaker 2: God who loves me and lets me do whatever I
Speaker 2: want to irregardless of whether it's right or wrong. I
Speaker 2: want a genie. I want to control God. I want
Speaker 2: to sign him to a place. And people try to
Speaker 2: do this all the time, well meaning parents. I've heard
Speaker 2: several times in our church after a service, the kids
Speaker 2: are running around here and they say, slow down, You're
Speaker 2: in God's house now. I want to tell you something.
Speaker 2: This is not God's house. Even this big building couldn't
Speaker 2: hold God. God can't be contained in a universe. The
Speaker 2: fact the Bible says real clearly, God does not dwell
Speaker 2: in temples made by man. God has not located anyone location.
Speaker 2: Now we would like for this to be God's house.
Speaker 2: Why because then he could stay in his house while
Speaker 2: we go do what we want to do. Okay, God,
Speaker 2: I'm so glad he's not seeing me here at the
Speaker 2: Cowboy Boogie, you know. And so we want God to
Speaker 2: be localized in one little place. But He's with you
Speaker 2: all the time. He's everywhere. And so God says, don't
Speaker 2: reduce me, don't make an idol, don't just try to
Speaker 2: fit me into your convenience. Now, this is a very
Speaker 2: important question you need to ask yourself because it will
Speaker 2: determine your values in life. Do I exist for God
Speaker 2: or does God exist for me? You have to answer
Speaker 2: one of the two ways. Do I exist for God
Speaker 2: or does God exist for me? Now? Well, who made who? Well,
Speaker 2: obviously God made you, so you exist for God. Now
Speaker 2: if you say no, no, God exists for me, you
Speaker 2: don't have a God. You have a genie. That's what
Speaker 2: you have done. You have created a little figment of
Speaker 2: your imagination. You have imaged him, imagined him. You've created
Speaker 2: an idol who serves you. Now, this is not new
Speaker 2: because from the very beginning man has been trying to
Speaker 2: do this a creation. God said, I'm gonna make man
Speaker 2: in my own what image? Okay, God says, let's make
Speaker 2: man in our image? And now today we do the
Speaker 2: opp We've reversed it. Now it's man saying I'm going
Speaker 2: to make God in my image. I'm gonna whittle him
Speaker 2: down the size. I'm going to create a little fashion,
Speaker 2: fashion him in the way that I want. He's going
Speaker 2: to be what I want him to be, so I
Speaker 2: can do my own thing. You see, the Bible says,
Speaker 2: this is the day the Lord has made, and today
Speaker 2: culture's got it backwards. This is the Lord the Day
Speaker 2: has made. And people all around and going, this is
Speaker 2: what God's like, This is what God's like. What are
Speaker 2: they doing justifying their lifestyle? They are paring down their
Speaker 2: idolizing God. I laughed at this when I read this.
Speaker 2: A while back, a guy named Enrique petition the Superior
Speaker 2: Court in Marin County, you know, up by the Bay area,
Speaker 2: to have his name changed. He now wants to be
Speaker 2: called God. So so you know, can you imagine God speaking?
Speaker 2: He says, The court held the public hearing to quote
Speaker 2: see if anyone could show just cause why he should
Speaker 2: not be great, added his request. Now, this isn't anything new.
Speaker 2: From the very beginning of time, man has wanted to
Speaker 2: be God. It's the very first temptation when the devil
Speaker 2: comes to Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden.
Speaker 2: He goes, Hey, you know, if you just eat this
Speaker 2: one tree, God said, you can eat everything else in
Speaker 2: the whole garden, but not one. So it's the minimal
Speaker 2: temptation possible. He said, just as one thing's off limits.
Speaker 2: Just why so God could give him a choice between
Speaker 2: right or wrong. That's why he did it. He says,
Speaker 2: if you just eat this one tree, you will be evil. No,
Speaker 2: he didn't say that. He said, if you just eat
Speaker 2: this one fruit, you'll be God yourself. Give it here. Okay,
Speaker 2: I want to be God. Okay, and man has always
Speaker 2: wanted to do that, to play God. Now, since you
Speaker 2: know you can't be God, the second best thing we
Speaker 2: try to do is if I can't be God, then
Speaker 2: I will whittle God down to my size and I
Speaker 2: will reduce him so it's comfortable for me and fits
Speaker 2: my my lifestyle. Now, this is what I call the
Speaker 2: ultimate expression of individualism. We talked about individualism in our
Speaker 2: in our society. A couple of weeks ago. The ultimate
Speaker 2: act of individualism is everybody gets to create their own God.
Speaker 2: You create your own God to match your lifestyle, and
Speaker 2: he says everything you do is okay, and what you
Speaker 2: don't like in other people, those are all the bad things. Okay.
Speaker 2: Then I create a God who says all the things
Speaker 2: that I like to do are fine, but all the
Speaker 2: things I disapprove of that my God says those are wrong.
Speaker 2: And we each create our own little god. That's called
Speaker 2: making an idol, and God says, don't do that now. Again,
Speaker 2: this has been happening for centuries. Did you know that?
Speaker 2: Years ago in the Roman Empire, as the decline of
Speaker 2: the empire happened, you could create any god you wanted
Speaker 2: in order to justify anything you wanted. So, for instance,
Speaker 2: if you like to get drunk every day and and
Speaker 2: have hangovers, you could create it. You could worship a
Speaker 2: god called Bacchus, the god of getting drunk. If you
Speaker 2: like to have sex twenty four hours a day with
Speaker 2: anyone and everyone in any way, with no standards at all,
Speaker 2: total promiscuity, you worshiped a god called Venus. And if
Speaker 2: you had a style or lifestyle or habit that you
Speaker 2: wanted to justify. All you had to do is create
Speaker 2: a god in the Roman pantheon, and then he says,
Speaker 2: he says, it's okay. Now we still do this today
Speaker 2: in America. We have some people who want to make
Speaker 2: a flag waving God who runs around justifying all their
Speaker 2: political opinions. God's on our side. It's God in the
Speaker 2: flag and me. We have other people who want to
Speaker 2: create a status quo God. It basically says, don't rock
Speaker 2: the boat. Everything's copa SETTI, just leave it the way
Speaker 2: it is. There are certain people who want to create
Speaker 2: a success God, which says God wants everybody to be
Speaker 2: filthy so we can justify materialism, and on and on
Speaker 2: and on. God says, don't do it. God says, don't
Speaker 2: reduce me down to size, don't cut me into a
Speaker 2: little pieces, misrepresent me. I want people to know the
Speaker 2: truth about me. Now do you like to be misrepresented? No?
Speaker 2: In fact, when people say things about you that aren't true,
Speaker 2: you get ticked off. Why are they doing that? That's
Speaker 2: not me? And you know what, God gets ticked off
Speaker 2: when we say this is what God's like, but he's not.
Speaker 2: He wants everybody to know the truth. About him just
Speaker 2: like you do. And he says, don't misrepresent me. Don't
Speaker 2: say I'm like this when I'm really this, and he
Speaker 2: takes it very, very seriously. Now, there was a book
Speaker 2: that came out recently and it's called how Do You
Speaker 2: Spell God? And it was written by a Catholic priest,
Speaker 2: a Jewish rabbi, and the foreword was written by the
Speaker 2: Dali Lama. Now you can't get more politically correct than that, folks, okay.
Speaker 2: And in this book, how do you know? How do
Speaker 2: you spell God? And by the way, HBO later took
Speaker 2: the book and made a special about it. Some of
Speaker 2: you you may have seen that. They said how do
Speaker 2: you spell God? And their conclusion was, you can spell
Speaker 2: God any way you like. Well, isn't that sweet? Okay?
Speaker 2: In other words, if I want to think of God
Speaker 2: as a fish, that's great. If I want to call
Speaker 2: him Charlie Tuona, great, if you want to say, well,
Speaker 2: I think God is some bodacious babe, fantastic, and that
Speaker 2: we all just create our own little God. Because God
Speaker 2: can be interpreted in many, many, many different ways.
Speaker 1: I just want to say thank you for join us
Speaker 1: today on Pastor Rick's Daily Hope have you ever felt
Speaker 1: like you don't have a purpose in life? I think
Speaker 1: we've all felt that way, because when you don't know
Speaker 1: your purpose in life, well you just kind of end
Speaker 1: up drifting and you get bounced around from one storm
Speaker 1: to another, and you're just not sure who you were
Speaker 1: meant to be. You wind up looking for meaning in
Speaker 1: so many of the wrong places and living by values
Speaker 1: that the world thinks are important, but they can never
Speaker 1: lead to the meaningful life that God desires for you.
Speaker 1: So to help you discover your purpose filled life, the
Speaker 1: life you were meant to live, Pastor Rick has created
Speaker 1: a transformational Bible study called Building your Life on Values
Speaker 1: That Last. Because when you base your identity and decisions
Speaker 1: on the eternal values revealed in God's Word, well everything
Speaker 1: just falls into place and you can lead the life
Speaker 1: of true success and significance that you were meant to have.
Speaker 1: Go to Pastorick dot com to get your copy of
Speaker 1: this great rea. 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, And again, thanks so much for your support,
Speaker 1: your gift to daily Hope means so much to us
Speaker 1: because it helps us share the hope of Christ with
Speaker 1: people all around the world. Be sure to join us
Speaker 1: next time as we look into God's Word for our
Speaker 1: daily hope. This program is sponsored by Daily Hope Ministries
Speaker 1: and your generous financial support.