Speaker 1: Hey, everyone, Welcome to Pastor Rick's Daily Hope, the Bible teaching.
Speaker 2: Ministry of Rick Warren.
Speaker 1: And today we're continuing with this powerful series called the
Speaker 1: Jesus Model. In this series, Rick will walk you step
Speaker 1: by step through the process of true biblical discipleship. Rick's
Speaker 1: giving you practical tools to grow spiritually, experience God's peace,
Speaker 1: live with greater purpose, and become more like Jesus in
Speaker 1: every area of your life. And now here's part two
Speaker 1: of a message called How Jesus Handled Stress.
Speaker 2: Now notice, Jesus knew his calling and he knew exactly
Speaker 2: what it's called to do. He says in John eight fourteen,
Speaker 2: I know where I came from, and I know where
Speaker 2: I'm going. In other words, he lived a purpose driven life.
Speaker 2: If you were to look up the word drive in
Speaker 2: a dictionary, you would find that the word drive means
Speaker 2: to guide or to control, or to direct. If you
Speaker 2: drive a nail into wood, you guide control direct and
Speaker 2: nail into wood. If you drive a car, you guide
Speaker 2: control directed down the street. If you drive a golf ball,
Speaker 2: hopefully you guide control directed down the fairway. Everybody's life
Speaker 2: is driven by something. Some lives are driven by fear.
Speaker 2: Some lives are driven by guilt. They can't let go
Speaker 2: of the shame and the hurt and the regret. Some
Speaker 2: lives are driven by regret and they hold on to
Speaker 2: their anger and it kills them. Some are driven by
Speaker 2: money and I want to Some are driven by fame.
Speaker 2: Some are driven by sex. Some lives are driven by
Speaker 2: the approval of other people. God says, that's not what
Speaker 2: I want your life driven by. I want your life
Speaker 2: driven by your calling, by your purpose. I want you
Speaker 2: to know who you are, who you're trying to please,
Speaker 2: and what a what you on earth to do. Look
Speaker 2: at your shape and do that and you will be
Speaker 2: guided either in life by pressure or by purpose. And
Speaker 2: if you don't know your purpose, then you're going to
Speaker 2: be susceptible to pressure, and you're going to be stressed
Speaker 2: out because God loves you and everybody else has a
Speaker 2: wonderful plan for your life and they want to get
Speaker 2: you all over in a corner. Now, the direction of
Speaker 2: your life again is your choice. And by clarifying your calling,
Speaker 2: you avoid the tyranny of the urgent. Have you learned
Speaker 2: that not everything important in life is urgent, and not
Speaker 2: everything that's urgent in life is important. When Dwight Eisenhower
Speaker 2: ran and for president and became President of the United States,
Speaker 2: he used to have two baskets in baskets on his
Speaker 2: desk in the oval office. One of them said urgent
Speaker 2: and the other said important. And they said, well, what
Speaker 2: do you do with the important? He said, I do them.
Speaker 2: He said what do you do with the urgent? He said,
Speaker 2: ignore them. Just because something's urgent doesn't mean you should
Speaker 2: do it. You just need to do the life. There's
Speaker 2: not enough time in life to do everything that's urgent.
Speaker 2: You have just enough time to do God's will. You
Speaker 2: have just enough time to do your calling. And if
Speaker 2: you're feeling like I don't have enough time, it means
Speaker 2: you're doing something in your life that God didn't call
Speaker 2: you to do. Hmm, think about that one. Until you
Speaker 2: clarify your calling, you're gonna be double minded. You're gonna
Speaker 2: go back and forth between all kinds of things. In fact,
Speaker 2: the Bible says this in James one to eight. A
Speaker 2: person who has doubts about what they're supposed to be
Speaker 2: doing in life is thinking about two different things at
Speaker 2: the same time and can't make up his mind about anything.
Speaker 2: You're gonna be double minded. You're gonna be wishy washy,
Speaker 2: You're gonna be pushed around. And so Paul tells us
Speaker 2: in Ephesians four one, I urge you to live a
Speaker 2: life worthy of the calling you have received. So what
Speaker 2: do you do? It means you each day ask yourself
Speaker 2: while you're starting to do stuff, is this what I'm
Speaker 2: called to do? Is what I'm doing right now moving
Speaker 2: me toward my purpose? And if it is, you do it.
Speaker 2: If it's not moving your towards your purpose, don't do it.
Speaker 2: Dan Rather, when he was head of CBS News, used
Speaker 2: to have a little sign on his desk that said,
Speaker 2: is what I'm doing right now, contributing to the evening broadcast.
Speaker 2: That's purpose driven. That's focus, and that leads me to
Speaker 2: the fourth key in Jesus's life. The fourth antidote to
Speaker 2: stress is the principle of concentration, and that means just
Speaker 2: focus on what matters most. Focus on what matters most.
Speaker 2: Know who you are, identification, know who you're living for.
Speaker 2: That's motivation, and know your calling, that's your vocation. And
Speaker 2: once you know those three, focus, focus on what matters most.
Speaker 2: Don't get distracted by trivia. Now, let me tell you
Speaker 2: something little secret I've learned as a pastor. If Satan
Speaker 2: can't get you to be bad, he'll just get you
Speaker 2: to be busy. He doesn't care whether it's bad things
Speaker 2: or good things, as long as you're not doing the
Speaker 2: right thing, as long as you're not doing your calling,
Speaker 2: your purpose, what God has called you to do. And
Speaker 2: He was very happy for you to fill your life
Speaker 2: up with good things that keep you from the better
Speaker 2: things or the best things, so you can waste your
Speaker 2: life on good things. They're not bad, they're good. It's
Speaker 2: not a matter of right or wrong, good and evil.
Speaker 2: It's a matter of better and best. If Satan can't
Speaker 2: do you do bad, you're busy, he'll wear you out
Speaker 2: with good things. And there's plenty of good things in
Speaker 2: life to wear you out. Everybody agree with that. Yeah,
Speaker 2: there's plenty of things to wear you out around it now.
Speaker 2: Jesus is a master of concentration. He knew how to focus,
Speaker 2: and he focused his life like a laser. And that's
Speaker 2: the key to a successful life. Focus. Know what God
Speaker 2: has called you do, and then focus on it and
Speaker 2: don't do anything else. That's what we talk about being
Speaker 2: purpose driven. You see light diffused has no power at all.
Speaker 2: Light focused. Light focused has enormous power. You can take
Speaker 2: the focus of the sun. It didn't do any problem
Speaker 2: to grass. But if you focus it with a magnifying glass,
Speaker 2: you can burn grass. You can also burn little bugs,
Speaker 2: which I love to do when I was a kid.
Speaker 2: You know, just how cool is that burn army men
Speaker 2: and all kinds of things. Never mind, If you focus
Speaker 2: light even more, it becomes a laser. And a laser
Speaker 2: can cut through steel, and a laser can kill a cancer,
Speaker 2: and a laser can do all the other things in life.
Speaker 2: If you want your life to matter, focus it. Paul says,
Speaker 2: this one thing I do, that's focus. He doesn't say
Speaker 2: these forty things I dabble in. And what we do
Speaker 2: in life is we dabble in this and that, and
Speaker 2: this and that and a little bit of everything, and
Speaker 2: you know, master of nothing. The Bible says this about
Speaker 2: Jesus in Luke chapter nine. As the time drew near
Speaker 2: for Jesus return to Heaven, he moved steadily onward toward Jerusalem.
Speaker 2: That's where the cross is going to happen, with an
Speaker 2: iron will. In other words, he was persistent, he was determined.
Speaker 2: He was focused. He was concentrated, he knew what mattered most. Now,
Speaker 2: let me tell you why. This is some point. You
Speaker 2: have enormous spiritual potential that is locked. You're living a
Speaker 2: fraction of your spiritual potential right now, just a fraction
Speaker 2: of it. It's like you being a twelve cylinder car
Speaker 2: and you're running on two cylinders. You have far more
Speaker 2: spiritual potential than you have ever imagined. You go me,
Speaker 2: I'm not a spiritual person. Yeah, that's why, because you
Speaker 2: don't see it. You have enormous spiritual power and potential
Speaker 2: in your life, but there's a barrier that's keeping it
Speaker 2: from coming out. What is it? You haven't really decided
Speaker 2: yet what matters most in life. You're still just going
Speaker 2: around treating everything like it's all equally important. It's not.
Speaker 2: There are some things that are gonna last for eternity.
Speaker 2: There's some things that are gonna last for ten years.
Speaker 2: There's some things that are gonna ask for ten minutes,
Speaker 2: and there's some things that aren't gonna be worth while
Speaker 2: ten seconds from now. And when you give equal importance
Speaker 2: to something that's going to last ten minutes and ten
Speaker 2: years and ten trillion years, that's a poor choice. That
Speaker 2: is a very poor choice. A lot of times people say, well,
Speaker 2: I just don't have time to do the important things.
Speaker 2: I don't have time to fulfill my calling, to do
Speaker 2: my vocation. I don't have time to fulfill my ministry. Yeah,
Speaker 2: well that's an old excuse. People gave that excuse to
Speaker 2: Jesus years ago. Jesus said, hey, come follow me. And
Speaker 2: one guy said, I gotta go sell some land. And
Speaker 2: another guy said I gotta go close the deal. And
Speaker 2: another guy said, I gotta go get married. Guy said
Speaker 2: I got to go. I gotta go bury my dad.
Speaker 2: Jesus said this there on your outline, Luke nine sixty two.
Speaker 2: Anybody who lets himself be distracted from the work that's
Speaker 2: the vocation, the calling that I planned for him, is
Speaker 2: not fit for the Kingdom of God. He said, don't
Speaker 2: get distracted. Know who you are, know what you're living for,
Speaker 2: know your calling. Focus on what matters most. Look at
Speaker 2: the verse on the back of your outline one Corinthians
Speaker 2: ten twenty three. I love this and amplified because it
Speaker 2: gainst the full meaning of the Greek. Let's read it aloud.
Speaker 2: We are free to do anything, but not all things
Speaker 2: are helpful or profitable, or wholesome or constructive to your
Speaker 2: character and spiritual life. I love this, he says here.
Speaker 2: Not everything he said. Everything's possible. Everything he said, you know,
Speaker 2: you're free to do anything you want. See, God's given
Speaker 2: you a free will. You can totally waste your life
Speaker 2: if you want to, and God won't stop you. You
Speaker 2: can waste your life, you can you can spend your life,
Speaker 2: or you can invest your life. And the greatest use
Speaker 2: of your life is to invest it in that which
Speaker 2: will outlast it. Living for here and now is a terrible,
Speaker 2: stupid mistake. It's short term thinking. You need to invest
Speaker 2: your life in something that's going to outlast your life,
Speaker 2: because you're going to spend more time on the other
Speaker 2: side of death than on this side. Now, he says here,
Speaker 2: we are free to do anything. God will give you
Speaker 2: the freem to do anything you want. But he said,
Speaker 2: not everything is helpful or profitable, or wholesome or constructive
Speaker 2: to your character and spiritual life. In other words, some
Speaker 2: things aren't necessarily wrong. They're just not necessary. They're not
Speaker 2: necessarily bad, they're not necessary. There's a lot of things
Speaker 2: you can do with your life that's not necessarily evil,
Speaker 2: It's just not necessary. He says, you need to concentrate
Speaker 2: your life because if you don't, stress is going to
Speaker 2: stress you out all the time. And if you want
Speaker 2: out an effective life, selection is the name of the game.
Speaker 2: Know what matters most. Principal number five. The principal number
Speaker 2: five is the principle of meditation, that is, listen to God.
Speaker 2: This is one of the key sources of stress reduction.
Speaker 2: Learning to listen to God. Don't just talk to him,
Speaker 2: listen to God. He said, Wait a minute, Wait a minute.
Speaker 2: I never hear God speak. God never talks to me.
Speaker 2: How can I listen to him? I'll tell you why
Speaker 2: you never. God never talks to you because you don't
Speaker 2: be quiet long enough. Here's your prayer, God, I need
Speaker 2: these five things. God. I want these five things. God.
Speaker 2: I need help in these five areas. God, I'm thankful
Speaker 2: for these five things. Over and now ten four? Good buddy,
Speaker 2: Salanara and God? Was oh time out? You never listen
Speaker 2: to me. Isn't this thing supposed to be a conversation? Yes?
Speaker 2: Why don't I hear from God? Because you're not quiet?
Speaker 2: You won't sit still long enough for God to speak
Speaker 2: back to you. Now let me just make this real clear.
Speaker 2: Here's how this works. I have never ever heard God
Speaker 2: speak audibly to me like a voice out of heaven,
Speaker 2: like you know, you know, some deep dark voice. But
Speaker 2: God doesn't need to do that. I don't need God
Speaker 2: to do that. He can put impressions right into my mind.
Speaker 2: The same God who invented radio waves, which means there's
Speaker 2: sound floating through this room right now. In fact, those
Speaker 2: sound waves are going through your body right now. You
Speaker 2: don't know it, but they're going through your body right now.
Speaker 2: You're just not tuned in. But if we had a
Speaker 2: radio and tuned it in, you'd pull sound out. You'd
Speaker 2: receive the sound the messages that are going through the
Speaker 2: air right now. And the same God who created television,
Speaker 2: where there are actually pictures floating through this air right now,
Speaker 2: and they're floating through your body. Television waves are going
Speaker 2: all through this thing right now. We don't see him,
Speaker 2: but if we had a receiver and tuned it in,
Speaker 2: you'd see the color picture and their cell phone things.
Speaker 2: If God created all of that kind of stuff, He
Speaker 2: doesn't need to speak to me audibly. He can put
Speaker 2: an idea directly into my mind. He made my brain,
Speaker 2: and as a human being, he gave me a brain.
Speaker 2: He can put thoughts in my mind. Now, when you
Speaker 2: get a thought from God, that's called inspiration. When you
Speaker 2: get a thought from the devil, that's called temptation. When
Speaker 2: you get a thought from yourself, that's called stupidity. Just
Speaker 2: kidding you, yeah, yeah, jazz kidding Okay. Now, Granted, when
Speaker 2: you first start in this and you're trying to listen
Speaker 2: to God, sometimes you can't figure out is it me,
Speaker 2: the devil or God or the bad pizza eight last night?
Speaker 2: And but you can get good at this, you really can.
Speaker 2: I talk to God all the time. God talks to
Speaker 2: me all the time. And I know now because I've
Speaker 2: been walking the Lord long enough when it's me thinking
Speaker 2: my own thoughts. And I know now when it's the
Speaker 2: devil trying to just tempt me, and I know when
Speaker 2: it's the bad pizza from the night before. But you
Speaker 2: can get good at this now. If you get an
Speaker 2: idea and it is a bad idea, it isn't from God.
Speaker 2: If you get an idea and it's an evil idea,
Speaker 2: it's from the devil. If you get an idea that
Speaker 2: contradicts what's in this book what God has already said
Speaker 2: in his truth. It's not from God. God will never
Speaker 2: contradict his truth. But here's what you need to do.
Speaker 2: You need to be quiet for an extended period of time. Now,
Speaker 2: God speaks in many different ways. Sometimes God speaks through
Speaker 2: reading the Bible, and so you want to read the
Speaker 2: Bible on a regular basis, on a daily basis, and
Speaker 2: sometimes the verse pops out. You go, wow, that's exactly
Speaker 2: what I needed to work with that person today. And
Speaker 2: I go, whoa man, I needed that. And sometimes it
Speaker 2: speaks to the Bible. Sometimes God speaks to a Christian
Speaker 2: and they give you a word of insight that go, oh, man,
Speaker 2: that really helps. But sometimes God speaks directly through impressions
Speaker 2: into your mind. And here's what I would challenge you
Speaker 2: to do tomorrow or even this afternoon. Get off by yourself,
Speaker 2: like sunrise or sunset. Sit in the back of your
Speaker 2: yard by yourself, nice quiet place, get a glass a
Speaker 2: cold iced tea, and sit there and say God, is
Speaker 2: there anything you want to say to me? And then
Speaker 2: just sit there for a long time, not like, man,
Speaker 2: how long has it been? Wow? Ninety seconds? I thought
Speaker 2: that was like two hours. Man, you see. Most of
Speaker 2: you have never sat still in total silence for fifteen minutes,
Speaker 2: much less thirty minutes or an hour. You, in your
Speaker 2: entire life have never sat still just for fifteen minutes
Speaker 2: ago God, anything you want to say to me. And
Speaker 2: that's why God does never talk to you, because you're
Speaker 2: not listening, You're not tuned in, You're on some other channel.
Speaker 2: You're always busy, listen to the radio or iPod or TV.
Speaker 2: You're talking. The channels are busy and the lines are
Speaker 2: all busy. So what you do? One of the things
Speaker 2: I like this, I like to ask God a question.
Speaker 2: I say God, what do you want me to do
Speaker 2: about this? And I'll just sit there and listen and
Speaker 2: be quiet. Sometimes it comes, and sometimes it comes a
Speaker 2: day later. I can't tell you the number of times
Speaker 2: that when I've gone to bed at night, I would say, Lord,
Speaker 2: I've really got this problem. I need a solution to
Speaker 2: this problem, and I don't know what you want me
Speaker 2: to do here, and I'll ask God that question. Is
Speaker 2: I go to bed and when I wake up in
Speaker 2: the morning, when I get out of bed, I can't
Speaker 2: tell you the number of times the answer has been there,
Speaker 2: or I get in the shower and I get the
Speaker 2: answer there. Somebody's got to invent a waterproof note taking
Speaker 2: thing for the shower so you can write down. Oh,
Speaker 2: I don't want to forget that, because a lot of
Speaker 2: times you get an idea from God and if you
Speaker 2: don't write it down, you forget it. You know, everybody
Speaker 2: agree with this, You know what I'm talking about, And
Speaker 2: you go, oh, man, I forgot it. What was that
Speaker 2: I was in the shower? You try to recreate the moment. Ah.
Speaker 2: So God speaks to the person who wants to listen,
Speaker 2: listen to God. Don't just talk to him, listen to God.
Speaker 2: Prayer is an enormous stress reliever. And in your life,
Speaker 2: you're either gonna worry or you're gonna worship. And if
Speaker 2: you worry, then you're not gonna worship. But if you worship,
Speaker 2: then you won't worry. Now you already know how to
Speaker 2: do meditation. How many of you know how to worry?
Speaker 2: Raise your end? If you know how to worry, okay,
Speaker 2: then you already know how to meditate. People think meditation
Speaker 2: means like put your mind in neutral, get in a
Speaker 2: load of his position, and contemplate the lent in your navel. No,
Speaker 2: that is not meditation. Meditation literally means to think seriously
Speaker 2: about something over and over and over. When you take
Speaker 2: a bad idea and you meditate over it over and
Speaker 2: over over on a bad idea, there's a word for that, worry.
Speaker 2: When you take a good idea, you take a versus
Speaker 2: scripture and you think on it over and over and over,
Speaker 2: there's a word for that meditation. Worry is just negative meditation.
Speaker 2: If you know how to worry, you already know how
Speaker 2: to meditate. You just keep going over and over and
Speaker 2: over in your mind. Now, listen to God. Prayer is cathartic.
Speaker 2: It you unload your burdens. It's a decompression chamber. And
Speaker 2: if you study the life of Jesus, you discover how
Speaker 2: many times Jesus took time to go pray, to get alone.
Speaker 2: In fact, look at some of these verses. Mark chapter one,
Speaker 2: verse thirty five. Here's another secret of stress relief. Very
Speaker 2: early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus
Speaker 2: got up, left the house and went off to a
Speaker 2: solitary place where he prayed. What's he doing, He's having
Speaker 2: a quiet time. Now. All of the characteristics say get alone,
Speaker 2: get by yourself. When you're rested now today, Why don't
Speaker 2: we hear God? Because for us, the verse would read
Speaker 2: along about mid morning, in the middle of the day,
Speaker 2: at the traffic light stop light, we gave God five
Speaker 2: seconds to speak to us. No, you go to a
Speaker 2: solitary place where he prayed. Just get by yourself and
Speaker 2: be quiet. Look at the next verse. News about Jesus
Speaker 2: spread even more, and crowds came to hear him and
Speaker 2: to be healed. In other words, he had no privacy.
Speaker 2: Crowds were around him all the time, but Jesus often
Speaker 2: slipped away to be alone so he could pray circle
Speaker 2: the word often. It was his habit. You need to
Speaker 2: have a quiet time. I'm every day to reflect, to renew,
Speaker 2: to recharge. It was his often habit. He did it regularly. Now,
Speaker 2: if Jesus felt the need to pray and be with God,
Speaker 2: how much more do we you know? Personally, I have
Speaker 2: discovered that the larger saddleback church becomes, the more I
Speaker 2: crave solitude. Why because I'm with people all the time.
Speaker 2: I'm always with people, and the person the pastor, who
Speaker 2: is available all the time isn't worth much. When he's available,
Speaker 2: I've got to be off with God alone, so God
Speaker 2: gives me something to help you. When I am with you,
Speaker 2: and Jesus did this, he would retreat to privacy for
Speaker 2: quiet times with God, and then he'd come back and
Speaker 2: he administer, and he'd retreat. You need times in your
Speaker 2: life where you get alone on a regular daily basis
Speaker 2: and spend some time with God to get recharged, renewed,
Speaker 2: and restored. Pascal, the famous philosopher, once said, most of
Speaker 2: man's problems come from his inability to sit still. We
Speaker 2: all have spiritual add attention deficit disorder, and we don't
Speaker 2: spend time focusing on God. The Bible says, be still
Speaker 2: and know that I am God.
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Speaker 1: Rick's Daily Hope. I've got something really special to share
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