Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to Pastor Rick's Daily Hope. This is
Speaker 1: the Bible teaching ministry of Rick Warren. Hey, We're so
Speaker 1: glad you've joined us.
Speaker 2: Today.
Speaker 1: We're continuing a powerful series called Radicalis Developing Spiritual Roots.
Speaker 1: And in this series, Rick will show you how to
Speaker 1: grow deep in your faith, stay grounded in God's word,
Speaker 1: and become everything He created you to be. All right,
Speaker 1: here's the final part of a message called Radical Joy.
Speaker 3: The fifth reason we can have joy no matter what
Speaker 3: happens in our lives. If I'm in Christ, God will
Speaker 3: meet all my needs.
Speaker 2: God has promised us.
Speaker 3: If I'm in Christ, God has promised to meet all
Speaker 3: my needs. So what do I have to worry about?
Speaker 3: And again, worry is a killjoy. The Bible says it
Speaker 3: like this in Romans eight, verse thirty two. Since God
Speaker 3: did not spare even his own son, that's Jesus, but
Speaker 3: gave him up for us all. Won't God, who gave
Speaker 3: us Christ also give us everything else?
Speaker 2: You see the logic of that verse.
Speaker 3: If God loved you enough to come to earth and
Speaker 3: die on the cross for your sins, don't you think
Speaker 3: anything else You've got as small potatoes as a problem.
Speaker 3: When God solved your biggest problem and it came to
Speaker 3: earth to die for you. Don't you think he cares
Speaker 3: then about your finances? Don't you think he cares about
Speaker 3: your relationships? Don't you think he cares about your health,
Speaker 3: about your job, your career. Yeah, he cares about all
Speaker 3: that too, And that's a reason for joy. God says
Speaker 3: I will meet all your needs. In fact, this is
Speaker 3: what he says in Philippians four nineteen. My God will
Speaker 3: meet all your needs according to his glorious riches. And
Speaker 3: here's the phrase in Christ, in Christ Jesus, it's in Christ.
Speaker 3: God has not promised to meet the needs of everybody
Speaker 3: in the world. No, he's promised to meet the needs
Speaker 3: of those in Christ Jesus. Now he says, my God
Speaker 3: will meet all your needs. He doesn't say I'll meet
Speaker 3: all your greeds. God hadn't promised to give you a
Speaker 3: rolls royce or mansion on a hilltop, or God has
Speaker 3: said I'll meet all your needs. What you need, I'll
Speaker 3: get to you. I'm promised to make you. It's not
Speaker 3: the mightast touch you get whatever you want. Is Rick
Speaker 3: talked about. It's not like God's a genie. But he says,
Speaker 3: I'll meet all your needs. Now, most of us don't
Speaker 3: really understand this, so we don't pray for it. One
Speaker 3: of my favorite verses in the Bible is Paw eighty
Speaker 3: four eleven. It says this, no good thing will the
Speaker 3: Lord withhold from those who do what is right?
Speaker 2: No good thing?
Speaker 3: You know, as a father, when my kids are growing up,
Speaker 3: I want to give them good things. I won't withhold
Speaker 3: anything good from them. I might withhold something bad from them,
Speaker 3: something that will harm them, something that will cause them
Speaker 3: to be stunted in their spiritual or physical or emotional growth.
Speaker 3: But I'm not going to withhold any good thing from
Speaker 3: them if I can supply it as a dad. How
Speaker 3: much more does the heavenly Father, who's perfect, say, no
Speaker 3: good thing will he withhold from those who walk uprightly,
Speaker 3: who are doing what is right? You see, God wants
Speaker 3: you to ask in prayer more than you do. God
Speaker 3: wants you to pray and get answers more than you do.
Speaker 3: God will over twenty times. In the New Testament, God says,
Speaker 3: ask asking it about shall be given. Seek and you'll
Speaker 3: find knocking the door will be open over twenty times.
Speaker 3: God never shuts his storehouse until you shut your mouth.
Speaker 3: The Bible says you have not because you ask not.
Speaker 2: You don't never ask for it.
Speaker 3: God's you know, when you get to heaven, there's gonna
Speaker 3: be a storehouse up there, and you're gonna go inside
Speaker 3: the store house and there's gonna be all these incredible
Speaker 3: gifts and neat experiences and things, and there's gonna be
Speaker 3: a little tag on it, and everyone on the tags
Speaker 3: is gonna say the same thing. It's gonna say this,
Speaker 3: never asked for? How many things have you never asked for?
Speaker 2: From God? Now?
Speaker 3: Why does God want you to ask in prayer? Why
Speaker 3: does he want you to ask and then he can
Speaker 3: meet your needs? One reason? He wants you to be
Speaker 3: full of joy. That's the reason he wants you to
Speaker 3: be full of joy. When my kids are full of joy,
Speaker 3: it makes me look good as a dad. When God's
Speaker 3: children are full of joy, it makes God looks good.
Speaker 3: A sour push Christian is a bad advertisement for God.
Speaker 3: Some people go around look like they're baptized, and you know,
Speaker 3: I got the you know, I just gotta been sucking
Speaker 3: on pickles or something. And God says, no, no, I
Speaker 3: want you to be full of joy. Look at this
Speaker 3: verse John sixteen twenty four. Ask Jesus says, Ask using
Speaker 3: my name, and you will receive, and you will have
Speaker 3: abundant joy. The reason for asking is joy. The reason
Speaker 3: you don't see miracles, you're not asking for. God wants
Speaker 3: to do things in your life that you can't even imagine. Doyle,
Speaker 3: talk to me about a time in your life when
Speaker 3: you saw God meet and need in a miraculous way.
Speaker 4: Well, it was back in nineteen eighty. I just I've
Speaker 4: been married all my life pretty much, by the way,
Speaker 4: and I married my high school sweetheart and we have
Speaker 4: four children. But back then when I had two, Hidi
Speaker 4: and Holly, Heidi was four. Holly was two. So my
Speaker 4: wife met me at the door and she says, good night,
Speaker 4: have fun, they're yours. And so we played till the
Speaker 4: middle of the night. And I'll never forget. It was
Speaker 4: too late, I mean, it was so late for a story,
Speaker 4: and so I just said a little poem prayer, and
Speaker 4: I felt bad. And Holly was asleep before amen, but
Speaker 4: Heidi was wide awake, and so I walked over her
Speaker 4: a little bed. I said, Hidie, was there something special
Speaker 4: you wanted to ask God for? Where there's something I've
Speaker 4: always wanted. She said, I'd like to have a rose.
Speaker 4: And I said, well, why do you want a rose?
Speaker 4: She said, because they're so pretty, and I've always wanted one.
Speaker 2: She's four years old and whole life she's wanted a rose.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and so anything to get her to go to sleep.
Speaker 4: So we asked God for a rose, you know, and
Speaker 4: I forgot about it. The next night at our little time, Heidi,
Speaker 4: we started to pray. I told him a story, and
Speaker 4: she grabbed Holly's hand in mine and she said, let's pray, daddy,
Speaker 4: and I'll never forget. Her little lips started to quiver,
Speaker 4: her hand was shaking, little tears flowing on her face.
Speaker 4: I said, Heidie, what's wrong? How come God didn't bring
Speaker 4: my rose to me today? Do you think you forgot?
Speaker 4: And what do you say? You know it was a
Speaker 4: god question? I said, well, you know, we didn't mention
Speaker 4: the color of that rose.
Speaker 3: A good answer, good, good answer, pretty clever. And so,
Speaker 3: by the way, by the way, here's a teaching truth.
Speaker 3: It is always easier for God to asking more specific.
Speaker 3: But then I said, when you say God, bless me,
Speaker 3: what's a blessing? Most of you wouldn't know if a
Speaker 3: blessing hits you in the face, God bless me.
Speaker 2: That's too vague be specific.
Speaker 4: And so uh, we asked God for a white one
Speaker 4: because that's what she was thinking about. And so I'll
Speaker 4: never for never forget that. I could hardly sleep, and
Speaker 4: I had to go out of town the next day,
Speaker 4: and uh, and I thought of calling flories down the
Speaker 4: street or a friend, you know, playing b we always
Speaker 4: think of playing d And so anyway, I had to
Speaker 4: go out of town that and I didn't do any
Speaker 4: of that. I just went out of town. I played
Speaker 4: this concert and it was a small church and I
Speaker 4: had a little center aisle down the middle. And after
Speaker 4: my concert, I was putting my guitars away and I
Speaker 4: hear a voice, are you Doyle Dykes? And it had
Speaker 4: been over for probably thirty minutes, no one had been
Speaker 4: in there. And she startled me as a little lady,
Speaker 4: and she said, God told me to bring you something
Speaker 4: from my garden day. And it was a little something
Speaker 4: wrapped in foil, about this big, you know, And she
Speaker 4: handed it to me, and I could tell by the
Speaker 4: way she acted she was special. And I said, well,
Speaker 4: I'll enjoy eating this from your garden. She says, oh,
Speaker 4: I wouldn't need that, she said, She said.
Speaker 3: You better you think it was a carrot or something.
Speaker 4: That's what I thought. It's a guy thing.
Speaker 2: We always right, and so, uh, don't bring me flowers food.
Speaker 4: She said, well, you better not eat that. She waited
Speaker 4: till I peel the foil back, and there was one
Speaker 4: little white rose and I'll never forget that. And I
Speaker 4: told her, I said, well, this isn't mine. She says, well,
Speaker 4: God told me to bring you that. And I told
Speaker 4: her the story of the rose. And she says, well,
Speaker 4: that's nice, and just turned and walked away. And I thought,
Speaker 4: I'm slack jawed holding this little miracle. And I thought,
Speaker 4: she'll she'll float out of here. She'll never make it
Speaker 4: out of the door. And when I got home, I'll never
Speaker 4: forget height. He ran out to my truck before I
Speaker 4: could even get out of my van seat. And I
Speaker 4: reach over and I gave her the little package. She says,
Speaker 4: he brung it, didn't he daddy?
Speaker 2: Wow, thank you, buddy. That's great.
Speaker 3: There's one more reason why we can be joyful no
Speaker 3: matter what happens in our lives. And it's the greatest
Speaker 3: one of all the sixth reason if I'm in Christ.
Speaker 3: The Bible says this, God will never stop loving me.
Speaker 3: God will never stop loving me no matter what happens
Speaker 3: in my life. Things go right, things go wrong, plans
Speaker 3: go awry, whatever, God will never stop loving me.
Speaker 2: I can count on it.
Speaker 3: The Bible says it like this in Romans Chapter eight,
Speaker 3: Verses thirty eight and thirty nine. I am convinced that
Speaker 3: nothing can ever separate us from the love of God.
Speaker 2: From his love.
Speaker 3: Death can't, life can't, angels can't, demons can't. Our fears
Speaker 3: for today, our worries about tomorrow, even the powers of
Speaker 3: hell cannot keep.
Speaker 2: God's love away.
Speaker 3: Whether we're high above the sky or in the deepest ocean,
Speaker 3: nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate
Speaker 3: us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ.
Speaker 2: Jesus our Lord. That is good news.
Speaker 3: When you come to Christ and you say I'm going
Speaker 3: to put my hand in your hand, God grabs on
Speaker 3: to it. When you say I'm going to trust you,
Speaker 3: I want to love you. I want to be the
Speaker 3: person you made me to be. God says, I'm holding on,
Speaker 3: and I'm holding on for dear life. When my kids
Speaker 3: were little, and we used to go on summer vacations.
Speaker 3: We'd go camping, and one time we went to the
Speaker 3: Grand Canyon, and there's one we were walking up to
Speaker 3: the edge one time and I grabbed the two youngest
Speaker 3: Josh in Matthew's hands and I held on to them.
Speaker 3: And as we got up there, and this course, they
Speaker 3: wanted to get closer to the edge than I wanted
Speaker 3: them to get, like you want to get closer to
Speaker 3: the edge a lot of times. And they both start
Speaker 3: squirming and squiggling and trying to shake hands free, and
Speaker 3: they wanted to let go of my hand, but there
Speaker 3: was no way I was letting go of theirs because
Speaker 3: I was their father and I loved them. There will
Speaker 3: be times in your life when you want to let
Speaker 3: go of God's hands.
Speaker 2: God.
Speaker 3: I don't want to be a Christian right now. It's inconvenient.
Speaker 3: I don't want to do what the Bible says. I
Speaker 3: want to do it my way. I want to go
Speaker 3: have sex with that person. I want to go cheat
Speaker 3: on my income tax. I want to lie to that
Speaker 3: person so I can get out of that sticky situation.
Speaker 3: I want to do this, I want to do that,
Speaker 3: and there are gonna be times you say it's not popular,
Speaker 3: it's not convenient, it's too costly. I don't want to
Speaker 3: do the right thing right now, God, I don't right now.
Speaker 3: I'll back, but I don't want to be a believer
Speaker 3: in you right now.
Speaker 2: And you're going to want to.
Speaker 3: Let go, But He's never letting go of you. You see,
Speaker 3: once you put your hand in Christ's hands, it's out
Speaker 3: of your hands. This is called eternal security. Nothing can
Speaker 3: separate you from the love of God. Now, if you
Speaker 3: earned your salvation by working for it, then the moment
Speaker 3: you stopped working for it, you'd lose it. But you
Speaker 3: didn't earn it, so you can't lose it. It was
Speaker 3: a gift. And once it's given and you put your hand.
Speaker 3: The Bible says, even if we're unfaithful to him, he
Speaker 3: cannot be unfaithful to himself. And he holds on to us.
Speaker 3: And in John chapter ten, Jesus says, they are in
Speaker 3: my hands and no one can pluck them out.
Speaker 2: That's good news.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's no matter what happens, I'm still safe
Speaker 3: in the hands of God and he will never, never
Speaker 3: stop loving me. I want to end with two verses
Speaker 3: one for those of you who know the Lord, and
Speaker 3: one for those of you who don't know Him yet.
Speaker 3: Those of you who don't know Christ yet, who've never
Speaker 3: you've never really certain. You're never certain you've put your
Speaker 3: hand in Christ's hand. Maybe you've gone to church all
Speaker 3: your life, but you're not sure that if you died
Speaker 3: tonight you'd go to heaven. You're not sure that you
Speaker 3: have trusted Him for salvation completely. This is why you
Speaker 3: don't have continuous joy in your life. The Bible says
Speaker 3: in Psalm sixteen eleven. Here on the screen, you will
Speaker 3: fill me with joy in your presence. And the more
Speaker 3: you spend time in the presence of God, the more
Speaker 3: you're going to be filled with joy. And nobody can
Speaker 3: rob that joy from me, And nobody can rob that
Speaker 3: joy from you without your permission.
Speaker 2: So put your hand in his hand.
Speaker 3: Those of you who know Christ, you've kind of lifted away,
Speaker 3: and you've stopped realizing how much you've been forgiven. You
Speaker 3: stop realizing you're on your way to heaven. You just
Speaker 3: take it for granted. You stop realizing that all things
Speaker 3: are working for good in your life, and that God
Speaker 3: is for you, not against you. And that He's promised
Speaker 3: to meet all your needs, and that he'll never stop
Speaker 3: loving you. You need to pray this prayer psal. I'm
Speaker 3: fifty one twelve. David prayed it restore to me again
Speaker 3: the joy of salvation.
Speaker 2: Don't observe Christmas? Experience it?
Speaker 3: And how do you experience it with the joy of
Speaker 3: the Lord that's pow our heads?
Speaker 2: Would you follow me in this prayer?
Speaker 3: If you've never opened your life to Christ, or you're
Speaker 3: not certain, you're not settled about this issue, you're little
Speaker 3: insecure about it. You need to settle it today receive
Speaker 3: God's gift. Pray this prayer. Dear God, I don't understand
Speaker 3: it all, but I thank you for loving me and
Speaker 3: I want your joy in my life. I ask you
Speaker 3: to forgive all my sins and give me a clear
Speaker 3: conscience and help me to forgive myself. I ask you
Speaker 3: to give me the gift of eternal life. I ask
Speaker 3: you to work all things for good.
Speaker 2: In my life.
Speaker 3: I thank you that you are for me, not against me. Jesus,
Speaker 3: thank you for dying on the cross for me. Thank
Speaker 3: you that you've promised to meet all my needs. Thank
Speaker 3: you that you will never stop loving me so today,
Speaker 3: as much as I know how, I open my life
Speaker 3: to you, Jesus Christ. I want to follow you. I
Speaker 3: want to trust you. I want to learn to love
Speaker 3: you for the rest to my life and then be
Speaker 3: with you forever. If you've already prayed that prayer in
Speaker 3: your heart and you know, Christ, maybe you need to pray, Lord,
Speaker 3: restore the joy of my salvation. Help me to focus
Speaker 3: on these things, not my problems. No matter what happens
Speaker 3: in my life, You're never going to stop loving me,
Speaker 3: and all these other benefits are true. Let me live
Speaker 3: in joy this month and this next decade.
Speaker 2: I pray it in your name. Amen.
Speaker 3: You know, if you just prayed that prayer for the
Speaker 3: very first time, or you just recommitted your life to
Speaker 3: Jesus again today, would you let me know about it.
Speaker 3: There's something real about sharing your commitment. So write me
Speaker 3: Rick at pastor Rick dot com and say, Rick, I
Speaker 3: prayed that prayer of commitment. I gave my life to Christ.
Speaker 3: And I'll send you some material that will help you
Speaker 3: on your journey with Jesus, and I'll also pray for you.
Speaker 3: God bless you.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much, Pastor Rick for that amazing message. Now,
Speaker 1: if you want to make your time in prayer the
Speaker 1: best it can be, then you're going to want to
Speaker 1: get a copy of the Daily Hope Prayer Journal. This
Speaker 1: year's theme connecting with Jesus, the Source of Living Water.
Speaker 1: It's going to help you tap into God's power and
Speaker 1: presence as you discover the keys to praying with passion
Speaker 1: and purpose. This hardcover journal is filled with inspiring Bible
Speaker 1: versus photos and artwork. It's a spiritual growth tool designed
Speaker 1: to help you enjoy a vibrant prayer life, connect with
Speaker 1: the Lord, and establish a consistent daily prayer time. As
Speaker 1: you use this journal, you'll be amazed at how faithful
Speaker 1: God is to answer your prayers. You'll be reminded every
Speaker 1: day how much God loves you and wants to be
Speaker 1: a part of your life.
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