Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to Pastor Rick's Daily Hope with Rick Warren.
Speaker 1: We are so glad you're here with us today. We're
Speaker 1: going to continue our series called The Keys to a
Speaker 1: Blessed Life now. In these messages, Rick walks through Jesus'
Speaker 1: Sermon on the Mount and shows us how to live
Speaker 1: a truly hopeful and purpose filled life. Okay, let's dive
Speaker 1: right in for part one of why you need to
Speaker 1: stay hungry.
Speaker 2: Recently, I got this letter, says dear Reverend Warren. Anybody
Speaker 2: who writes a letter like that knows you know instantly.
Speaker 3: They don't know me. Dear Reverend Warren, I heard.
Speaker 2: Your program on the radio, so I thought you might
Speaker 2: be able to help me with my dilemma. I'm sure
Speaker 2: you're familiar with the old You Two song. I still
Speaker 2: haven't found what I'm looking for. That line could be
Speaker 2: the theme of my mine life. It's a strange feeling, since
Speaker 2: I have, by all standards, achieved everything that most people
Speaker 2: work their entire life for. My success as an investment
Speaker 2: banker has given me multiple homes, nice cars, and all
Speaker 2: the kinds of perks and luxuries you'd expect. I'm married
Speaker 2: to a great woman, I have two young kids that
Speaker 2: I adore, and I enjoy good health, and all of
Speaker 2: this came at a much earlier age, and I figured
Speaker 2: it would take And yet I'm just not as happy
Speaker 2: as I think I should be. To be honest, I'm
Speaker 2: often restless. I'm often bored. I'm often very unsatisfied with
Speaker 2: my life. Sometimes at night I feel hollow and empty,
Speaker 2: and I keep thinking, there's got to be more to
Speaker 2: life than this. What do you think I should do?
Speaker 2: You know, there's an entire book in the Bible about
Speaker 2: this dilemma. It's called the Book of Ecclesiastes, and it's
Speaker 2: written by another guy who had it all. His name
Speaker 2: was Solomon, and Solomon writes, this book really is kind
Speaker 2: of a mid life crisis. It's pretty much of a
Speaker 2: downer book until you get to the end where he
Speaker 2: goes and I guess it's all about God. But Solomon says,
Speaker 2: you know, I decided my life was empty. My life
Speaker 2: didn't have a lot of meaning, and I didn't feel
Speaker 2: very fulfilled by it. You know, I've got good things
Speaker 2: going on my life, but I wasn't very satisfied. So
Speaker 2: he starts off in this search and he tries all
Speaker 2: these different things to find satisfaction in life, and every
Speaker 2: one of them are dead ends. And he starts off
Speaker 2: in the first chapter and he says, I tried education.
Speaker 2: I thought, you know, if I just get smart, well,
Speaker 2: then life will be meaningful and satisfying and fulfilling. And
Speaker 2: he said, I learned everything you could learn, and I
Speaker 2: read everything you could read. And he said, in the
Speaker 2: making of books there is much weariness. And he says,
Speaker 2: when I got all that wisdom and all that education,
Speaker 2: I just realized I'm still empty. I'm still empty. So
Speaker 2: then he said, then I decided I'd go after a
Speaker 2: great career, and I set some goals, big goals and achievements,
Speaker 2: and I actually became the king of my nation, and
Speaker 2: I started all kinds of public works projects and doing
Speaker 2: all these good things. And I had all of these
Speaker 2: great accomplishments to rack up, and it still left me empty.
Speaker 2: So then I thought, well, maybe money's the answer. Maybe
Speaker 2: if I've just got more money, and he said, I
Speaker 2: went out and I amassed an enormous fortune. In fact,
Speaker 2: Solomon became the wealthiest man in the world in his day.
Speaker 2: And when the Queen of Sheba from Africa came up
Speaker 2: to sheep said, I've never seen any kind of wealth
Speaker 2: this ever, anywhere on the planet. And he said, I
Speaker 2: amassed this enormous fortune. I had great, great wealth that
Speaker 2: I bought myself all kinds of nice things, and I
Speaker 2: invested in art and all of these things. And that
Speaker 2: left me empty. He said, you know, I thought, well,
Speaker 2: then maybe being famous or being popular that left him empty.
Speaker 2: And he said, well, maybe I thought, maybe it's life
Speaker 2: just all about having fun. Maybe it's just about partying,
Speaker 2: it's having a good time.
Speaker 3: Having thrills.
Speaker 2: And so he said, I just kind of let it
Speaker 2: all go, and I invested in wine, women and song,
Speaker 2: emphasis on wine and women.
Speaker 3: And he said, I you.
Speaker 2: Know, I partied to my heart's content. But he said,
Speaker 2: it's still left me empty. And he said, what everybody
Speaker 2: says is going to give you satisfaction is a lie.
Speaker 2: He said, there was this hunger, this hunger inside of
Speaker 2: me that was just not being satisfied. Have you ever
Speaker 2: gone to your fridget I'm sure you've done this. You
Speaker 2: wake up in the middle of the night, you're hungry,
Speaker 2: You go down to your refrigerator, you open the door,
Speaker 2: and then you just stand there.
Speaker 3: And look.
Speaker 2: Because you know you're hungry, but don't know what you're
Speaker 2: hungry for. And you look and nothing really looks appealing
Speaker 2: or satisfying or like it's gonna really make you feel better.
Speaker 2: And so you just stand there and look. You know
Speaker 2: you're hungry, but you don't know what you're hungry for.
Speaker 2: How many of you would admit that? Can I see
Speaker 2: your hands?
Speaker 3: All right? The rest of you are.
Speaker 2: Liars, dirty, rotten liars. Now, Jesus says that having spiritual
Speaker 2: hunger is a good thing. In fact, he says it's
Speaker 2: one of the eight keys to being blessed by God.
Speaker 2: It's one of the eight keys to having God's blessing
Speaker 2: on your life is to stay spiritually hungry. Matthew, chapter five,
Speaker 2: verse six. As we go through the Sermon on the Mouth,
Speaker 2: the most famous sermon, Jesus says this, God blesses those
Speaker 2: who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
Speaker 2: Now once you to circle the word righteousness and circle
Speaker 2: the word filled.
Speaker 3: Now the word filled.
Speaker 2: A lot of translations say they will be fully satisfied.
Speaker 2: I mean they're gonna live a satisfied life. They're gonna
Speaker 2: live a fulfilled life. They will be filled but it's
Speaker 2: you got to hunger and thirst for the right thing
Speaker 2: in order to live a fulfilled life. And he says,
Speaker 2: you've got to hunger and thirst for righteousness. Now, what
Speaker 2: in the world is righteousness If God says it's one
Speaker 2: of the eight keys to being blessed by God, how
Speaker 2: do I hunger and thirst for righteousness if I don't
Speaker 2: even know what righteousness is? Now, Righteousness is a big
Speaker 2: word in the Bible. It's used literally hundreds and hundreds
Speaker 2: and hundreds of times. And the Bible tells us, for instance,
Speaker 2: that God is righteous. The Bible tells us that the
Speaker 2: word of God, the Bible is righteous. The Bible tells
Speaker 2: us that God founded the universe and his kingdom on righteousness.
Speaker 2: The Bible says that God loves righteousness. The Bible says
Speaker 2: that God rewards righteousness in people that he sees it in.
Speaker 2: The Bible says Noah was a righteous man, and Abraham
Speaker 2: was a righteous man, and of course we all know
Speaker 2: the righteous brothers right here from Orange County. The Bible
Speaker 2: says that God loves righteousness. The Bible says that one
Speaker 2: day God is going to judge the world in righteousness.
Speaker 2: The Bible says, God made a covenant with Israel, which
Speaker 2: is righteous. The Bible says, in the most famous Psalm
Speaker 2: Salm twenty three, he leaves me in the paths of righteousness.
Speaker 2: So what in the world does this word mean? Well,
Speaker 2: I once looked it up, been a theological dictionary. There
Speaker 2: were twenty seven pages on the definition. But let me
Speaker 2: just boil it down for you into two sentences. It's
Speaker 2: about a relationship and it's about a lifestyle. Righteousness first
Speaker 2: simply means being right with God. It means being right
Speaker 2: with God, being right with God. Now, the Bible tells
Speaker 2: us in Romans chapter one, verse seventeen, the good News
Speaker 2: tells us how God makes us right with himself. Now
Speaker 2: look at that verse there in your outline for a minute.
Speaker 2: The good news. You know the word gospel. You've heard
Speaker 2: people talk about gospel, singing, gospel, preaching, gospel church. Gospel
Speaker 2: is simply the Old English word for good news. That's
Speaker 2: all it means. The gospel is good news. So the gospel,
Speaker 2: the good news, tells us and what is it?
Speaker 4: So?
Speaker 2: Why is it so good? It tells us how God
Speaker 2: makes us right with himself. Now, notice God makes you
Speaker 2: right with him. You don't make yourself right. This is
Speaker 2: something that God does for you. And in just a
Speaker 2: minute we're going to look in detail at the Gospel.
Speaker 2: We're going to look at the good news and why
Speaker 2: it's so such good news to your life. But notice
Speaker 2: it's something that God does for you. He makes us
Speaker 2: right with himself. So it's a relationship. Second thing, righteousness
Speaker 2: is it's a lifestyle, and that means it means living right,
Speaker 2: living right as God intends. So it means being right
Speaker 2: with God and living right in faith or as God intends.
Speaker 2: So it's a position and it's a practice. First John
Speaker 2: two twenty nine. All who practice righteousness are God's true children.
Speaker 2: Now today I want us to do two things. I
Speaker 2: want us to say, how does God make us right
Speaker 2: with Him? And then how do I keep this spiritual
Speaker 2: hunger to always be right with God going on in
Speaker 2: my life for the rest of my life.
Speaker 3: But before we do it, I want.
Speaker 2: To just ask this question, why should I care? Why
Speaker 2: should I care? Why should I really care about being
Speaker 2: right with God? Particularly when none of my friends seem
Speaker 2: to care about being right with God. The people who
Speaker 2: live next door to you don't seem to care much
Speaker 2: about being right with God. A lot of people you
Speaker 2: work with don't seem to care about being right with God.
Speaker 2: Much of the world doesn't seem to care at all
Speaker 2: about being right with God. So why in the world
Speaker 2: should I care about righteousness about being right with God?
Speaker 3: Why should I hunger and thirst for these two things?
Speaker 2: Well, in a nutshell, two reasons. One it's the only
Speaker 2: way to live, and two it's the only way to heaven.
Speaker 3: So that ought to say it. Let me show you.
Speaker 2: Verse Proverbs twelve twenty eight says this righteousness is the
Speaker 2: road to life and the path to immortality. Okay, now
Speaker 2: I'm interested. I'm interested in the road to life, and
Speaker 2: I'm interested in the path to immortality. Now, road to life,
Speaker 2: what does that mean? It means that when you were
Speaker 2: disconnected from God, you're not really living.
Speaker 3: You're just existing.
Speaker 2: Most people in the world aren't really fully alive. They're
Speaker 2: just existing, making it to the weekend. They don't really
Speaker 2: have a connection with God. To be disconnected from the
Speaker 2: creator who created you for a purpose is nonsense. To
Speaker 2: live your life going yeah, I know I was made
Speaker 2: by God, but I don't really care about it is nonsense.
Speaker 2: You're not really living, You're just existing. Saint Augustine said,
Speaker 2: thou hast made us for thyself, and our hearts are
Speaker 2: restless until we find our peace in thee. You've heard
Speaker 2: me say this many times. You're made by God and
Speaker 2: you're made for God. And until you understand that, life
Speaker 2: isn't going to make sense. Life is not about the
Speaker 2: acquisition of things or the achievement of goals.
Speaker 3: Life.
Speaker 2: Life is about getting to know God, the God who
Speaker 2: loves you and.
Speaker 3: Made you for a purpose.
Speaker 2: You're not really living. You're not really living until you're
Speaker 2: right with God. You're connected to God. But not only
Speaker 2: is it good for here on earth, the Bible says righteous,
Speaker 2: this is the path to immortality. In other words, it's
Speaker 2: the way you get to heaven.
Speaker 3: And here's the point. God's not going to force you
Speaker 3: to go to heaven. It's a choice.
Speaker 2: You choose to go to heaven on God's terms. God
Speaker 2: created heaven as a place for his children that he loves,
Speaker 2: and he wants you to be with him forever and
Speaker 2: ever and ever. God has long range plans for your life.
Speaker 2: He wants you to be in heaven, but he's not
Speaker 2: going to force you to go to heaven. And so
Speaker 2: God gives you a choice. You can spend your life
Speaker 2: connected to him or disconnected to him. You can say
Speaker 2: God if you want to. You can rebel against God.
Speaker 2: You could ignore God your entire life. You can pretend
Speaker 2: God doesn't exist. You can disobey God. You can be
Speaker 2: apathetic toward God. And you know what God will say
Speaker 2: to you, Like Burger King, have it your way. God
Speaker 2: never forces anybody to love him because it's not love
Speaker 2: if you're.
Speaker 3: Forced, so God gives you the choice. And if you
Speaker 3: I don't want to love God, I don't want to
Speaker 3: live for God.
Speaker 2: I want to live my own life. God says, have
Speaker 2: it your way, like Burger King. The only problem is
Speaker 2: one day you're going to stand before God and God's
Speaker 2: going to say, you didn't connect with me on earth.
Speaker 2: You didn't want to be close to me on earth.
Speaker 2: Why when in the world would you want to be
Speaker 2: close to me now in eternity. Have it your way,
Speaker 2: and you will be eternally separated from God. Why would
Speaker 2: anybody say I want to live my entire life separated
Speaker 2: from God, but when I die, I want to be
Speaker 2: in God's presence and love. Really in both cases, God
Speaker 2: will say, simply have it your way, and if you
Speaker 2: don't go to heaven, that's your choice. You don't blame God.
Speaker 2: God says, I gave you the choice to be close
Speaker 2: to me, to be connected to me, to be in
Speaker 2: relationship with me. But have it your way because he
Speaker 2: wants you to choose to love him. Now, what is
Speaker 2: this plan? Notice that verse says God the Good News
Speaker 2: tells us how God makes us right with himself? How
Speaker 2: does he make us right with himself? What is God's
Speaker 2: plan to make you righteous? If righteousness is the only
Speaker 2: way to live, and is righteous is the only way
Speaker 2: to get to heaven, how does God make you righteous?
Speaker 2: Let's call the gospel and there are three facts, and
Speaker 2: I want to go back and do the very basics
Speaker 2: today the ABC's so write these down. The three things.
Speaker 2: Number one, the first part of the Gospel is this,
Speaker 2: I can't make myself righteous. That doesn't sound very good,
Speaker 2: but it's the fact that I can't make myself righteous.
Speaker 2: We're all imperfect, we've all blown it, we've all sinned,
Speaker 2: we've all made mistakes. I don't measure up to my
Speaker 2: own standards, much less God's. And the Bible says in
Speaker 2: Jeremiah thirteen twenty three. Can a leopard change his spots?
Speaker 2: The answer is no. And so how do I, an
Speaker 2: imperfect person, become perfect? Well, why is that important? I'll
Speaker 2: tell you why. Because heaven is a perfect place. The
Speaker 2: Bible says, in heaven there's no sin. There's no sadness,
Speaker 2: there's no sorrow, there's no evil, there's no hatred, there's
Speaker 2: no racial prejudice, there's no injustice. Heaven is a perfect place.
Speaker 2: Now here's the problem. I'm imperfect, and by the way,
Speaker 2: so are you. So if God let imperfect people into heaven,
Speaker 2: heaven would be no better than earth. And if you
Speaker 2: let us come into heaven with our sins and our
Speaker 2: faults and our weaknesses, then there would be rape in heaven.
Speaker 3: There would be murder in heaven. There would be.
Speaker 2: Gossip, injustice, prejudice. In heaven, there would be evil, there
Speaker 2: would be worry and stress. Heaven would be no better
Speaker 2: than earth. So God can't let sinful people into heaven,
Speaker 2: otherwise it'll be full of sin too.
Speaker 3: So there's a problem there because.
Speaker 2: I stop being perfect along about the third breath of
Speaker 2: my life. So God had to come up with a plan.
Speaker 2: And that is the good news. That's the gospel that
Speaker 2: we'll look at in just a minute. But somehow God's
Speaker 2: got to take care of my unrighteousness so I can
Speaker 2: get into.
Speaker 3: A perfect place. Let me show you a couple verses.
Speaker 2: The Bible says in Ecclesiastes, chapter seven, Verse twenty, there
Speaker 2: is not a righteous person on earth who always does
Speaker 2: what's right and never sins. That's me, that's you, it's
Speaker 2: the pope and everybody else. There's not anybody who always
Speaker 2: does the right thing and never sins, So we are
Speaker 2: all unrighteous. Now look at the next verse, Romans three twenty.
Speaker 2: No one can ever be made right in God's sight,
Speaker 2: that's righteous by doing what God's law commands. Because the
Speaker 2: more we know God's law, the clearer it becomes.
Speaker 3: We can't keep it.
Speaker 2: The only people who think they can keep God's laws
Speaker 2: are those who don't know them, because God's laws are perfection,
Speaker 2: and none of us are perfect. You know, one time
Speaker 2: I was sitting on a plane one day and I
Speaker 2: was talking to guy, and he figured out I was
Speaker 2: a pastor, and so we started talking about heaven, and
Speaker 2: so I just asked him, I said, so, you know,
Speaker 2: on what basis do you think you're going to get
Speaker 2: into heaven. He said, because I keep the ten Commandments.
Speaker 2: I said, name them. Not only do you not keep them,
Speaker 2: you can't even name them all. You can't even name
Speaker 2: the ten Commandments. And then Jesus said, we've all broken
Speaker 2: every one of them. Because the Bible says, if you
Speaker 2: hate somebody in your heart, it's like murder. The Bible says,
Speaker 2: if you've lost it in your heart, it's like adultery.
Speaker 2: The Bible says, don't have any other gods for me.
Speaker 2: And we've all put other things before God at different
Speaker 2: times in our lives.
Speaker 3: We've all lacked.
Speaker 2: Integrity, we've all coveted other people's things, and so we've
Speaker 2: all broken the Ten Commandments. And so that's not going
Speaker 2: to get me into heaven because I've never kept them perfect.
Speaker 2: If you could keep the ten commands perfectly, yeah, you
Speaker 2: could probably get into habit, but nobody ever has. Another time,
Speaker 2: I was sitting on a plane next to guy and
Speaker 2: I said, so, why do you think you're going to
Speaker 2: go in heaven? He says, because I'm better than a
Speaker 2: lot of people. I said, so you think God grade'es
Speaker 2: on a curve? I have no doubt you're better than
Speaker 2: a lot of people. I mean, compared to Hitler, you're
Speaker 2: a saint. In fact, let me just tell you, my friend,
Speaker 2: you're probably a lot better than me. I have no
Speaker 2: doubt that most of you are probably more moral, more
Speaker 2: ethical than I am. But the fact is, nobody gets
Speaker 2: to perfection. All the Bible says we all fall short.
Speaker 2: I mean, let's just imagine this. Let's say southern California
Speaker 2: is Earth and Hawaii is Heaven. All right, and we
Speaker 2: decide we're all gonna try to get to Heaven on
Speaker 2: our own work by just being a nice person. And
Speaker 2: we want to be nice enough to get to heaven
Speaker 2: but bad enough to be fun.
Speaker 3: And so we decide.
Speaker 2: We're all gonna swim our way earn our way to
Speaker 2: heaven by swimming to Hawaii. Now, some of you don't
Speaker 2: know that, for three years I was a.
Speaker 3: Red Cross lifeguard.
Speaker 2: So let's say I swim out twelve miles and then
Speaker 2: I drowned. And then let's say you're an Olympic champion
Speaker 2: swimmer and you swim out thirty miles and then you drowned.
Speaker 2: And let's say a friend of ours who is crippled
Speaker 2: doesn't even get into the water or somebody gets out
Speaker 2: three yards and they don't know how to swim and
Speaker 2: they drown. Do some people get further than others, of
Speaker 2: course they, but nobody gets all the way because none
Speaker 2: of us are perfect. Does that make sense, It's just
Speaker 2: too far. Yeah, you're a lot better than a lot
Speaker 2: of people. Of course you are. But you're not going
Speaker 2: to swim to Hawaii. It's too far. So nobody can
Speaker 2: be made right by ourselves. We can't be made right
Speaker 2: on our own. God's got to have a plan, and
Speaker 2: so that's the second thing. Write this down. God sent
Speaker 2: Jesus to pay for my sins so that I could
Speaker 2: be declared righteous, so that I could be called righteous,
Speaker 2: so that I could get in on Jesus ticket. It's
Speaker 2: not that I'm any better, it's that Jesus pays.
Speaker 3: For my sins. Let me give you an example of this.
Speaker 2: Let's say you had lived a lifetime of crime and
Speaker 2: you get caught, and you go to court and you
Speaker 2: get convicted, and you're given a life sentence for a
Speaker 2: lifetime of crime, and the judge sitting there in his robe,
Speaker 2: puts the gabble down and says, you've lived a lifetime
Speaker 2: of crime. You're going to serve a life sentence for
Speaker 2: the rest of your life, and he hits the gabble
Speaker 2: and then, to the shock of everybody in the courtroom,
Speaker 2: the judge gets up, takes off his robe, and walks
Speaker 2: down and stands beside you and says, but I love
Speaker 2: you and I want to show Grayson mercy to you,
Speaker 2: so I'll tell you what. I'm going to serve your
Speaker 2: sentence for you. And you hear a gasp and this
Speaker 2: oxygen is sucked out of the room because the judge
Speaker 2: has just now become your savior.
Speaker 3: Are you guilty?
Speaker 2: You're still guilty as everything, but now the judge has
Speaker 2: become your savior and says, yes, somebody's going to pay
Speaker 2: for your sin, and I'm going to pay for it.
Speaker 3: That's exactly what God did for you.
Speaker 1: Such a great message by Rick today and every day.
Speaker 1: I sure hope you were just as encouraged as I was.
Speaker 1: And now here's Rick with an important message.
Speaker 2: Hi, everybody, thanks so much for listening today. You know,
Speaker 2: my hope is that God uses this broadcast to help
Speaker 2: deepen your relationship with Jesus. Now, these daily Hope messages
Speaker 2: are distributed on radio stations and digital platforms all across
Speaker 2: the globe, and listeners are writing and letting us know
Speaker 2: that their lives are being changed. They're telling us that
Speaker 2: they're walking with Jesus and that guilt and fear has
Speaker 2: been chased from their lives by God's love. You know,
Speaker 2: relationships are being restored and marriages are being healed, and
Speaker 2: many people are saying that they've found their life purpose.
Speaker 2: I want to say thank you to you, because we're
Speaker 2: only able to carry the hope of Jesus to these
Speaker 2: people all around the world because of gifts from generous
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Speaker 3: Hear it from me.
Speaker 2: That's okay, because I never want anybody to give unless
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