Speaker 1: Hello, everybody. This is Pastor Rick's Daily Hope with Rick Warren.
Speaker 1: I'm really glad you're here today. We're continuing our series
Speaker 1: from Psalm twenty three called Living in the Goodness of God.
Speaker 1: It's all about how God's goodness meets you right where
Speaker 1: you are and brings hope even in difficult seasons. First up,
Speaker 1: we'll start with part one of a message called letting
Speaker 1: God Meet My Needs.
Speaker 2: If you take out your message notes, we're in a
Speaker 2: series I started last weekend called Living in the Goodness
Speaker 2: of God. If you missed that first message, please go
Speaker 2: listen to it online because it's the foundation of everywhere
Speaker 2: we're going for the next ten weeks. That when you
Speaker 2: don't understand how good God really is, it creates all
Speaker 2: kinds of problems in your life. We specifically talked about
Speaker 2: four sources of stress in your life that you don't
Speaker 2: need when you understand the goodness of God. Now, what
Speaker 2: I want to do today is we're going to start
Speaker 2: verse by verse through the most famous chapter in the
Speaker 2: entire Bible, Psalm twenty three. The Lord is my shepherd,
Speaker 2: and this is a perfect picture of the goodness of God,
Speaker 2: and it shows you the antidote to the nine greatest
Speaker 2: sources of stress in your life. Today, we're going to
Speaker 2: look at worry and specifically, I want you to see
Speaker 2: why God says you should never have to worry for
Speaker 2: about anything. And then second, how do you connect with
Speaker 2: God meeting the needs that are in your life. Now,
Speaker 2: Before we look at that, I'm going to just give
Speaker 2: you three facts about the goodness of God. So why
Speaker 2: don't you write these down? These are just three fundamental
Speaker 2: truths you can base your life on. Number One, God
Speaker 2: is the source of everything I need to live. You
Speaker 2: don't have to look anywhere else. You don't have to
Speaker 2: look to Wall Street, you don't have to look to
Speaker 2: the government. You don't have to look to your spouse,
Speaker 2: or your individual retirement account, or your social security or
Speaker 2: your job. God is the source of everything I need
Speaker 2: to live. Now. The point I want to make here
Speaker 2: is that if you're going to put your security in something,
Speaker 2: you need to put it in something that can never
Speaker 2: be taken from you. Because if you have put your
Speaker 2: security in something that'll be taken from you, you're not secure.
Speaker 2: You can lose your health, you can lose your job,
Speaker 2: you can lose your good looks, some of you already have.
Speaker 2: You can lose. You can lose your family, you can
Speaker 2: lose your life, you can lose your mind, you can
Speaker 2: lose all of those things. Don't put your security in
Speaker 2: anyone or anything. You put your security in something you
Speaker 2: cannot be taken from you, and that is your relationship
Speaker 2: to God. Nobody can take that away from you now.
Speaker 2: Psalm twenty three, verse one. The first verse of this
Speaker 2: chapter says, the Lord is my shepherd, and then read
Speaker 2: it with me. I will lack nothing nothing. That's a
Speaker 2: place where he says, I will be your security in
Speaker 2: every area. Now, obviously, the first question is what's a shepherd?
Speaker 2: And most of you did not grow up on a
Speaker 2: sheep farm. But shepherds are the people who care for sheep. Now,
Speaker 2: you probably don't know a lot about sheep, but sheep
Speaker 2: are incredibly defenseless animals. They have a lot of natural predators.
Speaker 2: They're not fast, they can't run, they don't have claws,
Speaker 2: they don't have teeth with sharp incisors that can bite.
Speaker 2: And on top of that, they're not very smart animals.
Speaker 2: They're not very intelligent. They fall off cliffs and they
Speaker 2: get lost, and all kinds of things but they really
Speaker 2: need a defender. They need a shepherd. Left on its own,
Speaker 2: a sheep's probably gonna get eaten. And so what does
Speaker 2: a shepherd do? Well, you might write this down because
Speaker 2: this is what God wants to do for you. A
Speaker 2: shepherd feeds, leads and meets needs. That's what a shepherd does.
Speaker 2: A shepherd feeds, leads and meets needs. And God says,
Speaker 2: I will be your shepherd throughout, will feed you, I
Speaker 2: will lead you, and I will meet your needs. Now,
Speaker 2: your needs are various. Sometimes you need protection, sometimes you
Speaker 2: need comfort. Sometimes you need encouragement. Sometimes you need a
Speaker 2: little discipline, Sometimes you need direction. We're going to look
Speaker 2: at all the different needs that God has promised to
Speaker 2: meet in your life. By the way, if you're a parent, listen.
Speaker 2: If you're a parent, you're a shepherd. Dad's it is
Speaker 2: your job to feed, lead, and meet needs. Mom, it
Speaker 2: is your job to feed, lead, and meet needs of
Speaker 2: those children. So you have a shepherd's role. If you
Speaker 2: are ever in any management position in a business in
Speaker 2: your career, and you have people under you that you
Speaker 2: are supervising, that you are caring for, that has shepherding
Speaker 2: capabilities or responsibilities to it, and as a manager, it's
Speaker 2: your job to feed information, motivation, things like that. It's
Speaker 2: your job to lead, and it is your job to
Speaker 2: meet needs of the people. As a leader, you serve them,
Speaker 2: not they serve you. By the way, do you know
Speaker 2: what the Greek word for shepherd is pastor? I am
Speaker 2: a shepherd. That is my job. It is my job
Speaker 2: to feed you through this book. It is my job
Speaker 2: to lead you. It is my job to meet your needs.
Speaker 2: That's what shepherds do. So if you have any kind
Speaker 2: of caring capacity where you are over a small group
Speaker 2: as a leader, you're a shepherd. Or you are you
Speaker 2: work in some ministry, you're a shepherd. And so the
Speaker 2: very things that God does with us feed lead and
Speaker 2: meet needs God wants you to do with other people. Now,
Speaker 2: the second truth I want you to write down. First,
Speaker 2: God is the source of everything I need to live.
Speaker 2: Number two, there is nothing I need that God can't supply.
Speaker 2: There is nothing that I need that you need that
Speaker 2: God cannot supply. We're gonna look at this in depth.
Speaker 2: But in Philippians chapter four it says this verse nineteen,
Speaker 2: God will supply all you ever need from His glorious resources.
Speaker 2: In Christ Jesus. If you're taking notes, you might circle
Speaker 2: in Christ Jesus will come back to that. God's goodness
Speaker 2: is not based on your goodness. It's based on his goodness.
Speaker 2: You don't have to be good for God to be
Speaker 2: good to you. God is good to you because of
Speaker 2: what Jesus did on the cross. And number three third
Speaker 2: thing I want you to write down is this, God
Speaker 2: doesn't want me worrying about anything. Nothing, not a zip zero.
Speaker 2: In fact, worry may be the most common sin on
Speaker 2: the planet. God says you don't need to worry. I
Speaker 2: don't want you worry Philippians four six. Don't worry about anything.
Speaker 2: That's pretty clear. I looked up that word don't worry
Speaker 2: about anything, and it actually means anything. Don't worry about anything. Instead,
Speaker 2: pray about everything. We've talked about this many times. You
Speaker 2: can pray or you can panic. If you're not praying,
Speaker 2: you're panicking. You can worry, or you can worship. If
Speaker 2: you're not worshiping, you're worrying. You invite worship in the
Speaker 2: front door. Worry goes out the back door. You invite
Speaker 2: worry in the front door. Worship goes out the back door.
Speaker 2: And so God says, I don't want you worrying about anything. Now,
Speaker 2: why why does God not want me worrying about anything? Well,
Speaker 2: in the famous Sermon on the Mount, Jesus gives us
Speaker 2: five reasons why worry is worthless. I'm going to go
Speaker 2: through these pretty quickly, and then we're going to look
Speaker 2: at what difference it makes in your life. So write
Speaker 2: these down. Five reasons God says you should never, never, ever,
Speaker 2: ever worry about anything. Number one, he says, worry is unreasonable.
Speaker 2: It's unreasonable. In other words, it doesn't make sense, it's illogical,
Speaker 2: it is irrational, it is unreasonable. And the Bible says
Speaker 2: this in Matthew chapter six, verse twenty five. Don't worry
Speaker 2: about your life what you'll eat or drink, and don't
Speaker 2: worry about your body or what you'll wear. Your life
Speaker 2: is far more important than clothes. For some of you.
Speaker 2: That's a big revelation. But that's true, okay. Clothes don't
Speaker 2: make the man or the woman. And so he says,
Speaker 2: don't worry. Don't worry about these minor issues here, and
Speaker 2: he's saying that worry is unreasonable. Now, why is worry unreasonable?
Speaker 2: Let me give you three reasons it's unreasonable. In the
Speaker 2: first place, we typically worry about the wrong thing. We
Speaker 2: worry about the little stuff, how I look, how I appear,
Speaker 2: what I say, who I'm talking to, stuff, Am I
Speaker 2: gonna be late for this meeting? Stuff that ain't gonna
Speaker 2: matter in five years. It's all temporary. If you're really
Speaker 2: gonna worry, and God says you shouldn't. But if you
Speaker 2: were going to worry, worry about things that are eternal,
Speaker 2: not external. Worry about stuff that's going to matter in
Speaker 2: ten years or one hundred years, or a thousand years,
Speaker 2: or for eternity. Don't worry about stuff that's not going
Speaker 2: to matter tomorrow. And yet most of the things we
Speaker 2: worry about are temporary things like in the next five minutes,
Speaker 2: I'm worried about this, And so he says it's unreasonable
Speaker 2: because you pick the wrong things to be concerned about.
Speaker 2: The second reason is to worry about something you can change.
Speaker 2: There are something you can't change is useless. If you
Speaker 2: can't change it, why are you worrying about it. To
Speaker 2: worry about something you can change is stupid. So either way,
Speaker 2: if you can change it, change it. If you can't
Speaker 2: change it, so what you can't do anything about it.
Speaker 2: Worry will not change it at all. So he says
Speaker 2: it's irrational because we think that worry is actually a
Speaker 2: form of control. We think by control, by worrying about something,
Speaker 2: we're actually controlling them. By worrying about your kids who
Speaker 2: are out late at night, you think you're controlling them.
Speaker 2: You're not. You're not. It doesn't change anything. And the
Speaker 2: third reason why it's irrational, and you've noticed this, is
Speaker 2: that anytime you worry about something, it keeps getting bigger
Speaker 2: in your mind. It's not logical, it's irrational. And so
Speaker 2: if you start worrying about somebody criticizes you, says an
Speaker 2: unkind wordy to you, says an off the wall comment,
Speaker 2: it hurts your feelings, and you worry about that, And
Speaker 2: what did they mean. They've already forgotten it, and they
Speaker 2: probably didn't even mean it. It's just some stupid thing
Speaker 2: they said. But if you keep going over a worry
Speaker 2: in your mind, it doesn't get smaller. When you worry,
Speaker 2: it gets bigger. And if you keep thinking about pretty
Speaker 2: soon you think the whole world hates me. Oh, they
Speaker 2: don't hate you. No, they don't hate you. That's the
Speaker 2: irrationality of worry. Worry is unreasonable. Number two, Jesus says
Speaker 2: you should never worry, not only because it's unreasonable, it's unnatural.
Speaker 2: Nature does not worry. It's unnatural. Human beings are the
Speaker 2: only thing in nature. Human beings are the only thing
Speaker 2: God has created in all the universe that worry. You know,
Speaker 2: ants don't worry. Cows don't worry, plants don't worry, rocks
Speaker 2: don't worry. Horses don't worry. The only thing that worries
Speaker 2: are human beings in rebellion against God. It's unnatural. You
Speaker 2: weren't made to worry. Now. In the Servant on the Mount,
Speaker 2: Jesus gives us a couple of lessons. He uses a
Speaker 2: biology lesson and a botany lesson or plants and animals.
Speaker 2: Look at this verse twenty six. In Matthew six, Jesus says,
Speaker 2: you know, look at the birds. Look at the birds
Speaker 2: of the air. They don't sow or reef or store
Speaker 2: away in barns. And then they're not worried about you know,
Speaker 2: do I have enough to live on? And he said,
Speaker 2: and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not
Speaker 2: more valuable than birds? If God takes care of birds,
Speaker 2: isn't going to take care of you. And then he says,
Speaker 2: in verse twenty eight and twenty nine, Matthew six, and
Speaker 2: why do you worry about your clothes? Go ahead and
Speaker 2: look at the flowers. Look at the field lilies. They
Speaker 2: don't worry about about how they look. Yet King Solomon,
Speaker 2: all of his glory, was not clothed as beautifully as
Speaker 2: they are. I don't know if you've ever looked at
Speaker 2: a flower real close, an orchid or a rose, or
Speaker 2: any kind of flower, the intricacy and the design and
Speaker 2: the detail and the beauty of just an ordinary wildflower.
Speaker 2: God says, Look, they're beautiful the way they are. They
Speaker 2: don't have to put on makeup, they don't have to
Speaker 2: get fancy, they don't have to worry about how they
Speaker 2: appear to everybody else. They're not worried about their parents.
Speaker 2: They're just who they are, and it's beautiful. Now, what
Speaker 2: he's doing here is he's given us a couple of
Speaker 2: lessons from nature. He says, Okay, let's look at bird watching.
Speaker 2: If Anybody's on God's welfare plan, it's birds. Because birds
Speaker 2: really don't do anything. What do they contribute to the world.
Speaker 2: All they do is tweet and poop, But you do
Speaker 2: a lot more than that. Birds, Well, I mean what
Speaker 2: I mean? You don't eat birds. They don't provide sustenance
Speaker 2: for you know, human beings. And he says, they're on't
Speaker 2: God's welfare system. God just made them because they're beautiful
Speaker 2: as sweet to the listen to. And he says, look,
Speaker 2: they're not worried, and aren't you more valuable than the birds?
Speaker 2: I take care of them, I'll take care of you.
Speaker 2: And then he gives a botany lesson. He says, look
Speaker 2: at these flowers and how God makes them beautiful just
Speaker 2: the way they are. You're beautiful just the way you are.
Speaker 2: So he's said, animals don't worry. Plants don't worry nothing
Speaker 2: at all. Creation worries. The only thing I've created that worries,
Speaker 2: that doesn't trust me are human beings. And he said,
Speaker 2: all a creation trusts my care except humans. He's saying,
Speaker 2: worry isn't natural. Did you know you weren't born to worry?
Speaker 2: You weren't made to worry. Now some of you say,
Speaker 2: well I was a born worrier. No, you weren't. Worry
Speaker 2: is learned. You learned it by watching other people worry.
Speaker 2: No baby worries. They learn to worry watching other people worry. Now,
Speaker 2: anything that is learned can be unlearned. So you don't
Speaker 2: have to go the rest of your life in a
Speaker 2: worry wart being so uptight, having your stomach in a
Speaker 2: not getting a tight and tense back, having to go
Speaker 2: get a massage, getting a migraine, headache, all these other
Speaker 2: symptoms of worry. God says, you don't need to worry
Speaker 2: about that. Worry is unreasonable and worry is unnatural. You
Speaker 2: have to, by the way, not only do you have
Speaker 2: to learn it, you have to practice it to get
Speaker 2: good at it. But some of you are pros at worrying.
Speaker 2: I mean you're really good. You're good at worrying. But
Speaker 2: you can unlearn it. And notice in verse twenty six
Speaker 2: there he says, your father sees what the bird says,
Speaker 2: as your father takes it and doesn't say the bird's
Speaker 2: father says your father. So you're in a different category.
Speaker 2: God created everything else, but he made you his child.
Speaker 2: God is not the father of cows. God is not
Speaker 2: the father of ants. God is not the father of
Speaker 2: you know, horses, because they weren't made in God's image.
Speaker 2: You and I are distinctly different from all the other
Speaker 2: plants and animals because we were made in God's image,
Speaker 2: which gives us a capacity to trust him to love him.
Speaker 2: You never see a cow praying, you know. You never
Speaker 2: see a doggie going to worship unless you brought him.
Speaker 2: And he's saying it's not natural. He said, God cares
Speaker 2: for you as a father. Children get special privileges even
Speaker 2: more than the other things in creation. Worry is unreasonable,
Speaker 2: Worry is unnatural. Number three, Jesus says worry is unhelpful.
Speaker 2: What does he mean by that? It's useless, It doesn't work.
Speaker 2: Worry is worthless. It doesn't change anything when you worry
Speaker 2: Matthew six Verse twenty seven, Jesus says, who of you,
Speaker 2: by worrying, can add a single hour to his life?
Speaker 2: Worry can't make you an inch taller. Worry can't make
Speaker 2: you an inch shorter. Can't make you bigger or smaller,
Speaker 2: thinner or fatter. Worry doesn't work. Who if you can
Speaker 2: change anything? He says, you can't add even a single
Speaker 2: hour to your life. In fact, worry can shorten your life.
Speaker 2: If you're worried, well, I may not live long if
Speaker 2: you start worrying about it, the tension and stress could
Speaker 2: actually shorten your life. But worry about any problem in
Speaker 2: your life will never move you one step toward that situation.
Speaker 2: Worry is worthless. It's doing without doing. It's investing a
Speaker 2: lot of emotional energy for something that doesn't going to
Speaker 2: do anything. It's like sitting in a rocker and you
Speaker 2: can rock back and forth, back and forth, back and forth,
Speaker 2: back and forth, and you expend a lot of energy,
Speaker 2: but you're not one inch further. You have made no
Speaker 2: progress at all. Worry cannot change anything. In fact, the
Speaker 2: only thing worry can change is you. It will make
Speaker 2: you miserable, and that's what it does. It won't change
Speaker 2: that person you're worried about. It'll only change you, make
Speaker 2: you more miserable. Now follow me on the logic of this.
Speaker 2: Worry cannot change anything in your past. It's already done.
Speaker 2: Your past is passed, So why are you worried about it.
Speaker 2: Worry cannot control your future, no matter how much you
Speaker 2: think you can. You're not controlling it by worrying about it.
Speaker 2: So if it can't change the past and it can't
Speaker 2: control the future, what does it do messes up today.
Speaker 2: It just keeps you messed up today. It keeps you
Speaker 2: stewing without doing as I As I said, it just
Speaker 2: ruins the present. It SAPs the strength out of your body.
Speaker 2: It is not only unreasonable and unnatural, it's uncolpeful.
Speaker 1: Man. I love hearing Pastor Rick. What a great message.
Speaker 1: We also love hearing from our listeners. Here's Rick with
Speaker 1: a very encouraging letter.
Speaker 2: Let me close this broadcast by sharing a letter from
Speaker 2: a listener in Rome, Italy. Her name is Heitian and
Speaker 2: she says, Pastor Rick, I've relocated to Rome, Italy, where
Speaker 2: I'm currently working at the World Food Program. I really
Speaker 2: love listening to your sermons and I also love reading
Speaker 2: your daily devotionals, which I share with many of my
Speaker 2: colleagues serving in the field offices in Africa and another
Speaker 2: hardship duty stations. They appreciate receiving the message very much.
Speaker 2: God bless you Heitian in Rome. Now did you get this?
Speaker 2: A message that is starting in southern California in the
Speaker 2: United States of America is being sent to Europe in Rome, Italy,
Speaker 2: and then it is being reset out to other continents
Speaker 2: like Africa. That is the amazing age of technology that
Speaker 2: we live in today, and that's why your gifts go
Speaker 2: much further than they used to go even twenty or
Speaker 2: thirty years ago. Our ability to reach listeners like Heshan
Speaker 2: and her friends, not just in Europe, but in Africa,
Speaker 2: is a direct result of your prayers and your support
Speaker 2: for Daily Hope. So thanks so much, and by the way,
Speaker 2: join me next time when we continue looking into God's
Speaker 2: word for our daily hope.
Speaker 1: This program is sponsored by Pastor Rick's Daily Hope and
Speaker 1: your generous financial support.