Speaker 1: You know, probably the most common greeting that you hear,
Speaker 1: particularly among believers, is God bless you. And we say
Speaker 1: it not just when people sneeze, we say God bless you.
Speaker 2: Have you ever thought, what in the world does that mean?
Speaker 2: What's a blessing?
Speaker 1: How do you define a blessing? Would you know a
Speaker 1: blessing if it slapped you in the face? I mean,
Speaker 1: the Bible says that sometimes a problem is a blessing.
Speaker 1: So when you say, God, bless them really great, you say,
Speaker 1: given a bunch of problems? Really, what in the world
Speaker 1: is a blessing? And if you pray for God to
Speaker 1: bless somebody, how do you even know if it's happened
Speaker 1: or not if you don't know what a blessing is?
Speaker 1: The word blessed in the Bible is the Greek word makarios, makarios.
Speaker 1: And makarios is the word for.
Speaker 2: Happy, happy.
Speaker 1: It is the word for happiness. To be blessed is
Speaker 1: to be happy. To have a blessing is to have
Speaker 1: happiness in your life. And when Jesus talks about you're
Speaker 1: blessed if you do this, you're blessed, he's saying you're
Speaker 1: gonna be happy if you do this. It's the exact
Speaker 1: same word. Now today we're gonna begin quite a long
Speaker 1: series through Jesus' most famous sermon. It's called the Sermon
Speaker 1: on the Mount. And Jesus begins the Sermon on the
Speaker 1: Mount by talking about eight ways to be blessed by God.
Speaker 1: Eight ways to receive God's blessing on your life. You
Speaker 1: could call it eight ways to be happy. The truth is,
Speaker 1: I want you as your pastor, I love you, I
Speaker 1: love you. And I want God to bless your life.
Speaker 1: I want him to bless your relationships. If you're in school,
Speaker 1: I want you to bless your studies. If you're married,
Speaker 1: I want you to bless your marriage. I want him
Speaker 1: to bless your finances. I want God to bless your health.
Speaker 1: I want God to bless your talent. I want God
Speaker 1: to bless your future. So I'm extremely interested in how
Speaker 1: to receive the blessings of God. Now, as we study scripture,
Speaker 1: we find that the problem isn't with God, the problem
Speaker 1: is with us. God wants to bless your life, you
Speaker 1: just have to get blessable. And a lot of us
Speaker 1: don't live lives in ways that God can bless. God
Speaker 1: isn't gonna bless sin. God isn't gonna bless arrogance. God
Speaker 1: isn't gonna bless indifference. There are a lot of things
Speaker 1: God will not bless. And so when Jesus starts his
Speaker 1: most famous sermon, the first thing he begins with, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna teach you the eight conditions for receiving God's blessing
Speaker 1: in your life. And for the next eight weeks, we're
Speaker 1: gonna look at each of those eight conditions in detail.
Speaker 2: We're calling it the P's to a blessed life.
Speaker 1: Now let me read the first verses. In Matthew chapter five,
Speaker 1: this isn't on your outline, but the Sermon on the
Speaker 1: Mount is in Matthew chapter five, chapter six, and chapter seven.
Speaker 1: We're gonna go through all three of those chapters verse
Speaker 1: by verse in the days ahead. And chapter five starts
Speaker 1: like this. When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up
Speaker 1: on the mountain, and after he sat down, his disciples
Speaker 1: came to him and he began to teach them. And
Speaker 1: he says this, blessed are the poor in spirit, for
Speaker 1: theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Now that doesn't tell
Speaker 1: me a whole lot, because I don't understand most of
Speaker 1: the words in that verse. First, I don't know what
Speaker 1: poor in spirit means, and I don't know what the
Speaker 1: kingdom of heaven is. So we've gotta unpack this for
Speaker 1: you to understand the benefit to your life. First, what
Speaker 1: is the kingdom of heaven? Is that different from the
Speaker 1: kingdom of God? Well, I'm gonna ask you to hold
Speaker 1: your questions on this because I promise you, in this series,
Speaker 1: we're gonna deal in depth with this issue. We're gonna
Speaker 1: look at what is the kingdom of God and why
Speaker 1: it is so incredibly important to your life and why
Speaker 1: you definitely wanna be a part of it. And we're
Speaker 1: gonna go into that in detail, explaining what is the
Speaker 1: kingdom of God. But this week, as we start the series,
Speaker 1: I want us to look at just the first six
Speaker 1: words of Jesus' most famous sermon And the first six.
Speaker 2: Words he starts with, the first word he starts with, blessed.
Speaker 1: Now I like that. God starts teaching with a blessing.
Speaker 1: He doesn't start with, let me give you eight curses.
Speaker 1: He gives you eight blessings. That's my kind of preacher.
Speaker 1: And he says, let me tell you eight ways to
Speaker 1: be happy. That's the first thing Jesus talks about in
Speaker 1: the Sermon on the Mount.
Speaker 2: Here's what he says.
Speaker 1: Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the
Speaker 1: kingdom of heaven. So the first word out of his
Speaker 1: mouth to you is a blessing. Now, what does it
Speaker 1: mean to be poor in spirit? Well, he's not talking
Speaker 1: about physical poverty. He didn't say blessed are the poor.
Speaker 1: He says blessed are the poor in spirit. He's not
Speaker 1: talking about economic poverty. He's not talking about material poverty.
Speaker 1: He's not talking about physical poverty. He's talking about spiritual poverty.
Speaker 1: He's talking about maintaining a certain kind of attitude. For
Speaker 1: you to understand this, I put there on your outline
Speaker 1: several other translations of this verse so you could actually
Speaker 1: see a fuller understanding of what it means to be
Speaker 1: poor in spirit. For instance, the New Living Translation says,
Speaker 1: God blesses those who realize their need for him. The
Speaker 1: God's Word Translation says, God blesses those who recognize.
Speaker 2: They're spiritually helpless.
Speaker 1: The Common English Version says, God blesses those who are
Speaker 1: who depend only on him.
Speaker 2: You can see a pattern developing here.
Speaker 1: He's saying, I recognize that I am inadequate to live
Speaker 1: my life without God. Without God in my life, I
Speaker 1: am spiritually poor. Without God's help in my life, I
Speaker 1: am spiritually poor.
Speaker 2: I am inadequate.
Speaker 1: A good verse that helps clarify this is Psalm 146.
Speaker 1: There in your outline, verse five. The Lord blesses everyone
Speaker 1: who trusts him and depends on him. Circle the word
Speaker 1: trust and the word depend. This is the first condition
Speaker 1: for God's blessing on your life. You gotta trust him.
Speaker 1: You've gotta depend on him. And that's what it means
Speaker 1: to be poor in spirit. In fact, let me give
Speaker 1: you a definition. Why don't you write this down? To
Speaker 1: be poor in spirit, which is the first condition for
Speaker 1: God's blessing on your life, means I humbly depend on
Speaker 1: God instead of myself.
Speaker 2: That's what it means.
Speaker 1: To be poor in spirit means I humbly depend on
Speaker 1: God instead of myself because I know I'm inadequate to
Speaker 1: handle all the problems that face me in life. So
Speaker 1: if I want God's blessing on my relationship to my girlfriend,
Speaker 1: my boyfriend, my husband, my wife, or anybody else, then
Speaker 1: I've got to be dependent upon God. If I want
Speaker 1: God's blessing in my work, in my career, in my studies,
Speaker 1: if I want God's blessing in my finances, in my health,
Speaker 1: I have to humbly depend on God instead of myself.
Speaker 1: So then the question becomes, how do you do that?
Speaker 1: How do I actually depend on God on a daily
Speaker 1: basis and on a moment by moment basis? Well, this weekend,
Speaker 1: I want to give you Five practical ways to do
Speaker 1: this from the word of God. And these are five
Speaker 1: practical ways. You can practice every one of them this week.
Speaker 1: And if you practice these, you will become a woman
Speaker 1: or a man who is poor in spirit, which means
Speaker 1: you depend on God rather than yourself.
Speaker 2: You understand your need for God in your life.
Speaker 1: And then that's the kind of woman, that's the kind
Speaker 1: of man that God says, I like to bless. So
Speaker 1: let me just get right into it. You might write
Speaker 1: this first one down. Five ways to express my dependence
Speaker 1: on God. Number one, to be blessed by God, first,
Speaker 1: I depend on God's wisdom, not mine. I depend on
Speaker 1: God's wisdom, not my wisdom, not my own. In other words,
Speaker 1: I listen to what God says, I follow what God
Speaker 1: says to do, and I do what he says to do.
Speaker 1: Now let's look at some verses together from the Bible.
Speaker 1: Proverbs chapter 14, verse 12 says this. There is a way,
Speaker 1: there is a way that seems right to a man,
Speaker 1: but in the end, it leads to death. Now circle
Speaker 1: the word seems. There's a way that seems right to us,
Speaker 1: to human beings, but in the end, it's a dead end.
Speaker 1: He said our ideas often lead to dead ends. It
Speaker 1: leads to death. Have you ever in your life had
Speaker 1: this feeling that something was so very, very, very right
Speaker 1: and you just knew it was the right thing to
Speaker 1: do and you felt it with all your heart and
Speaker 1: then you did it and it ended up being so very,
Speaker 1: very dumb or very, very wrong or it became a
Speaker 1: total fiasco and a failure?
Speaker 2: That's what this verse is all about.
Speaker 1: There's a way that seems right to us, but it
Speaker 1: often ends, he says, in a dead end. And every
Speaker 1: one of us could give a testimony on this, where
Speaker 1: you've had this feeling, this hunch that this is the
Speaker 1: perfect job, and it ends up being a dead end.
Speaker 1: This is the perfect relationship, the one I've always needed.
Speaker 1: the one I've always wanted, and that relationship ends up
Speaker 1: a dead end. This is the perfect person that I
Speaker 1: should marry, and I know this is the person, and
Speaker 1: we all know people who've made that decision, and it
Speaker 1: flopped miserably. Parents will often think, I know this is
Speaker 1: the right thing to say to my kids. And then
Speaker 1: it has the exact opposite effect on the kids and
Speaker 1: actually harms them rather than hurting them. It happens in friendships.
Speaker 1: It can happen in investments. I know this is where
Speaker 1: I should put my money. This is a sure winner.
Speaker 1: This is a big deal. I know if I invest
Speaker 1: in this, man, I'm gonna clean house. It's gonna be great.
Speaker 1: And then it just totally flops. You could probably, and
Speaker 1: we could probably spend the rest of the night doing this,
Speaker 1: Think of painful examples where you wish that you would
Speaker 1: listen to God instead of your gut. Because God is
Speaker 1: filled with truth and your gut is.
Speaker 2: Filled with pizza.
Speaker 1: So your gut's often wrong. Just because you think it
Speaker 1: doesn't make it right. And just because you feel it
Speaker 1: certainly doesn't make it right.
Speaker 2: Feelings lie.
Speaker 1: Lie. They lie to you all the time. I mean,
Speaker 1: there's an old country western song that says, how could
Speaker 1: it be wrong when it feels so right?
Speaker 2: Are you kidding me?
Speaker 1: There are a lot of things that are wrong that
Speaker 1: feel so right at the moment.
Speaker 2: Are you kidding me?
Speaker 1: That's about the most immature, stupid thing you could say.
Speaker 2: Because a lot of.
Speaker 1: Stuff feels so right, and it ends up being so bad.
Speaker 1: And Six months later you're saying about that relationship, what
Speaker 1: was I thinking? How in the world did I get
Speaker 1: messed up in that one? How did I get my
Speaker 1: life so tangled in something so stupid and so dumb
Speaker 1: and now I'm scarred and I'm hurt and I'm burdened
Speaker 1: and I'm going, am I gonna.
Speaker 2: Recover from this?
Speaker 1: The Bible says there's a way that seems right but
Speaker 1: it ends in a dead end.
Speaker 2: So the first way to.
Speaker 1: Get God's blessing in your life is I depend on
Speaker 1: God's wisdom not my feelings, not my thoughts, not whatever
Speaker 1: else is telling me. I depend on God's wisdom, not mine.
Speaker 3: Do you know someone who's graduating this year? Maybe it's
Speaker 3: your son or daughter, a grandchild, or perhaps a neighbor
Speaker 3: or family friend. As you celebrate this important milestone and
Speaker 3: they begin the next phase of their journey, they need
Speaker 3: to know that God created them, loves them, and has
Speaker 3: a plan for their life. That's why Pastor Rick created
Speaker 3: a special resource just for graduates called The Purpose Driven
Speaker 3: Life Selected Thoughts and Scriptures for the Graduate. Filled with
Speaker 3: inspirational scripture, biblical wisdom from Pastor Rick, and beautiful imagery.
Speaker 3: This unique hardcover gift book provides a priceless reminder of
Speaker 3: the bountiful life God has planned for your graduate, and
Speaker 3: it will inspire them to seek his unique plan and.
Speaker 2: Purpose for their life.
Speaker 3: Don't miss this opportunity to minister to the graduate in
Speaker 3: your life today. We'll send you a copy to say
Speaker 3: thanks when you give a gift to Daily Hope to
Speaker 3: help share the hope of Jesus Christ with people around
Speaker 3: the world.
Speaker 1: If you wanna have fewer dead ends in your life,
Speaker 1: if you wanna have fewer defeats, fewer failures in your life,
Speaker 1: the next verse is for you. Proverbs 3, five to seven.
Speaker 1: Trust the Lord with all your heart. Do not depend
Speaker 1: on your own understanding. In other words, don't depend on
Speaker 1: your wisdom. Don't depend on what you think is the
Speaker 1: right thing to do. Don't depend on your hunches and
Speaker 1: your feelings. Those are often, lead you astray.
Speaker 2: Do not depend on your own understanding.
Speaker 1: Seek his will, God's will, in all you do, in
Speaker 1: everything you do, how you spend your time, your money,
Speaker 1: your relationships, everything. And he, God promises, he will direct
Speaker 1: your paths. He's saying don't be impressed with your own wisdom. Instead,
Speaker 1: respect the Lord and turn your back on evil. So
Speaker 1: if I really want God's blessing, the first thing is
Speaker 1: I depend on God's wisdom Not what my feelings say,
Speaker 1: not what my gut says, not what my friends say,
Speaker 1: not what I think, but I trust in the Lord
Speaker 1: with all my heart and lean not on my own understanding.
Speaker 2: Now, how do I get God's wisdom? Two ways.
Speaker 1: You pray and you read. You pray, you talk to God,
Speaker 1: and you read the Bible, you let him talk to you.
Speaker 1: And that's how you get God's wisdom. Look at this
Speaker 1: next verse. The Bible says in James chapter one, verse five,
Speaker 1: If any of you, if any of you lacks wisdom,
Speaker 1: you should pray and ask God who gives it grudgingly
Speaker 1: and sparingly to all. That's not what it says. If
Speaker 1: any of you lacks wisdom, you should pray and ask
Speaker 1: God who gives it, read it with me, generously and
Speaker 1: graciously to all. Now, notice he gives it to everybody.
Speaker 1: All you gotta do is ask for it. You don't
Speaker 1: have to be qualified for it. All you have to
Speaker 1: do is ask for it. You see, God doesn't want
Speaker 1: you to be stupid. God doesn't want you to make
Speaker 1: dumb mistakes. God doesn't want you to hit dead ends.
Speaker 1: God doesn't want you to go through failure after failure
Speaker 1: after failure after failure in your life.
Speaker 2: God wants you to succeed in your life. He wants
Speaker 2: you to be wise.
Speaker 1: He wants you to make smart decisions with your time,
Speaker 1: your money, your relationships, and everything else. And it's not
Speaker 1: like you're waiting on him, he's waiting on you. God's saying, hey,
Speaker 1: I'm here, and I'll give you wisdom, and I'll give
Speaker 1: it generously, and I'll give it graciously, I'm not grudging
Speaker 1: about it, I love to give you, I wanna.
Speaker 2: Make you wise, but you just gotta ask.
Speaker 1: Now, how do you know when you are living on
Speaker 1: God's wisdom rather than on your wisdom? How do you
Speaker 1: know if you're really depending on God's wisdom? You're talking
Speaker 1: to God throughout your entire day, and you're reading his
Speaker 1: word on a daily basis. If you're not talking to
Speaker 1: God throughout your whole day, God, I'm getting ready to
Speaker 1: go into this meeting. I'm getting ready to go into
Speaker 1: this class. I'm getting ready to go meet with some friends.
Speaker 2: What do I do? What do I say?
Speaker 1: And you're not talking to God like that all day.
Speaker 1: And if you're not reading God's word on a daily basis,
Speaker 1: you are depending on your own wisdom. You're just fooling yourself.
Speaker 1: You're not depending on God's wisdom. You're depending on your own.
Speaker 1: And it's why you have so many problems and why
Speaker 1: so many things fall through and why you end up
Speaker 1: with so much pain in your life. Because you're not
Speaker 1: depending on God's wisdom by reading the book and talking
Speaker 1: to the author. Would you write this down? God's wisdom
Speaker 1: and God's will are in God's word. God's wisdom and
Speaker 1: will is in God's word. They're in God's word. God's
Speaker 1: wisdom and will are in God's word. And if you're
Speaker 1: not in the word, you don't know God's will. And
Speaker 1: if you're not in the word, you don't have God's wisdom.
Speaker 1: And if you don't have God's wisdom, you can't be blessed.
Speaker 1: So that's the starting point. I gotta pray, talk to
Speaker 1: the Lord, and I gotta let him talk to me.
Speaker 1: Let me give you another one, number two. If I
Speaker 1: really want God's blessing on my life, and not only
Speaker 1: depend on God's wisdom, I depend on God's strength, not mine.
Speaker 1: I depend on God's strength, God's power, God's energy, not mine.
Speaker 1: Now you've probably noticed that you often get tired. In fact,
Speaker 1: you're tired a lot. And at the end of the day,
Speaker 1: you're kinda worn out, and you run out of energy,
Speaker 1: and the reason why is real simple. You're a human being.
Speaker 1: Your strength is limited. God's strength is unlimited. Your strength
Speaker 1: is finite. God's strength is infinite. Your strength is exhaustible.
Speaker 1: That's why you get exhausted. God's strength is inexhaustible. God
Speaker 1: never runs out of energy. God never gets tired. And
Speaker 1: so I need to depend on God's strength, not my own.
Speaker 1: Let me show you some verses. Psalm 84 verse five.
Speaker 1: God says, you bless all who depend on you for
Speaker 1: their strength. You want God's blessing in your life? You
Speaker 1: need to depend on God for your strength. Now what
Speaker 1: do you do when your strength evaporates? You're at the
Speaker 1: end of the day and you go, I'm just out
Speaker 1: of steam, I'm out of energy. I don't have the
Speaker 1: energy to go into this next week. I got too
Speaker 1: many things to do and not enough energy to do it.
Speaker 1: Here's a good promise, Isaiah 40, 31. Those who trust
Speaker 1: in the Lord for help will find their strength renewed.
Speaker 1: They will rise on wings like eagles. They will run
Speaker 1: and not get weary. They will walk and not grow weak.
Speaker 1: Now let me just say this. In the darkest moments
Speaker 1: of your life, when you cannot see your way forward,
Speaker 1: and doesn't matter what they are or where they came from,
Speaker 1: in the darkest moments of your life, you need God's
Speaker 1: strength to get you through. And the reason why most
Speaker 1: people never get through it is they don't have God's strength.
Speaker 1: I've seen people go through a divorce and they never recover.
Speaker 1: I've seen people go through a breakup and they never recover.
Speaker 1: I've seen people go through a major illness. I've seen
Speaker 1: them go through a bankruptcy or getting fired or getting
Speaker 1: laid off or getting arrested. I've seen people go through
Speaker 1: all kinds of different things, abuse, and they never recover.
Speaker 2: Why?
Speaker 1: Because they're depending on their own strength. You're not going
Speaker 1: to get through it.
Speaker 2: On your own strength.
Speaker 1: You're gonna get stuck at that stage and you get
Speaker 1: miserable the rest of your life. The only way you
Speaker 1: get through the darkest days of your life is on
Speaker 1: God's strength. You gotta depend on him. Now I put
Speaker 1: down here a couple verses that I would encourage you
Speaker 1: to memorize. One of them is for when you're young
Speaker 1: and another one is for when you're old. But the
Speaker 1: first one, everybody can memorize this, it's only one sentence,
Speaker 1: Psalm 71 16, look at this verse. I walk in
Speaker 1: the strength.
Speaker 2: Of the Lord.
Speaker 1: I walk in the strength of the Lord. That's an affirmation.
Speaker 1: Now here's what I encourage you to do. Write that
Speaker 1: verse on a card and read it over and over
Speaker 1: and over until you got it memorized so you can
Speaker 1: say it 10 times a day. And here's what you do.
Speaker 1: You make it the most important affirmation.
Speaker 2: In your life.
Speaker 1: And when you get up in the morning and you
Speaker 1: wanna go right back to bed, And you're worn out
Speaker 1: and you go, I don't even have enough energy to
Speaker 1: get started today. You sit on the side of your
Speaker 1: bed and you say, I walk in the strength of
Speaker 1: the Lord. And then when you get up and you
Speaker 1: go to school or you go to work or whatever
Speaker 1: you're doing and you have that first conflict with somebody,
Speaker 1: you say, I walk in the strength of the Lord.
Speaker 1: And later in the afternoon when you get a phone
Speaker 1: call and it's bad news and it's terrible and you're
Speaker 1: You're frustrated and you're scared and it creates anxiety and stress.
Speaker 2: You say, I walk in the strength of the Lord.
Speaker 1: When late in the day you're just running out of
Speaker 1: energy and there's still a whole lot more to do,
Speaker 1: you say to.
Speaker 2: Yourself, I walk in the strength of the Lord.
Speaker 1: And when you go to bed at night, as you
Speaker 1: put your head down on the pillow and all of
Speaker 1: the things that you didn't get done and all of
Speaker 1: the worries and the fears and loneliness and any other
Speaker 1: thing that tends to pile in, you say.
Speaker 2: I walk.
Speaker 1: In the strength of the Lord. That is the kind
Speaker 1: of woman God blesses. That is the kind of man
Speaker 1: God blesses. I walk in the strength of the Lord.
Speaker 1: I don't just depend on God's wisdom and do the
Speaker 1: right thing. I do the right thing with the right power.
Speaker 1: I'm not doing the right thing under my power. I'm
Speaker 1: doing the right thing under God's power. God, I need
Speaker 1: you to give me the energy. I need to plug
Speaker 1: into the power When you get older, you're gonna face
Speaker 1: the pains and problems of aging. And that gets pretty frightening.
Speaker 1: Just talk to somebody who's getting up in age and
Speaker 1: ask them that. And here's a good verse for then.
Speaker 1: When maybe your body isn't working like it should and
Speaker 1: your mind isn't as sharp as it used to be
Speaker 1: and maybe you're starting to get a little Alzheimer, a
Speaker 1: little dementia. Psalm 73, 26 says this. My health may
Speaker 1: fail and my spirit may grow weak. But God remains
Speaker 1: the strength of my heart. He is mine forever. One
Speaker 1: of the most famous Christians of the 19th century was
Speaker 1: a guy named Hudson Taylor. He was a very famous
Speaker 1: missionary to China and he was a spiritual giant, a
Speaker 1: brilliant man. Later though in age, he lived to be
Speaker 1: an old man and in his old age, he lost
Speaker 1: his health and became very, very weak. And he wrote
Speaker 1: this letter to a friend and it said this, I
Speaker 1: am so weak I can no longer work. I am
Speaker 1: so weak I can no longer study. I'm so weak
Speaker 1: I can no.
Speaker 2: Longer read my Bible. I cannot even pray.
Speaker 1: I can only lie still in the arms of God
Speaker 1: like a little child and trust.
Speaker 2: That's good enough.
Speaker 1: Sometimes in your life you're gonna be so weak you
Speaker 1: can't even pray. Sometimes in your life you're gonna be
Speaker 1: so weak you can't read the Bible.
Speaker 2: You can't go to a Bible study. It can't work.
Speaker 1: You can't do anything. What do you do in those moments?
Speaker 1: You're just laying there in bed so weak. I rest
Speaker 1: in the strength of the Lord, in his arms like
Speaker 1: a little child, and I trust. You see, weakness can
Speaker 1: actually be a good thing in your life if it
Speaker 1: causes you to depend on God.
Speaker 2: Look at this verse up here on the screen. This
Speaker 2: is from St. Paul.
Speaker 1: Paul says this, 2 Corinthians 12. Three times... I begged
Speaker 1: God to take away my weakness. Now, you got some
Speaker 1: weaknesses you'd like God to take away. You've probably asked
Speaker 1: him to. And each time, God said, my grace is
Speaker 1: all you need. My power works best in your weakness. So,
Speaker 1: Paul says, I now gladly boast. I boast about how
Speaker 1: weak I am. I used to hide my weaknesses. I
Speaker 1: used to be ashamed of my weaknesses. Paul says, not anymore.
Speaker 1: I'm proud of my weaknesses.
Speaker 2: Why?
Speaker 1: Because when I'm weakness, when I'm weakest, The power of
Speaker 1: Christ works in me and shows up through me. And
Speaker 1: when I'm weak, then I am strong. See, that's the
Speaker 1: paradox of depending on God. The more you're weak, the
Speaker 1: more you depend on God. The more you depend on God,
Speaker 1: the stronger you get.
Speaker 3: Do you know someone who's graduating this year? Maybe it's
Speaker 3: your son or daughter, a grandchild, or perhaps a neighbor
Speaker 3: or family friend. As you celebrate this important milestone and
Speaker 3: they begin the next phase of their journey, they need
Speaker 3: to know that God created them, loves them, and has
Speaker 3: a plan for their life. That's why Pastor Rick created
Speaker 3: a special resource just for graduates called The Purpose Driven
Speaker 3: Life Selected Thoughts and Scriptures for the Graduates. filled with
Speaker 3: inspirational scripture, biblical wisdom from Pastor Rick, and beautiful imagery.
Speaker 3: This unique hardcover gift book provides a priceless reminder of
Speaker 3: the bountiful life God has planned for your graduate, and
Speaker 3: it will inspire them to seek his unique plan and
Speaker 3: purpose for their life. Don't miss this opportunity to minister
Speaker 3: to the graduate in your life today. We'll send you
Speaker 3: a copy to say thanks when you give a gift
Speaker 3: to Daily Hope to help share the hope of Jesus
Speaker 3: Christ with people around the world.