How Being Anchored to God's Word Is the Key to Hope — Part 1

This is Pastor Rick's Daily Hope. And we're so glad you've joined us today. You know, in this world, we all go through trials and experience losses. But the good news is that God is always with you and you can never lose his love. Stay tuned as Rick begins a new series and shows us how God's word is the key to hope. So let's get right into it today. Here's part one of a message called How Being Anchored to God's Word Is the Key.

If in your life you would like more confidence and less insecurity, you would like more stability and less uncertainty. If in your life you would like more peace and less anxiety, and if in your life you would like more hope and less negativity, then you must put your trust and base your security in something that can never be lost, can never be taken from you and will never change. Because that anchors your life and gives you stability in the storms of life. Now, there are only two things in life, in the entire universe that qualify for that. They never change. They can't be taken from you. You can't lose them. Number one is God's love for you. You can't make God stop loving. You can. Cause it's based on who he is, not what you do and God's promises to you. Because God cannot lie everything else you have in your life, if you build your security on it, you can lose your security when you lose it. If you build your security on your job, you can lose your job. Anybody wanna give testimony on that one? You could lose your money. You can lose your health. You could lose your friends. You could lose your talent. You can lose your good looks. Some of you already have. You could lose your loved ones. You can lose your mind with dementia. But you cannot lose God's love for you and his promises in his word. You know, I'm often asked as I travel around the world, Rick, is there anything that God can't do? And people are often shocked because I'll say, yeah, yeah, there really is. There's a lot of stuff God can't do. And what it is is this. He cannot deny himself. He cannot not be God. He cannot act out of character. For instance, God is holy. So it is impossible for God to do evil. He cannot do evil. He cannot do bad to you. Cause he's a good God. We know that. God is faithful. So God cannot break an unconditional promise to you. He just can't. It's out of his character. God is a righteous God, which means God cannot Lie. He can't lie. Everything he says is the truth. Everything he says in his word is the truth. Now, this is why we can trust him completely. Even in the darkest storms of life, when you're being battered back and forth because God's promise gives us hope, even when everything looks hopeless, because his word is 100% true and 100% reliable, he cannot lie. God is truth. Let me show you some verses on your outline. Hebrews chapter 6, verse 18 and 19 says this. It is impossible for God to lie. God cannot lie. So we have fled to take hold of this hope offered to us. There's the word hope that we may be greatly encouraged. We're encouraged when we have hope. We have this hope as an anchor for the soul. This anchor is strong, and this anchor is secure. Now, you may not know this, but I'm a student of church history that the anchor is as old a symbol of Christianity as the cross is. In fact, during the first 300 years of Christianity, when the Roman Empire was persecuting Christians, feeding them to lions, hanging them on crosses, believers used the. Not the cross, but used the anchor to identify themselves as. I'm a believer or a bunch of believers are meeting in this house. Now, many of you right now, you're going through some kind of storm, a physical storm, an emotional storm, a financial storm, a relational storm. And. And you feel beat up and you feel worn out and you feel worried and you feel weak and weary. Some of you barely made it to church today. How do you keep on hoping, having hope, when you just keep getting beat up? Well, you do what David did. You focus on God's word, not your weakness. You. You focus on God's word, not your weakness. Look at the next verse. Psalm 118, 19, verse 81. God, my soul is weak from waiting for you to save me. And Lord, I've been praying for the answer to this prayer a long, long time. Just like you've been praying for some changes in your life for a long, long time. God, I'm weak. I'm worried. I'm worn out, I'm weary. I'm about to go under. But he says, my hope is based on your word. Now, what happens when you establish God's word, the Bible, as the authority for your life rather than social media or talk radio or what your parents taught you or anything else? When the Bible becomes your authority for your life and the basis for your hope, what happens? You're anchored to something solid, secure, and never changing. And. And you stop drifting. You stop drifting through Life. Because now you have something that's unchangeable and always true and reliable in your life. And here's what happens. Next verse, Ephesians, chapter 4. Then we shall no longer be children. We're not immature anymore. We're not babies. Carried around by the waves, blown about by every shifting wind of teaching by deceitful people. There are a lot of deceitful people in the world who lead others into error by making a lie sound like the truth. Okay? And plenty of deceivers in the world do that. Now, friends, there are three categories of things that cause you to lose hope in life. Let me give them to you. Number one. Problems that discourage you. People that disappoint you. Perceptions. That's in your mind that defeat you. That's the internal. The first two are external problems and people. The third is internal. The things you think in your mind about those other things. Let me explain it. Discouraging problems are any circumstances in life that overwhelm you. Financial, relational, mental. I think I'm going crazy. I'm having severe panic attacks. Some of you are facing a discouraging problem right now. Disappointing people. Everybody here has been disappointed by people. Disappointing people are those who let you down or they betray you or they manipulate you or they use you for their purposes and then they leave you high and dry or they just lie to you all the time. They are deceitful. They are discouraging people. But Having pastored for 44 years, having counseled literally thousands of people in their own problems, I have discovered that a lot of our hopelessness actually comes from between our ears. It's distorted perspectives. What do I mean by that? We're not always a good judge of who we are. I suck at judging myself and being honest about myself. So do you. I can't see the forest for the trees. We don't always see things as they really are in our lives. I mean, the truth is, every one of us do this. We often tell ourselves that things are better than they really are and we're fooling ourselves. And a lot of times we tell ourselves that things are worse in our lives than they really are. Both of them could be wrong. You're not a good judge of you. That's why you need an outside standard like the word of God to to go. Here's the truth about you. When you try to judge yourself, you get wishy washy. You get double minded, you get doubtful. James, chapter one, verse six says this. A doubtful mind. Look here on the screen is as unsettled as A wave of the sea that's driven and tossed by the wind. Now, if you're taking notes, I want you to circle three words on your outline. Unsettled, driven, and tossed. Because that describes most people around you today. They're unsettled, they're driven, and they're tossed. If you are not anchored to something bigger than yourself, something stronger than yourself, something that can never change, something that will always be right, God's word. If you're not anchored to this book, when your ship is in a storm, three things are gonna happen. Your mind is gonna be unsettled. That's called stress. You're gonna be driven to overwork and overcompensate. Cause you're trying to catch up and make up for what's lacking in your life. You're gonna be driven. And your emotions will be tossed back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. I know some of you are identifying with this right now. You're driven, you're overstretched, you're bottom. All of those things are happening in your life. Now, what we're gonna talk about today is the three common causes of those feelings. Feeling stressed and driven. And overworked. Tired. And what causes all. What causes you to lose hope in your life? Well, I can give you three big categories. Number one, we're gonna talk about the antidotes to these today. You lose hope. First, when your identity is unclear, your identity is unclear. What I mean by that is you start asking yourself things like, who am I? I mean, really, who am I? Or even more, what am I? What am I? Or why am I? Like this. When you're confused about your identity, your racial identity, your sexual identity, or any other kind of identity in your life. Number one, you lose hope when your identity is unclear. Number two, you lose hope when your purpose is undefined. What do I mean by that? That's when you ask the question that everybody's asked. What on earth am I here for? What in the world? Why am I alive? Why is my heart beating? What is my purpose? What is my life mission? What am I supposed to be doing with my life? That's my life mission. Where am I supposed to be headed? Why did God put me on this planet? And you lose hope when your purpose and your life mission is undefined. And third, you lose hope when your future is uncertain and you're going, what's gonna happen to me? What is going to happen to me? Am I gonna make it through this crisis? You. Is this the end of me? Am I at the end of the rope, it's curtains. It's over. I'm done. I'm dead. The ship's falling apart and I'm gonna sink. Now, today, you picked a good day to come to church. Because I wanna show you the antidotes and the solutions and the answers to those questions I just mentioned with God's word. Now, just like you, in my 70 years, I have experienced a lot of pain and a lot of problems and a lot of tragedies and a lot of traumas, like losing a son to suicide because of mental health issues. And on top of that, I have helped countless numbers of people through their own chaos and trauma. So I've spent most of my life looking at the dark side of life. And over my 70 years, I've seen how messed up we can make our lives, how messed up they can get. So what I wanna do today is I wanna share with you the three things that have kept me going for 70 years and have kept me hopeful. No matter what happens, no matter who gets elected, no matter what war is happening, here's how you stay. Hopefully. Now, I hope you will write down these three life lessons. Cause I had to learn them the hard way over 70 years. And I want you to learn the easy way to just write them down now. Okay? So here we go. Number one. To live with hope the rest of your life, no matter what happens to you, I must first anchor my identity to what God says about me. Anchor my identity to what God says about me. Not what other people say about me, not what I say about myself, but what God says about me. Did you know that God planned every single detail of your birth? He did. He custom designed you to be you. He doesn't want you to be anybody else. God doesn't want you to be anybody else. When you get to heaven, he's not gonna say, why weren't you more like Moses? Why weren't you more like Rick Warren? Cause everybody should be like him. He's going to say, why weren't you more like you? I made you to be you. Now, In Acts chapter 17, the first verse there on your outline, it says, from one man, God created all races of people. So racism is a sin. It's really one of the worst sins. It's basically saying, God, you made a mistake. You should have made everybody like me. It's total arrogance. God made all. We all came from the same guy, Adam and Eve. Okay? God made all races of people on Earth and he determined the exact times that each of us would live. Okay, circle exact times. And the exact places where each of us would live. Okay? So his purpose in all this was so that all people would reach out for him and find Him. Cause he's not really very far from any one of us. For in him, that's God. In him, we live and we move and we have our being. What's that mean? You wouldn't take another breath if God didn't give it to you. Everything in your life, your heart is beating. Cause God wants your heart to beat. Now notice that in all of history, the exact time and place God chose when you and where you live, that God chose you to live here and now instead of in another country in the Middle Ages. You didn't have anything to do with it. It's total grace. If God had not wanted to create you, you would not be alive. You wouldn't be taking your breath. Now people ask, why did God made me? Why did God create you? I've told you this a hundred times. God made you to love you. You were made as an object of God's love. The only reason you're alive is God wanted to love you. God is a God of love. The only reason there's love in the universe, God is a loving God. First Thessalonians. We're gonna read that book this week. Chapter one, the fourth verse says this. We know that God loves you, and he's chosen you to be his own. Now, on your outline, I have listed just a few, a very, very few of the thousands of things that God says about you and your identity in this book, in the Bible. I wish I had time just to even read the verses for the things I've listed, but I don't have time to do that. So let me just summarize. Here's a sneak peek at what God says about you. You're gonna have to read the Bible to get the rest. God says this. You are valuable. You're valuable. You are acceptable. Other people may not accept you, but God accepts you. He loves you just the way you are. He loves you too much to let you stay that way. But he loves you just the way you are. You are acceptable. You are chosen. You were chosen to be created by God. The Bible says you are loved, infinitely loved by God, and you are lovable. I don't care what other people say about you. God says you are lovable. God says you are capable. Don't let. I don't care what coaches or parents or enemies or friends have said about you. You are capable. The Bible says you are worth dying for on the cross. Jesus outstretched his hand and. And his blood is flowing down. He's dying for you. He's saying, I love you this much. You're worth dying for. I'd rather die than live without you. I love you so much it hurts. You are worth dying for. And the Bible says you are unforgettable. In the book of Isaiah, God says, I have a tattoo of you. Did you know that God has a tattoo of you? It says, I have engraved you with. On the palms of my hands. He said, mothers might forget their babies, but I would never forget you. Cause I've engraved you on the palms of my hands. What's he talking about? The nail prints of Jesus on the cross. Every time Jesus looks at the nail prints, Jesus is the only person in heaven who will have scars. You won't have any, but the scars of the cross will be on Christ as reminders for eternity. This is how much I love you. I died on the cross for you. Now why is this important? Because psychology has discovered that your self worth, in other words, the way you feel about you, your self worth, tends to be based on what you think the most important people in your life think about you. Let me say that again. How you feel about you. How you feel about your life is based on. Tends to be based on what you think the most important people in your life think about you. Now if that's the case, I highly recommend that you make Jesus Christ the most important person in your life. Because what he says about you matters a whole lot more than what anybody else says about you. Whether it's on social media or at work or anywhere else. You need to stop listening to everybody else. Start listening to what he says about you. Now, how do you know your value? How do you know your worth? Now, I'm not talking about your net worth. I'm talking about your self worth. Your worth as a person. How do you know what your value is? Well, I can tell you, Kay and I actually learned this by watching a TV show. It's called Antique Roadshow. Have any of you ever seen this show? Antique Roadshow? People bring their junk to this show and they go, yeah, that's worth a lot. That's worthless. That's worth a million bucks. That's worth 2 cents. And what I learned from that show is there are three things that determine value for a thing or for you. Number one, the first thing that determines.

A value is this.

Who made it? Who created it. If I show you a painting, whether you like it or not, its value is based on Was it made by Rick Warren or Michelangelo? Big difference. Who created it determines its value. The second thing that determines value is what are people willing to pay for it. You know how much your house is valued at? Not what you think it is. It's valued at whatever somebody's willing to pay for it. And no more. No more. What are you willing to pay for it? And number three, the third thing that determines value is who owns it. I have a guitar. Taylor Swift has a guitar. Hers is a lot more valuable than mine. Cause Taylor owns that one. She doesn't own mine. Now let's apply those three principles to you. Your own identity. God created and custom designed you. Who created you? Who made you, who customized you? The creator of the universe. You gonna argue with God? What's your value? What's somebody willing to pay for you? Christ died on the cross for you. Jesus came and gave his own life. God sent his son. He thought you were worth dying for. That's the ultimate price. You have infinite value. You wanna know how much your value is? This much. Christ's hand stretched out on the cross. This much. And then who owns you? Well, you may not realize it, but you don't own yourself. You were created and made and saved by God. You're owned by God and his spirit lives in you. That gives you infinite value. A lot of people are struggling with identity right now. Who am I and what am I and what am I supposed to be doing with my life? This week I got emails from people all around the world about a video that Russell posted on Twitter X this week in which he says that he's considering Jesus Christ and that he has been seriously reading and studying the Bible and Rick Warren's purpose driven life. Now this video, Russell Brand, it's a great video from a seeker. And I'm going, wow, this is good. He's on the right track. But at the end he says, and then I'm going, oh no, Russell, no, no, no, no, you don't need to be saying that. He says, Now I'd like to ask all of you guys who are watching this, tell me what you think. Oh, no, honestly, a thousand opinions is the last thing Russell needs to get to know God. What he needs, he just needs to focus on what God says about him, not what we say about him. See what I'm saying? And the same is true for you. You need to tune out all the voices of your past who said you're just this or you're always this, or you're just like this or you'll never be this. Tune out the voices from your past. You need to tune out the voices from your parents. You need to tune out the voices from your friends and your critics and your enemies. You need to tune out from your work, from the media and especially social media. And you need to just listen to, to ultimately what God says in his word about you. Because ultimately, guys, there's only one person, one voice you have to listen to. And please, it's your creator. He's the one who made you. He knows the purpose for your life. So if you have struggled with this identity confusion over who you are, what you are, why are you the way you are, you have confusion over sexual identity. You have confusion over racial identity. You have confusion over any kind of identity. My prayer for you is from one of the books we're gonna read this week, 2nd Thessalonians, chapter 3, verse 5. It says, this screen, may the Lord bring you into an ever deeper understanding of the love of God and the endurance that that comes from Christ. When you give up hope, you have no endurance. You go, I can't go another step. I can't do another thing. I'm worn out, I'm beat up, I'm dead. It's the end of the rope. But when you understand the love of God and the endurance that comes from Christ, it gives you hope.

I don't know about you, but I am encouraged after that message. And let's keep the encouragement going with a letter from one of our listeners. Here's Rick.

Friends, I love it when you write me. And today I wanna take a moment and share an encouraging letter from a woman named Tara. She's a listener from Georgia who says putting God first every morning has changed her life.

Here's what she wrote.

Dear Pastor Rick, I'd like to thank you for your Daily Hope messages. I was going through a lot of depression and I was actually hating myself. I had no motivation to do anything but go to work and take care of my husband. Then one day, I decided to start my mornings with a Daily Hope devotional, Putting God first before my day began. Your teachings about putting God first at the first part of every day are so true. My thought processes are better now. I'm changing to habits that are healthier for me. But I know that if it wasn't for the Daily Hope teaching me about God's word, I'd still be lost. So I wanna thank God for you. I know my gift I sent wasn't much, but it came from my heart and I'll continue to pray for you and the broadcast and your family. Watara, I'm so sorry that you've had to struggle with depression. I've struggled with depression myself. So I'm encouraged to hear that you're starting each day with God's Word because that's the only place that we can find lasting hope. And by the way, thanks for your gift. Doesn't matter what size it is. It's generosity just like yours that helps us reach more people with the joy and the promise and the grace of God. Somebody's donation allowed us to bless you with the teachings from Daily Hope. And now your donation is gonna bless others who need to know more about the love and grace and mercy of Jesus Christ. Thanks for writing, Tara.

Now, in order to get God's word out to the world, very generous friends have pledged a matching grant to Daily Hope. And that means any gift you give will be doubled up to $100,000. But there's only a few more days to have your gift doubled. Anything that's not matched well, it's going to be lost. So please give your best gift today. You can give right now by going to pastorrick.com or you can just text the word hope to 70309. Again, that's pastorrick.com or just text the word hope to 70 309. And thank you so much for for your support. Be sure to join us next time as we look into God's Word for our Daily Hope. This program is sponsored by Pastor Rick's Daily Hope and your generous financial support.