Living by Your Convictions — Part 1

Hey everyone, this is Pastor Rick's Daily Hope. You know, sharing your faith with the next generation, well, it's one of the most important things you can do. And we're so glad you're here because today Rick is continuing in his Leaving a Lasting Legacy series. Rick gives you some very special tools to help you share the biblical principles of faith, hope, love and generosity with the next generation. Alright, today we're beginning a new message. So here's part, part one of a message called living by your convictions.

Here's Rick. You tend to base your decisions on one of four basic motivations in life. Sometimes you base your decisions on circumstances, what's happening around me. Sometimes you base your decisions on convenience, what's easy. Sometimes you base your decisions on criticism. What will other people think? Sometimes you base your decisions on your convictions. And that's what matters most. Only decisions that are based on your convictions will last and leave a lasting legacy. Now, we've been in this series on leaving a lasting legacy, what you're going to pass on to the next generation. And I want to wrap it up today by looking at leaving a legacy of conviction. Living by your convictions. Now, what's a conviction? A conviction is a deeply held belief that guides your life. It's more than opinion. An opinion is something you'll argue about. A conviction is something you'll die for. Now, the people who've made the greatest impact in the world were those who had the deepest convictions. They weren't necessarily the smartest people, the brightest people, the most educated, the wealthiest or even the most famous. The people who've made the greatest impact on this world, for good or bad, are those who had the deepest convictions. Now, if you're going to build convictions, you need to build it on something that's going to last. Because everything changes. Fads change, fashions change, psychology changes. Even science textbooks change. We keep learning more and more. There's only one thing that never changes, and it is the truth of God. If it's true 1000 years ago, it will be true today. It will be true 1,000 years from tomorrow. Because truth does not change. The Bible says this in Isaiah 40, verse 8, up here on the screen. The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of God, the word of our God, stands forever. Now, today, I want to give you the biblical convictions on which we base Saddleback Church. In fact, if you get what we're gonna talk about today, you'll get three benefits out of it. First, you're gonna understand why we do what we do. I get letters every week, Rick, why did you say this or why did you do that? Or why did you go here? Because of certain convictions that motivate every decision I make and. And every decision we make as a church family here at Saddleback. So when you understand these six convictions, you're gonna know why we do what we do. Second, you're gonna understand why we get criticized. And we get criticized all the time. I personally get criticized on a daily basis. This church gets criticized. You cannot live with conviction without being criticized. You cannot live with conviction without being criticized. The moment you put out your shingle, somebody's gonna start throwing rocks at it. Have you noticed this the only way to not be criticized? Do nothing, say nothing, be nothing, and believe nothing. The moment you say, I believe this, and this is what we stand for and this is what life's all about, somebody's gonna get upset with you. And that's why when we look at these six convictions today, I also wanna point out, with every conviction, that there is an implementation or implication in your life and there is an opposition that you are bound to have. With every conviction, there is an opposition. And if you wait for everybody to get on board the ship, you're never gonna get out of the harbor. You have to live by conviction, not by criticism. The third thing you'll understand is you'll have a framework for your own life. If you understand these convictions. They're a grid, they're a filter by which you can evaluate, should I do this or should I not do this? These are the convictions we're going to look at today. Now, with every one of them, you can put an exclamation point after it. Because I believe these things with all my heart, I'm willing to go to the mat for these six convictions. Here they are. Number one, it's all about God. It's all about God. It's not about me. It's not about you. It's not about profit or politics or anything else about God. Now, most of you know that the first sentence of the Purpose Driven Life book is it's not about you. What most of you don't remember is that the title of the first chapter is it's all about God. Those two go together. The corollary, the reason it's not about you is because it's all about God. And those two go together. Now, until you understand that life is never gonna make sense, until you understand that this church is never gonna make sense, until you understand that your pastor is not gonna make sense to you, the goal of this church is not pleasure. It's not possessions. It's not prestige. It's not politics. It's not power. It's not popularity. It's not anything that the world values. The goal of this church and the goal of my life is the glory of God. The Bible says this there on your outline. Romans, chapter 11. For everything comes from God alone. Everything lives by his power, and everything is intended for his glory. Now, I want you to circle the phrase intended for his glory. Everything on the planet and in the universe was created for God's glory. Now, what's the implication of that? Well, you might write this down. If it's all about God and it's not all about me, or it's not all about making money or being popular or any of these other things the world thinks is important, then the implication is loving God is my first priority. Loving God is my very first priority. And Jesus said it like this. A passage you're very Familiar with, Matthew 22. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is. Read it with me. The first and greatest commandment. Nothing tops this one, folks. You missed this. You wasted your life. Sorry to say that, but you missed this. You've wasted your life. The most important thing in life is to get to know and love the God who created you. And if you miss that, you've missed the most important thing. Now, let me tell you from a personal perspective. This is the reason I do everything that I do. I love Jesus Christ. I love him with all of my heart. I am unashamed to say that as a man, I love God and Jesus Christ with all that I am. And if he never did anything else for me, I owe him the rest of my life. And I'm not embarrassed by that fact. I don't think it's wimpy. I think the fact is that God made me to love me, and I was made to love him. And I do. And everything I do, I do because I love Jesus Christ. I'm not paid to pastor this church. You know, as I've said before, the staff is paid, but they're paid to be good. I'm good for nothing. Now, let me ask you a question. Have you decided what you're gonna love most of all in life? Some of you have lost your first love. You used to love God, number one in your life. When you first became a believer, it was so exciting, and you felt forgiven. Boy, that's a big relief. All my guilt is Gone. And you felt you had a purpose for life. You knew you weren't afraid to die. Cause you're going to heaven and things are really great. And then all of a sudden you kind of lost it over time. It started then, it happened slowly. What happened? You lost your first love. Because when you become familiar with something, you begin to take it for granted. That's why you had such a thrill when you were engaged to your husband or your wife. And it was so thrilling and you just couldn't wait to talk to him, be with him. But now you take them for granted. You take them for granted all the time. Why? You have forgotten what a good thing you got. And what happens with Jesus Christ is. A lot of people forget, man. It really is. God loves me and all my sins have been forgiven. And there is a purpose for my life. And I have a home in heaven and I'm made to last forever. We forget this and we become so familiar with Jesus. It's just not as exciting anymore. And you've lost your first love. And you need to come back to that first priority on what makes your life count. Now let me warn you that if you put Jesus Christ number one in your life and you really start to love him more than anything else, you will have opposition. You will have opposition. Jesus said it like this in John, chapter 15, verse 21. He said, People will do to you exactly what they did to me. And they will do it because you belong to me and they don't know the One who sent me. Well, what did they do to Jesus? Well, they misunderstood him, they judged him, they lied to him, they lied about him, they tried to trap him, they harassed him, they made fun of him, and eventually they killed him. If you start trying to live for Jesus Christ and love him more than anything else, it's going to upset some people around you. Now why is that? Why would anybody oppose me loving God with all my heart? Oh, there's lots of reasons. Lots of reasons. Let me just give you three. I'll give you three examples from verses in the life of Christ. You might write down the Word. The first word is because of materialism. When people love money more than they love God and you love God, it makes them nervous. And when you get around somebody whose whole life is about the acquisition of things and. And you go, you know, things really aren't what life's all about. That irritates them. It makes them feel realized. This is not really what life's all about. This is what happened with Jesus here on the screen. In Luke 18, the Bible says, you cannot serve both God and money. When the Pharisees heard this, they made fun of Jesus. Notice they made fun of Jesus because they loved money. Materialism causes people to love money more than God. And that causes them to be irritated at you. Another reason they will oppose you when you love God more than anything else is an immoral lifestyle. There are some people who love sex more than they love God. And the reason they don't want to love God is they'd have to change the way they behave toward women or toward men. And they'd have to make a lifestyle adjustment. And the Bible says this in John chapter three. The light from heaven came into the world. That's Jesus. But they loved the darkness more than the light, for their actions were evil. If I love Jesus, and that means I have to change my lifestyle, well then maybe I don't wanna love Jesus. Cause I love my lifestyle more than I love Jesus. And that makes people oppose you. A third reason people would oppose you when you love the Lord is peer pressure. Some people love being popular more than they love doing the right thing. And the Bible says this in John 12. They loved human approval more than the approval of God. And that causes people to be resistant to this first conviction that I'm gonna love God more than anything else. Now here's the second conviction that I build my life on. And that's this. Only the church will last forever. Only the church will last forever. Nothing else is going to last. No business is going to last forever. No government's going to last forever. No nation's going to last forever. No hobby is going to last forever. Only the church is going to last forever. Jesus said in Matthew 16:18, I will build my church, and all the powers of hell will not conquer it. Now friends, the church is the most magnificent idea that, that God ever thought up or any human being could have ever thought up. No idea has ever been greater than the idea of the church. Let me explain it to you. The church is not a building. The church is the family of God. And here's what God said. God said, I want a family. He wasn't lonely, but he said, I want a family. And so he said, I'm gonna create the entire universe just so I can create earth, just so I can create human beings. Because I know some of those human beings. I'm going to give them a free choice to choose me or reject me. And I know that some of them will choose to love me back. And then I'm going to take them to heaven. To be part of my family forever. Whoa. The entire universe was created for God's family. And what's God's family called? The church. You want to know why everything exists? It exists. The because God wanted the family. He wanted a church. And that's why everything in the world exists. And a thousand years from today, there will be no United States of America. It's highly unlikely. No empire lasts forever. Where's the Roman Empire today? Where's the Greek empire 1,000 years from today? There probably won't be a Microsoft a thousand years from day. Even Christian organizations. Good ones. There are a lot of good Christian organizations. World Vision's a great organization. Campus Crusade for Christ is a great organization. Thousand years from today, there won't be a Campus Crusade or World Vision because nothing man made organized lasts. But there will be a church. Why? Because it was made to last forever. It lasts forever in eternity, even after the earth is gone. Notice this verse on the screen. The Bible says God wanted to have many children share his glory. Now think about this. In the first conviction, we said it all exists for the glory of God. And yet God says, I'm going to create a family. It's going to be called the church and I'm going to take it with me into heaven. And then you are going to share my glory for eternity.

Whoa.

That is almost mind boggling. It is so unbelievably expansive. God says, you're going to share my glory for eternity. In fact, the Bible says even the angels are amazed at this because the angels aren't in the family of God. They didn't have a choice. They don't have free will like humans do. And the Bible says this in Ephesians 3:10. Through Christians like yourselves gathered in churches, this extraordinary plan of God is becoming known and talked about even among the angels and the angels, going, whoa. Can you believe what God did? He created the whole universe just because he knew some human beings would choose to love him and they could be a part of his family. That is an amazing, amazing story. God says, I created the church to last forever. Now personally, I am giving my entire life to serve the church. And I'm always asking two questions. They're always going through my mind almost 24 hours a day. What's best for Saddleback Church and what's best for other churches. That matters more to me than anything else in the world. What's best for Saddleback Church and what's best for other churches and our staff. We don't just serve this church, but all of our staff tithes their time. That means 10% of our time goes to help other churches because we're not in this just for our church. And so our staff gives their time to serve other churches. And over the years, we've trained over 400,000 pastors from 163 countries. Why? Because it's the only thing that's going to last. Nothing else is going to last. Now, what is the implication for you personally? Okay, I'm talking about this on a bigger scale. What's the implication for you personally, that the only thing that's going to last is a church? Well, it means this. Since we're all gonna live together forever, we better get along. Here's the idea. Since we're all together in the church and we're gonna live together, then what we need to do is I must love the family of God, too. It's not enough to just love God. You must love the church. The Bible says Christ died for the church. You wanna know how much he loves the church? He died for it. And anybody who says, well, I love Jesus, I just don't need the church, doesn't get it. They're an immature believer. A lot of people use the church but don't love it. Do you? Do you love the church or you just use the church Christ died for? I must learn to love every other Christian and every other believer in the body of Christ. Now, I don't know if you noticed this, but you probably did at Thanksgiving, that no family is perfect. Right. Okay. And you probably noticed at Thanksgiving time that every family has its own peculiar dysfunctions. Everybody's got their Uncle Otto, you know, don't look at him right now, you know, but, you know, in spite of the imperfections in your family, you got to love them. The same is true with the family of God. There is no perfect church. We're all imperfect people. And so how could you get a bunch of imperfect people to make a perfect church? There is no perfect church. Never will find one. But you gotta love it.

You know, your prayers and financial support are having a huge impact on millions of people here and around the world. So thank you. Thank you so much. And now Rick's gonna share a letter from one of our listeners who says Daily Hope is making a real difference in their life.

Friends, here's an incredible testimony from a woman named Amy in Indiana about how she used the Daily Hope devotional to lead her own son to Christ. You could do this, too. Here's what she wrote. Dear Pastor Rick, I've Been carrying a burden this past month for my 15 year old son who had not accepted Christ. But last night was the night I finally went into his room and I asked him and he told me no, that he hadn't accepted Christ as his Lord and Savior. So then I asked if he would like to and he said yes. Well, I had him read the prayer of a salvation attached to the Daily Hope devotional. And then I prayed with him and I prayed for him. Wow, Amy, what an incredible precious moment that you were able to lead your son to Jesus. It's the most important thing you'll ever do as a parent. And I'm so blessed to hear your testimony and I hope it encourages every other parent to be faithful like that. I wanna just pray for you and your son right now. Dear Jesus, I wanna thank you for caring so much that you made a way for us to become a part of your family so that we can join you in heaven one day. And thank you for giving Amy the courage to ask the question. Thank you for giving her the courage to talk to her son about you. And we're so grateful that he's accepted you into his heart. Now we ask you to give him a receptive heart and help him to get into God's word on a daily basis. We know that's the way he's gonna grow. So thank you Lord for Amy's obedience and Jesus. Right now I'm praying for more and more people to do what Amy did, to have the courage to step out and share their faith with a friend, a neighbor, a loved one who doesn't know you yet. I'm praying that you will give them just the right words and just the right time to share just the right message of your salvation. In Jesus name, Amen. Now, my friends, there is nothing more important you can do than lead somebody to Jesus Christ. Your life can never be considered a failure. If somebody's gonna be in heaven because of you. You've helped them settle their eternal destiny. In fact, that's why Daily Hope exists. It's simply one more method to help you tell more and more people about the forgiveness and the hope and, and the salvation and the love and the joy that's found in Jesus Christ. Through Daily Hope, we can work together to help other moms and dads like Amy and others reach their sons and their daughters for Jesus Christ. Now, I'm always grateful for your prayers and I'm always grateful for your financial support. But you may ask, how important is your donation to Daily Hope ministry? Just ask Amy she's got a son who's going to be in heaven because you gave. Thank you, everybody.

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. You can give right now by going to pastorrick.com or you can just text the word hope to 7030. Again, that's pastorrick.com or just text the word hope to 70309. And thank you so much 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.