Your Choice - Blessed or Stressed — Part 2

Hey there, everybody, and welcome to Pastor Rick's daily Hope. And whether today is your first time tuning in or if you're a regular listener, we're really excited that you're here. Well, today, Pastor Rick is continuing his series called discover your destiny. So get ready to explore the practical steps to grow in all areas of your life, spirit, mind, body, relationships, and even your career. So stick with us as we uncover God's incredible plan for your future. Okay, well, I can't wait to get started and hear what Rick has for us today. Here's part two of a message called getting to where you want to be.

There are radio waves and TV waves coming right now through this building, and pictures are going right through the air and actually right through your body. And the reason why you can't see them is because you're not tuned in. But if we had a tuner, you could tune in and pull that off. God is here with us. But if you have a tuner, you can tune in and you can sense his presence in your life. God says, I will be with you. Now, when God is with you, that gives you the confidence to have great goals, to have great dreams, to have a great vision, to believe that you're gonna succeed because God says, I will be with you. I'll Never forget in 1980, the first year we started Saddleback Church. I was 25 years old. You know, I had one member, K. And. And I was interviewed by a reporter, and a reporter asked me, how big do you think this church is gonna be? And I said, 20,000 people by 2020. The reporter looked at me and said, who do you think you are? And I said, well, actually, that's the wrong question. The question is not who do I think I am? The question is, who do I think God is? The size of your God will determine the size of your goal. If you got a puny God, you're gonna have puny goals. If you got a big God, you're gonna have big goals. It's not me putting faith in myself. It's me putting my faith in God and his promises and his promises. Say, ask for anything. I can think of some pretty big things. God says I can top that. The size of your God will always determine the size of your goal. And godly goal setting is always based on not what I think I can do, but what I think God can do. It's based on the promises of God, one of those 7,000 promises. So in step three, you don't look for what have I got? And what am I lacking. And what are the roadblocks at this stage? You simply say you might write this down. What promise can I claim? And you find one of those 7,000 promises in the Bible and you claim it and you attach it to each of your goals. Now step number four, the fourth thing Eleazar did and you need to do it, is ask God for help. Ask God for help in reaching your dream for the next ten years, your goal and your vision. In. In verse 12 it says, Then Eleazar prayed. O Lord, God of my master Abraham, give me success. Circle that word, success, Give me success. And show this kindness to my master Abraham, Help me to accomplish the purpose of my journey. Now, is it okay to pray for success? Well, obviously it's. It's in the Bible. It's right here. What's the alternative? Oh God, make me a failure. Friend. You don't have to pray that one. Okay? All you have to do is do nothing and you'll fail at life. So you don't have to. I mean, what's the alternative? Success. Of course God wants you to be all he made you to be. Of course, God wants you to develop the talents he's given you. Of course, God wants to bless you so you can be a blessing to other people, not just so you can be some fat cat and spend it all on yourself. Live for yourself. No, God doesn't bless selfishness or self centeredness. But listen to me real closely. When your success helps others and when your success honors God, you better be praying for it, because God wants you to help other people and God wants you to. To honor Him. And so you say, God, give me success. Help me to be what you want me to be. The Bible says this in Hebrews chapter four. Look there on your outline. So let us come boldly to the throne of our gracious God. In other words, when we pray there, we will receive his mercy and we will find grace to help us remember. Ask God to help you. We will find grace to help us when we need it. So you need to pray now. If I had time, I'd take you in depth through this passage where Eleazar continually prays through his mission. In verse 12, he prays before he starts out. In verse 6:15, he prays after he arrives in Iraq. In verse 52, he prays in front of Rebekah's family that he's about to convince to let her come back with with him. My question is simple. Are you praying about your goals? Are you praying about your dreams? Are you praying about your Vision? Are you talking to God about them? You see, your prayer reveals two things. Number one, it reveals how serious you are about your dreams. If you're not asking God for this to happen in your life, you don't really care about it that much. It's not a real deep desire. It's just a whim. Parents have to learn this with their kids. The difference between what kids really desire and what's just a passing whim. When my kids were little and my three kids, we'd go through Toys R Us and everything they saw they wanted. Dad, can I have this? No. Can I have this? No. Dad, can I have this? No. Can I have this? No, Dad, I really, really, really want this. No, Dad, I really, really want this. What I learned is that many times they would ask for something, and as soon as I said no, they forgot. Wasn't really a desire. It was like, out of sight, out of mind. It was just a whim. It wasn't a deep desire. But if they kept saying, dad, I really want this, I really want. And they bring it up over and over and over, then I know that's a legitimate desire. And that got put on the Christmas list, that got put on the birthday list. Because they really, really desired it. Now, if you pray and say, oh, God, I want you to give me this. I want you to help me become this. I want you to help me to do this. And you only pray about it once. It's just a whim. It's not really a deep, deep desire. Did you know that sometimes God delays answering your prayer just to see if you really are serious? Is this just a passing whim? I see it. Oh, yeah, I'd like to have this. But then you forget it the next day if you don't care enough to pray about it more than once. God is saying, well, that's obviously not a real deep desire. It's just a passing whim. So you need to pray about it. Cause it reveals how much you really wanna reach your goal. It also reveals how much you're depending on God. Because if you never pray about it, you're depending only on yourself. Depending on God means God, I really need your help in this vision. I really need your help in this goal. I really need your help in changing in this area of my life. How much you're depending on God shows up in how much you pray about your dream, about your vision. Step five. Now, after you've done all these other things, you know where you are. You got your gps, your current position, you know exactly what you want in life and what you don't want. You find a promise from God for each of these goals. And we're gonna take you through these in. I'm giving you kind of an index for decade of destiny. Cause we're gonna apply these principles in specific areas. Then you ask God for help. Now you're ready to deal with the problems. And only now do you come to the problem time. Step five is identify the barriers. You want to identify the barriers between you and your goal, between you and your vision, between you and your dream for the next 10 years of your life. And the question you want to ask is this. Why don't I have it already? If it's something you want, why don't you have it already? Why am I not who I want to be? Why don't I have what I want to have? Why don't I do what I want to do? You ask, why don't I have it already? And you ask, what are the roadblocks? What are the problems? What are the obstacles? Now, they may be relational problems that you need to resolve in your marriage or with your boyfriend or your girlfriend or your friendship or your parents. They may be financial barriers that have to be resolved. They may be educational barriers. Maybe there's some things you've got to learn before God can give it to you. You say, I need to go back and get some education or I need to do this. Educational barriers. There may be emotional barriers that keep you from your dream. A lot of people sabotage their own success because they don't feel they deserve it. Well, I don't deserve this. And so just as they get out there, then they self sabotage. And there may be some things you need to change emotionally. Now, Eleazar in this story faces a number of of seemingly impossible barriers. Now think about this. First, he's gotta go to a country he's never been to. He's gotta find his way on how to get there. Second, he's gotta find just the right young woman to marry Isaac and not make a mistake. He's gotta find somebody he's never met before. Then he's gotta convince her to come back with him, a total stranger to a country she's never been to and marry a man she's never met. And then he's gotta convince her parents to let her do that. Now, there's a word for this. Mission impossible. I mean, how'd you like to have this assignment? I'd be praying too. God, you're gonna have to help me on this. And in verse 21, he has the problem of finding the right girl. And in verse 58, the problem of getting the girl's consent. And in verse 49, the problem of gaining the parents consent. Now what you do in this phase, listen, is you write down on the paper where you've written down your goals and your promises. You write down the barriers, what's between me and this goal. You write down the roadblocks. You write down and you look at em honestly, what are the obstacles? Financially, educationally, emotionally, relationally. Faith does not deny reality. Faith is not Pollyanna saying, oh, there's no problems. Faith just says, yes, I see the problem, but I believe God is bigger than the problem. Doesn't deny the problems, doesn't deny the roadblocks. It just believes God is bigger than those roadblocks. And you write them down. Okay? Now once you've done that, you come to step six, which is create a step by step plan. This is what Eleazar did, and this is what you're gonna need to do in decade of destiny. Create a step by step plan. And what I mean by that is to reach your vision, to reach your goal, to reach your destiny, you've gotta plan it one step at a time. It's not one giant leap. You take it one step at a time. You don't try to do it all at once. And you spread it out there. Now, Eleazar designs and a very simple plan. And in my opinion, this is a masterpiece plan. It's well thought out. Look up here on the screen. Here's how Eleazar's gonna try to find the right woman. Eleazar took with him 10 of Abraham's camels, loaded with samples of the best of everything his master owned. Abraham was an extremely wealthy man, very, very rich. And he journeyed to Iraq, Nahor's village. And there he made the camels kneel down outside the town beside a well, the water well. And it was evening and the women of the village were coming out to draw water. This is the tradition. In the evening, women come out to get the water at the well. Now it says. Now notice here what he's doing is his plan is working because he actually finds a woman named Rebecca who offers water to him. He says he thought, I will ask one of them for a drink. And here's the test. If she says, yes, certainly, I'll give you a drink of water and I'll water your camels too. Let her be the one you have appointed as Isaac's wife. Now, why is this? Let Me water your camels too? I don't know if you know this, but camels can drink a lot of water, okay? And you got 10 camels, and maybe you're gonna get four or five buckets of water for each one. That's 50 buckets of water. That's not like asking, can I have a drink? Sure, let me pour you a drink. Oh, let me water your camels too. I'm gonna go back to the well 50 times and bring 40 or 50 buckets of water. And I'm gonna give all your camels all the water they need. What is he doing here? He's looking for a woman who is kind, who is generous, who has a servant's heart, who goes the extra mile. He's looking for a woman of character. He doesn't just say, can I have a drink? But let her say, oh, yeah, I'll give you drink and let me water all your camels too. Of her own initiative. He's looking for a woman of character. And by the way, her name was Rebecca, which, by the way, we're not gonna cover this verse, but later in verse 64 is the only mention of smoking in the Bible because it says when Rebekah saw Isaac, she lit off a camel. It's the only mention of smoking in the Bible. Okay? So she sees her future husband and she has a smoke. All right? Now. His plan works. Look at it. It continues here. When the camels had finished drinking, he gave her Rebecca a gold ring for her nose. Wow, that's cool. Okay, maybe a couple tattoos were thrown in, you know, while we're at it. Maybe a navel piercing, I don't know. But he gives her a gold ring for her nose and two large bracelets for her wrist. Whose daughter are you? He asked, would your father have any room to put us up for the night? Now here's his simple step by step plan. Listen to this. First, I'm gonna go to the watering well where women hang out. If you wanna shoot an elk, you gotta go to where elk live, okay? If you want a woman, you gotta go where women are. Okay. Go to the watering well where the women hang out. Okay? Second, he sets up a test and he's looking for someone who's kind and generous and servant hearted. And then if she passes the test, he gives her some expensive gifts, okay? And then he asks about her family. And then he gets invited to her home. And then at the home, he shares his purpose and. And then he pops the question. He's doing it step by step by Step. And he had it thought out in advance. You need to do this too. You need to think through a course of action. And a plan has three parts. It has steps and it had deadlines, and it has a schedule. A goal is worthless until you get it on your schedule because everything eventually deteriorates into work. All dreams deteriorate. You eventually have to wake up from your dream and go to work. So you wanna ask yourself two questions as you make a plan. Write this down. First, how do I intend to get there by the end of this decade? How do I intend to get there? And number two, how long will it take? In other words, what's the schedule? By this year I wanna have done this. And by this year I wanna have done this. And by this year I wanted to have done this. You know, I know what some of you are thinking right now. You're going, rick, this is a lot of work, all this planning. And you know what? You're right. And you don't have to do it. Go ahead, drift through the next decade and it'll be just like the last one. It will be done to you rather than you directing it. Recent Harvard Studies show that 95% of all Americans do not have any written down goals. 95%, only 5% of America do what I'm sharing with you right now, have written down visible, specific goals. Those same 5% happened to be the 5% of the highest earners in America when they did the study. Now, you don't have to do this, but is the next 10 years of your life worth a few hours of thinking right now? Yes. Is the next 10 years of your life worth a few hours of planning and praying and giving some serious thought to this? Yes. If it's not, you're just gonna drift through life. I'm not telling you it's easy. I'm telling you it's simple. Simple doesn't mean easy. Simple means it's clear. And you say, here's where I am, here's where I wanna go. These are the questions to ask. Here's why I don't have it right now. Here's what the promise I'm gonna claim from God. And yet most people, no matter how much I say they're not gonna do it. And they're gonna drift through the next 10 years. And your life will not be where it could be. It will not be your destiny. Your destiny will be determined by other people. Now you can determine your own destiny. God gives you the choice. He says, I set before you blessing and cursing life and death. Ch. Wow.

Such a great message from Pastor Rick today and I hope you were just as encouraged as I was. You know, the truth is that most of us don't pay much attention to our health until something goes wrong. We put on a couple of pounds every year and think, no big deal, right? But a few pounds over five or ten years really adds up. Yeah, I know about that. But on a more serious note, it can lead to major illness like diabetes and heart disease. So that's why Pastor Rick worked together with medical and fitness experts to create the Daniel Plan Study. This is a six session video and workbook study kit from Rick Warren, Dr. Daniel Amen and Dr. Mark Hyman. This is an out of the box approach to a healthy lifestyle based on five essentials. Faith, Food, Fitness, Focus and Friends. The Daniel Plan Study gives individuals and small groups the encouragement and accountability needed to succeed. So if you've been watching the scale going up lately or your health may be in trouble because of your weight, it's really not too late. So join the thousands of people who've lost weight, improved their health, and improve their relationships through the Daniel Plan. So be sure to request your copy when you partner with Daily Hope to take the Word of God to a hurting world. Just go to pastorrick.com to get your copy of this great resource. That's pastorrick.com or you can just text the word hope to 70309 that's the word hope to 70309 and thank you so much for your support. Your gift to Daily Hope really helps us share the hope of Christ with people all over the world. 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.