This is Pastor Rick Warren’s Daily Hope. If you’re new, we’re so glad you found us. And if you’re a daily, daily hoper, welcome back.
Today, we’re going to continue with our series called 40 Days of Prayer. Such a great series because Rick is going to help you cultivate a powerful prayer life so you can experience breakthroughs. Breakthroughs in your relationships, breakthroughs in finances, health, and really every area of your life.
So don’t miss a day of this life-changing series. I’m so excited about today’s message, so let’s get started as Pastor Rick brings the final part of a message called, Who Do You Think You’re Talking To?
Sometimes we ask things we don’t really know what we’re asking about. One time, the mother of James and John, who were two of the disciples that Jesus picked, the 12 guys who traveled with him, she comes to him like a good mom. She’s proud of her boys.
They’re traveling with Jesus. She goes up to the Lord and says, Lord, when you get to your kingdom in heaven, can my boys sit on either side of you? I could just see a mom doing this.
And John’s going, no, mom, come on. And Jesus, in Matthew 20 verse 22, Jesus replied, you don’t realize what you’re asking for. You have a limited perspective.
You don’t see the whole picture. You don’t realize, ma’am, what you’re asking for. Many times, God has wanted to say that to you.
You don’t realize what you’re asking for. You don’t really want that. What you want is something different.
And so I’m not going to give you this because you think you want this, but it’s not really what you need. It’s not good for you. It’s not really even what you want.
You don’t realize what you’re asking for. And in that point, when God says no, you need to just go, I trust a good, good father than I do my own judgment. Because I think this would be good for me, but God, you got the bigger picture.
And you can see my whole life in front of me. You don’t know where this turn is going to take me. I don’t know, but you do.
And if you say no to that job, or no to that engagement, or no to whatever I’ve asked for, I’m just going to trust that you are a good father. Because you can see what I can’t see, and I don’t realize even what I’m asking for. As Garth Brooks said, thank God for some unanswered prayers.
Now let’s just be honest. It’s easy to trust God’s goodness when things are going good. No sweat.
Everything’s going good in my life. God is a good God. The test is can you say that when everything’s bad in your life, when things aren’t working out, when you’re not seeing the changes, when you’re not getting the answers, when it seems dark, when you feel alone or afraid, when things are not going good in your life, can you still say, you’re a good, good father, it’s who you are, it’s who you are, it’s who you are?
That is the ultimate test of your faith. And God is going to test your faith thousands of times in life. Do you trust your feelings?
It’s easy to feel good when God is good, when things are good. Or do I trust the faith that God is good even when I can’t see it? That the sun is still shining when I can’t see it?
The test of your faith is not how high you jump in praise, singing a song, when things are going good in your life. The test of faith is how straight you walk when everything sucks.
And you’re still going straight. I’m still trusting in the goodness of God. I did not get that job.
I just got fired. I’m trusting in the goodness of God. His plans for my life are good plans.
God, I trust you. I don’t see it, but I trust you. Ultimately, I’m going to trust you.
When things don’t work out. When my wife got breast cancer, the month we launched the peace plan, I’m going, come on, Lord, we’re trying to do something serious here. This is for you.
And the Lord’s going, Rick, don’t you think I know that? And I don’t know if my wife’s going to die, and I’m praying for a healing. I don’t care if it’s by miracle or medicine.
Doesn’t matter to me, just for healing. Don’t want to lose my wife. And month after month, I’m holding the bedpan while she vomits into it, and she’s going through all this radiation and chemo and surgery.
Is God a good father when your wife’s got cancer?
Yeah.
Yeah. When I have two prayers in my life that I’ve prayed every day for over 40 years and I’m still waiting for the answer, is God a good father? Yeah.
Yeah, he’s still good. When my youngest son lost his life long battle with mental illness that I had prayed every day, God would take away. And he takes his own life, and he makes a permanent solution to a temporary mood.
Is God a good father when your son commits suicide?
He’s still good. Not everything that happens in the world is good. Not everything that happens in the world is God’s will.
There are a lot of things God doesn’t want to happen, but he’s given us a free choice. It’s your greatest gift, and it’s your greatest curse. Because he’s not gonna force you to love him.
Is God a good God in that moment? Yeah. The moment of ultimate test of your faith is when you can say, like Job, when you’ve lost everything, all your family, all your crops, all your business, all your health.
You’ve lost everything. And Job says, you give and take away, you give and take away, but my heart will choose to say, Lord, bless it, be the name. You’re a good, good father.
Even when I’ve lost it all, I trust you. That is maturity. That’s where God wants to take you.
That you do not live your life based on your feelings, but you live your life based on the truth. God has a plan, and if I’ll follow that plan, it’s a good plan, and even the bad things that happened, God said, I’ll fit that into the plan, too. You know, a lot of times, when you pray for stuff, it doesn’t happen.
Let’s just get real honest here, okay? Let’s talk about this. Most or many of your prayers, you have not seen the answers to.
You know, this week, on Wednesday, I got a terrible stomach ache. I mean, it was bowl over in a fetal position, and then you can’t handle it kind of pain. And I’m laying there, bowl over in pain, and I cried out to God, God, take away this pain.
You know what happened? He didn’t take it away. Anybody ever been there on that one?
He didn’t take it away. And actually, the pain lasted several hours longer. It eventually subsided, but he didn’t take it away.
Now, what does that tell me about prayer? That prayer doesn’t work? No, I’ve seen it work too many times.
That God isn’t good? No, God is good whether I’m in pain or not. That God doesn’t care?
Of course, God cares. That I should give up on prayer because I don’t get everything I selfishly ask for every time? No.
God is not a vending machine. He’s not a genie. I said that.
And prayer is not a painkiller. It is not a painkiller that takes away all of your pain. God has not guaranteed a pain free life to you.
That’s called heaven, but not here on earth. Nowhere in the Bible does it say God wants you to live pain free. Actually, pain keeps us from many times getting into worse situations.
Nowhere in the Bible does it say that God said prayer will make every single moment of your life easy. It is not God’s job to make every moment of your life easy. You’d never grow up.
You’d be immature. You’d be spoiled. You’d be incredibly self-centered.
It just doesn’t say that. So when I’m in pain and I pray and I don’t see the answer, should I give up?
No.
My job is to keep praying, to keep trusting God with the answer, because I know that everything he does and everything he allows in my life, he will use for good. And so I accept a no or a slow or a grow or a go, because I know that God is a good, good father, even when I’m in pain. If a doctor does a surgery on you and cuts you open, that’s going to cause some pain.
But if that surgery saves your life, it’s a life-saving surgery, and you are in pain in the surgery, and then you’re in pain in the recovery, you say, that’s a bad, bad doctor? No, he just saved your life.
When God doesn’t immediately end your pain, as he didn’t mine, he was just saying to me in that moment, my grace is sufficient for you. Rick, you can handle a little pain in your life. You can handle a lot of pain in your life.
I’ve had a lot of pain in my life. In fact, almost everything I’ve learned in life, I learned through pain. I’ve learned nothing from pleasure.
Zero, zip, nada. I learned very little from success, but I learned boatloads through pain. And God is more interested in making me a man of God than he is in making me comfortable.
God is more interested in making you a man of God than making you comfortable. He’s got us more interested in making you a woman of God than making you comfortable. Comfort’s gonna go on for trillions and trillions of years in heaven.
But right now, you’re in the grow up stage. And so not everything you ask for, you’re gonna get. Otherwise, that’s like Midas Touch.
Everything turns to gold. If you never had any pain or difficulty in your life, how strong, how mature would you be? Not very.
You don’t know God is all you need until God is all you got. And then you realize that God does everything for good. Isaiah 55, verse eight and nine, God says, my thoughts are completely different from yours.
Which is why he doesn’t answer the way I want them too many times. And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine. For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.
And Rick, you’re praying at one level, and I’m thinking about your life at another level, because I want good for your life even more than you do. Will I trust him? Number five, last one.
Finally, because God is always good, he invites us to live with him forever. God wants to show you his goodness, not just while you’re here on earth. God is going to show you his goodness forever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever for all of eternity.
Wow. Because God is always good, he invites us to live with him forever. Two verses, and I’ll close.
Second Thessalonians. Our Lord Jesus Christ, and God our Father, who loves us, has given us, by his grace, his goodness, an everlasting encouragement. I’d say so, heaven’s called an everlasting encouragement, because it never ends.
And a good hope, there’s that word good, and a good hope that will last forever. Forever, circle that, forever. Now he says, may this encourage your heart, even when you’re in pain, that no matter how much pain you’re in, it’s not gonna last forever, but heaven’s gonna last forever, joy’s gonna last forever, hope’s gonna last forever.
May this encourage your heart, and give you strength for every good thing, there’s that word good, that you do and say. When God is good to us, he wants us to be good to other people. We did that entire series on Psalm 23, and the last verse, Psalm 23, says this, surely goodness, surely goodness, God’s goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life.
That’s good, but then he adds this in. And, then, I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. That’s a good plan.
Why am I saying this? Because until you’re absolutely convinced that God is a good God, and that he’s always good, and that he never does bad in your life, if until you understand the goodness of God, your prayers are gonna be powerless, and passionless, and pointless.
On the other hand, when you realize, no matter how I feel, and no matter what it looks like, God is for me. He’s not against me. God is a good God, and he wants what’s good for me more than I even want it myself.
And he knows what will make me happy more than I know it myself. God is a good God. And that’s the foundation of all your prayers.
Now, your prayers become passionate and purposeful, and they’ve got to point to them. You have power in your prayers. So let me ask you this.
What do you want to see happen in your life the next 40 days? I want you to commit the next 40 days to learning how to pray. I’m going to teach you in the weeks ahead, both in small group and here, how to pray effectively.
But it starts with the goodness of God. Nothing’s more important in your life than you learn how to pray effectively, friend. It’s the way you tap into God’s power, God’s presence, God’s peace, God’s purpose, God’s plan.
It’s the way you tap into all of that. So what do you want to see in the next 40 days? Start thinking about that.
You have not because you ask not. The Bible says Satan is not afraid of your plans. Satan is not afraid of your schemes.
Satan is not afraid of your budget or your strategy. Satan is not afraid of your programs. But he’s scared to death of your prayers.
Because that’s where you tap into God. And he knows that anytime God wants to do something really cool, really great in your life or in your family or in your job or in your community or in your church or in our nation, he starts by motivating you to pray. So if you’re going to commit to praying and learning how to pray the next 40 days, buckle up.
Get ready for the adventure of your lifetime. Our nation needs a spiritual awakening. Our nation needs revival.
Our nation needs God.
Things happen when people start praying together. These last two verses on your outline, Psalm 119. I want you to pray this this week, this verse.
Pray it every day. Verse 37 and 40. Lord, keep me from paying attention to what’s worthless.
You might write out next to that cable TV. From social media. Lord, keep me, if you spend as much time checking in with God in prayer as you do checking your Facebook, you’d be a whole lot stronger.
Lord, keep me from paying attention to what’s worthless. Instead, let me live by your word. You need to get in a small group, or you’re gonna learn the word.
I want to obey your principles. Please renew my life with your goodness. And then make this your prayer.
Lamentation 521. Bring this back to you, God. You can pray this every day.
Bring this back to you, God. We’re ready to come back. Give us a fresh start.
And as your pastor, I’m asking you to pray three things every day this week. Lord, revive my heart, revive my small group, and revive our church family. Father, you are a good, good father.
There are many people here in pain. You’re still a good, good father. We’ve all had prayers that weren’t answered the way we want them to be answered.
You’re still a good, good father. Help us to remember that your plan for our lives is always good, so we choose your plan, not ours. Help us to remember that you always give us what we need, not what we deserve.
Thanks for that. And thank you that you not only forgive us, but you pour your goodness into us. Thank you that you’re not mad at us, that you’re mad about us.
Thank you that you amazingly put our good above your own good. And you did that through the cross by dying for the sheep. You didn’t spare your own son, so you certainly give us what else we need.
And Lord, even though we don’t always understand it, we thank you that you don’t say yes, go to every prayer request. Your goal is not to make our lives easy, but to grow us up. We realize that your thoughts are not ours, your ways are higher than ours, and a lot of stuff we don’t understand and we won’t understand till we’re with you in eternity.
And thank you that you have invited us to live with you forever in heaven. If you’ve never opened your life to Christ, say, Jesus Christ, I want to accept your gift of heaven. I want to accept your gift of forgiveness.
I want to accept your gift of a new life, Jesus Christ. I want a relationship with you. I want to put my trust in you.
I pray, Lord, that in the next 40 days together, you will revive my heart and all of our hearts. You will revive our small groups, all of them. You will revive our church family.
Only changed people can change the world. I pray this blessing in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and everybody said, Amen.
Hey, if you’ve just prayed along with Rick to accept Jesus in your life, Rick would love to hear from you. Just email rick at pastorrick.com. We’ll send you free tools to help start your relationship with Jesus.
And now here’s Pastor Rick with a letter from one of our listeners.
You know, we get letters and emails from people all around the world and from all ages. And here’s one that I got from a listener in Indonesia. His name is Stephen and he’s 12 years old.
He wrote, Dear Pastor Rick, thank you for the powerful way that you’ve impacted my life. I’m just a 12 year old schoolboy in Jakarta, Indonesia. But I listen to the broadcast every morning on the way to school.
My life has changed completely this year. I’m at a new school and my family’s just about recovered from some financial problems. But I’m still having to learn a whole new way of life.
Some days I really feel bad, and I ask God to help me. But then the Daily Hope broadcast comes on the radio, and you always say something that helps me feel better. And I know that at that moment, God is trying to speak directly to me through you.
So thank you ever so much. Well, thank you ever so much, Stephen. I love hearing from people like you literally all around the world, who have been impacted through Daily Hope.
You know, by the way, I want to thank all of those of you who support us regularly with your financial gifts every month. We can’t do this without you. But because of you, we’re able to minister to people like this 12-year-old boy, Stephen, in Jakarta, Indonesia.
You’re never going to know this side of heaven, the number of lives that you have impacted because of your gifts to Daily Hope. Thank you, thank you, thank you. When we get to heaven, we’re all going to rejoice and see the results there.
If you’d like to help support Pastor Rick and this ministry with convenient automated monthly giving, you just go to pastorrick.com or text the word HOPE to 70309. And when you do, we’ll send you a special welcome gift to say thanks. Again, that’s pastorrick.com or text the word HOPE to 70309.
And we can’t tell you how much we appreciate your support. Thank you. We hope you’ll 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.
