Your Choice – Blessed or Stressed — Part 1

SPEAKER 01 : 0:02

Pastor Rick’s Daily Hope Pastor Rick’s going to kick off a powerful new series called Discover Your Destiny. And in this life-changing journey, you’ll uncover how to grow in every area of your life, spiritually, emotionally, financially, physically, mentally, vocationally, and relationally. So let’s dive right into God’s Word and discover how to make the next 10 years the best years of your life. And now here’s Rick with part one of a message called Your Choice, Blessed or Stressed.

SPEAKER 02 : 0:50

One of the most common phrases I’m sure you’ve heard on a daily basis is the phrase, God bless you. God bless you. What in the world does that mean? What is a blessing? Can anybody define it? I mean, most people wouldn’t know a blessing if it hit them flat in the face. When you pray God bless my family, God bless my work, God bless my church, God bless America, what are you praying? What is a blessing? I spent the last two weeks studying this subject and I studied every single verse in the Bible and every promise of blessing for God on your life. Because that’s what we’re talking about when we go into the decade of destiny. You know, as your pastor, the Bible holds me accountable for your spiritual growth. I don’t take that lightly. In fact, it keeps me up at night. And if you choose to put yourself in this family, in this flock, under my spiritual care, the Bible says I am accountable to God to help you grow. I want the next 10 years of your life to be the best 10 years of your life. I want you to be more blessed and less stressed. in the next 10 years. I want God’s blessing on your finances. I want God’s blessing on your health, your relationship, your family, if you’re married, your children. I want God’s blessing in every area of your life and on your life. Now what is a blessing? The word actually means good word. It means to speak a good word. But a blessing is a powerful word because when God blesses someone or something, he takes what they naturally have and he multiplies it And he makes it sufficient to meet all of your needs. That’s what a blessing is. Do you remember the story of Jesus feeding the 5,000, that miracle where they were out in the middle of the desert and nobody brought any food. One little kid had a lunch and he gave it to Jesus. Jesus took that little lunch of that little boy, five little rolls and a couple of fish, and he raised it up to heaven and he blessed it. And then he broke it and it multiplied and it met everybody’s needs. Now, that’s what happens when you are blessed. All your needs are met. Now, the common word for blessing in the Bible, in the Greek, which the Bible was originally in the New Testament was written in Greek, is the word makarios. And makarios, interesting, was the same word that they used for the island of Cyprus in ancient times, because Cyprus was famous for being an island that was self-contained in that everything you needed to sustain life was already on the island. It was famous for that. So the people didn’t have to go off the island for anything they didn’t need. The island was self-sustaining. It had all of the needs met there. And to be blessed, makarios, means that all of your needs are met and they’re all sustained. Now God’s blessing on your life is not limited to how big your needs are. God’s blessing on your life is not limited to how you got those needs. It may be your own stupidity, your own fault that you got into that need. God’s blessing is not based on the resources available. It’s based on his power and your trust and obedience to what he tells you to do. You know, I read a story recently about a man who was a prisoner of war in North Vietnam for seven years in the famous Hanoi Hilton. And he said, you know, for seven years, my daily meal was a bowl of broth. Really, it was just colored water. There was never any meat in it, seldom any vegetables. It was just pretty watered down broth. And he said, but you know, every day I would take that meal and I would pray and I would ask God to bless it. And he said, somehow God used that to be like meat and potatoes and it kept me alive for seven years. When I wouldn’t have had it, stayed alive on my own. God says, I want to bless your life. And what I wanna do before we get into the second half of the message today is in the first half, give you a summary of all that the Bible says about his blessings on your life. Now this isn’t on your outline, so don’t even try to take notes. The Bible tells us seven very important facts about God’s blessing on our lives. The first fact it tells us is that we don’t deserve it. Now that’s an obvious one. I don’t deserve God’s blessing. I can’t earn God’s blessing. I can’t work for God’s blessing. I can’t figure out a way to pay for God’s blessing. It is totally a gift. In fact, the Bible says, all these verses are here on the screen, from the fullness of his grace, we’ve all received one blessing after another. God’s blessing, everything God does in and for and to your life, he does because he’s a good God. Not because you’re good, but because he’s good. It’s all because of his grace. And the Bible says everything in our lives is a gift of God. Everything is because of his grace. Now the reason, number two, the reason God blesses you is because he enjoys doing it. God enjoys blessing his children. Now any father can understand this. I really get a kick out of buying my kids things. And I especially get a kick out of buying my grandkids things. And it’s like, it’s always burning a hole in my pocket. It’s like when I first fell in love with Kay, man, I could not keep money in my pocket. I was always buying her stuff. I’d see all this stuff on TV, you know, Fish and Magician. Oh, she’d like one of those, I’m sure. The Oriental Walk Steamer. But wait, we’ll throw in the Ginzu knives. And I’d buy that. And I was always buying her stuff just because you cannot love without giving. God enjoys blessing his children and one of the big things I want you to learn in Decade of Destiny is that God wants to bless you. He’s not holding back, he’s waiting on you. The Bible says this, I will enjoy blessing them. This is God talking. With all my heart and soul, I will faithfully plant them in this land. Now he’s talking here about Israel moving into the promised land and he says, I’m gonna enjoy blessing them. He said, well, great Rick, but that’s, he’s talking to the Israelites. He’s talking to Jews. I’m not Jewish. Well, let me show you another verse. Look at this verse on the screen. My blessings are for Gentiles too. Who’s a Gentile? Anybody who’s not a Jew. That’s me, that’s you. My blessings are for Gentiles too. When they accept the Lord, don’t let them think that I will make them second class citizens. They can be as much as mine as anyone. God wants to bless your life. Now the third thing the Bible teaches is that God promises and actually even guarantees that he will bless your life if, and here’s the big condition, if you do what he says. The promises of God and the blessings of God in your life are not automatic. They are conditional. Would you write this down? Every promise has a premise. Every promise has a premise. There are over 7,000 promises in the Bible where God says, if you do this, I will do this. If you confess your sins, I will forgive you. If you call upon me, I will save you. If you obey me, I will bless you. There are over 7,000 promises and every promise has a condition. Now, God isn’t waiting, you’re not waiting on God, God’s waiting on you to fulfill the conditions so he can bless your life in ways you’ve never imagined. Let me give you one example. Here in your outline, Deuteronomy chapter 28, verses two to eight, this is a longer passage, it says, and notice all the different blessings in here, but notice the condition. You will experience all these blessings If, circle that, if, here’s the condition. If you obey the Lord your God, another is you follow the instructions, you will be blessed in your towns and in the country. You’ll be blessed with many children and productive fields. You’ll be blessed with fertile herds and flocks. He’s talking about blessing your business. You’ll be blessed with baskets overflowing with fruit and kneading bowls filled with bread. You’ll have all the food you need. You’ll be blessed wherever you go, both in coming and in going. The Lord will conquer your enemies when they attack you. That’s a blessing. And the Lord will bless, circle this, everything you do. and will fill your storehouses with grain. That’s called prosperity. Bless everything you do. As your pastor who loves you, I want this verse true in your life. In the next 10 years, I want you to be in such a position so that God can bless you. You gotta get blessable so God can bless you. When you are blessable, God says, I will bless everything you do. Now, not only does God want to bless you, this is a cool thing. God wants to bless you visibly, publicly in front of other people. In any ways, God wants to show off his blessing. He wants to show what a good and loving God he is. And when God blesses you, it is a witness to other people. Notice this verse here on the screen. Lord, you have stored up Great blessings for those who honor you. Now let me stop right there before we look at the whole verse. The Bible says that right now, God has already stored up the blessings he has for you in the next 10 years. He already wants to give them to you. They’re already stored up. He’s already planned what he wants to give, but they’re not automatic. And you can go the whole next 10 years and not get a one of them. Because there’s a condition, there’s a premise for every promise. They’re not automatic. God has stored up blessings, but you can go through life and miss all the blessings of God that he intended for your life. You can miss them. Relationships, successes, goals that are reached, you can miss them all, they’re stored up. But he says they’re blessings for those who honor you. You do much, Lord, for those who come to you for protection, blessing them before the watching world. I want God to bless your life in such a way in the next 10 years as your pastor and as a part of our church family that when people look at you, they go, good night. That woman is blessed. That man is blessed. That family is blessed. What’s going on over there at that Saddleback Church? The people who go there, man, they’re all blessed over there. What are they smoking? What’s in the water? How do all those people over there in that church, how do they get so blessed? God says he wants to bless you in front of a watching world. It’s a testimony. Now, why does God bless you? Well, there are three reasons. Not because you deserve it, but first because he’s a blessing God. He loves to bless. He enjoys blessing. Second, he wants it to be a witness to other people. And third, God blesses you so you can be a blessing to others. That’s the third reason. He blesses you not so you can be just some fat cat and be self-centered, but he blesses you so you can help people less fortunate. The Bible says this on the screen. I will cause my people and their homes, God wants to bless your home, around my holy hill to be a blessing. Not notice, not receive, but be a blessing. And I will send showers, God says. Showers of blessings. In other words, that’s a ton. Which will come just when they are needed. I can’t think of a better time than right now. We need the blessings and showers of blessings of God in our lives. Now it all depends on what you’re looking at because your focus determines your feeling. If you’re looking at the problems, you’re gonna be down. If you’re looking at the provision, you’re gonna be up. It’s all what you focus on. Your obsession with the recession will cloud your vision of God’s provision. And you’ll miss it. You’ll miss it and you’ll miss what God wants to do in your life. God wants to bless you so you can be a blessing to others. And here’s another thing that I learned in studying all these verses is that blessings can be multi-generational. Did you know that? Yeah, you can actually pass on the blessing of God to the next generation. They are multi-generational. There are many, many examples of this. If you live a blessable life, it can actually benefit those who come after you. Here’s one example, I could have given you hundreds of verses for each of these points. Genesis 25, 11, after Abraham’s death, God poured out rich blessings on Isaac. Now who’s Isaac? Abraham’s son. Decade of destiny is a program and an attitude and an idea of obedience to God so that you are so blessed, it blesses those after you too. You know, I’m exhibit A of this. The reason God has blessed me so much is not because I deserve it, I don’t. But the reason why God blesses me is because I had four generations in front of me who were all godly. I had parents who were godly followers of Jesus Christ. I had grandparents and I had great grandparents. So I’m getting fourth generation blessing down. I just got lucky. I got in this family. I had a grandmother who told me when I was a little boy, she said, I pray for two people every day, Billy Graham and Ricky. I think I’m still floating on some of those prayers. Now, I want you to start that in the next generations. And one of the things we’re going to look at, you may be 15 years old, or you may be 50. One of the things we’re going to look at in Decade of Destiny is how to create a legacy. I want your children and their children and their children blessed because you lived a blessable life. I want that to happen. And I’m going to show you how that happens in Decade of Destiny. Now, some of you say, Rick, this is all good, but it’s a little too late for me because I’m on the backside of the mountain. I’ve already passed middle age or I’m no spring chicken. I’m out of college. I’m married. My kids are growing up. I’m on the backside of this and I’ve already had a number of years. Well, here’s the good news. It’s never too late to get in the blessing of God. You may have five years left or 15 years left or 50 years left. I don’t know, but I’m praying that God will give you in this next 10 years will be the best 10 years of your life. That it will make all the previous years of your life look like a Sunday school picnic in terms of blessing. That all of the blessing of God, people are going to look at you and go, what is going on in that guy’s life, in that woman’s life? They are so blessed. Everything they touch, God blesses. That’s what Decade of Destiny is all about. Notice this verse there on your outline, Job 42 verse 12. The Lord blessed Job in the second half of his life, even more than in the first half. I want that to be true of you. I want God’s blessing in the next 10 years of your life to be so great, the first all just looks like prologue. I want the second half, the next phase, the next stage of your life to be far more blessed. God says, it can be. You must just meet the conditions. God says, if you do this, I will do this. If you do this, I will do this.

SPEAKER 01 : 17:43

Wow, some powerful words from Pastor Rick today. And now this is really one of my favorite parts of the broadcast. This is letters from our listeners. And now here’s Rick.

SPEAKER 02 : 17:53

Today I want to share a note from Dion with you, who listens to Daily Hope, and she came to faith in Jesus along with her husband. Isn’t that wonderful? Here’s what Dion wrote. Pastor Rick. A couple of years ago, I would describe myself as a person who believed in God but definitely was not a Christian. My husband started listening to pastors on YouTube, and he started sending me your different videos, and you spoke my language. Your explanation about Jesus Christ described the person I was striving to be more like. I then found your podcast at Daily Hope and A Purpose Driven Life and even The Daniel Plan. Basically, I became a super fan. Ha, ha, ha. You always emphasize the need for a church home in small groups, and I began asking God to lead my husband and I to find the right church home. Well, the third church that we tried just happened to be a church where we attended a weekly AA meeting for over three years, and we loved the Sunday messages from the very first service. It felt like home. They have small groups like you talk about, and we jumped into attending the small group meetings weekly. Within two months, we both got baptized and are now official members of our church. I truly believe God allowed you to plant this seed in our souls. That led me to want a deeper relationship with God through Jesus. Jesus. I’m now a Christian that’s working to spread the love of Jesus to others. Thank you so much. I pray that you can continue being a vessel for others who seek Jesus. May God bless you, Dion. Well, wow. Dion, I am so encouraged to know that you and your husband became followers of Jesus. And it’s always so exciting to hear how God uses our simple small steps of faith to make a lasting difference in our lives. You know, those of you who are listening right now, did you notice that Dionne and her husband also got baptized and they joined a local church and they’re part of a small group? Have you done that yet? If you haven’t, I want to encourage you to do that. I hope everybody listening here will get baptized, will join a church family and get involved there. This is how we grow in the body of Christ. We need each other. We’re better together.

SPEAKER 01 : 20:03

Hey, if you’d like to let Rick know how this broadcast has blessed you, he would love it. Please feel free to send him an email at rick at pastorrick.com. That’s rick at pastorrick.com. 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.