Rick Warren - Finding True Hope in Difficult Times

Hope is not a product. Hope is not a program.

Hope is not a pills. Hope is a person. And

there's only one person that you can put that hope in,

Jesus Christ. He is the hope of the world. Because

Jesus Christ came back to life on Easter Sunday about

twenty and seventeen years ago, it split history into AD

and BC. We know three things for certain. Number one,

you might write this down because he rose from the dead.

I know that Jesus has a great purpose for my life.

Jesus has a great purpose for my life. Now. One

of the most important things you have to know in

life is what's your purpose. If you don't ever figure

out why you're here, you're gonna waste your life. You

don't know why a lot of people confuse purpose with

other things. Purpose is not success. You can be incredibly

successful and not know your purpose. You make a whole

lot of money and not know your purpose. You me

incredibly famous and talented and very productive in your life

and still miss the purpose for which you were made.

I was talking to a guy one time and he said,

you know, Rick, my life has a great cast. I

just don't know the plot, and I said, I think

a lot of people feel that way. And another guy said,

you know, somebody said, I hope my life isn't a

joke because I don't get it. I don't get it. Now.

When it comes to knowing your purpose in life, you

really only have four choices. Only four choices. The first

way is to try to figure out your purpose in

life by speculation. What I mean of that is you

just guess at it. You could go to some university

and enroll in a philosophy course and ask all of

the great questions of life, who am I? Why am

I here? What is my purpose? Does my life have meaning?

Is there any significance to my life? Where am I

headed in life? Why am I here? And you can

take lots of philosophy courses, but the bottom line is

you're just guessing, and your guess is as good as mine.

It's just speculation. You're never going to find your true

purpose in life by just guessing about it. It's much

more important than that. Another way is imagination, not speculation

of an imagination, which just basically says, make up your

own purpose. You don't know your purse, Just pick one anyone.

There are probably one hundred thousand self help books that

teach that. And as they said, they confuse success with purpose,

and they say, you know, you know, set your goals

and have your dream and clarify your values and know

your vision. That's all good stuff, but it's not about

your purpose. It's about success in life. And you never

need to confuse those two. Just make up a purpose.

That's imagination. And then there's the other way that people

often try to find a purpose, and I would call

it introspection. And what I mean by that is it's

look within. They you hear this all the time in

Eastern philosophies, you hear it in movies, and particularly hear

it on talk shows, and they basically say, if you

want to know your purpose, trust the force. Luke. Yeah,

look look within, and if you look within long enough,

then you'll know your purpose. Now there's one problem with that.

It doesn't work. If it did, we'd all know our

purpose because you've looked inside you, and I've looked inside

of me. I looked inside of me. I just saw mess.

I didn't get any clarity at all. Now follow me

on the logic of this. You can't tell yourself what

your purpose is because you didn't create you. Because you

didn't make you, you don't know your purpose. If I

were to hold up a object of some kind of

air mechanical object, you've never seen it, I said, what

do you think the purpose of this is? Uh, we

could guess, we could speculate, we could look within you know,

we could pretend we know. But really, the only way

you wouldn't have any idea what the purpose of this

object was unless either A you talk to the inventor

who created it, or b you read the owner's manual.

And if you do those two things, then you can

find the purpose of what I was holding up. Now,

the same is true for your life. The only way

you're ever going to know your purpose in life is

talk to the creator and read the owner's manual. If

you don't do that, you're never going to know the

purpose for which you were created. You could make up

a purpose, but it's not the one you were created for. Now.

The truth is, you are not an accident. You've heard

me say this many times. There are accidental parents, acidental children,

they're illegitimate parents, but there are no illegitimate children. Your

parents may not planned you, but God did. And if

God had not wanted you to exist. You would not

be alive right now, he said, why did God give

me the parents? He gave me? God was not so

much interested in their parenting skills as he was interested

in their DNA, because God knew that they had just

the right DNA to create you. And whether your parents

were good or bad, or indifferent or maybe you even

never even knew them, he knew that they would create you.

And God was much more interested in creating you than

he was in their parenting skills. God's plan and purpose

is bigger than your parent's plan and purpose. He wanted

you alive. You are not an accident, and He has

a plan and purpose for your life. And so God says,

I want you to know this now. He said, Rick,

what does all this have to do with Easter? Well,

let me show you. Look at these verses on your outline.

The Bible says in the Two Corinthians, Chapter five, Jesus

included everyone in his death so that everyone could also

be included in his life, a resurrection life, a far

better life than people ever lived on their own. Now,

if you're taking notes, you might circle that phrase better life.

God says, I have a purpose for your life, and

it is a better life than you would ever live

on your own. Now, that's not a term we talk

about a lot better life. The term we talk about

a lot is the good life. And in California we're

supposed to be authorities on the good life. And in California,

the good life basically means looking good, feeling good, and

having the goods. If you look good and you feel

good and you have the goods, you got the good life.

There's only one problem with the good life. It's not

good enough. You were made for more than just the

good life. You were made for more than success. You

were made for more than survival. You were made for significance.

And the only way you will know your significance is

by discovering God's purpose for your life. You look good,

feel good, have the goods, but you need the better life.

And I've talked to people who had all of those

things and still felt frustrated or empty, or the nagging

feeling there's got to be more. Well, of course, there's more.

You weren't made just to get up in the morning,

go to work, come on and watch TV, go to bed,

go to party on weekend, retire and die that's not living,

that's existing. Jesus said, I came that you might have life,

and life to its fullest, the better life. Now where

do we get that purpose? We'll look at the next verse.

The Bible says, everything, absolutely, everything got started in Christ.

He's the creator of the universe and finds his purpose

its purpose in him. The only way you're going to

find your purpose is in Christ, and the way Christ

came back to life says I do have a purpose

for your life. Look at the next verse. The Bible

says this Ephesians chapter one. It is in Christ that

we find out who we are and what we are

living for. Who we are, what we're living for part

of the overall purpose He is working. God is working

out in everything and everyone. Until you get to know Christ,

you're not going to know your purpose because He is

the one who made you. He's the one who created you.

He's the one that when he rose again, split history

into AD and BC. Now you know here at saddleback,

of course, we're committed to helping everybody discover and develop

their purpose. We're a purpose driven church. I wrote a

book about it. It is a big best seller, and

I think that the reason it's sold. You know, it's

the best selling book in American history, sold thirty two

million copies in hardback and then we became the most

translated book in the world. It's in Guinness Book of Records.

Why not because I'm a good author. I'm not an author,

I'm a pastor. But because it happens to be the

number one need that people want to know about. Why

am I here? What's my purpose? Without that? Without purpose,

life is petty and pointless. And God says we find

it through the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Now, let me

give you a second thing. Second bit, I'm only covering three.

The second benefit we get from Jesus Christ rising from

the dead is he not only says I've got a

great purpose for your life. He says I have a

great power for your problems. I have a great power

for your problems. And Easter demonstrated the power of God.

There's not much greater power than raising your yourself back

to life. It is the most powerful event in history.

And here's the cool thing about it, it's available to you.

The same power that raised Jesus from the dead a

couple millennia ago, two thousand years ago is available to

you today. Let me show you some verses. This may

be a benefit you didn't know about. And if you

don't know about it, you can't depend on it. Fhesians

chapter one the Bible says, I pray that you will

begin to understand how incredibly great God's power really is,

how incredibly great God's power really is to help those

who believe him. It is the same mighty power that

raised Christ from the dead. Say wait a minute, time

out here, Rick, you're telling me that the same power

that brought Jesus back to life is available to me

in my daily life. That's exactly what I'm saying. That's

a benefit you may have not known about. The resurrection

of Jesus comes with a promise. Look at the next verse.

By his power, God's by his power, God raised the

Lord from the dead. And read this aloud on me,

he will also raise Oh, now we're talking. The only

reason you're going to be raised from the dead and

have life after death is because Jesus did it. That's

the reason. If Jesus doesn't raise you from the dead,

you're not getting raised from the dead. By his power,

God raised the Lord from the dead, and he will

also raise us so you can have resurrection power in

your life. Now, let me ask you a very personal question.

Where do you need a resurrection in your life? I'm

talking about right now. Let me phrase it another way.

What's dying in your life or is dead and you

know it and you need God's power to bring it

back to life. Where do you need a resurrection this year?

Where do you need God's resurrection power? See? The truth is,

and I'm sorry about this, but some of you are

in marriages that are dying. They're going south real fast,

or maybe they already have died and you're just still

living together. You need a resurrection in your marriage. The

key to a long marriage can I've been married forty

two years, is you have to learn how to fall

in love over and over again. You know, fall in

love just one time. You have to have resurrections in

your marriage, in your life. Some of you need a

resurrection in your marriage because it's dying. Some of you

need a resurrection in your career. And you think, Man,

I thought I'd be a whole lot further along the

line than I am right now at this stage of

the game. At this point in my life, I expect

to be further down the road, but I'm not, and

that's disappointing. And you need a resurrection in your career.

Some of you need some resurrection and your energy. You say,

you know, I'm just tired all the time. I dragged

through the day. I'm fatigued all of the time. I

don't have any energy because you're living it on your

power instead of God's power. God never intended for you

to go through life just on your power. You don't

have enough. Human power runs out, human love runs out,

which is why there's divorce. You need supernatural love and

you need supernatural power in your life to make it

to the finish line. Some of you need a resurrection

of your dream. You've had a dream in your past

about something you've always wanted to be. You're always wanted

to do, a talent, you wanted to develop, a goal

you wanted to go after, and the dreams died. And

this Eastern Resurrection Day, Jesus in the power that I

raised myself back to life with. It's available to you

if you plug into me. Some of you need a

resurrection in your health. You're not going in the right direction.

Some of you need a resurrection in your motivation. You know,

I just you know, I'm just not motivated anymore. I'm

just kind of putting in the time and waiting for

the payday, checking the clock. I'm not motivated. Nothing motivates

to me anymore. You need a resurrection of motivation. Some

of you have had a split in a friendship with

a dear friend, a boyfriend, a girlfriend, or just a

good friend. And there's been a rift, there's been a break,

a tear, conflict. You need a resurrection in your friendship.

So I'm just saying that in so many different areas.

Some of you have had your heart broken recently, and

as your pastor, I'm sorry, I really am, and I

pray for people in our family that have a broken heart,

and you need to have your heart repaired, and you

need a resurrection in that area of your life. You see,

this is the difference between human beings and God. God

is God and we're not. Human beings can resuscitate. Only

God can resurrect. If you know CPR, you know how

to resuscitate somebody their heart stops, you can resuscitate them

with CPR. If you're a paramedic, you've probably resuscitated hundreds

of people with mouth and mouth or CPR, whatever you

needed to do. Resuscitation happens when they've been dead for

a minute or two or three minutes. But when you've

been dead for three days and buried in the ground,

you don't need resuscitation. You need resurrection. And God says,

I want to have that kind of power, not resuscitation power,

but resurrection power in the area of youth. Like of

your life that are dying are already dead. They're already dead.

And God has not only a purpose for your life

because of the Cross and the resurrection, but God has

a power for your life which is bigger than the

problem you're going through out right now. Let me show

you a couple verses First Corinthians, Chapter one. Paul gives

a testimony of how God helps us when we think

it is hopeless. You see, some of you are on

the edge of giving up right now, and if we

could put an X ray to your mind, it would

show you're pretty desperate. I'm glad you came because God

wanted you here a thousand years before you were born.

He knew you would be here at saddleback on this

day so he could say this to you. Don't don't

give up you. Maybe you feel like giving up on

your dream, or giving up on your marriage, or giving

up on your health. Maybe you even feel like giving

up on your life. Don't. God brought you here today

so he could say this to you. You're ready for it.

Here's what he wants to say to you. Don't give up.

Look up, don't give up. Look up. The answer is

not to quit. The answer is to get connected, find

God's purpose, and get God's power in your life, and

you'll have a new resurrection in your life now. Paul

says it like this. He tells his own story of

when he was ready to kick the bucket. This is

probably the greatest Christian who ever lived, next to Jesus Christ.

And Paul says, there were times when I was so depressed.

I was readister, throw in the towel. And he says

this in Second Corinthians, we were really crushed, and he says,

we were overwhelmed and we feared we would never live

through it. Ever felt like that he crushed, overwhelmed, filled

with fear. He says, we didn't think we'd live through it.

We saw how powerless we were to help ourselves, and

you just go Okay, this is not working. I do

not have the power to get done what I need

to get done in my life. I just don't have it.

I got an energy shortage, I got energy crisis. I

don't have the power to do what I need to do.

And then Paul says, we realized that we were powerless

to help ourselves. But that was good. Huh, How in

the world could you feel in crushed, overwhelmed, fearful, and

powerless to help yourself. How in the world is that good?

He says, Because then we put everything into the hands

of God, who alone could save us. For he can

even raise the dead. That's what we're talking about at Easter.

He can even raise the dead, said, and God did

help us, and he saved us, and we expect him

to do it again and again and again. If God

can raise the dead, Jesus, he can raise a dead marriage.

If God can raise the dead Jesus, he can raise

a dead friendship. He can raise a dead career, he

can raise a dead dream. He can raise a part

of your life that's just dying on the vine. That's

the kind of God we serve. That is a benefit

that was paid for you by Jesus Christ. But you

can go all through life totally unplugged. If you are

unplugged from God's power, you will never know God's purpose.

A toaster that is never plugged in is worthless. It

has no intrinsic value unless it's plugged into the power.

It cannot fulfill its purpose unless it's plugged in the power.

A vacuum cleaner cannot fulfill its purpose as a vacuum

cleaner unless it's plugged into the power. A microwave cannot

fulfill its purpose as a microwave unless it's plugged into

the power. You cannot fulfill your purpose in life unless

you're plugged into the power, the power of the Resurrection.

And he says, you know, we got the point. We

were ready to just cash it all in and we

were powerless. But that was good because then we put

it all in the hands of God. And God goes, well,

thank God, you finally did it. I've been waiting for

you to get to the end of your rope so

I could take over. How about you let me have

a try and empowering and guiding your life now, Just

be honest, are you sick and tired of being sick?

And tired. Here's what the Bible says Isaiah forty. God

gives power to those who are tired and worn out,

and he offers strength to the weak. He said, Wait

a minute, I'm tired, I'm worn out, I'm weak. I

don't feel any power. Well, let me explain how you

get that power. You get it through faith. You get

it through trust. You get it through believing in the

Son of God, who died on the cross for you

and rose again to give you that power. You can

complain to God all you want. God is not moved

by your complaints. You can whine all you want. God

is not moved by your whining. You can gripe all

you want. God is not moved by griping. But the

moment you put trust in him, Bam, God moves according

to your faith. It will be done unto you. God

honors faith, not griping, not whining, not all these other things.

He says, I'll give you that power. He said, But Rick,

you just don't know what I'm facing right now. Yeah,

you're right, you're right. I don't. I don't know what

you're facing, but I do know Luke eighteen twenty seven,

which says this what is impossible with men is possible

with God. What looks like a dead end, what looks

like a death is prime time for a resurrection and

a miracle. What looks like you're never going to overcome,

God can overcome like that. And God can do more

in five seconds in your life than you can do

in five years, but you've got to trust him. A

number of years ago, I was in China. You know,

we've been doing the Peace plan in China for years

and years now, and one time I was in Beijing. Actually,

they were doing a state dinner in my honor in

People's Hall in Tieneman Square, and the government officials were there,

and I was very honored to be honored by the

government in China. And while I was there, the professors

over at Peking University heard that I was there, and

they said, let's invite Rick Warren and his team over

to talk with us. Peiking University is the only university

in Beijing's still called Peiking. It's the Harvard of China.

Fifty thousand students. Every communist leader in China is trained

at the Harvard at China Peking University. So we went

and we had a wonderful time with these professors, had

a good discussion with him, was very friendly. One of

the men that I met there was with a man

named Professor Joe. Professor Joe was an older man. He'd

been a professor there for fifty years and now was

the provost of Peking University, highest level. When we finished

our little discussion, I said, hey, let's just go out

to dinner. You find the best Chinese food. I mean,

what expect tacos. You know it's Beijing. You find the

best Chinese food and I'm paying, So you pick your

favorite place. So we go and we sit down. We're

having this wonderful dinner with some of these Chinese officials,

and all of a sudden, Professor Joe opens up and

he says, I'm dying. I have a brain tumor and

it's inoperable and I'm terminal. And he was scared to death.

This is a man facing an impossible problem. He's at

the end of his rope. We don't know what to do.

We see no way out of this. He had no

hope in Jesus Christ. He had no hope in God's grace.

He had no hope even in an after life. He

was the way it looked to him is I've got

an incurable problem. There's no power to help me, and

when I die, that's it. It's over. He was hopeless,

and as he began to share that with me, I

looked at him and said, you know, Professor Joe, my

father's dying, because at that time, my dad was dying

of cancer. Same time, I said, but you know, my

dad's lived the full life. But more important than that,

he knows God. He's been a friend of God's for many,

many years. He knows Jesus Christ. And my dad is

not afraid to die. He's made his peace with God,

and he's not afraid to God to die, and he

knows where he's going when he he dies. He has hope.

And I explained to him that that kind of hope

that you get and the kind of power that you

get to go through those kind of situations only comes

from a relationship with God. You don't earn it, you

don't work for it, you don't buy it, you don't

deserve it. God's power in your life is simply a

gift of his grace. Because God is good, and God

loves you, and he made you. And God's gift to

you is free gift if you're just a friend of

his son's. And to explain this to him a little

bit better, I told him a story of a friend

of mine, this true story. I said. I had a

friend dad who he took his son to the carnival

for his son's birthday, and he allowed his son to

choose three friends that they would party with. And this

was going to be his birthday party. So he bought

a large roll of tickets, and at every one of

the carnival rides, he would give his son a free ticket,

and he would give his three guess, his three friends

a ticket. They'd ride that ride, they go to next ride,

everybody gets ticket. They ride that next ride, everybody gets ticket.

And this friend of mine said, you know, Rick, on

about the seventh ride. I looked down and as I

was handing out tickets, I saw a fourth little hand.

And I've never seen this kid at all. I've done

this little kid, who are you? Little boy said, I'm

your son's new friend. And your son promised that if

I was his friend, that his daddy, his father would

give me a free ticket. He said, Rick, you think

I gave that kid a ticket? He said, he was

with us the rest of the afternoon. And I looked

at Professor Joe and I said, Professor Joe, your heavenly

father has a ticket for you to Heaven. You can't

earn it, you can't buy it, certainly never deserve it.

You'll never be good enough on your own to get

to heaven because heaven's perfect and you're not, and neither

am I. The only way you get this ticket to

heaven salvation is by being a friend of the father's son.

His name is Jesus Christ. And I looked up and

this gentleman about in his eighties had tears coming down

both sides of his cheek. And he looked up and

he said to me in the simple I'll never forget

this moment. I still get goosebumps from it. He looked

at me and said in simple English, Rick, I would

like one of those tickets. Now. I've been in China many,

many times, and Chinese people are among the most polite

people in the world. They are amazingly polite. I didn't

know if he meant it, he was just kind of

being nice to me. I never ever pressure anybody to

make the most important decision in their life. You take

the time you need to make it, because if you

take the time and you're intellectually honest, you'll make the

right decision. And I said, well, you know what, why

don't we do this, Why don't we just set it

aside for a second. Let's finish our meals, and at

the end of this meal, if you still want to

open your life to Jesus Christ, it would be my

honor to lead you in a simple prayer to invite Christ.

You know, the provost of the Harvard of China. Well,

we get to the end of the meal, we've talked

about a bunch of other stuff, and he brings it

up again. He said, Rick, I would like one of

those tickets. So there, with a table of Chinese officials,

we held hands together and I led him in a

simple prayer to open his life to receive all that

Jesus Christ did for him by dying on the cross

and rising again. It's a prayer similar to the one

I'm going to invite you to pray with me in

just a second. And when he finished praying that prayer,

he looked up and tears were coming down his cheeks again,

but this time he's smiling. Don't get I didn't know

if he meant it or not. I don't ever judge

anybody's motive. It's between them and God. But I gave

him a Bible and some spiritual material to grow. And

we've got a packet like this called Fresh Start with God.

I'll give to you if you want to start your journey.

And I gave him some material just get him started.

And as we left, I thought, I'll never see that

guy again. The next morning, I was preaching in the

most famous church in China, chong Winmen Church, very famous church,

about the size of the number of people here right now.

And as I stood up to speak, who should walk

in at the back door but the provost of the

Harvard of China, Professor Joe. He walked to the front,

to the front row, turned around, said I am publicly

proclaiming my faith in Christ. And the crowd went crazy

because they knew who he was. Fifty years of Communist indoctrination,

which the official policy is atheism. There is no God,

so official policy of Communism is none of that filled

the hole in his heart when the heat was on,

when he was facing his own mortality, and the folks.

The fact is the mortality rate in the world is

still one hundred percent. Everybody's going to die. Only fool

would go through life unprepared for what you know is inevitable.

That's called denial. But he gave his life to Christ,

and what was impossible became possible by the way, his

cancer witted to remission for about ten more years, and

he began to basically be a missionary to other professors.

And I wrote him many many letters over over the

next ten years. But here's the promise, and I want

you to have the same promise, the promise of purpose

and the promise of power. Fet Peter chapter one. Tewod

Peter chapter one. As you get to know Jesus better,

he will give you, through his great power, everything you

need for living a truly good life. Now he said, well, Rick,

I don't have everything I need. Well, then you just

need to get to know Jesus better. As you get

to know Jesus better, he's the source of your purpose

and he's the source of your power. Now let me

quit give you the third one. The third thing that

I know for certain, not only does that God have

a great purpose for your life. And God has a

great power to solve your problems. But here's the third one.

God has a great place for me after I die.

We learn that from the resurrection of Jesus. We learn

that there is more to life than here. And now

we learn that death is not the end. One day

your heart is gonna stop. That's gonna be the end

of your body. But that's not gonna be the end

of you. Oh no, no, no, you were made to

last forever. And God says, I have proven that there's

life after death. A raising my own son. I think

Jesus knows more about the afterlife than you do or

I do, because he's been there. And this gives us hope.

Death is not the end. And in John chapter eleven,

here's what Jesus said, I am the one who raises

the dead and gives them life again. If you're gonna

come back to life after your death, it's gonna be

Jesus who does it. Nobody else going to do it.

It's gonna be Jesus. He says, I am the one

who raises the dead and gives them life. How do

I know that he's telling you? Because he did it,

nobody else did. It's one of the most attested to

miracle in history, Jesus spent forty days in Jerusalem. After

he didn't just say by to your friends, go back

to heaven. After he raised himself. He walked around eight meals,

talk to people, one time, train five hundred people, many

many white eyewitness accounts over forty days. And he says,

I am the one. Anyone who believes in me, even

though he dies, shall live again, and he gives he

is given eternal life for believing in me, and shall

never perish. How do you get eternal life? Not by

doing good, not by going to church, not by promising

me perfect, not by giving a whole lot of money

to help the poor. What he says one thing. You

believe that Jesus can raise you back from the dead too.

You trust him as your savior. He is the source

of hope. Now let me just summarize this. You're never

going to find ultimate hope in anything you can lose.

If you want to have a hope that gets you

through the toughest times of life, you must put your

hope and put your trust in something that cannot be

taken from you. If you put your hope in your

bank account, you can lose your bank account. If you

put your hope in your spouse, you can lose your spouse.

If you put your hope in your health, you can

lose your health, you can lose your mind. You must

never put your hope in something that you could lose.

If you put your hope in your good looks, you've

already lost them, So that that shift sailed. Friend, I'm sorry.

If you put your hope in your job, it's gonna

let you down. If you put your hope in another person,

they will disappoint you. Why because they're not God. You know,

when I used to do marriage counseling, I discovered that

one of the biggest problems for marriage problems is we

expect our spouses to meet needs in our life, but

only God could meet. Nobody could possibly meet all your emotional, physical,

spiritual needs. And you can't meet anybody else's total physical, spiritual,

emotional needs. Only God can do that. And if you

expect your spouse to meet all your needs, you're treating

them like God. It's not only unfair to them, it's

going to be frustrating and disappointed to you because it's

not going to happen. You have to put your hope

in something or someone that can never be taken away

from you. And there's only one thing because you can

lose everything else in life, and that is your relationship

to God, your relationship to God. What I'm saying this

Easter is that hope is not a principle. Hope is

not a product. Hope is not a program. Hope is

not a pill. I'll get this pilled and I'll have

all the hope I need. Hope is a person, and

there's only one person that you can put that hope in,

Jesus Christ. He is the hope of the world. That's

why it's split in the AD and BC. That's why

your birthday is dated according to this event. You need

to get to know Jesus. And since Jesus raised himself

from the dead and we know that there's life after death,

here's what we have. Look at the next verse one

Peter one. Now we live with a wonderful expectation because

Jesus Christ rose from the dead, so we know death

not the end. For God has reserved a priceless inheritance

for his children. That's you who've trusted in him. It

is kept in heaven for you, pure and undefiled, beyond

the reach of change in the clay the kay and

God in his mighty power, will protect you until you

receive this salvation because you are trusting him. What does

that verse say, Well, let me summarize it all on this.

Once you've trusted God for salvation, it is not your

job to keep yourself saved. It's the Savior's job to

keep you safe. It says he will protect you. He

will make sure you get to Heaven. He will guard

what you've given to him. When my kids were little,

Kay and I took him on vacation of the Grand Canyon,

and my two youngest, the boys, Josh and Matthew, immediately

jumped out of the car, ran right up to the

edge like this, that ain't gonna happen. So I went

out and I grabbed their hands and they grabbed mine.

They were fine. They put their hand in my hands.

We started walking down the path and they started squirming

and started trying to say, you know, I don't want

to hold on to Daddy anymore, and they didn't want

to hold onto my hand. But I was not gonna

let go of theirs because I am a loving father.

There when you come to Jesus and you go God

I'm giving him my whole life, the good, the bad,

and the ugly. It's not clean up your life. And

then come to Jesus like God, here's my greasy hands,

my dirty hands, my filthy hands. God, just all the

mess in my life. I put my hand in your hand,

and God grabs your hand. You put your hand in

the hand of the man who's still the water, and

he grabs your hand. And then as life goes on,

there are going to be some moments that you don't

want to hold onto God's hand. God, I'm going to

a party tonight with a bunch of unbelievers. I'd like

to not be a believer for about an hour, okay,

and I like to pull. And you may want to

let go of God's hand, but He's not letting go

of yours. Once you have been saved, he will keep

you safe. That's the hope. You have. A lot of

people think I don't give my life to God because

what happens if I start on it and then I

kind of mess up and screw up and fail, and

now I feel really stupid, and then I lose my salvation. No,

you won't. That's not what the Bible says. It is safe, secure,

it's paid for, it's done, it's beyond the reach of change.

In the kay, God and his mighty power will keep

you saved. It's not your power. He does a saving.

He didn't. He saves you, He keeps you saved. You

don't save yourself. So what am I saying that the

Bible tells is because of the Resurrection, we have hope

because there's more to the story than just here and now.

And we have hope because God protects your salvation and

keeps it and you can't lose it. And that causes

you to face the most difficult times in life with

the whole new confidence. As a pastor, I have stood

at I couldn't count the number of grave sites that

I've stood at in forty years. I couldn't count the

number of funerals that I've done. And so I'm a

pretty good expert at knowing that differs between people who

have hope and people who don't, because you can see

it in their eyes. I have been at the funerals

of people when nobody in the family knows God, nobody

in the family has the hope of the resurrection, nobody

in the family knows the hope of heaven, and for them,

they're losing this person. They're never going to see him again,

and it's over. That's it. It's over. And the terror

in their eyes is something you don't want to see.

I've seen it over and over and over. And I

compare that to people who know the Lord, that when

they lose a loved one who knows the Lord, they grieve,

but they're not grieving for them because they know where

they're going. They're grieving for themselves because they're going to

miss them. And it's a whole different kind of grief.

It's a grieving with hope. You know. The older I get,

and the more of my family that's in heaven, and

the more of my friends that are in heaven, some

great great saints who've been in this church for over

thirty years, they're going on, the more of my friends

and family on the other side, the more Heaven becomes

attractive to me. I have to be honest with you.

When I was a young man, heaven didn't seem very

attractive to me in the first place. No picture of

it on earth is correct. I mean, the picture of

heaven on earth right now that you hear there's heaven.

It's all white. There's no color in heaven. There's fog

up to your feet. You walk around, everybody's in a

white robe with wings playing a harp. That would be hell.

If that's heaven. No, thanks God. I just soon have

my sunrise, a sunsets and a cool surf. That's not heaven.

You can't even understand what heaven's going to be like.

It's so cool. Even in a world that's broken, filled

with suffering, sorrow, sadness, sickness, it's still a pretty cool place.

We're enjoying it right now outside. Most of you know

that four years ago, the week after Easter, our family

lost to youngest member, my youngest son, Matthew, after a

lifelong battle the mental illness, died and it was the

worst day of my life, and his brother and sister's life,

and his mom's life, and everybody else in our family

who loved him. Many times over the last four years,

I've been asked, how did you handle that? How did

you handle the death of a son who struggled his

entire life with mental illness. I want you to listen

very carefully, because you're going to have loss in your life.

I guarantee it. There is no life without loss, there

is no loss without pain, there is no pain without grief.

You're going to go through this in life. So somebody

who loves you is your pastor, as your spiritual coach.

That's my job to help you get ready for this

kind of stuff. And listen carefully. The way you live

with hope in the middle of pain is to enlarge

your perspective, to change your viewpoint, to get your eyes

off of what's happening right here and now, shift your perspective,

change your focus, and begin to live in light of eternity.

As I said, your life on earth shod you get

maybe one hundred years. That's not very long compared to

the trillions of years you'll spend in eternity. And so

you get your eyes off the here and now and

you get it on eternity, and you see the hope

that's there. Here's what the Bible says, look on the screen.

So we don't focus on the troubles we see right now.

Instead we look forward to what we don't see yet.

For the troubles that we see now are temporary, but

the joys that will come to last, it will last,

will last forever. I mean, even if you had a

chronic problem your entire life, it's only one hundred years

or eighty or seventy nothing compared to thousands, tens of thousands, millions,

and trillions of years in eternity. And the truth is

what comforts me when I think about the death of

my son is not thinking about the happy moments in

his past, but thinking about the holy moments he's having

right now. That comforts me because my hope is built

on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness, And because

I know where he is and if he was able

to talk to me, and he can't, but if he was,

he say, Dad, what are you worried about? This place

is so cool, it's so great. It's far better than

any of dis sermons you preached about it. And I

can't wait for you to get here. That is my hope.

We live in a society today, friends, that is filled

with hopelessness. We are in an epidemic of hopeliness, hopelessness. I

think it's one of the reasons why, you know, purpose

driven Life was such a big seller, because there was

no People are lacking hope and they're looking for hope

and they want to know where it is and where

is it. It's in God's word. It is in God's word.

Look at this next verse, people, I don't know about heaven.

No eye has ever seen, no ear has ever heard,

no mind has ever imagined the wonderful things that God

has prepared for those who love him. He has a

purpose for your life right now. He has a power

to help you solve the problems tomorrow, and He has

a for you after you die. The reason why you

can't explain heaven is because your brain power isn't big

enough to handle it. It would be like an aunt

trying to understand the Internet. We live in a three

D world, but there are dimensions that we don't even

know about. And if God built this world and it's

all broken now from sin, how much cooler is Heaven

going to be? Say? Well, how do I get this?

How do I get a new purpose in my life?

God's purpose? How do I get a greater power in

my life? And how do I get a greater place

which becomes my ultimate hope that even when I'm going

through tough Now I'm going this is not the end

of the story. I have read the last chapter of

the book We Win. It doesn't always look good, but

I've read the last chapter We Win. Sometimes you're going

through a tough time in your life, and really what

you're feeling is the world is coming to an end.

And that's the way you feel. The world is coming

to an end. No, a season may be coming to

an end, a moment in your life may be coming

to end, but it's not the end of the world.

Why because when the world ends, Jesus is coming back.

And that's our hope, that's bow our heads. Because of

the resurrection, we know for certain that God has a

great purpose for your life, has a greater power for

your problems, and has a wonderful place for you after

you die. How do you get these benefits? If you

confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, and believe

in your heart that God raised Him from the dead,

you will be saved. That's what the Bible says. So

I want the honor and the privilege of leading you

in a very simple prayer, much like Professor Joe in Beijing.

It doesn't matter what your background is. You may be

Buddhist or Muslim, or Mormon, or Methodist or Baptist or

Buddhist or atheist or Catholic or doesn't matter what background

you are. Jesus isn't interested in your religion. He's interested

in you having a relationship with God, and you just

confess it to God. So why don't you pray these prayers?

So I'll just say a little prayer and you. It

doesn't even matter the word you say. It's that you

be humble. If you're humble for God and say God,

I need you, that's it. So just say, Dear God,

say that in your mind. Dear God, I do not

want to go through life not knowing my purpose. Thank

you that my life is not an accident. Thank you

that you planned me, whether my parents did or not,

and that You've loved me every moment of my life.

And so today, as much as I know how, I

want to open my life to Jesus Christ, who died

on the cross for me and rose again so that

I could have hope. Jesus Christ. I want to know

God's purpose for my life, and I want to spend

the rest of my life learning it and fulfilling it.

In Jesus Christ, I want to put my trust in

your power. I want to plug in starting today, I

want to stop living on my own power to start

living by your power. I know that you are greater

than any problem I face. In Jesus Christ, I ask

you to reserve a place for me in your heaven

and your home. I want to learn to love you

and to know you, to follow you. Thank you for

loving me before I knew you. Thank you for dying

for me before I even was created, but you knew

I would be And so I humbly ask you to

accept me into your family. Then I may experience all

the benefits of what you did two thousand years ago.

And I pray this prayer in Jesus' name. Amen,