Rick Warren - How Jesus Treats His Sheep—Part Two

Hello, everybody. This is Pastor Rick's Daily Hope with Rick Warren.

I'm really glad you're here today. We're continuing our series

from Psalm twenty three called living in the Goodness of God.

It's all about how God's goodness meets you right where

you are and brings hope even in difficult seasons. And

now part two of a message called how Jesus treats

his sheep.

Now number three, what about when he's leading me? What

if I get confused when he's leading me through life?

And what if I wander off? Well, that's the third

thing we learned, is that if I get confused and

I wander off, Jesus finds and brings me back. He

finds me and he brings me back. Now we're all

going to wander and Jesus had some specific things to

say about this. In Matthew chapter eighteen, verse twelve. He says,

if a shepherd, this is Jesus talking. If a shepherd

has a hundred sheep and one wanders away and is lost,

won't he leave the ninety nine safe sheep to go

search for the lost one?

Yes? Why?

Because every sheep matters. You matter to God. You matter

to God. He says, if I've got a one hundred sheep,

ninety nine of them are saved and one of them's lost,

I'm going after the unsaved one. I'm going after the

lost one. That, by the way, is the heartbeat of

saddle Back Church. It's why we never stopped growing. Last weekend,

you heard we had over seventy one thousand people at

Saddleback Church in all of our campuses. And yet we're

not going to stop growing. Why not because we need

more people.

We don't.

My favorite sized church was three hundred people. Really it

was because I could know everybody, every kid, every cat,

every dog. Not to pay my salary, and I go

play golf three times a week, except I hate golf.

I love that because I knew everybody.

The fact there's the bigger church that gets, the more headaches,

the more problems, the more stressed. Why do we do this?

We do it because Jesus says, if there's one person

out there who still doesn't know me, we're going after them.

We don't grow for our benefit. We grow because people

need the Lord. And as long as there's one person

still out there who hasn't heard the good news of Jesus,

we're going to leave the ninety nine saved sheep and

go after the one.

Why because that's what Jesus did.

You see, it takes unselfish people to grow a church

to leave the ninety nine and go after the one.

And yet that's what Jesus did.

The church that doesn't want to grow is basically say

into the world, go to hell. That's what they said.

We're all saved, we're happy, we're going to Heaven. The

rest of you can go to hell. It takes unselfish

people to be like Jesus to say we're going to

keep reaching out. There's still one more who needs the Lord.

We're still one more who needs the Lord. So if

there's somebody out there confused and wandering, Jesus says, I'm

going after him. We're going to bring him back. This

is the reason Jesus came to Earth. Look at the

next verse, Luke Ate Luke nineteen, verse ten. Jesus said,

I came to seek and to save those who were lost.

That's why Jesus came to earth.

God came to earth in human form to seek and

save the lost. He's on a rescue mission, a search

and rescue mission. Now this follow the logic on this.

If we weren't lost, Jesus wouldn't have needed to come.

So it clearly implies we're lost without God. If you

could get to heaven simply on being kind of a

nice person and you have more good works out balancing

all your bad works, if that's how you could get

to heaven, then Jesus dying on the cross was a

total waste of time. Believe me, If there was any

other way for you to get into Heaven except by

Jesus Christ, God coming and living a perfect life, dying

for your sins because he didn't have any, don't you

think God would have used it. Don't you think God

would have chosen an easier way to gain your salvation if.

It was possible. There was no other way, And.

Jesus says I came to seek and save that which

is lost, which means the world is lost. Everybody is

not going to heaven. If they were, Jesus didn't need

to come to earth. Let me say it again. If

everybody was automatically going to heaven, Jesus did not need

to die on the cross. That was a big, total

waste of suffering and sorrow and sadness and pain. But

he said I came to seek and save that which

is lost. Look up here on the screen. The Bible says,

we are lost without God Isaiah fifty three, verse six.

We're all like sheep who've wandered off and gotten lost.

And we've all done our own thing, and we've all

gone our own way. And God has piled all our sins,

everything we've done wrong on him. Talking about what Jesus

did on the cross. Now he says, we're all like sheep.

It's human nature to wander, it's shuman nature to get lost.

Let me ask those how many of your parents got

your hands?

Your parents? All right? Question?

Is it easy or is it hard for a little

child to wander in a crowd and get lost?

Kind of obvious.

Have you ever had to teach your child how to

get lost? No, you never had the class. Let me

tell you how to get lost in.

Them all, son, But they already know how to do it.

Naturally, by our nature, we naturally wander. We wander away

from our parents, we wander away from God, We wander

away in the situations we shouldn't.

Be in, and we get lost.

And the Bible says allus in and comes short of

glory God, We're we're all lost. So God says, I'll

be the good shepherd, and I'm going to come and

seek and save. I'm gonna find you. It's in our nature.

We naturally wander, we naturally get lost in life. You

may be feeling lost right now. You're going to I

have the slightest idea what I'm supposed to do next

with my life? Feel a little lost. You're lost over

what to do with your finances. You feel a little

lost over what should I.

Do about my career? Do I stay here? Do I move? Sometimes?

You don't know. Do I hold on? Do I let go?

That's a hard one to discover. What do I do now?

Do I keep going? Do I give up? Do I

try something different? You feel a little confused. You're feeling

confused about things in your life. That's called being lost, friend,

because you don't have a guide who's walking through you

with it or you you've got the guide, but you're

not depending on him, And I wonder what should I

do now?

Now?

Any parent who's lost a child in a mall or

got a campground something like that, let me ask you

this question when your child wanders off and your heart

is in your throat and you're searching for minutes or

maybe even an hour trying to find them, and it's

getting worse and worse. When you actually find them, you're

adrenaline settles, you calm down a little bit.

The fear subsides.

Do you then just go, that's no big deal and

you just brush it off. Oh No, if your child

has been lost and then now they're found, you don't

just brush it off and treat it like it's no

big deal. Because you love them deeply. You have the talk.

You can't run away from daddy like that, and it's

not it's serious, it's dangerous. You need to be near mommy.

You need to hold my hand. We're in the rear

crowd because this is not good. And you correct your child.

Now you're correcting your child out of hate. No, you're

correcting your child because you love them. You love them,

You love them, and so you correct them.

You love them.

Because you you discipline them because you love them. An

undisciplined child is an unloved child. A child that can

get its way and do everything it wants is not

a love child. It's an unloved child. Because kids need discipline,

we need direction, we need training. Well, let's just take

this now to your relationship with God. What does God

do when you wander off? He disciplines you, He has

the talk, he corrects you. Look at the next verse

Psalm one nineteen. David says, I used to wander off

until you Lord disciplined me. And he said, you know,

I had a tendency to just walk off, leave God,

leave everything else that was valuable. I used to wander

off to the Lord discipline me. But now I closely

follow your word. You are good talking about God. God

is a good God and you only do good. So

even when He disciplines you, it's for a good purpose.

So train me in your principles. Now I want to

clear this up for you, so I want you to

write this down. Discipline is not punishment. Please write that down.

Discipline is not the same thing as punishment. Let me

explain the difference. Punishment is when you pay a penalty

for the past, and it's usually done in anger. You're

punished in anger for something you did in the past.

Discipline is not punishment. Discipline is training and correction for

the future, and it's.

Always done in love.

You're not angry, but you're doing it out of love

because you want the person, the child, or in this case,

the sheep to go in the right direction. You know,

sometimes if a shepherd has a sheep that is so

prone to wander, it's going to wander and kill itself.

And if they live in a very dangerous place where

there's like a mountain lions, they will often wrap and

hold a sheep's leg so it can't move, or sometimes

they will in olden days break the leg so that

the sheep could not wander off.

Was that done in anger? No? Was it done in hate? No?

It was done in love, because the love of sheep,

and they don't want to die. And sometimes God might

put a limp in you to keep you from wandering off.

That's not punishment, that's discipline. Punishment penalty for the past,

motivated by anger, disciplined training for the future motivated by love.

Now why is that important?

You know the difference because when something goes wrong in

your life, sometimes you're going to be tempted to think

this thought, and it's not a thought from God. God

is getting even with me right now. God is punishing

me for something I did in the past.

And it's a secret. You're even a Christian.

You've given your life to Christ, you've confessed your sins,

you've been baptized, you know, you're active in the church.

And you say, God is angry with me. Now he's

punishing me for this problem. Wrong wrong, wrong wrong wrong

wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong.

I want you to listen very closely.

God never, never, never punishes his children. He disciplines them,

but he doesn't punish them. God never punishes those who

have put their trust in Jesus Christ for salvation, never never, never,

never never. Why doesn't he punish me? Because you obviously

keep sinning. You're sinning. He doesn't punish you. He doesn't

make you pay for your past. Why because it was

already paid for two thousand years ago. Jesus Christ paid

for the sins you haven't committed yet. And all the

Bible says all of the punishment for your sins was

paid for on the cross. If God now punished you

for your sins, that's double punishment. It means Jesus punishment too.

Took it on the cross was not enough, And of course.

It was enough.

All the guilt, all the regret, all the shame, all

the penalty for your sin was paid for by Jesus.

So Jesus is not going to punish you for something

that his son already took. He disciplines, but he's not

going to punish you on Good Friday. Jesus Christ took

all your punishment. Look up here on the screen. Isaiah

fifty five, verse fifty three, Verse five says this, he

Jesus was crushed for the sins we did, and the

punishment we deserved was given to him. So now we're

healed because of his wounds. He said, wait a minute,

I'm not ever going to be punished for my sins,

not if you've trusted Christ for your salvation. I'm not

ever going to be judged for those sins, not if

you've trusted Christ for your salvation. Because he took the punishment,

He took the judgment. So don't ever if you are

a Christian, if you know the Lord, don't you ever

ever against that. God's getting even me, because that means

he was saying that what Jesus did for you was

not enough. God's not gonna let the punishment of your

sins go on Christ and then put it on you too.

It's already been paid for. You say, I get to

go Scott free. Yep, Well that's not fair. Who said

is fair. It's called grace. Grace is when God gives

you what you need, not what you deserve. We talked

about that on Good Friday. So God never punishes us

for our sins. If we have trusted Christ, who took

that punishment, Now he does discipline. Look at the next verse,

Palm one nineteen. Up here on what's on the screen,

verse seventy one, David says, it was good for me

to be afflicted so that I might learn your decrees. Notice,

this is a problem that's coming. This is life for

the purpose of education, not condemnation. The Bible says there's

no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. It's

already been forgiven. But there is education that I might learn.

It was good for me to be afflicted. What's an affliction, Well,

there can be many. There can be an emotional affliction

in your heart. It could be relational affliction in your relationships.

It could be a physical affliction in your body. You

can get sick. This is not punishment, and David, looking

back on and goes, hey, it was a good thing

that I actually was disciplined because I learned your statues. Now,

the only way you're going to learn the statutes is

when you stop asking why is this happening to me

and start asking what do you want me to learn?

No matter what happens you in your life, stop asking why.

You're not going to know why on this side of

death for most things that happen in your life. Instead,

you should be saying what do you want me to learn?

God?

And David says, it was good for me to go

through this trial, this trouble, this suffering, this difficulty, this affliction.

I can even thank God because I know God is

a good God even when things are bad in my life,

because I learned some things I would have never learned

any other way. You know that there's some things you

only learn through pain. God whispers to us, and our pleasure,

God shouts to us in our pain. Pain is God's megaphone.

Pain is the way God gets your attention. So he

says it was good for me. Now go back to

that verse that we just looked at, Psalone nineteen.

There on your outline.

He says, this, I used to wander off until you

Lord discipline me. Okay, And he says, but now I

closely follow your word. That's a good thing. You are

good and you only do good. So train me in

your principles. Now this verse is very deep here. It

gives us several principles. First, how do I keep from

wandering off? You have a tendency to go off the reservation.

I tendency to go off the rails, have a tendency

to go out of bounds. I have a tendency to

do the wrong thing. How do I keep from wandering off?

In to prevent problems? You do realize that most of

the problems in your life you don't have to have,

and you are the source of the preventable problems, most

of them, and if you were trained in God's principles,

you could avoid them. What does it mean to be

trained in God's principles? He said, you train me in

God's principles. And what does it mean? It means to

learn to be wise? Wisdom is being trained in God's principles.

Where are the principles? They're all in this book. And

the more you understand God's principles, the wiser you'll be.

The wiser you'll be the fewer problems you bring on yourself.

Because when I'm not wise, I make dumb decisions and

then I make the problem worse rather than better. So

if you want fewer problems, get wisdom. How do I

get wisdom? Learn God's principles? How do I get trained

in God's principles? He says, they're in the verse. I

closely follow your word. You need to spend more time

in this book. The more time you spent in this book,

the wiser you become because you know God's principles. The

wiser you become, the fewer problems you make for yourself.

That is how God wants it to be. Your life

gets easier the wiser you get because you're not bringing

all these problems on yourself. How many times have somebody

said something to you and you said the wrong thing and.

Made it worse because you weren't wise in that moment?

And so God says, I stop wandering by being trained

in the principles. I get trained in God's principles by

closely following the word. Okay, how do I closely follow

the word? Well, welcome the saddle back church. Okay, we've

got hundreds of ways to help you get closer following

God's word. First thing you need to do is you

have a daily quiet time. That means you take five, ten,

fifteen minutes, as you get more mature, twenty minutes, thirty minutes,

and you read the Bible for a little bit, and

you talk to God in prayer, and you write down

some thoughts, and you prioritize your life and you pray

about it to God. That's called the quiet time. We

have an entire class that teaches you how to do this.

It's called Class to one. And if you've forgotten that

you took Class two on before, go back to that

class discovering the habits for spiritual growth and learn how

to have a quiet time.

So you can become wise.

The more times you spend in this book, the wisdom

comes from the word. Now, if you spend three, four

or five hours a day watching TV and you spend

zero time reading the Bible, are you going to become wise?

Why is it that we spend more time listening to

and reading something we don't believe than something we do.

Why do you spend more time reading magazines that you

know have a lot of false stuff in it newspapers,

listening to talk radio that you know has a lot

of dumb stuff in it. When the stuff you know

is true God's Word, you don't spend any time in

it at all. So you have a quiet time. You

should maybe subscribe to Drive Time Devotions. Pastor Tom systematically

takes us through the Bible one book at a time,

and in life bit sized, daily bits, you can go

through the whole Bible just listening to Drive Time Devotions

with Tom. You should subscribe to Daily Hope. That's my

little you know that's on the radio, but it's also

there's a short version of it on an email.

About a million.

People get Daily Hope every day. If you're not reading that,

you should be. It gives you input into the Word.

And then, as I always say, get in a small group.

We have thousands, over eight thousand small groups in this church.

Get in the Word every day, and get in a

Bible study. There's just so many ways. Saddleback is committed

to helping you get in the Word. So you become wise,

so you make better choices, so life becomes easier, so

you have fewer problems that you bring on yourself. That's

what the good shepherd wants in your life.

All right, number four. Okay, let's look at this. Number one.

He says, if I bring Jesus my hurts, he shows

me compassion. If I choose to follow him, he's going

to lead me in the right direction that makes life simpler.

Get a guide. If I get confused and wander off,

he's going to find me and bring me back. He

seeks and saves, and he says, here's the fourth one.

If I fall or if I fail, you're going to

do both.

If I fail or fall, Jesus rescues and recovers me.

Hey, if you're looking for daily encouragement from God's word,

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