Rick Warren - How God’s Goodness Can Restore You—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. Right now,

let's take a look at part two of a message

called how God's Goodness can Restore You.

Now, the third way we try to deal with guilt

that doesn't work is we rationalize it. I've said before,

to rationalize means to tell yourself rational lies that you know.

You tell you're trying to convince yourself in your head

what you heart, your heart knows is wrong. That's to rationalize.

We live in a society where everybody rationalizes everything, and

that if I shout enough, are I affirm in enough,

or a marsh for it enough, then I'll think it's okay.

But inside your heart's going it's not okay. Rationalizing doesn't work.

Trying to convince your heart with your mind doesn't work.

Your heart's gonna win out every time because there's an

dbuilt in conscience in our lives that God put there,

and so we say, you know, I'm gonna rationalize it away,

but it doesn't make it right, and your heart still knows,

and you're going around and saying, why didn't everybody accept me?

Why didn't everybody believe in me? Why don't that's a rationalization.

You need to listen to your conscience. Another way we

try to deal with guilt is compromise. And that's the

whole idea of well, I'm feeling guilty and here's the standard.

So what I think I'll do is I'll just lower

my standard and then I won't feel guilty anymore, and

I'll say, I don't believe that's a sin anymore. How's

that working for you? Again, it's trying to convince your

heart what your conscience knows is wrong. Compromising. You know,

maybe if I just do it enough, then it won't

be a sin anymore. Right, Get back to me on

that one. Here's another one that we try to do

when we feel guilty. We blame other people because if

we can put the blame on them, it gets the

focus off us. Now, couples do this all the time. Boyfriend, girlfriend,

husband's wife, parents' kids, And it goes like this, there's

a scale in your mind and on one side is

blame and on the other side is guilt. And in

this the only way you can feel good about yourself

is if it's kind of balanced. So when you do

something wrong like this, you have to have somebody else

to blame because you did that. Yeah but you did that,

you did that. Yeah but you did that. But you

did that. Yeah but you remember that really big thing

you did. There are people who one of a spouse

had really gone over the edge in the wrong way,

but they've come back and they said, I'm sorry, I apologize,

I want to rebuild trust, I want to make this

marriage work, but this person won't let them off the

hook the other one. And no matter how many good

things this person does, yeah but you did that. And

if you're doing that with a spouse, you're killing your

marriage because you become unpleasable. You're acting like your God,

You're not anybody could hold you accountable for stuff you've

done too. And so blaming doesn't work. We say blame

is spelled be lame, and it just makes you lame

when you do that. Every time you blame, you are

being lame. See you blame others, and you got to

scale in your mind, and which is, by the way,

why people don't want to forgive, because if I can,

if I don't forgive you, then I can keep blaming

you for that. You see, if I'm trying to balance

between guilt and blame in my life and all of

this sudden you ask for forgiveness, and that sets me

off balance, and I say, sure, I forgive you. Now

not have anything to blame anymore on this side. So

what happens The scale tilts stored me and I feel bad.

So I don't want to forgive you, because then it's

all on me. There's nothing to even the scales. And

you keep yourself in tension all the time. Your soul

needs to be restored. It's being chipped away at, it's

being eaten at. It's being like a little bacteria, like

a virus, is just working on your heart, making it

smaller and smaller and smaller. One other way that doesn't work.

We've talked about rationalizing you, compromising, minimizing blaming. One is well,

I'll just beat myself up and for the rest of

your life, you're trying to atone for your own sins.

You're trying to make up for it. And a lot

of people actually sabotage their own success and don't realize

they're doing it because they feel about guilty about something

in the past and they feel unworthy. And because they

feel unworthy, go, well, you know this is too good.

I shouldn't be getting this much blessing. I know what

I've done, I know all the things I'm not worthy

of this. And as a result, you start setting yourself

up for failure. You beat yourself up because internally you go, well,

I've done something wrong. Somebody's got to pay for it.

And subconsciously we try to pay for our mistakes and

our sins by getting sick or failing, and it can

cause all kinds of stuff. Guilt can make you depressed,

it can make you despair it, it can set you

up for failure. I don't deserve to succeed. None of

those things work. There's only one thing that works to

get rid of unconfessed guilt. Confess it, Just admit it.

The word confession in the Bible in Greek is the

word homo. Look GeOH, homo. We know what that means.

It means Legeo is the word to speak confession, simply

means to agree with God. You're right, God, that was wrong.

I don't deny it. I don't minimize it. I don't

rationalize it. I don't compromise it. I don't blame other people.

I don't belittle myself. I don't beat myself up. I

just admit it. We'll come back to that number three.

The third thing that destroys your soul is not unaddressed

grudges or unconfessed guilt. It's unprocessed grief. Unprocessed grief. Now,

you're gonna have grief in life because you're gonna have losses.

There is no growth in life without change. There is

no change in life without loss, because you give up

some old to get some new. There's no loss without pain,

and there's no pain without grief. So you got to

learn how to grieve good. Now, grief is not a

bad thing. Guilt's a bad thing, grudges are a bad thing.

Grief is actually a good thing. It's the way we

get through the transitions of life. What is a bad

thing is unprocessed grief. You haven't learned how to deal

with it, how to go through the stages of grief

and psal. I'm thirty one, Verse nine, David says, Lord,

have mercy because I'm in misery. He's grieving, he's grieving.

I'm in misery. My eyes are weak from so much crying,

and my whole body, whole being is tired from grief. Now,

if grudges don't get your guilt will, and if guilt

doesn't get your grief will, and all of us can

have these things that kind of eat away at our soul,

the way we think, the way we feel, and the

decisions we make. Now, the question is, how does Jesus

our good shepherd. The Lord is my shepherd. I have

everything I need. How in the world does he help

me with my grudges and my guilt and my grief.

Three ways he does it. Here's how he does it. First,

when we are hurt by others, Jesus turns my hurts

into holiness. I need to explain this. Jesus turns my

hurts into holiness. What I'm saying is that God brings

good out of bad, He brings good out of evil.

He has a way of turning things around. The stuff

that happens to you, it's not all good. There's a

lot of bad stuff that happens to you, But God says,

I can turn it around, I can transform it. I

can bring good out of evil. Let's look at some verses.

It is the goodness of God that allows us now.

One of the most famous verses in the Bible is

Romans eight, verse twenty eight. We keep coming back to

this verse. Why because you keep getting hurt. You have guilt,

you have grief, and you have grudges, and so you

need to understand that. God says, yes, I know that happened,

but I can bring good even out of that. Roman's

eight twenty eight one of the greatest promises in the Bible.

We know that in all things circle the word in

that in all things. It doesn't say all things, it

says in all things, God works for the good of

those who love him. Let me stop right there. This

is not a promise for everybody. It's a promise for

those who love Him and have been called according to

His purpose. We know that not everything that happens to

you is good. There's a lot of bad things that

are happening to you. Decisions that you make that are bad,

and decisions that other people make that are bad for you.

There's diseases, there's all kinds of accidents and things like that.

Nobody's saying God is a Pollyanna optimist. You say, you know,

the sun will come out tomorrow. It doesn't always come

out tomorrow. Reality is a son does not always come

out tomorrow. And that's the difference between optimism and hope.

Hope is based on a certainty, but optimism is based on,

you know, just wishful thinking, Pollyanna, it'll come out all right.

We know that in all things God works for the good.

It's not all good, but God says, you know what,

I can take even that? Can God take the bad

things people do to do me, to do against me

and use it for good? Yes? Can God even take

my own sins and bring good out of them, my

own mistakes and bring good out of them? Yes? Can

God take my own weaknesses and my damaged will, and

my damaged mind, and my damaged heart, my emotions and

my way? I think? Can God work even in that

for good? Yes? No, not everybody else could do that.

Anybody can bring good out of good. But God specializes

in bringing good out of the bad in your life,

and he turns my hurts into ho you know, sitting

down this morning, and I just start thinking of all

the different ways God uses bad things in your life

for good in your life, and I actually made a list.

He turns my hurts into holiness. He turns my wounds,

the things that hurt me into wisdom. You're a lot

smarter after you've gone through that. He turns my pain

into gain. He uses correction to bring me to perfection.

He uses offenses to remove my pretenses. You're a lot

more humble if you get criticized. He uses my bruises

for good. They're not good, those bruises aren't good. But

he can use my bruise. He uses my bruises for good.

And when others want to bash me, God uses it

to bless me. That's the kind of God God is.

He's a good God. The Lord is my shepherd. He

knows how to bring good even out of bad. Now

Romans eight twenty eight, all things work together for good

is a wonderful promise, but it makes no sense at

all unless you read Romans eight twenty nine, the verse

right underneath it, which explains why God uses everything for

his purpose and what is his purpose. His purpose is

to build your character. He uses the conflicts and the

crises to turn you in your character, and he wants

to make you like Jesus. Look at verse twenty nine.

It's up here on the screen. Romans eight twenty nine

says this God knew his purpose from the very beginning,

so it's not a big surprise to God. Before you

even created, he knew what he wanted to do with

your life. He planned in advance that all of us

in God's family here's the key, would become like Jesus,

his own son. God wants a family for eternity and God,

God wants you to be his child, and he sent

Jesus to show what a child of God is like.

You want to know what God wants you to become like,

look at the character of Christ. Now listen, God is

far more interested in your character than he is in

your comfort. You know, people act like, well, I don't

understand it. Things aren't going good for me, and I'm

trusting God. Did God ever promise that everything will go

the way you wanted to go? No, because if it did,

you'd be the selfish little snot if you got everything

you wanted in life. This life is preparation for the

next In heaven. There's no sorrow, there's no suffering, there's

no sickness, there's no sadness. You know, there are no

people throwing, you know, arrows and barbs at you. This

is the preschool, This is the character development stage. God

wants you to grow up before you go to heaven,

and so when you go through tough times, you should

never ask why is this happening? I'll tell you why

Romans eight twenty nine. To make you like Jesus. And

the question you should ask anytime you go through any

difficult time is not why is this happening? Or why

is this happening to me? Or why is this happening? Now?

The question you should be asking is what what do

you want to teach me? God? What character development do

you want me to grow like? God is far more

interested in your character, what you're becoming than he is

in your comfort. Yes, God wants you to be comfortable,

but he's not going to give you comfort at the

expense of character. You're going to be comfortable for trillions

of years in heaven. Right now. He wants you to

become like Christ. So what is Jesus like? Romans twenty

eight says he wants to make me like Christ using

all things Verses twenty nine. Well, the perfect picture of

Jesus is called the fruit of the Spirit. It's Galatians five,

twenty three and twenty four. In Galatians it says nine qualities.

The fruit of the Spirit is love. God wants you

to be loving joy. God wants you to learn real joy. Peace.

God wants you to learn real peace, patience. God wants

you to learn patience, goodness and gentleness, and faithfulness and

self control. There are nine qualities there, and when you

look at those nine qualities, you know what they are.

Perfect picture of Jesus. Jesus is total love, total joy,

total peace, total patience. She can wake up every morning

and say, well, Lord, I don't know which one of

these are going to teach me today. Patience? How does

God teach you patience? Waiting? When you have you ever

had to sit in God's waiting room? Have you ever

been in a hurry and God wasn't the number one

way God teaches you patience department of motor vehicles. So

God often teaches you those qualities in the exact opposite situation.

You learn love being around unlovely people. You learn joy

in the middle of grief. You learn peace in the

middle of chaos. But if God's going to teach you

real peace, He'll put you in the middle chaos. Some

of you are in it right now. Patience, gentleness, How

does God teach you Generals with people who annoy you

to death. Don't look at them, but you know who

they are teaching you how to be gentle? Self control.

There are lots of ways he teaches you self control.

And so God says, I want to turn your hurts

into holiness. And what's the purpose? Put Romans eight twenty

nine back on the screen. God knew his purpose from

the very beginning, and he planned in advance that all

of God's family would become like Jesus. That's the number

one goal. God asked for your life, not comfort, but character.

Be like Jesus's son. Now, God's son is the firstborn

of restored humanity. There's that word, restoration, restored. He restores

my soul. We're all broken. We all have broken relationships,

broken minds, broken emotions, broken wills. We are all broken.

And God says, I want to restore humanity to the

original position I created it to be in the garden

of Eden. So I'm sending Jesus to come and die

for your sins, and it says then on the screen,

so we see the intended shape of our lives in him.

Look at Jesus and you'll know what God wants to

do in your life. We see the intended shape of

our lives in him, and he will have many brothers

and sisters in God's eternal family, like father, like son,

like father like daughter. He wants you to become not

a God but godly. Now Genesis fifty verse twenty explains

then why God allows people to hurt you, knowing that

what God's going on, And for fifty verse twenty, he says,

you intended it to harm me, but God intended it

for good, to accomplish what is now being done, the

saving of many lives. This is a quote from a

guy named Joseph. Joseph had every reason to have unaddressed

grudges because his own family sold him into slavery. He

was one of the youngest kids in the family, and

his older brothers didn't like him. They thought he was pompous.

They didn't like him at all, so they took him

and threw him in a pit and told the father

that a bear had eaten him, and then he's living

in this pit by himself, and some slave traders come

by on their way to Egypt, and the brothers pull

them out, sell them into slavery. He's taken down to

Egypt and he's hired out as a slave to a

guy named Potiphar. And Potiphar's wife is a seductive woman,

and she gets the hots for Joseph, and she tried

to seduce him, and he says, I'm not going to

do that. I have integrity. I serve the God of

you know of the ages. I serve the Almighty God.

And so she's spurned. She's scorned. What does she do?

She screams and claims that he's taken advantage of her

and false accused. He's thrown into prison. The first forty

years of his entire life, nothing goes right. Some of

you might identify with that. He's thrown into a pit,

he's rejected by his family, he's sold into slavery, he's

taken to a foreign country. He's falsely accused, he's put

in prison. God had him exactly where he wanted him

to be, and the second half of his life looked

a whole lot brighter because out of that, through a

series of circumstances, he's raised up to be the second

most powerful man under Pharaoh in Egypt, which was the

most powerful empire in the world at that time. And

he not only saves Egypt from a famine, but he

saves all of the Middle East from a famine. And

when he finally comes face to face with his brothers

many years later and they come to buy grain from

Europe from Egypt, he looks at him and says, you

meant it for bad. Let's don't beat around the bush.

You didn't like me. You meant it for bad. But

God meant it for good. And God's bigger than you,

and God can bring good things out of even bad things.

When you learn that, you will begin to rebuild your soul,

the broken thoughts, the broken emotions, and the broken choosing

of decision making in your will. So God says, I

will turn your hurts into holiness if you will trust me.

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