Rick Warren - How God’s Goodness Can Restore You—Part One

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

as we get started, here's part one of a message

called how God's Goodness can restore you.

Welcome to part four in this series through Psalm twenty

three that we're calling living in God's Goodness. Now, you know,

it would really be a waste of us for us

to study Psalm twenty three and not memorize it. Oh,

it's only six verses and you've heard it all your life,

so you need to get this down. But I want

you to take your outline and let's just read the

first three verses, allow together. Okay, The Lord is my shepherd.

Let's start over. The Lord is my shepherd. I have

everything I need, now stop there. The original King James

version says I shall not want, but literally it means

in the Hebrew and which was RIGI written? And I

don't lack anything. I have all I need and almost

every modern translation translated the Lord is my shepherd. I

have everything that I need. Okay, so let's say that

one again, The Lord is my shepherd. I have everything

that I need. Okay. Now you already know one verse.

So turn to the person. Actually, you say, you're brilliant. Okay,

you're brilliant. You got one verse down. These are not

long verses anyway. Now let's read verse two. He makes

me lie down in green pastures. He leaves me beside

still waters. All right, and then the next line is

the beginning of verse three. So let's read that. He

restores my soul. Now what you just read talks about

what the good Shepherd, your heavenly father, and Jesus calls

himself the good Shepherd wants to do in your life.

And he says, I want to give you rest and

I want to give you refreshment, and I want to

give you restoration. He says, first, I want to give

you rest. He makes me lie down, and he says, first,

I want to give you rest, And he says, I'm

want to give you a refreshment. He leaves me beside

still waters, quiet waters. You know, it's why people like

to go to parks and sit by a lake. It

has a trinquile ising effect in your life. And then

he says, he restores my soul. So rest refreshment and restoration.

This weekend, we're going to look at the third. But

let's get into it right here at the beginning. Now,

he says, he restores my soul. What does that mean? First?

What's your soul? What is your soul? Well, the Bible

says that you have a spirit, you have a soul,

and you have a body, just like the tabernacle in

the Temple, where a three part dwelling place of God,

the inner Court, the outer Court, and the Holy of Holies.

God dwells in you in three parts, in your spirit,

in your soul, and in your body. What's the difference

between your spirit and your soul? Well, the Bible even

says itself that only the Bible can discern the difference.

That it is the word of God that is sharper

than a two edged sword, dividing even asunder a soul

and spirit. And so I don't want to get into that,

but I do want to tell you what your soul is.

Your soul is your mind. It is your will and

is your motion. So why don't you write this down

if you're taking notes. My soul is the part of

me that thinks, chooses, and feels. My soul is the

part of me that thinks, that chooses, and that feels.

It's your mind, it's your will, and your emotion. Now,

if you don't have a soul, you don't have a

whole lot. But these three parts of who you are,

the way you think, the way you feel, and the

choices that you make your mind, will, and your emotions

really determine who you are. And it's very easy to

get these damaged. Can your mind be damaged? Of course

it can. Yeah, by what you put in it, by experiences,

by trauma, chemistry, all kinds of things. Your mind can

be damaged. You don't always think straight, and neither do I.

And how about your emotions? Can your emotions be damaged? Yes?

Your emotions can get raw, you can get depleted emotionally,

you can be out of emotion, you could be over emotional.

And yes, our minds are broken, our emotions are broken.

And actually, can your will be broken? Yes? Can it

be damaged? Yes? Have you ever had a chance to

look at your life and you think, I really know

the right thing to do, and I want to do

the right thing, but I never do choose it because

our choosers are broken. Our choosers are broken. We're all

flawed in many ways, and that's why there are addictions.

And that's why you do things that you don't want

to do, and you don't do things that you want

to do. That's part of your will power doesn't always work.

How many agree, willpower doesn't always work. Yeah, right. And

so when we talk about our soul, the way we think,

the way we feel, and the way we choose the

decisions that we make, God says, I want to restore

that in your life. I want to restore you to wholeness.

I want to restore your mind and will and emotions

to health. That's one of the things the good shepherd

does for the sheep. The Lord is my shepherd. I

have everything I need well. Sometimes I need to think straighter,

and sometimes I need to feel correctly because my emotions

aren't always right. Sometimes they lie. And sometimes I need

my will fixed because I don't have enough willpower to

do what I need to do. Now, what is it

that damages your soul? What I want us to do

this week? And is ask a couple questions, what damage

is our soul? Because you can't get it restored unless

you know what's causing the problem. What damages my soul?

We'll look at that, and then we're going to look

at what Jesus does to restore it. How does Jesus

restore right thinking, right feeling, and right deciding? And then

finally we'll look at, just very briefly, how do I

make the right decisions to let my soul be restored?

In other words, what's my response to what God wants

to do in my life? Okay, now let's begin with

what is it that damages your soul? Why don't you

always think right? Why don't you always feel right? And

why don't you always choose right? There are many things

that could damage your soul, but I want to focus

on the three most common, three most common. You might

write these down. Number one. The first thing that damages

the way you think, the way you feel, and the

way you decide is under or unaddressed grudges. Unaddressed grudges

when you get resentful, when you get bitter, when you

start thinking about retaliation or revenge in somebody who's hurt you.

It damages your soul. Now, there are a lot of

verses about this, but let me first talk about the background.

The fact is, in life you're going to be hurt.

Why this is not heaven, this is earth, and we're

all broken people, we're all imperfect. Sometimes we hurt each

other intentionally, sometimes we hurt each other unintentionally. But the

truth is you're going to be hurt in life. And

sometimes people hurt you and sometimes you hurt them, and

so when that happens, we start to build up grudges. Now,

let me just start at the bedrock. Life is not fair.

God never said that life would be fair. This is

not heaven, where everything has done perfectly. God's will is

always done instantly, perfectly and completely. On earth, a lot

of times we choose not to do God's will. That's

called sin. And because life is in fair, the Bible

tells us that innocent people suffer. This is not something new.

Everybody can see it. That good guys don't always win,

bad guys often are successful. That there is injustice in

the world, there's racism in the world, there's prejudice in

the world, there is unfairness in the world, and every

one of us in different ways have experienced unfairness or

prejudice or treatment against you in some way, and you

shouldn't be surprised by that because the world is broken.

Everything is broken. What I'm interested in is not so

much the fact that you're going to be heard in life.

I'm sorry for it, But what I'm more interested in

is how you respond to it, because your response to

how you get hurt in life is far more important

than the hurts you have, because they can either make

you bitter or they can make you better. And when

God wants to restore your soul, he wants to take

all of the bitter things in your life and turn

them into better things in your life. We'll come to

that in just a minute now. When you have grudges

when people hurt you, you can either let it go

or you can start dwelling on it and stewing and

spewing and worrying about all things, and you start planning

how to retaliate, how to resent them, how to get

even with them. When somebody hurts you, that puts them

beneath you morally when they hurt you, But when you

try to get even, it just puts you on the

same level. You know better than they are. When you

let it go and you forgive them, it actually puts

you in a superior position. You don't want ever get

even with people because that means you're the same as

they are. If you get even with them, you're no

better than they are. So what do you do when

you're hurt? Resent? Retaliate, sec revenge? No, no, you don't

let me show you why. A couple verses Job five,

verse two says this, to worry yourself to death with

resentment would be a foolish, senseless thing to do, And

in Job eighteen, verse four, it says this, you're only

hurting yourself with your anger. You're only hurting yourself. We've

talked about this many times, that when you hold on

to a grudge, it's not hurting them, it's only hurting you.

They're out there having a good time. They're watching movies,

they're going to nice restaurants, they're, you know, going to

ball games, having a whole lot of fun. They're totally oblivious.

Who gets hurt when you're resentful? You do. It's like

drinking poison and hoping it kills them. It is like

taking fire into your you know, in your stomach or

your chest and hoping they get burned. Resentment is worthless.

He says, to worry yourself to death with resentment would

be a foolish thing to do. Now, the Bible does

say that one day God's going to even the score.

The Bible says that there is a judgment day and

that God is not just a loving God, He's a

just God. If God was not a just God, people

like Hitler could get away with everything they did. I'm

glad that God is aust God. Now you can get

around that judgment by accepting the grace of God and

accepting the salvation that Jesus Christ paid for your sins.

But there is going to be a judgment day for everybody,

and God is going to be just in measuring out

what people deserve based on their sinfulness. God says, I

don't want you to have to go through the judgment.

God doesn't like to judge. He likes to show mercy

all through scripture. God is very patient, and God is

very reluctant to judge, and he'll wait and wait and

wait and wait before he judges a nation or person

things like that. He'd rather be merciful. But there is

a judgment coming one day, and God is going to

even the odds and people who were mistreated and misjudged

and treated unfairly. There will be an equaling out, a

time of justice. But that's not your job. If you

try to show justice yourself and you take matters in

your hands and get revenge, God says, fine, that's all

we're going to do on that. So what do you

do in the meantime? You let it go? You see,

But Rick, you don't know how much they've hurt me.

You let it go. Why not because they deserve it?

They don't. You don't deserve to be forgiven. You don't

deserve to be forgiven at all, either, But God has

forgiven you. You forgive people not because they deserve it.

You forgive people because you don't want to carry the

pain around anymore. You don't want to be stuck with

unaddressed grudges because it's not going to hurt them. It's

only going to hurt you, you know. Martin Luther King

Wants said, bitterness is blindness. Bitterness is blindness, And I

like that because when I get bitter against somebody over here,

I get blind A whole lot of other things I

get blind to how much God has done good in

my life. I get blind to the truth. I get

blind to all the needs of people around me. I'll

just say this, You're never gonna stop hurting. Your soul

will not be restored until you learn to forgive and

let it go. You gotta drop it. We'll come back

that in a minute. The second thing that destroys your

soul from the inside, I said first unaddressed grudges. The

second is unconfessed guilt. Grudges and guilt are two of

the biggest things that warp your soul. And grudges have

to do with what people have done to you, and

guilt is what you've done to other people. And we

have both. We've heard others and other people have heard us,

And so unconfessed guilt. Nothing damages your life more, your

soul more. Nothing will rob your happiness quicker than to

go around carrying a load of guilt. A lot of

people have a misconception of God. They think that God

wants us to walk around feeling guilty. He does not.

God hates guilt. In fact, God loves to forgive guilt.

God doesn't want you to be guilty all the time.

In fact, he didn't make your body to handle guilt.

You should only handle guilt for about five seconds. That's

long enough to realize that was wrong. And I confessed

it to God and I let it go. You don't

carry all your sins around in your life unconfessed. If

you do that, it's like carrying a garbage bag of

junk with you into the each new year. Many years ago,

I remember there was a couple in our church who

they are singles, and they found each other in our

church and they got married. And that's when the church

was much smaller, and I actually was able to do

their wedding. About ten years later, they came back and

they said, can we take you out to dinner? And

we had a dinner with them, and I said, so,

tell me what's happened in the last ten years. And

I remember the woman told me, she said, you know, Rick,

I never realized that when I was walking down that

aisle in that beautiful white dress, that I was carrying

a sack of garbage with me into this marriage. We

all do that. I listen closely. Marriage does not create problems.

It reveals them. It reveals them and the things that

need correcting in your life show up real quick when

somebody else is living with you and what needs correcting,

and their life shows up real quick when they live

with you. Marriage doesn't create problems, it reveals things that

need to be worked onne. And the purpose of marriage

is not just to make you happy, to make you holy.

And the number one tool if you're married, the number

one tool that God uses in your life is your spouse's. Oh, brother,

my spouse isn't even a believer. It doesn't matter. God

will still use them in your life. And so we

start having guilt over all of the things that we've

done to other people. Look at this verse Psalm thirty eight,

David talks about guilt. He says, my guilt has overwhelmed

me like a burden too heavy to bear. God doesn't

want you to carry that around. I'm bowed, bowed below down,

and I've brought low, and all day long I go

about mourning. Now there's a couple problems with guilt. One

of them is every one of us have a good

reason to have it. It's legit because we don't always

do what's right. We always hurt other people, we do

selfish things. I don't know if it bothers you, but

it bothers me. I often say the most unkind things

to the people I love the most, and just being

honest with you, yeah, that ever happened to any of you?

Are you all so holy? Oh? No? I never say

anything mean to my kids or my spouse. Yeah right, yeah?

Why is that? Because at root we're selfish. I want

what I want when I want it, and your spouse

wants what they want when they want it. And when

two very self centered people get together, it's going to

cause problems, and that creates guilt. And you cannot have

two imperfect people and all of a sudden they're going

in the same direction and they're going to create a

perfect relationship. There are no perfect relationships. And that's why

we need forgiveness, because I'm confessed guilt causes a lot

of problem. Now look at this verse Proverbs twenty. Verse

twenty seven tells us the other reason why we have

problem with guilt. It's because we run from our own

con Proverbs verse twenty seven. The Lord gave us a

mind and a conscience, and we can't hide from ourselves.

You see, you can hide all kinds of stuff from me,

and I'll never know about it. You might even hide

a whole bunch of things from a friend or your boss,

or your spouse or your kids, but you're not hiding

anything from God. And not only that, you're not hiding

anything from yourself. And when you try to hide it,

it just starts eating you on the inside. Because the

Lord gave us a mind and a conscience, we can't

hide from ourselves. And if you think, well, you know,

I just feel bad, I'm going to go to you know,

take a vacation, but you take yourself on vacation, and

so you take that same stress that's in your mind,

the grudges you have toward other people, and the guilt

that you have about the stuff you've done wrong. Now,

what do you do with guilt? What do you do

with gilt? Well, the answer is the same thing as grudges,

and it's forgiveness. And grudges you got to forgive them.

But in guilt, you've got to ask God for forgiveness.

Then you've got to forgive yourself. Now, normally we do

everything except that. Let me show you all the ways

that don't work and why our soul, the way we think,

the way we feel, the way we choose is often

broken because when you feel guilty, you don't make smart decisions,

and neither do I. Now, sometimes we just try to

deny our guilt. We just pretend like it doesn't exist.

And what we do in denial is we just try

to pretend that it doesn't exist, and we say, you know,

I'm just going to bury my past. You know. The

problem with bearing your past it resurrects itself at the

most inopportune times, and it comes back, and it resurrects,

and it comes back to haunt you like the living dead,

and something that happened twenty years ago, all of a

sudden it's back in your face again. So denial doesn't work.

Sometimes we just try to minimize it. And when we

minimize our guilt, it's kind of like, well, it's no

big deal. I mean, everybody else does it. You know,

it wasn't that bad. It's just a little teeny tiny,

teeny tiny sin. Well if it's so tiny, why do

you still remember it? 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.

Hi, everybody today, I want to share a very powerful

letter from a listener named Michael. Michael experienced terrible trauma

as a child, but he says that Daily Hope is

helping him overcome his past and now he's looking to

the future with his kids. Let me read you just

a little bit of Michael's story. Dear Pastor Rick, you

and Daily Hope have brought God into my life and

it has saved me. I am a twenty nine year

old father of five children, and I try my hardest

to teach my children to know God and to love

Jesus and how to pray. And I do my best

to be a good example and be worthy of all

the good gifts that God has given to me. But

you know, because of my childhood and the insecurities and

abandonment issues that were created in my life from years

of mental abuse, physical abuse, verbal abuse, and yes, even

sexual abuse, I've always had a hard time trusting God.

I woke up every day feeling unworthy, and I suffered

from feelings of anxiety and depression, and I felt like

God couldn't possibly love me because no one else had

ever loved me. And I carried that pain inside of

me for so long craving for a close, better, intimate

relationship with God. Now listening to Daily Hope has helped

me achieve that and more. Not only better, but I'm

now better for everybody else around me. Spreading all that

I've learned and the good news of Jesus Christ. I

know God better than ever and I now have more

faith than I ever knew possible because I feel His love.

Thank you so much. Daily Hope does such a great

work in the name of Jesus, and I will forever

be in your debt for bringing the fire of faith

into my heart and helping me know God. I love you,

and I hope you continue to bring change in the

world through the message of Jesus Christ. You know, Michael,

I absolutely love how you're teaching your five kids to

know Jesus that is a real man, a real dad,

a real father. It's so important to pass it on

to the next generation, and I'm encouraged that Daily Hope

is helping you with the trauma of all your past

and helping you work through those issues and keeping you

growing in the love of Jesus Christ. You know, stories

like the one you wrote to me are what keep

me going. It's why we do this change lives now.

I want to pray for you. I want to pray,

Dear Lord, pour out your love on Michael. Help him

to sense your love so that he never doubts it.

Pour out your blessing and your peace on his family.

I pray that they will continue to grow in their

faith and that they will experience the peace that passes

understanding as they follow you God. I want to thank

you for his faithfulness in Jesus name, I pray Amen.

You know if God is blessing you through Daily Hope,

would you share your story with me? Write me rickat

pastorick dot 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