Rick Warren - How God Blesses Broken Hearts—Part Two

Hello, and welcome to Pastor Rick's Daily Hope with Rick Warren.

We are so glad you're here with us. Today.

We're going to continue our series called The Keys to

a Blessed Life. And when these messages, Rick walks through

Jesus's Sermon on the Mount and shows us how to

live a truly hopeful and purpose filled life. And here's

the final part of how God blesses broken hearts.

Now, there's a third thing that God does in blessing

our broken hearts, and that is this, God gives us

a church family for support. God never meant for you

to go through life on your own, and God says,

I didn't intend for you to go through grief. You

know the old statement that when you share a joy,

it's doubled, and when you share a sorrow, it's halved.

When you carry it all yourself, you're carrying a load

that God never intended for you to have. When something

bad happens to you and you say, I'm not gonna

tell anybody about this, I'm gonna keep it a secret.

I'm gonna keep it to myself, you have just broken

one of the principles of God's word. God says We're

meant to grieve in community. We healing comes in groups.

Healing comes in the church. Healing comes in community. We're

better together. You weren't meant to carry it on your own.

Look at this verse Romans twelve, five, ten, and fifteen.

Three verses in Romans chapter twelve. In Christ, we who

are many, form one body, and each member belongs to

all the others. Be devoted to each other like a

loving family. Rejoice with those who rejoice, and mourn with

those who mourn. Now these are commands, and if you

call yourself a follower of Christ, they're commanded for you.

In Christ, we form one body. That's the Church. The

church is the family of God, and it's the body

of Christ. And the Bible says each member belongs to

all the other. Now I'm not gonna ask you to

do this, but you could turn to the people on

either side or say you belong to me. We might

have a few marriage proposals, but we belong to each other.

We are brothers and sisters in God's family, and we're

part of the body of Christ. And then it says

we are to be devoted to each other like a

loving family. And how do we how are we devoted?

We sympathize each other. When you have a victory, I

shouldn't be jealous. I should celebrate your success. And when

you have a defeat, I shouldn't gloat over that. I

should mourn with those who mourn. Now, I'm not going

to go into this because you've heard me talk about

it a thousand knots. But you need a small group.

If you don't have a small group, you have no

safety net when the road winds come. I would not

be standing before you today if it weren't for my

small group. My small group was there in the darkest

days of my life. They were there just being the

ministry of presents. They didn't have to say anything, They

didn't have to give me an advice. They just showed up.

Who are you doing that for? Who knows that you

would show up in their crisis and who has that

same kind of commitment to you. You need to get

in a small group. There is no reason at all

for you to go through the pain on your own.

It's just your own pride that will keep you from

getting involved in the support. The Bible says God gives

us a church family for support, where to rejoice with

those rejoice and mourn with those who mourn. One Thessalonians

five eleven says, comfort each other and give each other strength. Now,

let me give you a couple suggestions, because right now

you're in one of two positions. You're either going through

pain yourself and you need comfort, or you're not going

through pain and you need to comfort others. You either

need comfort or you need to be comforted. You need

to be comforted, or you need to be a comforter.

Either need help or you need to help. Either way,

this is a message that you need to be using.

If you're not in major pain right now, you need

to be thinking, how can I follow what Jesus tells

me to do and comfort the people in pain around me? Well, first,

you got to be aware, and if you care, you'll

be aware. There are people in pain sitting on your

row and you don't even know what their pain is.

If you care, you'll be aware. Let me give you

two suggestions for comforting people when they go through any

kind of loss, financial loss, physical loss, health loss, loss

of a loved one, ornything. Let me just give you

to you write these down. Number one, never minimize another's pain.

The pain of others. Never minimize other's pain. Kay was

talking the other day. We were in London and she

was speaking and she said, one of the words you

can delete from your vocabulary when you're talk talking to

somebody in pain is the word at least. And she

told me about a lady, a mother who had lost

a child through drowning, and a neighbor came over and

in a meaningful attempt to comfort, said, well, at least

you're young enough to have another child. Are you kidding me?

I'm sure with that. Mama said, I'm not wanting another child.

I want my child back. I want my child back.

Don't tell me, well, at least you've got three other kids,

Are you kidding me? Well, at least you've got your

Eliminate the phrase at least from your vocabulary when talking

to somebody in pain. It doesn't help. It's not you're

trying to minimize the pain by pointing out something good.

Just never minimize the pain of others. And I would

say again, parents, stopped trying to teach your kids the

stuff and don't cry. Now you know the typical reaction

when somebody's in pain, We try to fix it immediately.

Don't be in a hurry to fix anything. You don't

need to fix it. God will fix it and do time.

What you need to do is just be there and

be aware and care, so never minimize. The other thing

is never rush people. Never rush people. Pain and grief

takes time, and nobody can figure out how long the

grief's going to take for any particular thing in your life.

But you I can't tell you what's the appropriate time

to grieve for anything in your life. You're just going

to have to figure that one out yourself. And it's

different for everybody else. You know. In marriages, the death

of a child is often the predictor of a divorce.

In fact, marriages that have the death of a child

don't have a pretty good rate of staying together. Kay

and I knew that statistic, and when Matthew died, we

determined that we were going to let this draws closer

to each other rather than divide us. And it was

all because one thing, showing grace to each other and

realizing whatever you're feeling right now is okay. And I

don't try to talk Kay out of her feelings, she

doesn't try to talk me out of mind, and we

just enter into each other's pain. A feeling is neither

right or wrong. It's just a feeling. Let me see

that one again. A feeling is never right or wrong.

It's just feeling. So, husband's quit trying to talk your

wife out of feelings, and whise quit trying to talk

your husband's out of feelings. Feeling is neither right nor wrong,

just feeling. And so you showed grace to each other,

and you never rush people. Ka wrote a column, our

little Post and Facebook about how she was starting to

feel people kind of rushing her and saying, you know

when you're gonna go back to teaching, and you know

when you're gonna be back on the stage, and and

you know, and and and kind of like, aren't you

over it yet? And she stopped trying to push people

get over it? She wrote this little post. Did it

hit a nerve? Over three million people reposted it. Why?

Because that's the way anybody who deep pain feels they understand.

Don't tell me to get over it. You don't get

over it. You get through it. You get through it.

So God gives us a family, and we're not to

minimize and we're not to rush the people in our

lives There's a fourth way that God blesses broken hearts

all right. He gives us a church family, He gives

us his own presence. He grieves with us. Number four,

God uses grief to help us grow. God uses grief.

God uses pain even to help us grow, and he

does it in three ways. Here are three verses that

illustrate three different ways. First, God uses pain to get

our attention. C. S. Lewis wrote, God whispers to us

in our pleasure, but he shouts to us in our pain.

Pain is God's megaphone. Pain is saying hello. We rarely

change when we see the light. We change when we

feel the heat. Here's what the Bible says Proverbs twenty,

verse thirty. Sometimes it takes a painful experience to make

us change our ways. That's in the today's English version.

Anybody agree with that verse. Yeah, Sometimes it takes a

painful experience to make us change our ways. So God

uses grief to help us grow by getting our attention.

Second way, he brings good out of bad. One of

the most famous verses in the Bibles, Romans eight twenty eight.

We know we know not guests, not hope. We know

that in all things not some, not just the good

in all things. God works in all things. God works

for the good of those who love him. It's an

opportunity to grow in character. Every time you go through pain.

You can't control the pain you go through. You may

have chronic pain, and that pain may be with you

for years and years and years. You can't always control that,

but you can decide whether it's going to make you

bitter or better, whether it's going to be a stepping

stone or it's going to be a stumbling block. God

brings good out of bad. And the third thing he

does is he prepares us for eternity. Look at this

next verse two Corinthians four seventeen and eighteen. These troubles

are getting us ready for an eternal glory. What troubles,

the pain you're going through right now, these troubles, that sickness,

that sadness, that suffering, that lack, that loss, that pain,

that pressure, that problem, these troubles are getting this ready

for an eternal glory that will make all our troubles

seem like like nothing, like nothing. Things that are seen

don't last forever, but things that are not seen are eternal.

And that's why we keep focused on the things that

can't be seen. You've heard me say before. You're not

taking your car to heaven. You're not taking your china heaven.

You're not taking your clothes to heaven. You're not taking

your career to heaven. But you are taking your character.

You're taking you. And so God's more interested in your

character development than in your comfort. Why because comfort is

going to be on for trillions and trillions and trillions

and trillions a year. This is the get ready stage.

This is the learning stage, This is the warm up back.

This is the school. It's a preschool. And God says,

these troubles are getting us ready for an eternal glory.

That's a comfort, you see. You can handle an enormous

amount of pain when you can realize there's a good

purpose in it, labor and having a baby. But when

you don't see any purpose in the pain, then it's

easy to give up. When the pain is unceasing, when

the pain never stops, when the pain keeps going. You

need to see God's purpose And what is God doing? First?

Is he trying to get my attention? Second? Is he

trying to bring good out of bad? Third? Is he

preparing my character for heaven is he giving me an

opportunity to grow in Christ's likeness. Things that are seeing

don't last forever, but things that are not seen are eternal.

Number five. The fifth way that God comforts us when

we mourn is that God gives us the hope of heaven.

And this one has been particularly beautiful and meaningful to

me this last year. That this life is not all

there is, that this is just the warm up act,

and that we're moving for so much more. The amount

of time you're going to spend on earth is really

quite small. You're only going to get eighty ninety at

the most, maybe one hundred years. That's nothing, nothing, It's

gonna be over before you realize it. It's nothing compared

to millions and millions and millions and millions and millions

and millions of years in heaven. The Bible says we

have the hope of heaven. If there were no hope

of heaven, I would be in despair because there's just

too much bad in the world. There's too many rapes,

too many people getting molested, too many children being abused,

too many wars, too many people having being tortured, too

many people being burned up, by chemicals and all kinds

of things. The fact is the Bible, says one Thessalonians

four thirteen. Talking about believers who die, Paul says, we

don't want you to be ignorant about believers who've died.

We don't want you to grieve like the people who

have no hope. Circle the people who have no hope.

There's two kinds of grief. You can grieve with hope

or you can grieve without hope. Let me tell you

you want the first one. As a pastor, I have

done I don't know hundreds and hundreds under you. I

don't know, maybe thousands. I don't know how many funerals

that I've done. I don't know how many times I've

stood at the bedside of somebody taken their last breath.

I have been at the funerals and looked in the

faces of people who had no hope when a loved

one died, and I've seen the terror on their face

and the despair on their face. You see the test

of your faith, the test of your belief system. The

test of your worldview is not how you handle the

parties of life. The test of your worldview is how

you handle the failures and how you handle the f

funerals and how you handle the deaths of life. That's

the acid test. The Bible says we have a hope,

and so we grieve, but we grieve with hope. When

a Christian dies, why do we grieve? I mean that

Christian is going to heaven. They're going where they're made for.

They're going where they're gonna spend eternity. And they're going

where you're gonna go too, if you know the Lord.

So why do we grieve? We're not grieving them in

a funeral. We're grieving us. We miss them, We're now

grieving them. My son, Matthew, for twenty seven years, was

tortured by mental illness and it was agony. And honestly,

when he died, I grieved his extremely painful life more

than I grieved is extremely painful death, because I know

today he has no fear, he has no pain, he

has no depression, he has he is Every one of

his questions has been answered, he has joy, he has

the understanding everything he's always won. Why was I made

like this? Why didn't I get well? All those questions

are answered. I'm not grieving the fact that he's in heaven.

I grieve the fact that I miss him. I want

my son back. I miss him now. And so when

a Christian grieves, we grieve in a very very different

way than the rest of the world. We grieve with hope.

Non believers grieve without any hope. And that's disastrous, it's devastating,

it's debilitating, it's sparing. What is our hope? Revelation twenty one,

verse four says this God will wipe every from their eyes,

and there will be no more death or mourning or

crying or pain, for the old order of things will

have passed away. I am looking forward to that day

so much. It's one of the things that allows me

to go to places like Africa and see people starving

from poverty, and allows me to go into the inner

city and see people being beat up and abused and misused,

and allows me to see all the pain in the

world which could be depiltating and its depressing nature. If

I didn't know that one day God is going to

settle the score, He's going to even the odds, he's

going to balance the accounts, and one day in heaven,

God's going to wipe away every tear and there will

be no more death, and there will be no more mourning,

and there will be no more suffering, and no more crying,

and no more pain, for the old order will have

passed away. That is one of the six hopes that

blessed are those who mourn, for they should be comforted.

Find me. There's one more thing, and this is a

big one. God uses our pain to help others. There's

a purpose in your pain. This is called redemptive pain.

This is the highest and best use of the pain

you go through. God does not want you to waste

to hurt. God never wastes to hurt, but we often

do because we're not willing to use it to help

other people. God uses our pain to help others. This

is the highest and best use. Who can better help

the mother of a special needs child than another mother

of a special needs child? Who can better help somebody

who's lost a son or daughter in a war than

somebody who lost on a daughter in a war? Who

can better help somebody who lost a limb than somebody

who's lost a limb? Who could better help somebody who

has gone through the pain of an addiction or marriage failure,

or molestation or any of the other evils in the world,

then somebody who went through that. God does not want

you to waste your hurt. This is redemptive hurt. He

wants you to redirect your focus. Second Corinthians one four.

God comforts us in all our troubles so that we

can comfort others with the same comfort we receive from God.

Now listen very closely. Your greatest ministry will come out

of your deepest hurt. You might write this down, My

greatest ministry will come out of my deepest hurt because

you can relate. You could say, been there, done, that

went through. I had a mother who was abusive, I

had a dad who was distant and left the family.

I had a failure in this area or that area.

Your greatest ministry will come out of your deepest hurt.

You see, we think the world is impressed by how

we handle prosperity, but the world is actually impressed by

how we handle adversity. We think that it is our

success that gives us credibility to be a witness, but

God says no, it is our suffering that gives us credibility.

You would not believe the open doors that have happened

in my life since Matthew died, and when I began

to journal about it on social media, people began to

come out of the woodwork, and some people you wouldn't

believe and said, I've never told this to anybody else.

We think that fame earned respect, but actually it's faithfulness

and tough times. Well, here's the bottom line. I'll say

it again. We're in a broken world and so every

day nothing works perfectly, and that means every day you

need to be either you either need comfort or you

need to comfort others. Right now, you're in one of

two categories. Put yourself on it. Right now. You either

need help because you're in really bad pain, or you

need to help others, and maybe, just maybe God wants

to do both at the same time. It's called being

a wounded healer. If you wait until you're completely healed

to help other people, guess what, You're gonna wait a

long time because you're not going to be fully healed

of everything in your life until you get to heaven.

If you're going through a tough time right now, the

Bible says, comfort one another and give each other strength.

That's what the Body of Christ, that's what the families

to do. We're supposed to help you, so we want

to help you. Don't carry this on your own going

through a tough time. Right now, just stand up, and

Tommy's going to come and pray.

Father, thank you for seeing us. Even though oftentimes we

feel that you perhaps have forgotten us, Lord, we know

through your word that that's not true. You see what

breaks our hearts, You see what keeps us up.

At night when everyone else is sleeping.

You see those places in our hearts that are so hurt,

where we feel hopeless and we feel helpless. And God,

we know in your word, through the promise of Isaiah

sixty one, that you said you comfort all who mourn,

You provide for those who grieve, and you promise to

bestow and grandaunt each of us a crown of beauty

instead of ashes. And you said to us that you

would give us joy instead of our mourning. So today

we stand for you as a family, together with open

hearts and hands before you, saying Father and asking, as

you are our daddy, Lord, we pray for healing. There

are those who are standing that are in physical pain,

that are sick. They have diseases, whether it be cancer

or hepatitis or aids, or lime.

Or even diseases.

They may not even have answers, for they're living in

medical mystery land. They're just in pain. So, Lord, you

said you are the great physician, and we believe that.

So we pray for physical healing. Now, Lord, we ask

for wisdom when we do go to the doctor, that

you give doctors the wisdom beyond even their own understanding.

That you would bring healing in any way you want

in our lives. And we pray for healing for broken

hearts and broken relationships. Lord, that you would reconcile relationships.

You would reconcile those relationships in our lives with family,

and would love ones and with spouses and with our

kids and coworkers and whatever it may be. And Father,

we pray for courage, give us the courage of job

when he said, the Lord gives and the Lord takes away,

but I will still bless his name. And in those

hard places in our lives when we feel like giving up, Lord,

help us remember that our hope lies in you, and

that no matter what happens in our life, we will

bless your name. Make us all in our brokenness living

trophies of your grace. That others would see that we

have not given up on you, but our hope is

in you. Give us the courage to do what is right,

no matter how we feel, and give us the courage

to ask for help if we need it, and even

the courage to accept that help. And Father, we pray

for strength, and for some of us we ask for

the strength just to get out of bed, just to

make it another day, the strength that we find in you.

And Lord, we don't ask for strength for tomorrow, because

tomorrow's not promised. But we ask, Lord, just give us

what we need, moment by moment and day by day,

give us the strength to face our pain, knowing that

whatever we're going through, You're going to go with it

through us. We're not alone no matter what season we're in.

And Lord, we do ask, we asked that whatever season

we're currently in, that it would be a short season. Father,

we do pray that you would redeem our pain and

bring purpose out of it, that you would use what's

happened in our lives for your glory and for your honor.

Lord, and because of that, you.

Would draw people to us, people that we could help,

people that would be willing to look at us, and

see Jesus because we have not given up on you

and we are blessing your name. Thank you that this

life is brief and that our struggles are only momentary.

Thank You for the hope of eternity. Help all of us,

whether we're standing or sitting, order to live in light

of eternity with passion and drive in the hope of

Jesus Christ. Thank you for the blessing and gift of

heaven and Jesus' name.

Amen.

What a great message from Pastor Rick today. There's something

I always take away from his message. Here's Rick to

tell you how you can help support this ministry.

Jesus told his disciples that they should live their lives

according to five specific purposes. He said, you've got to

love God with all your heart. That's worship, and love

your neighbors yourself. That's ministry. That's called the Great Commandment.

And then Jesus said, go make disciples. That's evangelism, Baptize

them into the Family of God. That's fellowship, a sign

of fellowship. And then he said, teach them obey everything

I've taught you. That's discipleship. And we call that the

Great commission. We believe it Daily Hope that a great

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know as well as I do, that the Word of

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