Rick Warren - How God Blesses Broken Hearts—Part One

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. Now

when these messages, Rick walks through Jesus' Sermon on the

Mount and shows us how to live a truly hopeful

and purpose filled life. All right, now, here's part one

of how God blesses broken hearts.

Now, the fact of life is that life is tough.

Everybody agree with that. It's not easy.

Life is tough, life is hard, life is difficult. Since

Adam Send the world was broken and everything on the

planet is broken. Nothing works perfectly. I've said this many times.

Your body doesn't work perfectly, the economy doesn't work perfectly,

no relationship works perfectly. Your marriage doesn't work perfectly. And

life is full of losses. We have defeats and we

have disappointments. This is not heaven. That's why we pray

Thy will be done on earth. This is in heaven

because in heaven there are no defeats, there are no disappointments.

But on earth nothing works perfectly all the time. So

we have trials and tribulations. We have sorrow, and we

have suffering. We have problems and pressures. We have, as

I said, defeats and disappointments. Now, how do you rise

above the inevitable losses in your life? How do you

rise above them? Well, today we come to the second beatitude.

It's Matthew chapter five, verse four, and Jesus says this,

God blesses those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

Now in the eight ways to be blessed by God.

The second way. This seems so ludicrous when you think

about it, so un normal, so irrational. When he says

the way to be blessed is to mourn.

What in the world.

Does he mean by that? In other words, the way

to be happy is to be sad. That just seems

like a great reversal. What does he mean by this,

God blesses those who mourn. Well, that's what we're going

to look at this weekend on how to handle the

losses of life and how God blesses a broken heart. Now,

I don't know what you're going through right now. I

hope you're going through a relatively easy time, but you

may not. Some of you came to service this weekend

all churning, inside, you've got conflicts, you've got chaos, you've

got a bad health report, you just got laid off,

you've had a fight with your boyfriend, girlfriend, husband, wife.

The money isn't there where you need it, and you're

under tension. And many people watching online right now, there

are things you've had a loss in your life, or

you've had a death in your life, if you had

something that has caused you to have grief now this

last year, as you know, I've gone through a year

long journey with grief since Matthew died, and I've learned

a lot. I've learned a lot about grief that I

didn't even know a year ago. And what I want

to do this weekend is just kind of summarize a

few of those ideas. I think someday I'll probably write

a book on it because I've learned so much about it.

But I want to just give you a few things

on how to be blessed in a broken world. Now,

let me give you a couple of things. Write these down.

Here's just a couple of insights before we actually get

into it. One of them is this God doesn't expect

me to be happy all the time. That's just a

fact of life. God doesn't expect you to be happy

all the time. There is this myth that Christians, if

you're a believer, if you know Jesus, you should be

always smiling, always happy, always cheerful, skipping the hills and

picking flowers and talking about peace and love. No, that's

rainbow bright, not a Christian, okay. And when you become

a follower of Jesus, it doesn't mean you become a

Pollyanna or an annie little orphan ane. And the sun

will come up tomorrow and it's always up up into

the pool and you're always happy.

No, no, you're not.

In fact, the Bible says in Ecclesiastes three four, there's

a time for everything. There's a time for everything, and

there's a season for every activity under heaven. In other words,

life is a series of opposites. There's a time to weep,

there's a time to laugh, there's a time to mourn,

and there's a time to dance. And so the Bible

says that sometimes weeping is appropriate, sometimes more is appropriate,

sometimes grieving is appropriate. Because the fact is the world

is filled with a lot of sadness. All you have

to do is read the paper and read about little

girls getting kidnapped, and fires and murders and wars and

all kinds of things. There's a lot of pain on

this planet, and sometimes the only appropriate logical response to

life is grief.

God doesn't expect.

You to simply grin and barrett, to stuff your emotions

and to smile in the middle of all of the

storms of life. No. In fact, the Bible says, blessed

are those who mourn. God blesses you when you grieve.

Why why does he do that? Well, we're gonna we're

gonna look at that now. A lot of people think

that grief is only for funerals, like you know, if

you lose a loved one, then then you grieve. But

the fact is, there are a lot of losses in life.

There are thousands of losses. You can lose your health,

you can lose your job, you can lose your money,

you can lose your reputation, you can lose your energy,

you can lose a dream. There are thousands of different

losses in life, and God says the only appropriate response

to the losses of life is not to fake it,

but to face it, and not to go around grinning.

But to actually grieve. There's a time for every activity

under heaven. I actually went through a study this week

of what the Bible says we're supposed to mourn and grieve,

and I'm not going to get into that.

That would be two or three sermons.

But the Bible says, i to mourn my losses, which

is things.

Bad things that happen to me.

And the Bible says, I'm to mourn my disappointments, which

are good things that didn't happen to me. To hear

that good things that didn't happen to you, that's a

reason to mourn. The Bible says, I'm to mourn my sins,

and I'm to grieve over my sin. The Bible says,

I'm to grieve and mourn over the suffering in the

world and not be.

Blase about it.

The Bible says, I'm actually to grieve for my friends

who don't know Jesus, who are spiritually lost. And there

are a lot of things the Bible tells us to

grieve over that God doesn't expect you to be happy

all the time. Second thing write this down is that

grief is essential to my health. Grief is essential to

my health. It's essential to my emotional health, to my

spiritual health, to my physical health.

And to my mental health.

In fact, if you never grieve about anything, if you're

never sad about anything, it means one of three things.

A you're out of touch with reality, because there's a

lot of things.

To be sad about in this world.

Or B you are out of touch with your own

emotions and you're living in denial.

Or see, you.

Don't love because when you love and you see sad things,

that makes you grieve. Now, grief is a painful emotion,

but it's a healthy emotion, and it's a helpful emotion, and.

It is God's gift.

It's the tool that God gives us to get through

the transitions of life. I've told you this before. There

is no growth in your life without change. You can't

grow without change. There is no change without loss because

you lose some of the old.

For the new.

There is no loss without pain, and there is no

pain without grief. To go through life without grieving would

be like a mother who says I want to have

a baby without going through the pain of labor. It

ain't going to happen. It isn't going to happen now.

There are two unhealthy reactions to the losses of life.

One is repression and the other is suppression. Repression is

when I conscious unconsciously try to block a painful thought

out of my mind.

That's repression.

I unconsciously try to block a pain painful thought out

of my mind. Suppression is when I consciously try to

block a pain. I'm not gonna think about that. I'm

not gonna think about that. I'm not gonna think about it.

When I consciously try to block a painful thought out

of my mind. Both of these are denials. When you

go through a tough time, when your heart is hurting,

when your heart is breaking, God doesn't want you to

suppress it. God doesn't want you to repress it. God

wants you to express it to friends and confess it

to him. And when you do that, you're on the

road to healing. I want you to write this down.

If I don't let it out, I will act it out.

If I don't let it out in healthy ways, I'm

going to act it out in unhealthy ways. Some of

you were hurt many years ago growing up. Maybe your

parents divorced, maybe you were abused, maybe you were hurt

by something somebody said about you.

And it hurt very, very deeply.

But as a child, you didn't know how to grieve healthy.

You didn't know how to grieve good, so you just

pushed it down and you stuffed it down, and you've

never grieved over that hurt. Well, you need to go

back and grieve over why, because if you don't grieve

the losses of life, you get stuck at that stage.

Let me say that again. This is one of the

most important things you're ever going to learn. When you

don't grieve, when you don't go through grief and a paint.

When pain happens in your life and you don't let it,

you don't feel it, you push it down. You get

stuck emotionally at that stage, and you spend the rest

of your life reacting to something that happened a long

time ago, and you're taking it out on the people

around you now. And that's not fair. It's unhealthy to

stuff it. You've heard me say this before. When I

swallow my grief, my stomach keeps score. If I don't

talk it out, I take it out on my own

body or on other people. And if I don't let

it out in healthy ways, then I'm going to act

it out in unhealthy ways. And when you swallow negative emotions,

your body gets sick. I've said many times it's not

just what you eat, it's what eats you that makes

you sick.

David talked about this in Psalms.

Notice on your outline, David says, and so I'm thirty two,

verse three. When I kept things to myself, I felt

weak deep inside me.

And I moaned all the day long.

Now circle the word moan. When you go through a

loss in life. You lose a job, you lose a friend,

you lose a deal, you lose something in your life

that you were hoping would happen, or something you had.

And you lost it.

You lose a marriage, Either mourn or you can moan.

Moaning is negative, Mourning is positive. Moaning is having a

pity party. Mourning is calling out to God in your

grief and in your pain. So I'm thirty nine, verse two,

David says, I was silent and I held my peace

to no avail, and my distress only grew worse.

If you don't.

Grieve the losses in your life, if you're too busy

and you just have to stop it.

I can't think about it.

You try to do the Clint Eastwood, you know, strong

silent type. We're just grin and bear and you press

on and you don't even stop to mourn a loved

one's death. If you don't do that, then what happens

is he says, my distress only grew worse.

So what am I saying?

The things that happened to you around you, the bad

things happen to they're not your choice.

But grief is a choice, and it's a help choice.

And when you choose to let it out, you have

to choose to allow yourself to feel the sad emotions.

So I don't like feeling said, no, you don't. But

not everything that's helpful feels good. Not everything that's healthy

feels good. If you don't mourn the losses of life,

you get stuck at that stage. Now, this weekend, what

I want us to look at is how God blesses

broken hearts because the second Beatitude Jesus says this, God

blesses those who mourn. Now, I want God to bless

your life. I want God to bless your life in

spite of all the bad things that have happened and

in spite of all the bad things that are gonna happen,

and in order for God to bless your life, Jesus says,

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

How does God comfort me when I grieve? I'm an

authority on this one. I can speak from experience on

how God comforts. And as I look back over my life,

I see six ways that God blesses a broken heart.

Since Matthew died, I have cried every single day since

he died. That's not a sign of weakness. That's a

sign of love. Deep love cares, Deep love is strong.

So how do you get through You don't get over it.

A lot of people think, well, I'm just gonna get

over this grief. No, you're not gonna get over it.

If it's serious. If you're married for a certain number

of years and then you divorce, you don't get over it.

You get through it. If you have a loved one,

a husband or wife who dies.

You don't get over that.

You get through it. Now, you can't go over grief.

You can't go under grief. You can't go around grief.

You gotta go through the grief. And if you're scared

to express emotion, and you refuse to go through it.

That is said, that's where you get stuck. But how

do I get unstuck?

You?

Let God help you, Let God comfort you. Blessed are

those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. And how

does God comfort us?

Six ways? Write these down? Number one.

The first way God blesses a broken heart is God

draws us close to himself. He draws us in close

to himself. Look at these verses, Psalm thirty four, verse eighteen.

The Lord is close to the broken hearted, and he

says those whose spirits have been crushed. When you are grieving,

you often feel like God's a million miles away. But

He's not a million miles away. He's never been any closer.

What you feel and what's real are not the same thing.

Not everything you feel is real, and not everything that's real.

Do you feel?

The Bible says God is close to the broken hearted.

He's paying attention, he's not aloof, he's not distant. Hebrews

thirteen to five. I will never leave you. Circle that never.

That means even in your worst pain, It means even

in your most embarrassing disgrace, It means, even in your

most massive failure, even in the thing you're most ashamed

of in your life, I will never leave you, and

I will never abandon you. And Tewod Corinthians six 't

ten says this our hearts ache. But at the same

time we have the joy of the Lord.

What does that mean? That's the difference Jesus makes.

If you don't have Jesus in your life, then God

isn't close to you at that moment, and you're on

your own. You don't have any other resources. You're there

to handle the pain by yourself. God never intended for

you to handle the pain by yourself. First, the Bible says,

God draws us close to himself. And then here's the

second thing. Write this down.

God grieves with us. God grieves with us. Now.

The reason you have the ability to grieve is because

you are made in God's image. The Bible tells us

that God grieves. The Bible tells us that God weeps

when he sees in humanity on earth.

He weeps.

When God sees a sin, he weeps. When God sees

war's destroying people. When God sees his planet being destroyed,

God weeps. God grieves and we're made in God's image,

And the Bible says God weeps with us. In other words,

sees God is a suffering God, and God is a

sympathetic God. He's not aloof he's not apathetic, he's not

standing on the sidelines. He suffers with us. Look at

this verse up here on the screen. Isaiah fifty three,

verse three says this Jesus was a man of sorrows.

Have you ever seen that verse? Jesus, it's out of

Isaiah's prophecy, was a man of sorrows, acquainted with bitterest grief.

He knew suffering firsthand. So when you come to Jesus,

it's not like Jesus, goes, I have no idea what

you're talking about. When your heart is breaking and you're

in pain, it's not like Jesus going, I don't understand it.

I don't get that. Just buck up and put on

a happy face. No, Jesus was a man of sorrows.

He was acquainted with grief. Let me just give you

one example there on your outline. When his friend Lazarus died,

The Bible says to John eleven, when Jesus saw a

lazarus sister sobbing, and he saw how all those with,

all those with he was were crying. Also his heart

was touched and he was deeply moved. Then Jesus started crying.

See how much he loved Lazarus.

They say ctricle the word love.

You know, I told you that grief is actually an

evidence of love. And the more you love, the more

you're gonna grieve about things. If you're apathetic, if you're callous,

you don't have any love in your life. You don't

care what happens to anybody else, It doesn't bother you.

You don't grieve about the tragedy, even your next door neighbor,

if you don't love them, you don't care. The more

you love, the more you're gonna understand grief. And it

says Jesus started crying. You know, the shortest verse in

the Bible is John eleven thirty five. It's two words,

Jesus wept, John eleven thirty five. That's your memory verse

for the week. Okay, everybody can do that. Say it,

John eleven thirty five.

And what did this say? Jesus wept? And where is that?

John eleven thirty five.

That's the shortest verse in the Bible. You just memorized

the Bible verse. It's only two words, Jesus wept. But

what does it say. It says we have a suffering God.

We have a God who sympathizesus, who understands, who knows us.

And the Bible says Jesus started crying. Now, let me

just say to the guys. Guys, we're not very good

at grief. It's not a macho thing. We don't like

negative feelings. Men don't like to feel negative. They don't

like bad things. They certainly don't like sorrow. And we're

taught growing up. You know, in fact, parents, you need

to stop teaching your kid to stuff their emotions, because

one of the first things parents, stop your crying. Stop

your crying, Stop your crying. Really, is that what you

really want? You want to teach people to stuff their emotions,

The Bible says.

Jesus started crying.

Sadness is not weakness. Jesus was the strongest man who

ever lived. A showing for a man to show emotion

is not a sign of weakness. It's actually a sign

of strength. Weak men are scared of their emotions. Weak

men are afraid of tears breaks them out.

They go nutty. Why because it scares them. When you're a.

Strong man, you're not afraid of emotion, You're not afraid

to show it. You're not even afraid to cry. Jesus

was the strongest man who ever lived. So never be embarrassed.

Never be embarrassed by tears. In fact, the Bible says

Jesus was sent to comfort us. Look at this Isaiah

sixty one, verse two and three. The Bible says He

has sent me Jesus to comfort all who mourn, to

give those who mourn and Zion joy and gladness instead

of grief, and a song of praise instead of sorrow.

So the first two ways that God blesses a broken

heart is he draws us close to himself. He says,

I'm going to be with you. You're not going to

go through this on your own. And number two, I'm

going to feel it with you. The pain you feel

in that separation, God feels it. The pain you feel

in that loneliness, God feels it. The pain you feel

in that rejection, God feels it. The pain you feel

in that embarrassment, that disgrace. God feels it.

He is with you, and he is feeling it with you.

Such a great message from Pastor Rick today, and I

hope you were just as encouraged as I was.

Once again, here's Rick. Hello everybody.

This is Rick and I have just returned from Amsterdam

where I was at a conference where we had over

six thousand church leaders pastors from all around the world.

Literally one hundred and forty nations came to Amsterdam for

a week of training where we were teaching them about

the good news of Jesus Christ. More importantly, how to

share the good news of Jesus Christ and help finishing

the task around the world in the next ten years.

That's the goal to get the gospel to every person

in the world in the next ten years, by twenty

thirty three, which is the two thousandth birthday of Christianity.

And you know what was the most exciting to me

is that people came to me from all around the world.

Like I said, one hundred and forty nations and said,

I listened to Daily Hope every day in Kazakhstan, in Bhutan,

in Bolivia, in Namibia, on every continent. I heard time

and time again, Pastor Rick, the Word of God is

changing my life. Friends, That's what Daily Hope is all about.

And for me, since I get your letters and I

love to read your letters, and I love to hear

your stories, but to be face to face with about

six thousand people who were listening to Daily Hope on

a regular basis and hearing how it's changed their lives

and influenced their ministries, it just makes me want to say,

to all of you who pray for this ministry and

all of you support this ministry, thank you, thank you,

thank you, thank you. Thank you for your prayers, for

your gifts, for your support. You're making a difference. When

you get to heaven. You're going to meet people in

heaven who've come to Christ because you prayed and.

Because you gave.

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