Rick Warren - Sustaining Grace—Part One

You know, none of us can earn our way into

heaven because eternal life is a free gift when you

accept Jesus as the Lord of your life. Hey, everybody,

this is Pastor Rick's Daily Hope, and today Rick Warren

continues a series called Good News about Grace. You can't

truly understand the Christian life until you understand grace. It's

at the heart of your faith and your relationship with God.

And in this series you're going to discover how not

to only understand grace, but how to experience it and

the joy that it brings. Okay, here's part one of

a message called Sustaining Grace.

Now.

The Bible tells us that God always finishes what he

starts always. The first verse on the top of your

outline today says this God, who began the good work

within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished.

I want you to circle the word will on your outline.

It doesn't say God might finish it. It doesn't say

God hopes to finish it. It says God will finish it.

What does that mean?

It means if you have really given your life.

To Jesus Christ, if you've opened yourself up to God

and say, Christ be number one in my life. You

are going to make it to heaven. There's no doubt

about it. Case closed, done, deal, finished product. You are

gonna make it across the finish line because it doesn't

depend upon your performance. It depends upon God's sustaining grace.

The only question is how you finish the race, because

you know as well as I do, that some people

finish a race poorly while other finish people finish a

race well. Now, as your pastor, I don't want to

just get you into heaven. I don't want to just

get you across the finish line. My goal is to

help you finish the race of life well. I want

you in enjoy life, the abundant life, to figure out

what God made you here for and put you here

for and do it. And God says I will help

you finish the race. Now, how can we be sure

we're gonna finish because of God's sustaining grace? Now, what

is saving or sustaining grace? Sustaining grace is the power

to keep on going when I feel like giving up?

Do you ever need that? The power to keep on

going when you feel like giving up? Sustaining grace is

the power to do the right thing when you don't

feel like doing the right thing. Now, there are many

pitfalls in the marathon race of life. We're gonna talk

about them this morning. But regardless of what you go through,

no matter what you face this next year, you can

count on God's sustaining grace being there. We'll get the

next verse on your outline first Peter five eleven.

Read it with me.

My purpose in writing is to encourage you and to

assure you that the grace of God God is with

you no matter what happens. Circle that no matter what happens,

God's sustaining.

Grace is going to be with you. It's going to

be there.

Now, there are three things in life that can cause

you to stumble.

That can cause you to get cast off to the

side of the race.

It can cause you to not finish well in life,

and god sustaining grace says, I will help you in

each of those three situations. Number one, I can count

on God's sustaining grace to help me keep on standing

when I'm tempted, because temptation is the first thing that

causes us to stumble. The Bible says in first Peter

five eight. Watch out for the attacks from the devil,

your great enemy. He prowls around like a roaring lion,

looking for some victim to devour. In other words, Satan

wants to eat your lunch. Okay, And he says, take

a firm stand against him. Circle that firm stand, and

so be strong in the faith. Now you may not

realize this, but the moment you become a believer, a

battle starts in your life because you're no longer Satan's property.

He's taking his hand off you and now you're in

God's hands.

But he doesn't like that.

And there's a battle for your life every single day

of your life, and you are forced with moral choices.

Am I gonna do right or wrong?

Good or bad? Am I going to be selfish? Or

am I gonna be unselfish? And those moral choices are

called temptation. Now, the Bible says we are all tempted.

Everybody is tempted. You never will outgrow temptation. The Bible

says even Jesus was tempted. It says he was tempted

in all points like as we are, but he never sinned. Now,

the good news is this, if Jesus was tempted and

he never sinned. Then it means it's not a sin

to be tempted. Does that make sense. It's not a

sin to be tempted. It's a sin to give in

to temptation. Some Christians when they're tempted to go, oh no,

How could I have ever thought that one like, oh no,

I'm some evil We could mean bad nasty person because

a thought went to my mind. You cannot control all

the thoughts that go through your mind, but you can

control and you can choose to not dwell on them.

In other words, I've said this many times. You can't

stop the birds from going over your head, but you

can keep them from building the nest in your hair.

And so Satan gives you all kinds of ideas and

you don't have to feel intimidated or embarrassed or ashamed

of that. He just puts those ideas in your mind.

It's when you dwell on them that then they become wrong,

They become sin. Let's just take one air temptation, sexual temptation.

God made you to be a sexual person, a sexual being.

He either made you a man or a woman, and

he gave you sexual feelings.

Now, those feelings are not wrong. They're not bad.

They're not even sin, unless you use them in a

wrong way or apply them to a wrong person. Many

people misunderstand and confuse attraction with lust the same thing,

or they even confuse arousal with lust.

They're not the same thing.

If a man is sitting outside the good looking woman

walks by and he goes, wow, that is one good

looking woman. That's not lust, that's attraction. That's arousal. And

he says, wow, look at what God's made there. That's

not lust. If you're a woman and you see a

good looking hunk of a man and you go you're

attracted to him. You may even be aroused. You go, wow,

look at that good looking man. I mean people say

that about me all the time.

You know that certainly is not sin. What is lust.

Lust is not arousal. Lust is not attraction.

Lest is when you take a thought and you begin

to dwell on in your mind and you begin to

mentally have an affair with that person, You begin to

fantasize that person, you begin to imagine what would it

be like with that person. That's when you've crossed the line.

But it is not a sin to be tempted. It

is a sin to give into temptation. One Corinthians ten thirteen.

Let's read it aloud together. The temptations that you have

are the same ones that all people have. But you

can trust God. He will not let you be tempted

more than you can stand. When you are tempted, God

will also give you a way to escape. Then you

will be able to stand it. This is called God's

sustaining grace. Now, this is a terrific, fantastic promise. It

says here God will never allow more temptation on you

than He puts.

In you to bear it up.

When you say, oh, I just couldn't help myself, you're

not telling the truth.

I just couldn't help myself.

Because God says, I will provide the sustaining grace to

always give you a way of escape. It may mean

turn the channel, it may mean run out the door,

it may mean change the way you're thinking, but he

will provide a way of escape. Now, I know this

verse says that God gives us the ability to handle temptation,

and he says they're the same ones that everybody has.

We all in this room have the exact same temptations.

They're common to human beings. Now, the good news is

if temptations are common to man, that means that they

are common solutions. You see, I've heard this so many times.

People come to me as pastors say, you know, Rick,

my situation was unique, and because it was a unique circumstance,

then it must be okay for me to bend the

rules a little bit and just kind of ignore what

God says, because God would understand that in my situation,

this is a very unique pressure. And God says, no,

it's not. You don't have any unique temptations. They're the

same common temptations at all of us have, So don't

use that excuse. And he says, God will make a

way of escape. God sustaining grace helps me stand firm

when I'm tempted. More than that, number two, God sustaining

grace helps me keep standing when I'm tired, because sometimes

I'm not tempted. Sometimes I'm just tired. Now, would you

agree with me that life is often exhausting? You get

I mean, some of you look pretty exhausted this morning.

You just gotta waggled in your eye, you know, and

you just gotta know wormed your way in. It requires

a lot of a lot of strength, a lot of

energy just to live life, especially especially when you're trying

to do the right thing rather than the easiest thing.

I mean, now, there are a lot of people in life.

They don't try to do the right thing at all.

They just want to do whatever is the easiest thing

in life. That's what I'm gonna do. Well, that's no

problem at all. You can just coast through life. You

always do the easiest thing. But when you're coasting, you're

always going downhill. You're always headed down when you coast.

On the other hand, when you try to do the

right thing, even though it's not the easiest thing, that

requires energy, that requires effort, that requires strength, many of

you are the only believer where you work, and it's tough.

Do you ever get tired of doing what's right? Sure?

Sure you do, because it's tough moving against the flow,

swimming upstream, when all the cultures go on this way

and you're trying to do the right thing, it's tough.

It's tough being the only person in an office when

you know a bunch of them starts saying, let's tell

some dirty jokes. And you go, ah, I don't think

I'll be a part of that part. And so the

more you try to do what's right, the more energy

it's going to require. And yet God says, let us

not grow weary in doing right, for we will reap

harvest of blessing if we do not give up. But

where do you get the power to do the right

thing when you don't feel like doing it and when

you're dead tired? I mean, sometimes I don't want to

be nice to my family. I want to be cranky.

Sometimes I don't want to be nice to a clerk

that's a jerk. I want to be grouchy, and sometimes

I want to be rude back to people who are

rude to me. Where do you get the energy to

do the right thing? Well, look at this verse second

Corinthians one. It is God who gives us the ability

to stand firm. For Christ, there's that word again, stand firm.

He has commissioned us, and he has identified us as

his own by placing the Holy Spirit in our hearts. Now,

I want you to circle the word Holy Spirit, and

then I want you to circle the phrase stand firm

and draw a line between them, because those two go together.

The key to the ability to not getting tired and

giving up doing the right thing when you know it's

the right thing to do is have the Holy Spirit

in your heart. It's he who energizes you, not you

and your own power. Now look up here just a minute.

The reason why some of you are tired all the

time is because you are trying to live the Christian

life and that doesn't work. You're trying to be like Jesus.

You're trying to do good, You're trying to keep the

Ten Commandments, You're trying to be a person of integrity.

You're trying, trying, trying, and you get tired. And people say, oh,

it's so hard to be a Christian today. It's not hard.

It's impossible. The only perfect person who ever lived was

Jesus Christ. He's the only on one who ever lived

the Christian life perfectly.

And what you need to do is, rather than trying

to be like Jesus, let Jesus be Jesus in you.

Let Jesus be Jesus through you.

Stop trying, trying, trying, trying, trying, try and trying, and

just start trusting, trusting, trusting. The key to the Christian

life is not trying. It's trusting. It's not psych yourself up.

Work real hard and try to do your best and

perform so God will smile at you. No, it's relaxed.

Trust and let Christ live through you, and He will

give you the power you need. Probably the man who

was the most persistent man ever in the Bible was Moses.

He had incredible endurance. How did he keep on keeping

on in spite of the fact that he spent forty

years waiting in the wilderness and then another forty years

wandering in the wilderness leading a bunch of spiritual babies

around the desert. How did he not give up? How

did he not get tired and quit? The Bible says

he had God's sustaining grace.

In his life.

That's how you keep on going when you're tired. Do

you know how many years it took Noah to build

the Ark? The Bible says, and twenty years. Can you

imagine waiting one hundred and twenty years for anything? He said, well,

I plan to be dead twenty years prior to that. Well,

you know, in those days they lived a whole lot longer.

I don't know if they didn't have preservatives in the food,

or you know, they all took herbal life, or I

don't know what they did, but you know there's something.

They were they lived longer.

But the point is is that Noah waited one hundred

and twenty years. How did he have the ability to

keep on keeping on when he was tired? Surely he

must have gotten tired building that arc. The Bible tells

us in Genesis chapter six, it says, Noah found grace

in the eyes of the Lord. God wants to give

you his power to do it, to do what you

need to do. Notice the next verse Philippians two thirteen,

read it with me, for God is at work within you,

giving you the will and the power to achieve his purpose. Lotus,

it says, will and power the Christian life is not

a matter of willpower your willpower, but a matter of

God's will and God's power in your life. And when

God gives you the will and the power to do something,

you'll be able to do it. God never asks you

to do something he doesn't give you the power to do. Now,

would you agree that God has more power than you?

Obviously? For instance, God made the sun.

Did you know that the sun produces more power in

one single second than all of the human race have

used throughout the entire history of the human race. More

energy is produced in one second than we've all used

throughout history. Did you know that the sun has enough

energy to burn for thirty billion more years?

And yet God made the sun. That's the kind of

power he's got.

And then he comes to you and he says, by

the way, you need some power, or I will give

you the will and the power.

To handle it.

You see, because God's power is not unlimited, he never

gets tired. You know, when it says in Creation on

the seventh Day God rested, it wasn't because he was tired.

It was because he was finished. He had just finished

with creation. The point is, God says, I will energize

those of you who trust me. Now there's another way.

God gives us his sustaining grace, not just when I'm tempted,

not just when I'm tired. But God's distaining grace gives

me the power to keep going when I'm troubled. When

I'm troubled, in other words, when I have problems, When

I have difficulties, Jesus said, in the world, you will

have trouble.

He said expected.

Don't be surprised, don't be blown away by it. You're

gonna have difficulties, you will have obstacles, you will have

a situations that you cannot handle, and he says, I

will give.

You the power.

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