Rick Warren - Liberating 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 gonna discover how not to

only understand grace, but how to experience it and the

joy that it brings. All Right, here's part one of

a message called Liberating Grace.

I want to begin with a little self evaluation quiz

this morning. Just don't raise your hand, but just consider

the answers. How you'd answer these questions. Do you ever

feel guilty when you relax? I said, don't answer knowing,

and you've got a lot to do. You often feel

dissatisfied or discontent with yourself or your situation. You have

a tendency to see something wrong with things rather than

what's right with it. Do you ever find yourself using

these phrases regularly? I have to, I must, I ought to,

I should be able to. Do you ever feel frustrated

or maybe even angry at God, feeling that his expectations

on you are unreasonable? Number six, does your relationship to

God seem like a burden rather than a blessing? Now,

if you can answer yes to any of these questions,

you're probably afflicted with perfectionism. Perfectionism is trying to prove

my worth by being perfect. It is a counterfeit of

spiritual maturity. It's not the real thing. Trying to prove

my worth by being perfect. And after years and years

in ministry, it's my impression, my opinion, the perfectionism is

the number one hang up of dedicated believers, dedicated Christians.

You see, it happens like this when you first become

a Christian and you understand what grace is all about.

This is some deal. Wait a minute, let me get

this right. I take all my sin, give it to God,

and He gives me heaven forgiveness and power for today.

I like that deal, and it's free. I don't earn

my way into heaven. I don't work my way to heaven.

I don't pay my way into heaven. I don't barter

my way into heaven. Is just a free gift. And

when you understand grace, you go, this is one great deal,

and you start enjoying it. But inevitably what happens is,

as time goes by, you start thinking this has got

to be too good to be true. Really, I ought

to help God out a little bit. Surely he expects

something of me. Surely I need to do something to

gain his smile, to gain his approval in my life,

and you fall into one of two traps. Now there

are two great enemies of grace. We've been in this

series of grace for a number of weeks. Now there

are two great enemies. One of them is legalism, trying

to earn God's approval through rules, and the other's perfectionism,

trying to prove my worth by being perfect. There's an

entire book of the Bible written to combat these two

enemies of grace. It's the Book of Galatians. And in

the Book of Galatians, God says, when you try to

earn God's smile on your life, you try to earn

God's pat on the back God's approval. He says, that's

dumb on your outline. The very first verse is Galatians

Chapter three, Verse three. Let's read it aloud together. You

began your life in Christ by the spirit. Now are

you trying to make it complete by your own power?

That is foolish, Because it's foolish. Now today, I want

us to look at liberating grace, how to break out

of the performance trap, how to break out of the

prison of perfectionism. If you understand this, how to relax

in God's grace, you will find a new level of

joy in your life. You'll find a new level of

liberation of freedom that you probably never experienced before, except

maybe when you first became a believer. So I want

us to look at how do you relax in God's grace?

But before we do, let me just mention two or

three things the perfectionism does to us because it is

very destructive. It's very detrimental to your own life. Number one,

you might write this down. What it does is it

defeats my initiative. Have you ever had a project that

you ever can't seem to get started on even though

you know you want to start on it. It's a

good thing, it's the right thing to do, and you think,

one of these days I'm going to get around to it.

But you never get it started. One possible reason is perfectionism,

because what you in your mind you're doing, you're waiting

for the perfect circumstance. You're waiting for the perfect timing,

You're waiting for the perfect environment. You're waiting till the

kids get out of school, You're waiting till a certain

amount of money comes in. Are something, but you're waiting.

And as a result, perfectionism causes procrastination because you set

your standard so high, and procrastination causes paralysis, and you

can't get anything done. The Bible says this Ecclesiastes eleven

to four. If you wait for perfect conditions, you'll never

get anything done. How many of you agree with that verse?

Anybody want to give a testimony on that verse? That's

morning number two? And this is far more serious. Is

it damages my relationships? It doesn't just defeat my initiative,

It damages my relationships. Do you enjoy being around somebody

who is always correcting what you do? Don't look at them.

I just saw some darts, some arrows going. I elbos

It's well, we know what we're talking about. On the

way home today, nobody likes to be nagged all the time,

corrected all the time, perfected all the time, straightened all

the time, et cetera, et cetera. It's frustrating, it's irritating.

The Bible says love forgets mistakes, but nagging about them

parts the best of friends. It damages relationships. Perfectionism, this

desired to always correct, damages relationships now and by the way,

all of us are perfectionists to one degree or another.

So don't take yourself off the other thing. Well, I'm

glad my husband's here today or my wife. You know,

we're all in this bag. Okay. What it does is

it causes us to look at the wrong thing. And really,

what happens is it's rooted in insecurity. Have you noticed

that when you don't feel good about yourself, you don'tant

anybody else to feel good about themselves. If I don't

like me, I certainly don't want you liking you. I

want us to all be miserable together. And perfectionists who

are harsh and demanding on other people really are harsh

and demanding on themselves. They're holding themselves to a high standard.

Because they are doing that to themselves, they feel, well,

then let's just hold everybody else to that standard. They

take great pains in their own work, but they also

are pain to everybody else, and it damages relationships. Number three,

perfectionism destroys my happiness. It destroys my happiness. Now here's

the verse many of you probably never read before. It's

in Ecclesiastes chapter seven, Verse twenty. Excuse me, Ecclesiastes seven sixteen.

Do not be excessively righteous, and do not be overly wise?

Why should you ruin yourself? Now that verse doesn't even

sound like I should be in the Bible, does it.

He said, Hey, you can take this thing to an extreme.

He's not talking about genuine righteousness, he's not talking about

real wisdom. Solomon's talking about perfectionism because you can take

any virtue and make advice out of it by taking

it to an extreme at ignoring the balancing parts to it.

And he says, why ruin yourself? I love God's word

translation of this verse. It says, why make yourself miserable?

You see in your mind, you have this picture of

your ideal self. Ideal self is. If you want to

know what your ideal self is, it's what you put

on the job application. You know, that's your ideal self.

It's not the real you. It's it's your ideal self. Okay,

it's what you show on the first date. That's the

ideal you. Now, would you agree that there is always

a gap between the ideal and the real, between what

you want to be, what you'd like to be, what

you think you ought to be, and what you really are. Yes,

there is a major gap between the ideal and the real,

and so the ideal is always nagging the real in

your mind. And there's this ongoing conversation in your mind

all the time, saying, shape up, surely you can do

better than that. Come on, get with it. Why did

you do that again? Aren't you ever gonna change? And

it's this little scolding going on in your mind when

you're in the perfection as a mode, and you're always

saying to yourself, I'm too skinny, i'm too fat, i'm

too tall, i'm too short, i'm too uncoordinated, I'm awkward,

I'm always laid, I'm never going to change, I'm not

good at this, I'm dumb, and on and on, And

you got this tape that's playing over and over between

the ideal and the real thinking that you're going to

nag yourself into perfection. Now, does nagging work, No, it

doesn't work. It doesn't work at all. Nagging only makes

you defensive, makes the person you're nagging defensive. Now, your

worst nag lives under your skin. If your typical, you

are your own worst critic. And since we tend to

resent and even dislike people who nag us, if you're

always nagging yourself, what's that saying about you? You don't

like you, That's what I'm saying. You don't like you,

and you think that you're not good enough. And you

think by nagging yourself into what's wrong with you, that's

going to motivate you to do the right thing. Well

it's not. That's called perfectionism. And perfectionism causes you to

constantly criticize yourself, put yourself down, demean yourself, degrade yourself,

and have this conversation. Now, here's the problem. You learned

perfectionism growing up. The fact it may have been modeled

for you. Now, the good point is, since you learned it,

you can unlearn it. Right, you can unlearn it. But

what happens is many of you were perfectionists before you

became believers, and then you became a Christian. You stepped

across the line and you gave your life to Christ.

But what you did is you took that little irritating

voice there was always telling you what was wrong with you,

and you took it off a conscience, or you took

it off your parents, or you took it off whatever

culture or whatever, and you just made it God's voice.

And now you've got God all the time saying to you,

come on, can't you do any better? Why don't you

Why aren't you doing that? Why aren't you doing this?

Always telling you what's wrong? And you've mistaken it for

the voice of God. It's constant, big critic in the sky. Now,

what is the antidote to that kind of perfectionism, because

we all have it to one degree another. Well, it's

not found in any therapy, and it's not found in

any pill. There's only one antidote to perfectionism, folks. It's

not in some tape series, it's not in some psychological

pull yourself up by your bootstraps and say you know

this is great. There's only one antidote to perfectionism. Experience

the grace of God, learn to relax, in the grace

of God. Californians, particularly Southern Californians, are supposedly to be

a chilled out, laid back, casual Southern California lifestyle. Now,

those of us who live here know that that is

a big sham. That people who live in Orange County

are some of the most stressed out people in the world.

They are not chilled out and laid back. They are uptight,

stressed out, and pushing themselves constantly, always thinking I need

more time in my day. And if you had another

hour in your day, what'd you do. You'd use it

to work. You wouldn't use it to relax, You'd use

it to work. Okay, So how do you learn to

relax in the grace of God? I made a little

acrostic for you. Are elax? Our stands for realize nobody's perfect.

Now that's a no brainer, obviously, But you got to

start somewhere so you realize that nobody's perfect. Look at

this verse Psalm one, nineteen ninety six. Let's read it

aloud together. Nothing is perfect except our pastor. Oh I

didn't say that, does it? Oh? Shoot, nothing is perfect

except what God's word. That's why, By the way, you

need to build your life on this because nothing else

is perfect. What society tells you isn't perfect, what popular

opinion tells you isn't perfect. What you learn growing up

isn't perfect. But God's word is perfect. So you get

in this book, you build your life on this foundation

because this is perfect. Then you have a perfect foundation.

Now this would be a good verse for you to

put on your refrigerator. And if you are married to perfectionists,

I give you permission to do it. Nothing is perfect

except God's word. So if you spend all your time

trying to attain perfection or make any project perfect, you're

wasting your time. You've heard me say this before. Ninety

two percent is still an a. You don't have the

time and you don't have the money to be perfect

at everything, and you can't anyway, looka the next verse.

There is no one on earth who does what is

right all the time and never makes a mistake. Do

you remember a number of years ago there was a

book that came out called I'm Okay, You're Okay. Well,

the point is, folks, that's just a bunch of boloney.

It is not true. I am not okay, and you're

not You're really not okay. Okay, I mean I can

say that ally, I'm okay, you're okay, and inside I'm

going am I kidding? There are some areas of my

life that are definitely not okay. There are some areas

of your life are definitely not okay. And so all

of the little affirmations in the world are not gonna

make you okay because you were imperfect. You are not perfect.

I am not perfect. So here the point is, really

the truth is I'm not okay and you are not okay,

but because of God's grace, that's okay. That's okay. Now.

Really the truth is I'm imperfect and I got a

lot of things in my life that are not okay.

And you are imperfect. Then you have a lot of

things in your life that are not okay. But when

you accept God's grace, he says that's okay. You don't

have to be perfect. So why don't you turn to

the person next to you right now and say, I'm

imperfect and you're imperfect, but that's okay. Take it to

a total stranger right now, just go right ahead. I'm imperfect,

You're imperfect, but that's okay. Now, all right, that's enough.

You don't have to really go into it. Some of

you are going you're really, really really not okay. On

the other hand, I just saw an engagement proposal in

the bleachers, So I'm not okay. You're not okay, But

that's okay because because of God's grace. Now what does

that mean? Does that mean God isn't interested in my growth?

Of course, he wants me to grow. Does that mean

I don't have to repent. No, of course you have

to repent. Does that mean God doesn't want me to

change and work on areas? No, he wants you to change. Grace.

When God says you're okay because of My grace, that

does not mean you could keep on just being a

jerk the rest of your life. No, it just means

that God isn't waiting for you to change for him

to love you. God is not waiting for you to

change for him to say you're okay. If you accept

his grace, you realize that nobody's perfect. The E in

relax stands for enjoy. I need to enjoy God's unconditional love.

Look at this verse first John three to one. Read

it with me. See how very much our heavenly Father

loves us for he allows us to be called his children.

Think of it, and we really are circle the word children,

because when you become a believer, when you become a

follower of Christ, you're not just a servant of God anymore.

You are a child of God. See a lot of

people think, well, I give my life to Christ and

the rest of my life I'm going to serve him. Well,

sure you are, you're going to serve the Lord. But

you're more than a servant, oh much much more than

a servant. You're now a child of the King. You've

joined the royal family, You're one of God's family, and

you're a child of God. Here's the difference. A servant

is accepted and appreciated on the basis of what he does.

A child is accepted and appreciated on the basis of

who he is. A servant starts the day anxious and worried,

wondering if his work will please his master, but a

child rests in the secure love of his family. A

servant is accepted because of his workmanship, but a child

is accepted because of his relationship. A servant is accepted

because of his productivity and performance. But a child is

accepted because of his position in the family. At the

end of a day, a servant has peace of mind

only if he's proven his worth by his work, But

the next morning the anxiety begins again. A child can

be secure all day knowing that tomorrow won't change his status.

When a servant fails, his whole position is at stake.

In fact, he might lose his job. But when a

child fails, he's grieved because he's hurt his parents, and

he'll be corrected and disciplined, But he's not afraid of

being thrown out of the family, and his confidence in

belonging and in being loved is based not on his performance,

but on the stability of his position as a child

of God. God says, I want you to enjoy the

unconditional love of God wants you become a part of

his family. Now, those of you who are parents, are

your kids perfect not? Do you still love them? Yes,

you love them in spite of their imperfection. And when

a two year old brings you a picture, or a

three year old and it's all messy, you'd say, this

is a picture of a cow, and you say, honey,

that's perfect. What you're saying, is that's perfect for that

stage of your maturity. You're not saying it's Picasso. You're

saying it's perfect for where you're at. Now, let me

ask those of your parents. Do you love your children

at every stage of their growth? Or are you waiting

until they're mature first? And once they reach maturity then

you go, now, I love you. Some of you think

God's waiting on you to grow up before he's ever

gonna smile on you, before he's ever gonna give you

the thumbs up sign and say you're okay. I like you. No,

God loves you at every stage of your growth because

his unconditional love is unconditional. Now, I want you to

write this down. If you don't get anything else, write

this down. I don't have to be perfect for God

to love me. I don't have to be perfect for

God to love me.

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