Rick Warren - Growing a Heart Like Jesus—Part Two

Welcome to Pastor Rick's Daily Hope. We are so glad

you're with us today. This is the Bible teaching ministry

of Rick Warren, and today we're bringing Rick's powerful series

called the Jesus Model to a close. In these lessons,

Rick walks you step by step through the process of

true Biblical discipleship, giving you practical tools to grow spiritually,

experience God's peace, live with greater purpose, and become more

like Jesus in every area of your life. Okay, and

let's join Rick right now for the final part of

a message called growing a Heart like Jesus.

If you want to have a heart like Jesus, you

want to develop heart like Jesus.

This one's going to shock you even more.

Not only have to care what Jesus cares about, and

you have to be indifferent to what Jesus is indifferent about.

Number three, you must get angry about what Jesus gets

angry about. You must get angry about what Jesus gets

angry about. You say, wait a minute, I thought anger

was a sin. Isn't it like a deadly sin? Well,

the wrong kind of anger is. But there's a right

and wrong anger. There's a good anger, and there's a

bad anger. There's a righteous anger, there's no unrighteous anger.

In fact, the Bible makes the difference in Ephesians four

to twenty six. It says, be angry without sinning. You

mean I can get angry without sinning. Yes, you can,

if it's the right kind. What's the difference between the

right and the wrong kind of anger? The wrong kind

of anger is selfish anger, self sinnered anger. It's the

kind of anger that when I get angry, it's because

you've hurt me, you've frustrated me, or you've made me afraid.

That's the three sources of human anger. Frustration, hurt, and fear.

And if you make me.

Afraid, you scare me, I get angry. If you hurt me,

I get angry if you if you confuse me, I'm confused.

I'm frustrated. Then I can get angry.

God says no, no, that's the illegitimate kind, because then it's

all about you, your wounded pride.

He said.

The right kind of anger is the anger that's based

in love, which says, I love, and therefore I'm angry

about this. When you see, for instance, two million young

girls who are sold in the sex slave trade every

year around the world. Somebody ought to get angry about that.

That's wrong. Somebody ought to get angry about it. When

we see people suffering when other people have so much,

somebody ought to get angry about that. When we see injustice,

when we see poverty, when we see prejudice, when we

see things aren't being fair, somebody ought to get angry

about that. See, a lot of people don't realize that

anger is not always a sin. God gets angry, and

if anger is a sin, then God sins.

But he doesn't. It's a righteous anger.

One day, I'm going to write a sermon I'm going

to deliver to you called What makes Jesus Mad. Maybe

i'll call it what Ticks Jesus Off, because there's actually

a chapter in the Bible where he really gets mad

at the religious leaders, the legalist, the fundamentalist, the bigots,

the phonies, the pharisees, the hypocrites, and he does a

series of woes and he says, woe to you for this,

and woe to you for that. He's really letting it him.

I mean, he's canning their hide and he really lets

it out. By the way, Jesus never got angry with unbelievers,

you know, people for their sin.

He got angry with religious.

People who wouldn't trust him, who claimed to follow him

but didn't, who acted one way and did another, who

put burdens on people that they themselves wouldn't hold up to,

who tried to use a religion to make money, who

profited personally from God's word with and made it a

business instead of seeing it as a ministry. He got

upset with religious people. In fact, twice he went to

the temple, and the Bible says he cleansed the temple

because they had turned the temple into a flea market,

and they had made all these rules where you had

to go sacrifice, and poor people would come and couldn't

afford to buy an animal to be sacrificed, or a

bird or whatever. And people out had set up these

tables to sell these things, so that your forgiveness was

based on you buying this stuff, and they jack up

the price, and Jesus got ticked. And when they were

walking through the temple and using it as a shortcut

to get to the other side of town.

He said, hold on time out.

My house will be called the house of prayer. You've

turned this thing into a dent of thieves. And Jesus

gets out there and he falls off the handle. He

starts throwing over the money changer's temple, the tables, and

they're throwing stuff around.

And cleaning the place out.

Most of you don't have an image of Jesus throwing

furniture in your mind. But he did. And that is

not the image of gentle Jesus. Meek and mild, you see.

Some of you.

The only vision of Jesus you got is this sissy Jesus,

who every little curl is in place, and there's no

spot on this perfectly white robe. And he walks the

hills of Jerusalem, skipping and picking flowers and talking about

peace and love in a soft voice. No, Jesus was

a man's man. Remember First he was a carpenter. He

worked thirty years in the carpenter shop. He hung out

with fishermen who weren't exactly you know, cultured people.

And Jesus threw furniture.

Why because there's some things in life you need to

get mad at. When things are wrong, when things are evil,

when things are unjust, are unfair. Let me give you

a couple of things that Jesus gets mad about that.

If you're gonna be used by God, you're gonna have

to get mad about him too. There's gonna be some

things in your life you're gonna have to get angry about.

Number One, Jesus gets angry when the needs of children

go unmet. Jesus gets angry when the needs of children

go unmet.

Very few instances.

In the Bible made Jesus more upset than these instances

with children. In Matthew Chen verse thirteen and fourteen, it

says people brought children to Jesus hoping that he might

touch them, in other words, just to bless these little ones.

But the disciples scolded them. He said, get out of here,

you guys. Shoot, get out.

The Master doesn't want to see you guys. Get out

of here.

And it is pushing the people who brought their children

away and pushing the children away. And it says when

Jesus saw this, he was indignant, circle indignant. He gets

ticked off, he's mad, and he said, don't you push

these children away. Don't you ever get between them and me.

These children are at the very center of life in

the kingdom. When children are mistreated, misused, abused, uncared for,

and their needs going met. God gets mad.

Don't you? He said?

These children are the kingdom of God. They are the

kingdom of God. Look at this verse up here on

the screen. Here's another verse where Jesus that anyone who

causes the downfall of one of these little ones, you

cause them to go astray and their needs aren't.

Mad and they fall away.

Says one of these little ones, it would be better

to be thrown into the sea with a giant millstone

hung around his neck. So what are you really feeling, Jesus?

He said, don't you ever dare hurt a child? And

if you don't meet their needs, you go off and

you build your career at to expense your kids. I'm

ticked at you. You go off and build your reputation

or have your fun and leave the kids in the

lurch because you want to go have an affair or

sometime you're in trouble. He said, you need to care

about little kids. Why because Jesus said, they are the

kingdom of God.

These little ones are the future.

If you have served in children's ministry at Saddleback in

any time, or you served in student ministry in anytime,

I'd like.

You to just stand up so I could honor you

and we could express our appreciation. Children are student ministry

in anytime. Great, thank you, thank you.

Oh there's another thing that makes Jesus mad, and that

is when the suffering of others is ignored. When the

suffering of others is ignored, and in Luke eleven forty six,

Jesus says, woe to you, because you load down people

with burdens they can hardly carry, and you, yourselves will

not even lit the finger to help them. Half the

world lives on less than two dollars a day, a

billion people on one dollar a day.

What are we doing to help them? Let's just go

back to children for just a minute.

You know, every single day, every twenty four hours, thirty

thousand children are in the world die from preventable diseases.

Thirty thousand a day.

This is not like having aids or others. It's very

preventable diseases. It's like measles, mumps, cough typhus, malaria, stuff

nobody gets here in America, or at least dies from

thirty thousand children.

Do you know what the number one killer of children

is in the world. It's diarrhea. You know where that

comes from? Bad water? They just don't have clean drinking water.

How simple is that?

One thirty thousand children die every day from preventable diseases. Now,

about three years ago, there were this big tsunami in

Southeast Asia when two hundred and forty thousand people died.

From that huge tidal wave.

We all remember that, and the world opened up its

arms and poured resources in there to help those poor people.

But do you know that in the world we have

a tsunami with children every eight days, two hundred and

forty thousand children boom, they're gone. Why because we don't

have people angry.

Enough to say enough's enough. We're gonna stop this.

We're not gonna go another year losing two hundred and

forty thousand.

Kids needlessly every week.

It's unacceptable. But nothing's gonna happen. Do we get angry?

Do you know that right here in Orange County we

have about three thousand children awaiting foster care. They need

to be put in a stable home because of abuse, violence, guns, drugs.

And other things.

Three thousand children they didn't to nothing of their own fault.

You know, in our church we have four thousand small groups,

and we've got them in every city's other California. If

every small group on our church said we'll take responsibility

for one foster children child, we wipe.

That out one week, there wouldn't be a waiting list.

But it's not gonna happen to We get angry about

the suffering of others that is ignored, about the needs

of children, that goes unmat and so when we talk

about these things, it's not a matter of charity, it's.

A matter of justice.

God is not just a god of charity. God is love,

but God is also a just God. That's why sin

has to be punished, and God says, when this isn't fair,

it needs to be made right. So we have to

care about justice in the world, and that means sometimes

getting angry out of love. If somebody tried to hurt

or rape my wife, I'd get angry. If somebody tried

to hurt or abuse my children and grandchildren, I'd get angry.

Why it is my God assigned responsibility as a husband

and his father to protect my wife and children and grandchildren.

That's my job. I am to protect them according to

God's word. And there are some things in life that

if you don't get angry, it means you're not very loving.

It means you're apathetic.

It means you don't understand justice. God is looking for

people to use and he doesn't care how little talent

you've got. He doesn't care what you've done in the past,

how much you've blown it, you screwed it up, you

messed up, things you've been ashamed of.

He says, where's your heart? Now?

God's looking at the heart. And if you say, use me,

God will make you a world changer. Now we've got

to care about what Jesus cares about. We couldn't care

less about what Jesus doesn't care about, be indifferent to it.

We've got to get angry about the things that are

worthy of getting angry about. But then that's got to

move into action. And the fourth thing we have to

do is we have to sacrifice for what Jesus sacrificed.

Jesus said, I didn't come to be served. I didn't

come to live a selfish life. I came to serve

and to give my life as a sacrifice as.

A ransom for many. Now here's the amazing thing.

If you will make the switch from living for yourself

to living for Jesus Christ and his agenda, your happiness

meter is going to go off the record.

It's going to go way into the red zone.

Why because God has wired the universe that the more

we become like him, giving, generous, unselfish, the happier we get.

There are two kinds of people in life. They are

takers and givers. And everybody knows takers are miserable. They

live these little selfish clod of a life, and they're

never satisfied, and they're always angry, they're always uptight and

always irritated.

With everybody else.

And then they're givers who walk around living life to

the fullest, understanding the meaning of life, full of happiness.

You live for yourself, you're miserable, you give your life away.

You're happy. You see.

Real self esteem does not come from what the world

tells you. You want to feel good about you, You

want to like you, You want to feel your life matters,

that your life is important, and you want to feel

good about out yourself. Nothing wrong with that, it's how

you try to fulfill it. You will never find self

esteem through status symbols doesn't work. You will never find

self esteem through salary, because somebody will always make more

than you do. You will never find self esteem feeling

good about yourself through multiple sexual partners. Self esteem does

not come from status, sex, or salary.

It comes from service.

It comes from sacrificing yourself for something greater than you.

Sacrificial service. Jesus said it like this, Mark eight. If

you try to keep your life for yourself, you will

lose it. You lose the meaning of it, you lose

the purpose of it, you lose the joy of it.

You waste your life.

But if you give up your life, in other words,

you sacrifice it for something greater than yourself. For if

you give up your life for my sake, for Jesus,

and for the sake of the Good News, go everywhere

to everyone, you will find true life. Now, this is

what the Peace Plan that we've been doing for five

years is all about. The Peace Plan is not our plan.

It's the Jesus Plan. It's the five things Jesus did

when he was here on earth. We just call it

peace plan. When Jesus was here on earth, he did

five things in giving himself away, besides dying on the cross. Obviously,

as our savior. You can't do that, but you can

do these five things that he modeled. First, he went

out and he helped people get right with God and

write with each other. He said, build a bridge to God. Actually,

God build a bridge to you through Christ.

You don't build that bridge.

And then you build a bridge to other people. He says,

make peace with God, make peace with others. That's called reconciliation.

And the Bible says God has given us the ministry

of reconciliation. That means helping people get to know and

have peace with God and get to know and have

peace with other people.

Promote reconciliation. That's the pee and peace.

And then he equipped leaders because everything rises or falls

on leadership. And he trained twelve disciples, and then he

trained seventy two more and we talked about how he

trained them. You can do that. Everybody is a leader,

just in different ways. You're a leader in your family,

you're a leader with your friends. The leadership is just influence,

and we can teach you how to teach leadership, how

to teach purpose driven life. And then he assisted the

Poor Jesus first sermon. We covered that in this series

where the very first sermon in his hometown. He says,

the first since spirit of the Lord has spawned me

to preach good news to the poor. Does God have favorites? Yes,

he loves the poor. And God says, I've blessed you

to be a blessing to others. What are you doing

for the poor? I'm watching to see what you're going

to do with all I've given you. And then Jesus

cared for the sick, and the Bible says Jesus went

into every village preaching, teaching, and healing. Of his ministry

was preaching, that's sharing the good news. One third of

his ministry was teaching. That's education. He was a teacher,

And one third of his ministry was health care.

He was a healer.

I mentioned this last week. That's the reason why you

go in almost any country, first school and the first

hospitals are almost always started by Christian missionaries, because our

faith is a preaching, teaching, healing faith. Jesus taught us

he's not just cared about the soul. He cares about

the mind, education, he cares about the body, health care,

and he cares about the spirit salvation. And that's what

we teach. That's what Saddleback's all about. Preaching, teaching, and healing.

Jesus is our teacher, our savior, and our healer. So

we value education, we value health care, and we value

salvation because God cares about it all.

Body, mind, and spirit. And then he educated the young

and we just looked at those passages said let the

young people come to me. They are the kingdom of God.

And he wanted them to grow up because ignorance is

a prison that keeps people from becoming all God wants

them to be. You want to leave a legacy. You

want your life to count. You want to make a

difference with your life. You want people to know that

what you did mattered than just your lifetime.

Do what Jesus did. Peace.

I wish I had time to tell you stories from India,

from Guatemala, from Argentina. I wish I had time to

tell you stories of the Peace Plan in all the

different churches that we're working in around the world. Did

you know that in Psalm chapter two, verse eight, there's

a verse It's an amazing promise where God says this.

He says, if you'll just ask me, I will use

you to change the world. That's all you got it

is ask, He says, If you'll ask me, I will

actually use you to change entire nations.

Look at the verse. It's here on the screen, he says.

Only ask, Just to ask. God says, and I'll give you.

The nations as your inheritance and the ends of the

earth as your possessions. You'll go everywhere to everyone. Saddleback

is the church that has decided to take that verse series,

And so we're asking. We start asking a group of

people years ago saying, God give us the whole world.

Let us reach out to every nation, and I invite

you to join us.

That's powerheads.

Dear Jesus Christ, I love you so much, and if

you never did anything else for me, I owe you

the rest of my life. And I want you to know,

whether anybody else says yes or not, today I'm in.

I am all yours. I'm saying, use me.

I want to be used whenever, wherever, however, in any

way you want. And I want you to change my

heart to be more and more like Jesus every day.

I want to care about what Jesus cares about, and

he cares about everybody in the world, even the people

we don't like.

Or agree with. Help me to be loving to everybody.

And I want to love the Church, Lord, the way

you do your family, your flock, your bride, your body

that you died for. Forgive me for times I've used

the church and not loved it. Lord, helped me to

be indifferent to the things that you're indifferent to, to

not care about what the world thinks is so important

but isn't even going to last till next week. I'm

going to keep my eyes on the thing that matter most.

And God, help me to be angry about what I

should be angry about. When I see prejudice, when I

see injustice, when I see little children hurt, abused, misused

or unloved, when I see talent wasted and poor people

caught in a trap. When we see suffering people in

refugee camps, people who want it education but can't afford it.

Help me to get angry about the evil that's in

the world, and then move me in love to sacrifice

whatever it takes in time and money and energy and reputation.

Thy will be done in my life.

If that prayer represents your prayer, you just now say

me too, God, what Rick has prayed me too? Lord,

we look forward to the next eighteen months and what

You're going to do in our church, and I look

forward to the exciting miracles and blessings that will happen

in lives and families and homes as we become more

and more.

Totally dedicated to You. In your name, I pray Amen.

That was such an encouraging message from Pastor Rick. And

now to encourage us more, here's Rick with a letter

from one of our listeners.

You know, I really like to end these broadcasts by

reading some of the letters that come in from you.

They always encourage me, and I think when I read

and they encourage you. This one's from a woman named Joy.

She says, thank you so much Pastor Rick for the

daily Hope devotional messages that are emailed to me. They

helped me get through tough times. She said, I feel

like I didn't have the right to question God, but

I wondered why He was letting me expo all these things.

But now through these devotionals, I look on what's happening

as a challenge for my betterment. And I may not

know all of God's reasons in this moment, but I

believe that God will not let me down, and instead

I believe He'll guide me in the right path where

his help, his guidance, his forgiveness, and his blessings and

his prayers are always abundant.

Thank you signed Joy. Well, thank you Joy.

I'm encouraged by your faith, and I know other people

will be too who hear this letter. You know we

can always trust that God's in control even when we

don't understand why things are happening. And it blesses me

when I hear people like you finding hope. That's the

whole purpose of this program. Thanks for listening today and

join me next time as we continue looking in God's

word for our daily hope.

To sign up for Rick's free daily devotional, go to

Pastorick dot com. That's 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 Daily Hope and

your generous financial support.

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