Rick Warren - How Did the World Get So Messed Up — Part Four

You know, we really live in a world that's full

of competing beliefs and values and choices, and what you

believe shapes how you live and ultimately who you become.

But the good news is God hasn't left us to

figure it all out alone.

No.

In fact, today, on Pastor Rick's Daily Hope, we're going

to continue our series Reframing Your Worldview, where Rick Warren

unpacks powerful truths from God's Word to help you see

life clearly and live it with confidence and purpose. And

now here's Pastor Rick with the final part of a

message called how did the world get so messed Up?

You know how a parent grieves when they see their

child messing up, and they see their child really blowing

their life. Multiply that a zillion times with God going,

I created them, I love them, And they're walking away

like they don't even know, and they're hurting each other,

and they're abusing each other, and they're being mean to

each other, and they're killing each.

Other, and on and on.

Somebody who finally came to Christ after putting up with

a lot of pain, don't want you to hear her story?

Would you give her a warm welcome?

I was born three months premature with some physical deformities,

so growing up I felt different than everyone else. My

mom tried to make me feel special, but her actions

instead made me feel inferior. Mom was always on a

diet and continually took appetite suppressants. Since I wanted to

be beautiful like my mom, I started taking them too.

At the age of five, I was already controlling my

food intake and headed for a life of anorexia. I

would take the meat on my dinner plate and put

it under my booster seat because it had fat on it.

Growing up, I never got to see what healthy relationship

look like. All my relationships were pretty much shallow and

superficial and broken. I could give you plenty of evidence

that we live in a fallen world. My parents fought

a lot. Then my dad abandoned our family for another woman.

After that, my mom would drink and take out her

anger on us kids with violent behavior. Many times I

felt helpless, abandoned, depressed, guilty, and scared. In school, my

brother and I learned to stop, drop and roll during

a fire, so we used that same technique at home

to protect ourselves from our mother's blows. As mom's drinking worsened.

I felt I needed to take control of our family.

I would sneak change out of my mom's wallet, ride

my bike to the corner store, buy dinner, and then

sneak the change back into my mom's wallet before she

would wake up. Eventually, my brother and I went to

live with my dad's stepmom and three stepbrothers, but I

didn't learn anything about healthy relationships there either. I became

the object of my older stepbrother's abuse and meanness, with

such pranks as flushing my hamster down the toilet and

putting my cat in the freezer alive. I felt violated

and angry. I became a prisoner in my own home,

running as fast as I could to my bedroom when

I got home from school and wouldn't come out except

for dinner. When my mom remarried, I was finally able

to move back in with her. In high school, I

engaged in many shallow relationships based on physical appearance. It

didn't matter if the boys were drug addicts, alcoholics, or

only wanted sex. I dated them if they were cute.

When my brother became very good looking, I noticed that

girls befriended me to get to him and When the

kids at school learned that we had some famous relatives,

they all wanted to be our friends. These experiences confirmed

my inner feelings that no one really liked me for me.

My fear of rejection made me feel very insecure and

defensive in my search for an authentic relationship as a

broken person in a broken world. I met my husband

not long after graduating high school. He was tall, gorgeous, athletic,

and very quiet. As we did Ken made derogatory comments

about me. This reconfirmed my low self image and feelings

of being different, deformed, and ugly, but I hid these

fears beneath a mask of being fun, hilarious, and outgoing.

I felt that I could earn his love this way

since I had found conditional acceptance in the workplace as

an overachiever and boss pleaser. So I tried my best

to impress Ken. But three months after we moved in together,

I caught Ken and a lie and he admitted he

had cheated on me. I was heartbroken and furious, but

I didn't end the relationship. We eventually got married, but

we both wore masks to hide our weaknesses from each other.

Our relationship was shallow and superficial. I controlled everything. One

day I told Ken it was time to have children.

I figured that was what was missing in our relationship.

But during my pregnancy I gained a lot of weight

and four of my teeth fell out. Ken became disgusted

with my appearance and turned to pornographic videos that only

made me feel more inferior, ugly, and unacceptable. Ken told

me how unhappy he was and how it was all

my fault, but he agreed to go to marriage counseling.

After four months of counseling, Ken admitted he was having

another affair. I hit bottom. I was in shock and

lost all sense of reality. That depressing night, I was

completely emptied of myself. I asked God to fill my

empty body with himself and to show me where I

could learn about Jesus. The following Sunday, I took Lauren,

our daughter now too, to find Jesus. Right down the

street from our home was a large church. As I

made my way up the driveway, I kept yelling to God,

are you sure this is where you want me to go?

As I entered the worship center. Here at Saddleback, the

music was beautiful. Pastor Rick had planned a message on

building better relationships and sex and marriage. This service was

just for me. I tried to write down everything being said,

but there wasn't enough room on the bulletin. I saw

there was a tape table and got that day's message.

Ken listened to it at home, but said it was

too late. He said, if only I had found out

about this church sooner, things may have been different. I

didn't agree. I knew i'd found a home at Saddleback.

Ken and I did try counseling once more through a

lay counselor here at Saddleback, but Ken said there was

no hope of keeping our marriage together.

He was in love with his girlfriend.

He said that he had actually been with her for

four of the six years we were married. A few

days later, in Class one oh one here at Saddleback,

I reflected on this and thought, I hate men, all men.

I am never going to make myself vulnerable to another

man again, and I am never going to trust another

man as long as I live.

But before I could finish.

That thought, Pastor Brett said, everybody, look up here. Your

father in Heaven loves you. He wants you to put

all your trust in one man, Jesus Christ who died

on the cross so you could live forever with him.

I knew God had spoken to me At that very moment.

I committed my life to Christ and I was baptized.

The following weekend. At my baptism, Pastor Brett told me

that Master John of celebrate Recovery would be baptizing me.

I thought, I can't imagine being in recovery, let alone

being able to celebrate it. There were just too many

painful experiences in my life. The following week Ken decided

to leave me and stay with his girlfriend. I felt helpless,

completely rejected, and I fell into a very deep depression.

In despair, I bought two bottles of sleeping pills to

end it all. Relationships just weren't worth the pain, I thought.

But then I got a call from the lay counselor

whom Ken and I had seen a month before. He

said he was following up on our visit at the

lowest point in my life. He was like an angel

sent from God to me. I told him I had

been baptized and that Ken had moved out. I did

not tell him I was going to kill myself right then.

He said he was so sorry about Ken. And that

he had been praying for us. I could not believe

that this person we saw maybe two times was praying

for us. God was reminding me that even though I'd

been rejected by my husband, that God loved me, that

my life does matter, and that God did not want

me dead.

He was not finished with my life.

The next day, I decided to attend celebrate recovery here

at Saddlebach for the first time. I cried all night

that first night, but one lady, Debby, gave me a

big hug and told me she was exactly where I

was two years prior. Another woman, Lisa, gave me a

hug and a phone list of our small group. She

said I could call her any time. I taped my

small group's phone list on my kitchen cabinet and thanked

God for twenty women who knew exactly what I was feeling.

I was no longer alone in my small group. I

began to learn about what it takes to build a

deep relationship with Jesus and healthy relationships with others. I

learned about how our fears keep us from being authentic

with each other, and how to break.

Down the walls of isolation.

Slowly, God began to replace unhealthy beliefs and reactions with

healthy ones. For the first six months, I continued in

a deep depression and a huge pity party, but everyone

in my small group just kept loving me unconditionally. I

had a difficult time understanding this because it was the

first time that I had experienced unconditional love. Based on

Pastor Rick's list of the results of living in a

fallen world, I guess you could say that I was

batting one thousand percent. I experienced them all. Disasters, deformities,

decay and death, distress and disappointment, distance and discord in relationships,

discontent with my life, and spiritual darkness. But I am

so grateful to Jesus Christ for this church family and

my recovery small group. My small group has been a

safe place to develop healthy relationships and recover from the

effects of sin in my past. As a result, I've

seen so many of my broken relationships restored, including with

my mom, my dad, my stepmom, one of my stepbrothers,

and my own brother and sister in law. And God

has used me to help them too. A few years ago,

I gave my test ammonia at celebrate recovery. That very night,

my stepdad had a heart attack. Two days later, my

stepsister and I went to visit him, and I was

able to pray with him and lead him to Christ.

I know now that Jesus will never leave me or

reject me. He loves me unconditionally, and with the security

that comes from that kind of love, I would no

longer run or hide from my feelings. Of course, I

still struggle with issues, but I remember this is not heaven,

which is perfect. It's Earth where we are getting ready

for heaven. I'm grateful that God gave me a choice,

showed me my need for a savior, and demonstrated his

grace to me. Enclosing, I'd like to share three Bible

verses that describe how Jesus Christ has transformed my life.

Psalm one sixteen eight says you, O, Lord, have delivered

my soul from death, my eyes from tears, and my

feet from stumbling. Zephaniah three seventeen says the Lord, your

God is with you. He is mighty to save. He

will take great delight in you. He will quiet you

with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing

and Psalm thirty one fourteen says Lord, I trust you.

I have said you are my God, and my life

is in your hands.

Thank you.

Yes, there is a lot of pain in this world.

There's a lot of suffering in this world. There's a

lot of grief in this world, and it's because of

sin and evil. They are realities. But God is still

in control and he's moving history because it's his story

to where he wants to take it, and he's waiting

for people to come to him.

In the Bible, Jesus is often.

Called the Lamb of God, the Lamb of God because

in the Old Testament, the Jewish nation would sacrifice lambs

to represent an atonement or a payment for the sins

of people on the day of Atonement Yam Kapur, and

they would sacrifice lambs to say, this is paying for

the sins of our lives. And Jesus came to pay

for the sins of everybody, so there's no need for

animal sacrifice. And one day John is baptizing at the

Jordan River and he sees Jesus coming and he says,

behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin

of the world, the sin that caused all that pain.

The Lamb of God takes away that sin. There was

a little church in the former Soviet Union that was

given permission to meet in the building that they had

been able to meet in for a long long time,

because obviously, under communism, atheism.

Was the rule.

There is no God, there is no Jesus, and there

is no heaven or hell or anything like that, and.

They were allowed to start meeting.

They'd been faithful believers all through all all that persecution

and torture and pain, and they'd put up with enormous suffering.

During the communist regime.

And when they were finally allowed to put a nameplate

on the building they had been secretly meeting in, they

met one night and they said.

What are we going to call our church? And what

are we going to put on the sign that we

survived all of this?

And one man spoke up and he said, I'm an

artist and I know what to do, and I will

bring a sign tomorrow night. So the next day he

returned with a sign and they nailed it above their

little church, and the sign simply said this.

The Lamb one, the Lamb one God is allowing.

Everything to continue because he is the Lamb of God

who takes away the sin of the world.

So how should I respond? Write these down real quick?

I'm just going to mention themnumber one, since God is

delaying the end of this earth in order to show

his grace. First, receive God's grace daily. Receive it daily.

You don't need grace just to be saved and get

into Heaven. You need grace every day to live God's

grace in your life. And the Bible says this through

the sin of one man, that's Adam. Death began to

rule because of that one man. Because Adam blew it.

Everybody else is in the same boat. But now how

much greater is the result of what one other man,

what has done by one other man? Jesus Christ, and

all who receive God's abundant grace are freely put right

with him and will rule in life through Christ. If

you haven't received that grace, you do it before you

leave today. Number two, Remember this place is temporary. This

planet is not your permanent home. Don't get too caught

up or enamored with the things of this world because

none of it's gonna last.

Nothing you see is gonna last.

The only thing that's gonna last on this planet are

God's Word and people, and so the Bible says this,

I'm here on earth for just a little while, thank God,

with all the pain that's in it. And this world

is not our home. We're looking forward to our everlasting

home in heaven, where there is no injustice, there is

no sorrow, there is no pain, there is no rape,

there is no murder, there is no adultery, there is

no abortion, there is no killing, there is no racial prejudice.

God's taking us to a place a whole lot better.

Now you look at the Word and think this is

a pretty good place. Imagine what a perfect place is like.

Number three, reject man made solutions.

Reject man made solutions.

You see it because you live in a fallen world.

It has a very profound effect on you. And that

effect is this, you have unmet needs because this is

an imperfect place. You have unmet sexual needs. You have

unmet financial needs. You have unmet personal needs. You have

unmet relational needs, the need to be loved and cherished

and understood completely. You have unmet emotional needs because you

live in a fallen planet. You have unmet spiritual needs.

You have unmet physical needs. Now the temptation is well

I'll just go out and figure out a way to

meet these needs in my own way. Do not give

into that temptation man made solutions.

My needs are not being met.

So I'm just going to go out ignore what God says,

and I'm going to do what I need to do

to meet my needs. And God says, that's a major mistake.

The Bible says this, my people have done two evil things.

They have forsaken me the fountain of living water, and

they have dug for themselves cracked cisterns that can hold

no water at all.

Do you know what a cistern is.

You dig a hole in the ground in a clay

area and you put water in it. It's not a well.

A well has water bubbling up from the bottom of

it a spring. A cistern is in a lot of

desert areas. They just dig into the clay in the

ground and then they carry water in and they pour

it in there. And now water over time gets brackish

and fetied, and you know, bacteria and stale. And God says,

wait a minute, I am the source of living water.

I'm the source of your life, and I'm here to

fill you with all this.

And you reject that, and you.

Turn, you go after brackish cistern water which can't even

hold anything, and it's cracked and it leaks out into

the dirt. You say, reject man made solutions.

Come to me now.

If you have not released your needs to God, you

need to do it right now.

So I want us to bow our heads and we're

going to pray. Dear God. I know there are all

kinds of needs in our church.

You know the heart of every person here, and you

know the things that hurt.

In our lives.

You know the pain, You know the suffering, You know

the lonely times, you know the fears and the insecurities.

You know our worries. You know everything about us. You

know the problems we have because we live in a

fallen world.

And you care.

And so I pray that today many will open their

hearts to Jesus Christ for the very first time and say, God,

I want to be in your family before you shut

down this planet and before we go into eternity. Now

you pray, say, Dear God, I open my life to you.

Thank you for loving me, thank you for creating me.

I want to receive your grace today. There are things

in my life. I want to change, but I don't

seem to have the power to do it. I need

a savior. I need to be forgiven, and I ask

you to forgive me. And I ask you to give

me the power to change for good, to be a

better person, not a bitter person. Help me to remember

that this place is temporary and that you made me

to last forever. I want to be a part of

your family, and so, Jesus Christ, I put my trust

and faith in you, not in myself, but in you

to save me.

In your name, I pray Amen. There's one other thing

you need to do.

You might want to write it down on this outline,

and it's reach out.

With God's love.

In other words, once you know the meaning and purpose

of life, and once you know the good news that

we can be forgiven, God says, I want you to

tell others.

That's why I'm waiting.

I'm waiting for your family to step across the line.

I'm waiting for your friends to step across the line.

I'm waiting for your neighbors to step across the line.

And I'm waiting on you to tell them. The Bible

says this, look up here on the screen. Go out

into the world uncorrupted, a breath of fresh air in

the squalid and polluted society. Provide people with a glimpse

of good living and of the living God. Carry the

light giving message into the night. That's why we're here,

to carry the message into the night to people who

haven't heard it yet.

And one more verse on the screen.

Talking about testifying of God's love. You'll sing God's praises

to everyone you meet, testifying. I'm messed up my life

and it wasn't worth I'll tell you. Let me tell

you it wasn't worth it, but God stepped in and

saved me, and I'm alive again. Hi everybody, this is

Rick and I hope you enjoyed today's broadcast. You know,

if you just prayed that prayer for the very first time,

or you just recommitted your life to Jesus again today,

would you let me know about it. There's something real

about sharing your commitment. So write me Rick at pastor

Rick dot com and say, Rick, I prayed that prayer

of commitment, I gave my life to Christ. And I'll

send you some material that will help you on your

journey with Jesus. And I'll also pray for you. God

bless you.

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

I always take away from his message. Now here's Rick

with today's offer.

You know, I've been a pastor for over three decades,

and I've been teaching the Word of God for over

four decades. And in all of that time, the number

one question I've been asked by people is this, how

can I change? Or why can't I change? I've talked

to literally thousands and thousands of people who want to

change but are just stuck and they can't figure out

how to get unstuck. You know, the truth is you

can't change on your own because will power alone isn't

enough to make permanent changes. Sure, you can force yourself

to change for a month or two months, but pretty

soon you're going to go back to your old ways.

Pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps is not enough.

Talking yourself into a change by positive thinking is not enough.

The Bible says, true transformational change only comes through the

power of God inside you. So let me ask your

personal question, how do you want to be different at

the end of this year? What changes would you like

to make in your life? What goals would you like

to see accomplished in your life. Well, it isn't going

to happen on your own. You're going to need God's

power and I want you to understand how to plug

in to God's power. That's why I'm sending out God's

Power to Change your Life, a book that I've written.

When you give a financial gift to support Daily Hope

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