Rick Warren - What’s the Solution Part Two

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. All right,

here's Rick with part two of a message called What's

the Solution.

Here's a third attitude of the heart, a heart disease.

It's alienation. Alienation.

An alienation means I feel disconnected, and a lot of

people feel disconnected.

I feel disconnected from God.

They feel disconnected from other people, their friends, their family.

Many people are married and feel disconnected from their spouse.

To go, I just don't understand you and I feel

like we're in two different worlds. That's part of the

cause of sin and evil in our world. It causes

a breach in relationships. We talked about that in detail

last week. Now, as a result of that alienation in

the heart, that many people feel. Many people here's the symptom.

They feel aimless and lonely. They feel actually lonely. Loneliness

is what it is. Loneliness. It says, I can't really

get close to anybody. Most people have never really experienced

genuine intimacy in their life, that soul, the soul, heart

to heart companionship. And they feel separated. They feel like

they're detached. And of course, before you accepted the Lord

into your life, that's the way you were with God.

The Bible says this here on the screen. Once you

were alienated from God and you were enemies in your

mind because of your evil behavior Colossians one twenty one.

And so alienation creates loneliness.

You know, here in America we have so valued, so

valued the American spirit of independence, that we have created

the greatest generation of loneliness in history. There are a

lot of lonely people today, and a lot of them

are married, and they're still lonely because it's a problem

in the heart. Fourth heart disease confusion. Confusion in the

heart creates a feeling aimless in life. In other words,

I don't really know where I am, where I came from,

where I'm going a lot of people just kind of

drift through life. They say, you know, I don't have

any goal. I don't know what my purpose is. I

don't know what the meaning of my life is. The

fact is, most people in life live aimless lives of distraction,

and they just kind of drift through life. Now, you know,

the thing is, the longer you've been a follower of

Jesus Christ and you've found and discovered your purpose in life,

you forget how lousy you felt before you became a believer.

You forget how miserable it feels to get up in

the morning, going is this all there is? Get up

in the morning, go to work, come home, watch TV,

go to bed, get up in the morning, come to work,

go to work, come home, go to bed, go to

a party on the weekend. Think I'm living. No, that's

not living, that's just existing. And so there is a

sense of aimlessness that people have because of the confusion

in their hearts. Now, this is not a new problem.

It's been a problem for centuries. In fact, two thousand

years ago, the Bible says this in an experience with

Jesus on the screen Matthew nine when Jesus looked out

over the crowds.

His heart broke for them.

Why because they were so confused and aimless, like sheep

with no shepherd, confused and aimless. That's not a twenty

first century problem. That's a human problem of the heart.

And no politics and no education and no amount of

money is going to solve that. It starts in the heart. Finally,

let me give you one more worry. Worry is a

universal heart disease, and people worry in every single culture.

And when you worry, what is the symptom of worry?

What's the outward visible symptom of worry?

Restless?

When people worry, they feel restless, they feel disengaged, they

feel anxious, they feel restless. The Bible says this in scripture,

My thoughts are restless, and I am confused, Psalm fifty five.

And then the other one Proverbs twelve says, an anxious

heart weighs a man down. When you're worried, you can't

be happy at the same time. When you're worried, it's

like guilt. You can't be happy and worried in the

same heart. And so it weighs the man down, and

it creates this sense of restlessness. Now you look at

those heart diseases, and you look at how the world

has attempted to solve these problems, and that's not a

very pretty picture. But I've got some good news for you,

and this is what we're going to talk about today.

The good news is that Jesus Christ specializes in heart transplants.

He specializes in heart transplants. The scripture says this, I

will give them a new heart and a new mind.

And that's what we're going to look at today. How

Jesus Christ changes hearts. How does he replace the heart

filled with guilt and worry and alienation and compulsion and

confusion with a new heart? How does he replace the

feeling of worthless and powerless and loneliness and aimless and restless.

How does he do that? And what did Jesus do

on the cross? And how did that make a difference.

If I were to go over to Irvine Spectrum, a

shopping mall, this afternoon and stand down and take a survey,

and I said, tell me what you think is the

most common, the most universal, the most ubiquitous symbol in

the world. Probably some people say, well, if they were here,

they might say Starbucks, you know, it seems like there

was one every corner. Or they might say it's the

McDonald arches, or they might say, you know, it's the

CNN logo. Or they might say, if they thought about, well,

maybe it's a Chinese flag because a billion people would

probably know that one. Or they might say, stop sign.

Stop sign is a pretty well known symbol around the world.

But they'd all be wrong.

The most ubiquitous symbol on the planet is the Christian cross.

It's the cross of Jesus Christ. It's on millions and

millions of buildings, It's in tens of millions of cemeteries

and places, you know, crosses everywhere, millions and millions of

crosses and cemeteries, and hundreds of millions of people wear

it around their neck.

What is the big deal about the cross? Why is

it so important?

What did it accomplish?

Why do Christians you know, use the cross as a

symbol of hope. It was an instrument of death. It's

not a very pretty sign.

But it is.

It is worn as a symbol of hope around people's necks.

And why do we date everything in the world according

to that one event?

Even non believers?

Every day they write a date, or they write a

check and they write a date on it. They are

using Jesus Christ and the Cross as the focal point,

the reference point for history. Why is it such a

big deal. Well, what Jesus did on the cross solved

your five biggest problems, your.

Five biggest problems.

And it is not only the solution to the problems

of the heart, it is the solution to all of

these other problems. It is the problem, the solution to

the root.

Behind every other problem on the planet.

So today we're going to quickly look at five benefits

of what Jesus Christ did on the cross. Now, if

you claim to be a follower of Jesus, you need

to be able to explain this. And somebody says to you,

what's the big deal? Why did Jesus die on the cross?

You should be able to say the five reasons. Now,

there are five words. You may learn some new terms today,

but there are five reasons that explain what those terms are.

So I want you to pay attention so you can

pass this on to others. Now, here's the first and

credible benefit of what Jesus did on the cross. We

call it replacement and replacement simply means this. He took

my punishment on the cross. Jesus Christ took punishment that

I deserved to have. He was my replacement, He was

my substitute. The Bible says in Romans three, verse twenty five,

there on your outline. God sent Christ Jesus to take

the punishment for our sins and to end all of

God's anger against us up here on the screen. The

Bible also says in Glatians three, Christ took away the

curse the law put on us. He changed places with us.

He said, okay, look, I will be the substitute. I'll

be your replacement. I will be the stand in. I

will change places with you.

Now what does that mean.

Well, we know that nobody's perfect.

None of us have measured up to our own standards,

as they said, much less God. So the Bible says,

all have sins, me, you, the Pope, everybody in history.

Everybody's made mistakes. We've all blown it. Now, when you

go out and you break a human law, you have

to pay a human penalty. If I go out here

and I speed down the freeway, then I get stopped,

I pay a ticket for it. If I go shoot

somebody I serve some time. If I'm in a car accident,

I have to pay the penalty that maybe for reckless driving.

You break man's laws, you pay man's penalties. You break

God's laws, you pay God's penalties. And God says, the

wages of sin is death. That means I deserve to die.

And I don't know if you've noticed it, but the

mortality rate in the world is now one hundred percent. Okay,

everybody dies. I suppose if somebody lived a perfect life,

they wouldn't have to die, but nobody can do that.

But the truth is the wages of sin, of death.

That means Somebody's got to pay for all the things

I've done wrong, all the mean, evil, ugly things I've

done wrong. Either I have to pay for it or

somebody else does. And Jesus Christ said, I will do it.

I'm going to pay for all of Rick Warren's sins.

I'm going to pay for all of yours, all the

ones you've already committed, in fact, all the ones you

haven't even committed yet that you don't even know about,

that will happen next week, next year, and whatever year

you live to in age. The good news is this

somebody has already paid the death.

Penalty for your sins.

You don't have to do it.

You've had a substitute, you've had a replacement. And everything

you've ever done wrong has already been paid for. And

everything you ever will do wrong that you haven't even

done yet, it's already been paid for. That's like going

in to eat a dinner and somebody's already paid for

it at the restaurant or going somewhere, and somebody's already

paid for it in advance, and you just get to

go in and enjoy it. The Bible says this in

Hebrews ten. Up on the screen, God did away with

the old sacrifices in the Old Testament, the Jewish nation

offered animal sacrifices as a symbol of our repentance, our sorrow.

And God said, no, you don't. We don't need to

do that. You don't have to do that, And he

put He did away with the old sacrifices and put

the sacrifice of Christ in their place. Because Jesus Christ

did what God wanted him to do, we're all purified

from sin by his offering of his own body. Would

you read this last phrase with me once? And for

all that means he did it all at one time,

and it's finished, and nobody else has.

To deal with it.

Jesus was hung up for your hang ups.

He was nailed to the cross, So you can stop

nailing yourself to the cross for all the things you've

done wrong. He says, I came to take away that

first heart problem. It's called guilt, and I can get

rid of it. You don't have to feel guilty because

I I have paid for it all. When Jesus Christ

died on the cross, one of the seven things that

he said was.

It is finished.

Now.

I didn't say I am finished, because he wasn't. Came

back to life three days later to prove that he

was who he said he was, and he said, he

didn't say I'm finished.

It is finished. What is that?

The payment for all of your sins, the payment for

everything you've ever done around It is finished.

It's paid for.

In fact, that phrase it is finished in the Greek.

The Bible is written in Greek and Hebrew. It is

one phrase. It is the word to tell us sty.

In Greek, to tell us sty was a legal term,

and they would actually stamp it on a bill that

had been paid. They would stamp to tell usty it

is finished. It meant paid in full. You've paid this

bill off. By the way, once you've paid a bill off,

how long do you remember it? Well, you don't think

about it anymore. You pay your car off, You're not

still thinking, oh, think about that bill. Well, once God's

paid for your sins, how much do you have to

remember them?

None?

You forget about a bill that's been paid. They would

stamp to tell us die on a prison sentence that

had been commuted, or a guy who had served his

time and paid his debt to society. And as they

would let the guy go out of prison and other

Romans prisons, they would give him a certificate and it

was stamped to tell us, dife paid in full.

It is finished.

And when Jesus said on the cross it is finished,

he meant I have paid for every sin ever to

be committed in the history of mankind.

It's paid for. It's finished. Now, Why would God do

that for you?

God so loved the world that he gave his only

begotten son, John three point sixty. He did it because

he loves you. He made you, He loves you. He

wants you to have a relationship with him. Nobody will

ever love you more than Jesus Christ. No man will

ever love you, no woman will ever love you more

than Jesus Christ does. The Bible says this in Isaiah

up here on the screen. It was our weaknesses. He

carried our weaknesses. It was our sorrow that weighed him down.

He was wounded and crushed for our sins. He hadn't

done anything wrong. He was beaten that we might have peace.

He was whipped, and we were healed. All of us

have straightaway like sheep, the Bible says. But it says

that we have gone on to do our own ways,

and we have left. We have left God's path to.

Follow our own.

Yet the Lord laid on him the guilt and sins

of us all Jesus became our substitute, our replacement. Now,

let me tell you why that's good news. Let me

give you a little secret. Because most of the people

in the world are dying, dying to hear three words.

You are forgiven. Most of the people in the world

are dying to hear those three words. You are forgiven.

When you accept what Jesus Christ has done for you

on the cross heath I'm accepting you as my replacement,

as my substitute. I'm putting my faith in you. Jesus

says you are forgiven.

And why do we need that?

Because guilt is probably the most paralyzing emotion. I read

a study, actually I've read several studies that has said

that about half the people in the hospitals that are

sick right now could go home if they could get

rid of guilt or resentment. Guilt what we've done to others,

and resentment what they've done to us.

That guilt and resentment have.

Such physiological effects on our bodies. You weren't made to

walk around caring guilt. And God says, I don't intend

for you to live that way. I want you to

be forgiven. It is finished. Now, How does Jesus forgive

you instantly, completely and freely? The Bible says this, They're

on your outline, and here on the screen. God took

the sinless Christ and poured out our sin our into him,

our sins. Then in exchange, here's the replacement. He poured

God's goodness into us.

What a deal?

You like?

This deal?

God took the sinless Christ and took I'm gonna take

everything dirty in your life and dump it on Jesus

and He's gonna.

Pay for it.

And then I'm gonna take his goodness and I'm gonna

pour that onto you. And that's why the Bible says

there is no condemnation.

For those who are in Christ Jesus.

When God looks down on you and you will put

your trust in him, God says, I don't condemn you.

There is no condemnation. Doesn't matter what you've done. I

don't condemn you. Why because that sin was placed on Christ.

That is the most amazing love ever considered.

The second benefit of jesus death on the cross is

called redemption.

It means that he bought my freedom.

One Timothy two six says he gave his life to

purchase freedom for everyone. The Greek word for redemption here

actually refers to slaves that were purchased in a marketplace.

In a spiritual sense, all of us are slaves to

sin until Jesus purchased us out of the slave market

and sit us free from sins bondage. Now you may

be thinking, well, I'm not a slave, so why do

I need redemption from That's a great question. The Bible

says in two Peter two nineteen that you are a

slave to whatever controls you. So based on this definition alone,

all of us are slaves to something.

You could be a slave to your peers.

You might be a slave to your schedule, or to

your work, or to your past or to memories, or

to guilt or to resentment.

You fill in the blank on what you may be

a slave to.

Look at some verses up on the screen with me

to talk about some of the things that were slaves to.

One Thessalonians four or five says, don't be a slave

of your desires, living like people who don't know God.

Are you a slave to your desires? Are you slaved

your lusts? Are you a slave to what your I see?

One Corinthian seven twenty three says God bought you for

a price, So do not become slaves of people. The

Bible says that we can become slaves of people. We

can begin living for the approval of others. It could

be the approval of parents, it could be the approval

of our boss, or a boyfriend or girlfriend. But what

Jesus did on the cross when he came, he came

to set us free from slavery. He came to set

us free from the slave of our desires and the

slave the slavery of people. Glatians five to one said

says this upon the screen.

Freedom is what we have. Christ has set us free.

So stand in as free people, and do not allow

yourselves to become slaves.

Again, what is this freedom for? Well, this freedom is

to be used for good.

One Peter two sixteen says, exercise your freedom by serving God,

not by breaking the rules. So here's the question. What

is it that controls you? Are you controlled by your past?

Are you controlled by your habits for living for the

approval of others? Are you controlled by your schedule? I

know some people whould rather die than be late to anywhere.

Let me give you a picture of what Jesus's death

on the cross did to purchase our freedom.

Imagine a busy marketplace.

A lot of commerce going on, people all around selling things, clothes, vegetables.

But then in the center of the marketplace there's something

else that's being sold, and it's people who are being

sold as slaves. Now, to really picture this, you've got

to put yourself on the auctioning block. You have to

be the one who's up on the slave block being sold.

Prospective buyers are eyeing you, looking you up and down,

thinking you as if a thing and not as a person,

and the bids begin to start, and as each successive

bid is shouted out, you start to look into the

eyes of those who are bidding on you, trying to

size them up, finding out are they kind or are

they cruel? But it really doesn't matter, because they're still

trying to buy you for their own person purposes. And

just as the auction is winding down, a stranger off

in the crowd stands up and he offers a bid

that is a thousand times higher than anyone else's bid.

There is no way that anyone could ever match that

bid or beat the bid. And as the auctioneer hastily

begins to accept that stranger's bid, you look into that

stranger's eyes and you realize that he's not there to

buy you to use you. He's there to set you free.

And that's what Jesus did for us on the Cross.

He paid for us to set us free. He paid

the price to set us free that was so high,

a free gift that you and I could never purchase

on our own.

It would be like waking up on Christmas.

Morning, going downstairs, opening up all your presents, and then

going around and collecting all the name tags of the

people who gave you those presents to find out who

gave you the present, and then whipping out your checkbook

and trying to pay him for those presents.

It's absurd.

You wouldn't do that, No one would do that, And

yet so many of us try to feel like. So

many of us feel like we have to pay for

God's love by good work, so by the things we do.

But it's impossible because the price is so high. It's

so great. Read with me out loud, the next person

on your outlined Psalm for Psalm forty nine to seven.

We can never redeem ourselves. We cannot pay God the

price for our lives because the payment for human life

is too great.

This past week, I was.

Talking with a man who has enjoyed significant success in

his career. He's made a whole lot of money and

done a whole lot of things, and he was telling

me about his own spiritual journey of quests to fulfill

his own deep desire inside to find freedom and spiritual fulfillment,

and the hole in his soul he became a Buddhist

a few years ago and decided to go to the

mountains of Asia and go on a one year trek,

and he hiked three thousand.

Miles through the mountains to find enlightenment.

Now, to give you a perspective of this, it would

be like starting throwing a backpack on you and starting

in Orlando, Florida, and walking across the United States to

Orange County, California, for the sole purpose of maybe finding

one insight on the journey that can give you some

kind of spiritual awareness, some kind of spiritual wisdom.

That possibly could help you get to Heaven.

You say, well, that's crazy, and I'd agree it's not

only crazy, but it's sad. It's sad because so many

people spend their lives trying to passionately seek significance and

find freedom and redemption on man made dead in the pass.

And here's the amazing truth. The price the freedom, it's

already been paid for. It's already been bought.

All you have to do is accept Jesus into your

life and begin to walk and follow him because you're

already free.

In christ. Rick's going to come back and talk about

the third benefit that we have.

Jesus took my punishment on the cross. That's called replacement.

He was my substitute, and Jesus bought my freedom on

the cross that's called redemption.

He redeems me by.

Paying so I can be free.

Hey, thanks for joining us today on Pastor Rick's Daily Hope.

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