Rick Warren - How We’re Getting Through—Part Two

This is Pastor Rick's Daily Hope, the audio broadcast ministry

of Pastor Rick Warren. Today we continue with a series

called how to Get Through what You're going Through. In

this study, Pastor Rick and Kay Warren share biblical wisdom

and their life experiences to help you find God's path

to peace in even the most difficult seasons of life. First,

if you are someone you know needs some powerful Bible

based encouragement, then stay with us because in a few

minutes we're going to tell you about the Journey Toward

Hope guided Bible study. It's full of encouraging Bible verses, exercises,

and journaling pages to help you draw close to God

and renew your sense of hope. You can find out

more by going to Pastorick dot com while you listen

to today's message, or just text the word Daily to eight

hundred six hundred five thousand and four. That's Pastor Rick

dot com. Or just text the word Daily to eight

hundred six hundred five thousand and four. Right now, here's

Pastor Rick with part two of a message called how

We're getting.

Through in Heaven. No one's going to have any scars

except Jesus and He's going to have the hands, the

feet aside the head. Why because he wants to always

remember this is how much I love you. It is

impossible for God to forget how much he loves you.

And so we know that no matter how we don't

understand what's going on in our lives, we do know this.

I don't have the solutions, I don't have the answers,

I don't have the reasons. I don't have the explanations.

But I do have the presence of God, and I

do have his love in my life. And when life

doesn't make sense, you need to hold onto the promises.

You know what occurred to me the day Matthew died.

God knows what it's like to lose a sun. I've

had many people ask me his pastors, pastor Rick, where

was God when my son died the same place he

was when his son died, weeping? Grieving? You know what

the Bible says that God weeps? Do you know that

the Bible says God has stored up every tear you've

ever cried. You don't even know that, but God does.

He knows more about you than you do. As I said,

Matthew lived a very tortured life. And part of the

problem was he was incredibly bright. A lot of people

are mentally ill don't know their mentally ill. Matthew did,

and growing up he said, why can't I be normal?

Because he was so smart, he knew what wasn't right.

He felt odd, and he felt on the outskirts. He

felt like he didn't fit in, He felt like nobody

understood him. He just why can't I be normal? And

he had he had a tenderheart, but he had a

tortured mind. And he struggled all through life with the

unanswered questions about his illness because it didn't make sense.

But I want to tell you this. One second into heaven,

all of Matthew's questions were answered and all of a

sudden he understood it. All life doesn't make sense, but

we can still have peace because we know God loves

us and he's with us. There's the second thing you

need to know, and you need to remember. Everything on

earth is broken. Everything on earth is broken, but we

can still have joy because we know God is good

and He's got a greater plan. Everything on earth is broken. Now.

The fact is, since sin and evil entered the world,

it messed up everything, and nothing on this planet is perfect.

Everything on the planet is broken. Nothing works perfectly. The

weather does not work perfectly. We have tsunamis, and we

have earthquakes, and we have fires and floods and all

kinds of natural disasters. God didn't want that. He created

a garden of Paradise, a garden of Eden. Sin broke

the planet. It broke the weather, It broke the climate.

The economy doesn't work perfectly. None of your plans work perfectly.

Have you noticed that not one of your plans works perfectly.

Your body doesn't work perfectly. Anybody agree with that one? Yeah? Yeah,

No relationship works perfectly. Anybody want to give a testimony.

No matter how much you love, you still have this.

No brain works perfectly. We all have broken brains, and

we have thoughts that we can't control, and compulsions and

desires and attractions and fears and depressions and worries and rage,

and you know, you name it. Everything is broken in

this world. Isaiah twenty four says this. By the way,

if you ever want to read a perfect description of

modern culture, you need to go study in detail Isaiah

twenty four. Because Isaiah twenty four explains all of the

problems in our culture.

Today, you're listening to Pastor Rick's Daily Hope. Rick will

be back in just a moment with the rest of

today's lesson. If you've missed any part of today's teaching,

you can listen online anytime at pastorick dot com. That's

pastorick dot com.

Life can sometimes be challenging, isolating, and painful. Do you

or someone you know need some powerful encouragement right now,

then let me tell you about the Journey Toward Hope.

This guided Bible study book takes you on a journey

to discover the five truths about who you are. You

are loved, you have a purpose, you belong, you have

a choice, and you are needed. This full color vegan

leather study tool is filled with scriptures, prayers, exercises, spaces

to journal, and personal stories to help you uncover the

hidden reasons you may lose hope and teach you how

to maintain and bolster that hope for a lifetime. Will

send you your very own copy of Journey Toward Hope

when you give a gift today to Daily Hope. To

take the Hope of Jesus to a herding world, Just

go to Pastorerrick dot com right now to get your copy,

or you can call eight hundred six hundred five zero

zero four that's Pastorick dot com. Or call eight hundred

six hundred five zero zero four and be sure to

let us know the call letters of this station. Thank

you so much for your support. There's only three days

left to get this great resource, so don't wait.

Now back to more from God's Word with Pastor Rick

Warren Isaiah twenty four, verse five and verse nineteen.

The earth suffers. Everything's broken. The earth suffers for the

sins of its people, for they have twisted the instructions

of God, violated his laws, and broken his covenant. Therefore,

the earth has broken down and has utterly collapsed. Everything

is lost. We're all lost spiritually. Everything's abandoned and confused.

We have confusion about everything, Confusion about the economy, confusion.

There's confusion in every area, about money, about sex, about life,

about time. There's confusion everywhere. Now, why is there brokenness

and suffering in the world because of sin and evil?

Why is there sin and evil in the world? Because

God allows you and me a free choice. We can

choose to not love him. We can choose to go

our own way. He said, well, why doesn't God eliminate

all the sin and on the earth. Well, God could

easily eliminate all the sin on the earth, get rid

of you and me, and we've been hurting each other

for thousands and thousands of years. You get enough sin

in habitual lives of people. It affects the environment, It

affects your DNA, your genetics, it affects everything is broken. Well,

if everything is broken, how can we have joy? Because

we know God is good, and because we know He

has a better purpose and a greater plan. Romans eight

twenty eight, one of the greatest promises in the Bible,

says this, But we know circle that we know, we know.

It's the second thing you need to know. We know

that in all things, not some things, not the good things.

We know that in all things God works for the

good of those who love Him and have been called

according to his purpose. Now, this is a great promise,

but I once you to notice it's not a promise

for everybody, but everybody. He works for the good of

those who love Him and have been called according to

his purpose. If you love God, everything that happens in

your life God is using it. He's going to work

for good, even the bad. Anybody can bring good out

of good. God specializes in bringing good out of bad. Now,

if you don't love God, all things are not working

for good in your life. In fact, all things are

working for bad in your life because you're going against

your creator, and that's gonna Your arms are too short

to box with God. You're going to lose that one. Now,

let me This is one of the most misunderstood, misinterpreted,

and misused versus in the Bible. Notice what it doesn't.

It doesn't say everything that happens is good. No, it

says all things God works for the good. Doesn't say

it's all good. Doesn't say everything happens to me. There's

a lot of bad stuff in the world. There's a

lot of evil in the world. Racism is bad, rape

is bad, bigotry is bad, terrorism is bad, cancer and

leukemia that's bad. God is not the author of evil.

Doesn't say that everything that happens is good. There's a

lot of bad stuff. It doesn't even say everything that

happens is God's will. Now, that's nonsense. Friends. A lot

of people confuse heaven and earth. This this is not heaven.

In heaven everything is perfect. Why because God's will is

done perfectly. So everything is perfect in heaven. It's all

perfect because God's done is all. God's will is always done.

On earth, everything is broken because God's will well is

rarely done, rarely done. That's why Jesus said, we are

to pray Thy will be done on earth as it

is in heaven. Because in heaven it's done perfectly and instantly,

and on earth it's done rarely or never.

Not.

Everything that happens on this planet is God's will. I

mean when some people I've been at funerals and people say, well,

it must have been God's will, or they'll say, you know,

God must have needed Matthew more than you. There's a

word for that. Nonsense, just nonsense. God needed that baby

more than me, so he took him home early. Are

you kidding me? God doesn't need anything, so don't blame

God for that. Death is the result of sin and evil.

It entered the world because of that. God is not

the author of it. Matthew's life was robbed by mental illness.

It was robbed by mental illness. And you need to

understand that you have an enemy on this planet. His

name is Satan. Satan is not your friend. He's not

your friend. In fact, the Bible says he came to

kill and destroy. He wants to destroy your life. Why

because he hates God. Satan cannot hurt God. God cannot

be hurt like that. So what happens He tries to

hurt God's children, to hurt God. If you can't get

to me, the quickest way to hurt me is hurt

my kids. Satan wants to destroy your life. He wants

to mess up your life. He wants to keep you

away from God because that makes God grieve. God grieves

when you don't love him the way he loves you,

when you don't know him the way he knows you.

So God is not the author evil. You know, when

Matthew died, Satan thought he'd won, but he had lost

big time. Why because he couldn't torture Matthew anymore his

entire life. He went through mental torture. But now he's

out of reach of that torture. Now in heaven, there's

no more pain, there's no more sorrow, there's no more

He's at peace. What's he doing today? He's in heaven

in the grandstands cheering me on right now. On the

day that Matthew died, we were suspecting, because we hadn't

heard from him all day, he hadn't texted all day,

that our greatest fear had probably happened, the day I

prayed would never happen, the day I feared might that

he would take his life. We went over to his

house and we couldn't get into his house because we

didn't have a key to his house. His car was there,

and he wasn't answering the door. When we were worried

that our deepest, greatest fear had happened. And as we

stood there in the driveway waiting for police to come

to break in and to see what inevitably was true,

Kay and I stood there in the driveway, hugging each other, sobbing.

Our hearts were breaking into a million pieces. And as

we stood there, trembling and sobbing loud, Kay reached up

and grabbed her necklace which had two words on it,

and she showed it to me. It was the words

of a book that she wrote. The title of a

book she wrote, choose Joy, And I thought, are you

kidding me? How in the world. Do you choose joy

in the deepest grief? How do you choose joy in

the worst pain? How do you choose joy when your

greatest fear is being realized? Well, I'll let Kate tell

you that. Would you welcome her?

Thank you, thank you, thank you, Saddleback, I've missed you.

As Rick said, I was wearing a necklace that says

choose joy after I wrote that several years ago. And

I wrote the book because I've struggled with low levels

of depression my whole life. And yet here's a verse

like Romans five three to five on your outline that

says we can have joy even in our troubles because

we know that these troubles produce endurance, and endurance produces character,

and character produces hope. And this hope will not disappoint

us because God has poured his love to fill our hearts.

I began to look for some jewelry that I could

wear on a daily basis to remind me that I

could choose joy, that there could be joy even in troubles.

The day that Matthew passed away, as Rick said, I

in particular, had a terrible sense of foreboding, and I

had very good reasons to believe that that might be

that he had taken his life, but we had to

wait hours before it could be confirmed. And so when

I got up that morning, I deliberately went to my jurybox,

and with my hands shaking and my heart pounding and

my stomach heathing, I picked this necklace out of the

jury box. I wasn't really thinking very clearly, but I

knew that by putting it on, in some way, I

was fighting back against the nightmare that I was pretty

sure that was going to unfold that day. And as

Rick said, as we stood at Matthew's house together waiting

for the police to confirm this terrible news, I don't

know why, but in a moment I looked down and

saw it, and then I raised it to him in

a very tiny, feeble attempt to affirm one I knew

to be the truth, even as he said, our hearts

were shattering. How could I do that? How could I

even wear the necklace that day? How could I lift

it to him in a gesture of belief in God,

a belief that joy could be chosen even in our

darkest moments. How could I do that? And how could he,

through his tears, receive it, and not push me away

and not tell me I was crazy, and to stop

it and to just stop doing that. It's because of

what we know, because we know that joy is still present.

We know it because God is good, and because we

have spent the last fifty years of our lives putting

our spiritual roots down deep into the rich soil of

God's grace, his mercy, his faithfulness, and his goodness. And

because of that, because of those roots that have gone

deep into the soil of who God is, getting to

know him when troubles have come our way, we have

been able to produce endurance. It has been produced and

hopefully character, and from that character hope and joy verse

five of Romans three again, look at that, excuse me.

Romans five, Verse five says, and this hope will not

disappoint us because God has poured his love to fill

our hearts. I was learning a lot about joy in

the last few years, and so I could say somehow, yes, God,

I trust you, and I'm going to have joy even

in this very dark day. But Hope, I want to

talk to you a little bit about hope, because I

would be lying to you completely, lying to you if

I said that hope didn't disappoint me. In fact, I

was crushed by hope that didn't come true.

This is Pastor Rick's Daily Hope. In this study, Pastor

Rick and Kay Warren share biblical wisdom and their life

experiences to help you find God's path to peace in

even the most difficult seasons of life. If you've missed

any part of this message, or you'd like to find

out more about Pastor Rick Warren and this ministry, just

visit Pastororick dot com where you can listen online anytime.

That's Pastor Rick with two rs inthemiddle dot com, and

be sure to sign up for Rick's free daily email

devotional While you're there. Rick will be back to close

out our time today. But first life can sometimes be challenging, isolating,

and painful. Do you or someone you know need a

powerful encouragement right now, then let me tell you about

the journey toward hope. This guided Bible study book takes

you on a journey to discover the five truths about

who you are. You are loved, you have a purpose,

you belong, you have a choice, and you are needed.

This full color vegan leather study tool is filled with scriptures, prayers, exercises,

spaces to journal, and personal stories to help you uncover

the hidden reasons you may lose hope and teach you

how to maintain and bolster that hope for a lifetime.

We'll send you your very own copy of Journey Toward

Hope when you give a gift today to Daily Hope

to take the Hope of Jesus to a herding world.

Just go to Pastororick dot com right now to get

your copy, or you can call eight hundred six hundred

five thousand and four. That's Pastororrick dot com. Or call

eight hundred six hundred five thousand and four and be

sure to let us know the call letters of this station.

Thank you so much for your support. There's only three

days left to get this great resource, so don't wait.

Here's Pastor Rick with a letter from one of our listeners.

Today. Want to share with you a letter from Debbie

that really truly touched my heart. She wrote, Pastor Rick,

I'm not sure how many times I thought about emailing you,

but I didn't. I'm not sure why, but today I

listened to your Daily Hope message on facing giants and

life and work and I knew that I needed to

say thank you. My story started when my husband of

almost twenty four years died suddenly at our home of

a blood clot He was just forty nine years old.

My daughter was the one who called nine one one,

and life just seemed to stop. We were in shock

after that death. At the funeral, my brother told me

about your message series, How to get Through what You're

going Through. So I listened and I held on to

those words and what Kay had spoken, not knowing how

significant they would become. My own son had been struggling

with what we now think was undiagnosed bipolar disorder. He'd

been struggling for about three years, and eleven weeks after

my husband died, he took his life. Life stopped again.

I have an incredible family and a group of friends,

and they, along with my faith, got me and my

daughter through things I never thought I could live through.

But the resource that I kept turning to and listening

to over and over again was your series How to

get Through what You're going Through When you lost your son,

you and Kay truly understood how I felt and how

I still feel. We're part of a club that nobody

wants to be a member of RICK. I've learned so

many things through this journey of grief, but the most

important is that God keeps his promises and he does

bring beauty out of ashes. So I want to thank

you and Kay from the bottom of my heart for

sharing your story and not wasting your pain, even though

we've never met, though we're friends, well we are, and

I ask God daily to help me use my pain

to help others. I still struggle some days with guilt

and grief, but I know that God is faithful with

me every step of the journey. With a thankful heart. Debbi, Well, Debbie,

my dear sister. This touched me obviously your message and

as somebody who's walked in your shoes having lost the sun,

I can tell you without a doubt that God is faithful.

And I just want to say that I'm so proud

of you that God does not want us to waste

our hurts. Never waste a hurt. You're going to go

through the pain, so you may as well use it to

help other people. And in Second Corinthians one, the Bible

says God takes us through problems and comforts us, so

we can then comfort others with the same comfort we've

been given, and that's the motivation behind everything we do

at Daily Hope. Friends, if you can give a gift

to help Daily Hope, you can help people like Debbie

who's walking through the grief of having lost a husband

and a son, but found new hope through this broadcast,

which shares the message of Jesus. You who gave helped

Debbi find healing, and you who gave have helped thousands

and thousands of other people find hope and healing in

Christ because of your gift. So thank you for your

gifts today, God bless you.

If you'd like to let Rick know how this broadcast

has blessed you, please feel free to send him an

email at Rick at pastor Rick dot com. That's Rick

at pastor rick dot com. Be sure to join us

again next time as we look into God's word for

our daily hope. This program is sponsored by Daily Hope

Ministries and your generous financial support.