Rick Warren - The Prayer of Cleansing III

Hello, and thanks for joining us here on Pastor Rick's

Daily Hope, the audio broadcast ministry of Pastor Rick Warren. Today,

Rick continues teaching a series called Connecting with God the

Lord's Prayer. In these lessons, Rick shows you what it

means to truly be spiritually connected to God and to

each other through the power of God's love and God's Word.

In a moment, we're going to tell you how to

get the Daily Hope Advent Calendar. This special resource will

help you experience all that Christmas promises. Go to Pastorick

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Daily to eight hundred six hundred five thousand and four.

That's Pastorick dot com. Or the word Daily to eight

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

with the final part of a message called the Prayer

of Cleansing our review.

Every year, I repent of every sin. Here's a third step.

I resolve to make restitution. If possible. You make restitution now.

Sometimes it's not possible. They may have died, they may

have moved away and you can't find him. They may

have remarried and it would be not a good thing

for you to reopen an old wound. And so in

some situations you can't make restitution, but anything you can

do to make it right, you do so. Number four,

The fourth thing I do is now I receive God's forgiveness.

The Bible says this. And by the way, you don't

have to be hesitant or shy about coming to God

for forgiveness. He says, Let us come boldly to the

throne of our gracious God, and there we will find

he said, not scolding, not punishment, not rejection.

He says. When we come to God with.

Our sin, we receive his mercy and we find his grace.

What's the difference between mercy and grace. Mercy is forgiveness

for all the things you've done in the past. Grace

is the power to change in the future.

And you need both.

And God says, you come to me with honestly, with

all your sin. And you say, God, this stinks, this

looks bad. I'm embarrassed about It's the good, the bad,

and the ugly in my life. God says, you will

have mercy for your past and grace to change in

your future. Now, let me tell you how not to

get God's forgiveness. You don't beg. You don't bargain or

bribe like I try to do. God, I'll never do

it again, or I'll all live this kind of life,

or I'll tie twenty percent. Or you don't bargain, You

don't bribe, you don't beg.

You just believe. What do you believe? You believe God's

promise on the screen. Here's the promise.

If we freely admit that we have sinned, that's if

we confess our sins. We find God utterly reliable. He's

not going to backtrack on this. He forgives our sin

and makes us thoroughly clean. Wouldn't you like to be

totally clean on the inside?

How do you do it?

You just confess. Confession is saying you're right God, it

was wrong. You're right, I was wrong. That's confession to

speak the same with God. The Bible says this up

here on the screen. Since we are justified, that means acquitted,

declared righteous through faith. Let us grasp the fact that

we now have peace and reconciliation with God. Now before

I get the end through our Lord Jesus Christ. Now

it says, since we are justified, we've talked about this

word before.

What does it mean to be justified?

It means when God makes you just as if I'd

never sinned. That's what it means to be justified. God says,

I'm gonna make you just as if I'd never sinned.

I'm going to wipe the slate clean. I'm going to

erase everything you've ever done wrong. I'm going to justify you,

make you just as if I'd never sinned. And he

says that comes not by you earning it, But just

do faith in me, faith in my son Jesus Christ.

You say, Rick, you don't know what I've done, God

could never forgive me. Well, you're wrong, I don't know

what you've done, but it doesn't matter. In fact, the

Bible says this on the screen. No matter how deep

the stain of your sin, I could take it out,

and I can make you clean as freshly fallen snow.

Wouldn't you like to have a heart like that, that

is clean as freshly fallen snow. When you have that,

it doesn't mean you're perfect. It means you're forgiven.

This is pastor Rick's daily hope. We're so glad you're

with us today. Rick will be back in a moment.

But first, recently, past mister Rick had our graphic designers

create a beautiful frameable version of the Lord's Prayer that

you can download for free right now by visiting Pastorick

dot com. That's Pastorick dot com fall.

Us here now, and that means Christmas is right around

the corner. That's why we want to let you know

that Pastor Rick and his wife Kay created an advoic

calendar with specially commissioned custom artwork.

It's beautiful.

This two part resource includes a calendar with a special

door for every day of December that opens to reveal

a hidden image and an encouraging Bible verse. Use it

with a companion daily devotional booklet to help you and

your family draw closer to Jesus and prepare your heart

for the real celebration. The Daily Hope Admit Calendar will

help you spend the holidays worshiping instead of worrying, slowing

down and reconnecting with God and expressing gratitude for the

true meaning of the season. You want to get the

Daily Hope admin Calendar and devotional booklet in your hands

now to start using it on December first. This resource

is a perfect way to share the gift of Jesus

at Christmas with your friends and family, and we'll send

it to you to say thanks when you give a

gift to Daily Hope to help take good news to

people everywhere. Quantities are limited, so get yours now. Just

call eight hundred six hundred five zero zero four, or

go to Pastororrick dot com. That's eight hundred and six

hundred at five zero zero four, or go to pastor

Rick dot com. Thanks so very much.

Hi everybody, it's Pastor Rick Warren with some really big news.

My Daily Hope devotionals are now available in Portuguese. If

you know somebody who would enjoy reading these devotionals in Portuguese,

please email me and I'll send you the link to

sign up. My email is Rick at Pastorick dot com.

That's Rick at pastororik dot com.

Now let's get back to more great teach with Castor Brickborne.

Now you come to step five, and step five is

the most difficult one. This is the real test of maturity.

I reveal my faults to a friend. You don't have

to reveal them to fifteen people, not the five people,

not the three, not even the two, but you need

one person that you come clean with. You said, Oh,

come on, Rick, can I just be forgiven by confessing

to God? Of course you can. Of course you can't.

But here's the question, and I want you to get it.

You need to ask yourself, do I want to be

emotionally healed?

Or do I just want to be forgiven?

If all you want to do is be forgiven and

you want to carry the weight and the pain and

the resentment, are all of the pressure of it the

rest of your life and have it come back and

keep messing with your mind, Oh you needed is just

confess it to God. God will forgive you. You don't have

to tell anybody else. Just tell God and you'll forgive you.

Keep on carrying it. God wired it that we only

get well in community. Notice what the Bible says, confess

your sins to each other and pray for each other.

We're to confess and we're to pray for each other

so that you maybe circle this healed. Revealing your feeling

is the beginning of healing. So let me ask you again,

do you want to be forgiven or do you want

to be emotionally healed? If you just want to be forgiven.

You just confess it to God. But if you want

to get over this and get on with your life,

you're gonna need to be healed and you need to

tell somebody else. Say Rick, why why do we do this?

Why does God want me to drag somebody else into this?

I'll tell you why, because God knows that the root

of your problem, listen is relational. Your relationship to God

and you're messed up. Relationships to other people are the

root of all your problems. And when we don't have

one person in our lives that we are completely honest with,

we wear masks and we pretend that we all have it,

have it all together when everybody knows we don't, and

we act like it's all right when it's not, and

we deny our true feelings.

What does that do? It isolates you from other.

People when you're not authentic, when you're faking it, and

it prevents intimacy, and it keeps you from the deepest

level of love. You cannot love fully with guilt in

your heart. And so what happens is we go around

living with shame and living with insecurity. And they, if

they really knew, they'd reject me. If they really knew,

they wouldn't love me. If they really knew me and

what I've done, they wouldn't accept me. And it keeps

you caught. Would you write this down? I'm only as

sick as my secrets. And the fact is the more

you hide, the sicker you get. On the other hand,

revealing your feeling is the beginning of healing. And it

is amazing that when you find one person that you

can trust and you say, I just need to get

this off my chest. I don't need you to do anything,

just listen to me, and you unveil it. You know

what happens. You find that they got big problems too,

and often they actually have the same problem you do.

And there's something about telling another person that uncorks the

pressure valve. When you let the boogeyman out of the closet,

all of a sudden, the boogeyman isn't so big anymore.

And I say, do I broadcast this everybody? Of course not,

of course not. Let me give you some guidelines. Who

do you share this with? One person who is a

mature believer. Then somebody who's a mature believer that you

feel safe with. They're confidential, they can keep a confidence.

They are mature enough to respond to you with God's

love and forgiveness. They're not going to They're mature enough

to not be shocked by anything. They're not gonna judge you.

They're going to say to you, you are forgiven in

Jesus' name. And there are plenty of people like that,

maybe a trusted friend, maybe a small group, member of

your small group, maybe a Christian counselor maybe somebody and

celebrate recovery. It's absolutely important to be somebody the same sex.

Men should confess to men and women should confess to women,

because if a man confessed to a woman, it blow

her away. Need I say more? And vice versa. So

men confess to men and women ask to women, you say,

well what do I say?

Will you just say? You know what? You know?

I need somebody to come clean with and I don't

need you to fix me.

I don't need you to give me an advice. I

just need you to listen to me.

While I do a little spring cleaning. I've already confessed

this stuff to God and I just need to confess

it to one other person. And what you do is

you share here's what I've done here's how I feel

about it, and here's where I want to change.

That's it. Now.

You know, if you actually shared this with a mature Christian,

they would be honored to hear your confession.

A truly mature.

Believer is not going to be blown away by that.

They're going to understand the importance of it. They've done

it themselves likely and they would be They're not gonna

be blown away.

They're going to be honored by it.

And if somebody comes to you this week and says,

I just need you to hear my confession, because the

Bible says confess to one another.

Then you just listen to them and you love them,

and you.

Say, in the name of Jesus Christ, you are forgiven. Now,

let me tell you something. The secret in your life

that you most want to conceal is the secret you

most badly need to reveal in order to be healed.

If you want healing, there's got to be some revealing.

And you got to stop concealing the very thing that

you don't want anybody to know about. That's the very

area God wants to give you the most grace and

the most mercy and the most healing. And you will

receive the most joy when you're forgiven. He So I

have this compulsion, so what?

So what? Well? I have this addiction, so what? I

have this same sex attraction? So what?

We're in a broken world. Nothing works right, you can

experience God's grace. When do I do this as soon

as possible? You don't procrastinate?

Why because I know what's on the other side of it.

Look at this verse.

What happiness those whose guilt has been forgiven? What happiness?

It's like a mountain guilt off your shoulder. The relief,

What a relief to those who have confessed their sins

and Goddess cleared their record. How do you spell relief?

C n fess confess. That's how you find relief. Now

there's one other step. I review every area of my life.

I repent of the sins I own up to him.

I resolve to make restitution. I receive God's forgiveness. He's

waiting to it. I reveal my faults to a friend

so I can be emotionally healed. And then step six is, oh,

by the way, repeat these steps regularly. That's step number six.

Repeat the other five regularly. Now you guys, I'm a grandfather.

So let me give you some advice. Never procrastinate changing.

A diaper.

Because it's all gonna come out in the end. Okay,

the longer you procrastinate, the messier it's gonna get. Never

put off cleaning up a mess. Let me give you

another piece of advice, personal advice. Take a bath every

now and then people will like it. You'll smell better

if you clean up. If you spend some time cleaning

up periodically.

Good thing.

Let me give you another piece of advice. Take the

garbage out of your kitchen every day.

What if you only.

Took the garbage out of your kitchen once a year,

your house would stink some of you, your life stinks

because you haven't taken the garbage out. Maybe ever, what

I I've shared with you, I have done it hundreds

and hundreds of times. Personal spiritual, moral inventory. And one

of the reasons why God blesses my life is because

I try to keep short accounts with God. I'm a

very flawed individual. I sin, I make mistakes, I blow it,

I'm selfish.

But you know what, I try to keep short accounts

of God.

And I say God, okay, I don't want to carry

in tomorrow the garbage from today, and it's like spiritual breathing.

You exhale all the carbon monoxide and you inhale all

the oxygen. Friends, God wants to bless your life. I

know this from personal experience. God wants to use your life.

He wants to bless you, and he wants to make

you a blessing to other people. And they say, could

God use me? Oh yeah. God uses every kind of vessel.

He can use small vessels, he can use plane vessels,

he can use ordinary vessels, he can use shy vessels.

He even uses broken vessels. But the only thing God

will not use is a dirty vessel. And this is

a test. Are you willing to do what God tells

you to do? Are you willing to do it today?

Are you willing to be honest to God and honest

with yourself?

Now?

I want you to notice one thing. I want you

to circle all the lettuce. Let us on this nose

here first point. Let us test circle that to Let us.

Then then look at the next one.

Let us turn circle the lettuce number point number two, okay,

then number four point four. Let us come boldly to

find grace where we will find it okay. And then

the verse underneath that, let us grasp the fact that

we now have peace and reconciliation. And then in this

last verse from two point six, you circle the Let us,

as I read it, let us draw near to God

with a sincere heart and full assurance, having our faith,

our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience.

You don't have that one anymore. Let us hold unsquervingly

to the hope we profess, for He who promised is faithful.

And let us consider how we may spur one another

onto love and good deeds. And let us not give

up meeting together. He's talking about small groups, as some

are doing, but let us encourage one another. This is

a walk through the let us patch. Here's the point,

these six steps. We are to take them together. You're

not on your own. You're not a lone ranger. You're

not out there by yourself. We're all in the same boat.

We've all blown it, and we all need forgiveness. We

all need cleansing, and God wants to bless us all.

We are a church family. We are better together. You

need a church home, you need to be connected. If

you're not in a small group. You need to join

a small group, get connected a small group. If you

are not connected spiritually to God and to other people,

you're not going to have the strength to do this.

We are to do it together. Let us pray say

this in your heart, Dear Jesus. I'm tired of carrying

this secret guilt and the regrets and the shame around

all the time, and I need to unload it. And

I need to receive your gift of mercy for my

past and grace.

For my future.

So God, right now, I am promising you that I

will do a personal moral inventory. I'm going to do

what Pastor Rick just taught me to do, and I

commit in advance to confessing anything you help me. Remember,

I want to be clean. I want to be pure

on the inside so you can bless me and so

you can use me to bless other people. I want

a fresh start and I want a clear conscience. So

Jesus Christ, come in and clean out every room.

In my life. I pray this in your name.

Amen, Hi, this is Pastor Rick.

If you just pray to accept Jesus Christ into your heart, congratulations,

you're now my brother or sister and the Lord and

you need to tell somebody, and why don't you tell me?

Write to me Rick at Pastorick dot com. Just email

me Rick at Pastorick dot com and tell me your story.

I would love to read it. And by the way,

I'll send you some free material to help you start

in your new journey with the Lord God bless you.

This is Pastor Rick's daily Hope. We're so glad you're

with us today. Recently, Pastor Rick had our graphic designers

create a beautiful frameable version of the Lord's Prayer that

you can download for free right now by visiting Pastorick

dot com. That's Pastorick dot com. Rick will be back

in a moment. But first fall is here and that

means Christmas is right around the corner. That's why we

want to let you know that Rick and his wife

Kay created an advent calendar with specially commissioned custom artwork.

It's beautiful. Here's Pastor Rick to tell you more.

You know, friends, one of the most common questions that

you hear this time of the year is are you

ready for Christmas? It's a question that shows how much

preparation we think is necessary just to celebrate this holiday

and this Holy Day. We think getting ready for Christmas

means putting up decorations and buying and wrapping gifts and

sending cards and planning meals and helping with school plays

and church musicals and office parties, and the list goes

on and on, making sure that we help all the

people who are in need. But does doing all that

really get us ready for Christmas? We'll making it through

a checklist, prepare me for celebrating the Birth of Jesus.

We both know the answer is no, and we both

know that it's too easy to get so caught up

in doing too many things, many of them good things,

but so many things that we forget the real reason

for the season. So you know what, Here at Daily Hope,

we've put together a brand new resource that I want

you to have. I hope it will help you really

get ready for celebrating the Birth of Jesus. It's an

advent calendar, a calendar of preparation. And each day on

this calendar, you'll open one Bible verse and then you

just turn to the corresponding page and a companion book

that we've put together, and you read through the very

short spiritual growth devotional. Not only takes a couple minutes

to read the Bible verse and the devotional, but it's

going to prepare your heart for the coming of Christ

at Christmas. My hope is at this resource, this advent calendar.

Preparing your heart for Christmas will help you spend the

holiday expressing your gratitude to God, worshiping instead of worrying,

and taking things off your schedule so you can appreciate

the true meaning of Christmas. I don't want you to

miss the miracle of Jesus this Christmas.

You'll want to get the Daily Hope Advent Calendar and

devotional booklet in your hands now to start using it

on December first. This resource is a perfect way to

share the gift of Jesus at Christmas with your friends

and family, and we'll send it to you to say

thanks when you give a gift to Daily Hope to

help take the good news of Jesus Christ to people everywhere.

Quantities are limited, so get yours now. Call eight hundred

six hundred five thousand and four to support Daily Hope

and we'll send you this powerful resource, or you can

visit Pastororrick dot com. That's eight hundred six hundred five

thousand four or 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's

Daily Hope and your generous financial support.