Rick Warren - What it means to Believe in Jesus - Part one

Hi, this is Rick Warren, Bible teacher of the Daily

Hope Broadcast. Did you know that because of Easter, your

past can be forgiven, you get a purpose for living,

and you can have a home in heaven. That's good news.

Where else can you get that kind of news? Nowhere else?

And did you know.

That at Easter, studies have shown people are more open

to an invitation to go to church than at any

other time of the year. Don't go to church by yourself,

but bring somebody who doesn't know Jesus Christ, a family member,

a friend, a coworker, a neighbor, a relative. And if

you bring them to that church service and they come

to know Christ, You're going to be making a friend

for eternity. It'll be the most important investment you can

ever make in their lives. And by the way, if

they come to Christ, would you let me know about it.

I'd love to hear that story that you brought somebody

to Easter and they found Jesus. You can write to

me Rick at Pastorrick dot com. That's rickat Pastorrick dot com.

I would love to hear from you. God bless you

and Happy Easter.

Hello and welcome to Pastor Rick Warren's Daily Hope. Well,

this weekend, across every continent and in thousands of languages,

millions of people will join together to celebrate the resurrection

of Jesus Christ, the cornerstone of our faith.

But you know it doesn't stop there.

Not only was Jesus resurrected, he is still alive.

So what do you say?

We dive right in as Pastor Rick begins Part one

of a very special Easter message titled What it Means

to Believe in Jesus.

Easter is a celebration of what Jesus Christ came to do.

Jesus Christ split history into AD and BC because of

this event Easter. It is the most significant event in history.

In fact, every time you write your own birthday, your

birthday is in relationship to Jesus Christ. Because God, God

invaded Earth. He came to Earth in the form of

a human being, died on the cross for our sins

so we could go to heaven, rose again three days

later to prove that he was who he said he was.

And today billions of people around the world are celebrating Easter. Now,

the issue I want to talk about this morning is

why did he do it. They're on your outline, on

your message notes. The first verse is the most famous

verse in the Bible. It's called John three sixteen from

chapter three of John, verse sixteen. In fact, let's read

it all aloud together, would you read.

It with me?

For God so loved the world that he gave his

only begotten son, that whosoever believes in him should not

perish but have everlasting life. Now circle the phrase believes

in him. He says, whoever believes in him, that's Jesus Christ,

will not perish, but have everlasting life. That means go

to heaven.

Now.

The latest Gallup poll tells us that I don't know.

Eighty six eighty seven eighty eight percent of Americans say

I believe in Jesus Christ.

I believe he was who he said he was.

But not everybody who claims to be a believer in

Jesus Christ is a true believer.

In fact, Jesus said this. Notice on your outline.

He said, not everybody who calls me their lord will

get into the Kingdom of Heaven. Only the ones who

obey my father in Heaven will get in. Now what's

he saying there? He's saying that you can't tell a

true believer by their words. Just because they walk the

walk talk the talk, doesn't mean they walk the walk.

He's saying, you know, you could meet people who you know,

talk like heaven and live like hell.

You've all met people like that.

I was one of those before I really committed my

life to Christ.

Maybe you did so too.

But he's saying, you got to look not at what

people say, not at what people think, not at what

people feel, but you got to look at what they

do to see what they really believe. Behavior determines your beliefs.

In fact, he says, if you're really a true believer,

it's going to change your life. It's going to change

the way you act. Look at the next verse. If

people say they have faith but they do nothing, then

their faith is worth nothing. Can faith like that save them?

And the answer is no, it can't. Now, you know,

I've got three kinds of friends in my life, and

I love them all, but I categorize them in three

different ways. Some are saints and some are stumblers, and

some are seekers. The saints in my life are those

people who believe in Jesus and act like it. Now,

they're not perfect when I say saint, I don't mean perfect.

None of us are perfect. We're all far from perfect.

But they're consistent, they believe in Jesus and they're trying

to live the way he said. They're trying to be unselfish.

They're loving, they're kind, they help others, they're not living

for themselves. I call them saints. Then I've got people

in my life, friends in my life, and I love

them just as much, and I call them stumblers. And

they're people who think they think they know Jesus, believe

in Jesus, but they don't really act like him, and

they don't act like it at all. In fact, they're

really living a self centered life. They're living for themselves

and doing a lot of things that are different than

what Jesus would tell us to do. Then I got

a third group of friends in my life that I love,

and I call them seekers. And they're the people who

just haven't made a decision. They're intellectually honest and they're going, Okay,

I'm checking it out. I'm interested. Tell me more about

what it means to be a believer. My guess is

that every one of us today are in one of

those three categories. We either know Christ and act like it,

or we think we know Christ and don't act like it,

or we're just checking it out. As your friend this Easter,

I want to help you settle this issue because it

has some profound implications. Whoever believes in Him shall not

perish but have ever lasting life.

I want you in heaven. I want you to have it.

So I want to settle this issue of what it

means to really believe in Jesus.

Faith is kind of like a diamond.

It's multifaceted, has a lot of different angles to it.

And today we're going to look at five different angles

of what it means to really believe, what it means

to have faith. Now these aren't in any particular order.

I just put them in a little acrostic faih to

spell faith as kind of a memory device. And if

you're taking notes on your outline, the f stands for

follow his example. That's the first thing that it means

to believe in Jesus. I follow his example. Everybody has

an example that they follow. You say, well, I don't

know who my example is. Then you've got a problem

because I've noticed this. If you don't decide what's.

Your model in life? Other people will decide it for you.

The media, culture peers pressure, you know, parents, other people

will try to tell.

You how you should live your life.

And God says, wait a minute, I don't want anybody

else telling you how to live your life.

I'm God.

I'm the one who should be telling you how to

live your life. Don't be pressured into some mold of

what other people think you ought to be. God says,

I made you to be you. And he says, the

only perfect example, by the way, anyway, is Jesus Christ.

You know, I had a number of friends who, once

they hit forty, went through a real period of shock

because they discovered around that age that the model that

they had chosen for their life was an inconsistent and

ineffective model. And at forty years of age, they were

ending up divorced, discouraged, depressed, friendless, lonely, and out of

whack with life. Why because they were looking for the

wrong model, following the wrong model. I actually had a

friend I mentioned his name, you'd know who he was,

who said, you know, Rick, I was climbing the ladder

of success. And when I got to the top, and

he did that I discovered it was the latter was

hanging against the wrong wall, leaning against the wrong wall,

he said, I was heading And I invested all that

time in the wrong thing. Now I have to admit

to you that when I was a young man, I

really wasn't interested in following Jesus Christ. And the reason

why is I bought into the stereotype of what Jesus is.

You know, if you've looked at any pictures of Jesus,

they always.

Look so wimpy, you know what I mean.

I mean, it's like this guy's looks like this pale, weak,

wimpy guy with little rouge on his cheeks, and you know,

and little his hair and curls, and he walks around,

you know, with a robe on, skipping the hills of Jerusalem,

talking about peace and love.

And I'm going boring.

And as a young man, the last thing I wanted

to do was follow Jesus Christ because I thought he

was some kind of whimp. Well, listen, if that's really

the way Jesus was, how in the world did he

get burly fishermen to drop their nets and follow him?

How did he bring a revolution against the Roman Empire?

If he was some wimpy guy. He wasn't.

He was the most countercultural, radical revolutionariy you've ever imagined.

And it takes courage to follow him. Now, Jesus says this,

they're on your outline. He says, you will be blessed.

Whenever you what follow my example, you will be blessed.

You know, everywhere Jesus Christ went he told people to

follow fact twenty one times in the Bible. He says,

follow me, you follow me, you follow me, you follow me,

you follow me twenty one times. He was always saying

follow me. Now, I like that because he's not saying

follow a principle. He's not saying follow a program. He's

saying follow a person me. He's not saying follow a religion.

He doesn't say follow a code of ethics. He says

follow me. If you don't get anything else I say

to you this morning, I want you to get this.

God wants a relationship with you, and following me implies

a relationship. It says you're gonna know me personally. God

isn't interested in religion. He's interested in a relationship. And

that's what he sent Jesus to establish between you and him. Now,

when you begin a relationship with Jesus. What happens, well,

you get all kinds of benefits in your life. I

don't have time to go into all of them, but

let me just mention two very good benefits that happen

if you start following Jesus. One of them is stability,

and the other one is clarity. Clarity and stability. You

might write those down clarity and stability. There are two

benefits of following Christ. First, I get clarity. What that

means is things get clearer in my life. I see

things a whole lot better. I see my relationships better,

my problems better, my future better. Everything gets clearer. All

of a sudden, I'm not so confused anymore. I'm not

so distracted anymore. I've gotten more direction in my life.

I've got more focus in my life. And the first

benefit is when I start following Jesus, I'm not confused anymore.

All of a sudden, I've got direction and focus and clarity.

Jesus said this.

I am the light of the world, and if you

follow me, you won't be stumbling through the darkness because

you'll have the light that leads to life. Do you

ever feel like you're just stumbling around in life. You

ever feel like you're going nowhere, you feel like you're

lacking direction.

Have you ever said to yourself.

I have no idea what I'm supposed to be doing

with my life. That's in a symptom of one thing.

You're not following Jesus. Because when you follow God's plan

and God's purpose for your life, he makes it very clear.

The confusion goes away, and you get direction and focus

in your life.

You get clarity, things seem clearer.

The second thing that happens when I follow Jesus Christ

is I get stability. In other words, I get a

solid foundation on which to build my life. Now Here

in California, we know the value of a solid foundation

because we have a thing called earthquakes, and we know

you got to have a solid foundation or you're gonna

crack up when the earthquakes come. Jesus told a story

about this once. He said, two guys went out and

build their houses. And one built his house on a

foundation of sand, and one built this house on a

foundation of a solid rock. And when the winds came,

and the floods came, and the rains and the storms,

and the katrinas of life came through the guy who

built this house on the sand. It collapsed, it fell apart,

it crumbled, he said. But the guy who built his

house on the solid rock, it stood stable. And the

storm came against it, but it held strong. It had

a center. You got to have a center for your life, because, friend,

you're gonna have storms in your life.

You've already had some.

You're gonna have financial storms in your life, gonna have

some relational storms in your life. If you get married,

you're gonna have some marriage storms. Uh, You're gonna have

some health storms. You're gonna get sick, people who you

love are gonna die. You're gonna have some emotional storms

in your life that just throw you up in the air.

And what's gonna be your stability when that happens. If

you don't have a solid foundation, when the rogue winds

that come, the katrinas of life come, you're gonna crack up.

You're gonna crash, You're gonna crumble, You're gonna fall apart.

And I see people like it all the time, who

just fall apart when the stress is on and they

worry and they fret and they get anxious because they

don't have a solid foundation.

Jesus said this, All who.

Listen to my instruction and follow them are wise like

a man who builds his house on solid rock. Now

the a in faith stands for except his grace. That's

the second thing of what it means to be a

real believer, not a phony believer, but a real believer

in Jesus. I follow his example. I accept his grace.

Now what does that mean? Well, the Bible says this,

there on your outline, Romans chapter five. Those who accept

God's full grace and the great gift of being made

right with him. In other words, God wipes away all

the things you've ever done wrong. He forgives you will

surely have true life and rule through Jesus Christ. Now

what is grace, Well, Grace means when God does something

for you, or anybody does something for you that you

don't deserve. When they do it simply out of their love,

not out of your deserving it, that's called grace. Grace

is when God gives you what you need, not what

you deserve. God doesn't give us what we deserve. If

I got what I deserved, I wouldn't be standing here.

I'd be dead, right, now, so would you. God doesn't

give you what you deserve. He gives you what you

need even before you know you need it. One of

the things that I need most is I need forgiveness

because I blow it all the time, so do you.

And God says I will forgive you before you even

know you need it. I will forgive you before you

even ask, before you even know what you've done wrong.

You might write the word forgiveness down because that's a

synonym for grace. It means God says, I give you

forgiveness for what you've done. Now, we don't understand this

because we don't do this very often with each other.

We don't show each other grace. Here's something I read

in the La Times. David Hagler is an umpire for

a men's baseball team, a community men's baseball league, and

he said I was driving too fast one day when

a policeman pulled me over and gave me a speeding ticket.

I tried hard to talk him out of it by

telling him how worried I was about my insurance and

what a careful.

Driver I normally was.

He said I begged him for some grace, but it

was no deal, and the officer said, if if I

didn't like the ticket, I could go to court. Well,

the very first game of the next Community Men's League

baseball season, I'm umpiring behind home plate, and coincidentally, the

first batter.

Up was that same policeman.

Now I immediately recognized him, but more important, he recognized me,

and he nervously asked, how did that thing with your

ticket go? I told him you better swing at everything. See,

we don't show each other grace. No, now we're not.

You know you didn't let me off the hook. I'm

not letting you off the hook. The fact is God

shows you grace every single second of your life, because

everything you have from God is a flat out gift.

Everything you have, your freedom, your life, your mind, your friends,

your health, your body, the air you breathe, everything you've

got is a flat out gift from God. If God

hadn't wanted to create you, you wouldn't even be alive.

The only reason in your life is God made you

to love you. And if God didn't want you to

be alive, you wouldn't be taking your next breath. The

air you breathe is a gift from God. Everything you

have you didn't earn a single bit of it. It's

all by grace, He said, what about the money that

I earned? Where do you think you got the ability

to earn it? Everything you have is a flat out

gift from God. You can't It wasn't from yourself. God

gave you those abilities. God shows us grace all the time,

and when it comes to blowing it making mistakes, God says,

I will forgive you of everything you've ever done wrong,

even though you don't deserve it, if you just trust

in Christ.

Look of the next verse.

Now, God says he will accept and acquit us. In

other words, declare us not guilty for all the things

you've done wrong if we trust Jesus Christ to take

away our sins, and we can all be saved in

the same way, all of us by coming to Christ,

no matter who we are or what we have been.

Like Now, I like that last part.

First, It says, no matter who we are, regardless of

your ethnic background, regardless of your economic background, regardless of

your religious background, it doesn't matter. You can still come

to Christ. Shoot, it doesn't matter if you're Catholic or

Methodist or Presbyterian, or a Protestant or Buddhist.

Or Baptist, or.

Mormon or Muslim or Jewish or Hindu, or no religion

at all. This isn't about religion, so it doesn't matter

who you are or where you come from. He says,

I want to help you out. I want to forgive you.

I'm going to show you my grace. That's what God

sent Jesus to do. He wants that relationship.

And he said, does no matter.

What you've done, well, that's good news because none of

us are perfect. We've all blown it, we've all made mistakes.

God says, We're just gonna wipe that out. We're going

to raise the guilt. We're gonna wipe the slate clean.

And what we're gonna do is we're gonna give you

a second chance. I am so glad that God gives

us a second chance. He's not a three stricture out

kind of guy. He gives us a second chance. That's grace.

You know.

When I was I was in junior high I took

a shop class in woodworking and one of the assignments says,

we were supposed to make a table. And actually, at

this time we were living my family was living out

in the country, and I was actually building this table

in a barn, and I just screwed it up royally.

I mean I messed it up. I was planing it

all wrong, and it was uneven. I varnished and stained it,

and it did look terrible, and it was uneven and this,

you know, it wouldn't even it was wobbly. It was

just a total disaster as a table and as a

junior high boy. I got so discouraged. I just kind

of crumpled into a pile there on the ground and

just start crying. I was so disappointed in what a

mess I had made of things. About five minutes later,

my dad came into the barn and he looked at

the table, and he said, is that the best you

can do?

Loser?

No, he didn't say that, gotcha.

Now, he didn't say that. He didn't. What he said

was I got.

What he said was, is it's okay, Ricky. He said,

we'll do it over. You can start over, and this

time I'll help you.

Friends. That's grace. Grace is when.

God says to you, Hey, you know what, You've messed

up a few things, you blew a few relationships, You've

made some really poor decisions. You've really messed up some

choices in life. He didn't do it all right, But

you know what, he didn't say okay, loser. No, he

comes and says, it's okay, we'll start over, and this

time I'll help you that grace.

Now, how do you get grace for your life?

You can't earn it, you can't work for it, you

can't deserve it, you can't buy it, you can't get

credit for it. There's only one way you can accept

God's grace. Admit you need it. You swallow your pride,

your ego, and you realize I need God, and you say, God,

I need your grace.

I'm not perfect. Heaven's perfect.

There's no chance I'm gonna make it into heaven because

I'm not perfect.

And I need your grace. God.

I need your forgiveness and I need you in my life.

That's called humility. The Bible says this, unless you accept

God's kingdom in the simplicity of a child, you'll never

get in What does a child do? Child doesn't come

in boisterously prideful. They you say help, Daddy, I need help,

and you just come and say God, I need your help.

Now.

This is why we celebrate Easter. It's why Easter is

a party. Easter is about the grace of God. Now,

the third thing that it means to really believe in

Jesus the eye in faith is I invest my life

in Him. I invest my life for Him.

Hey, thanks so much for being with us today and

listening to Pastor Rick's Daily Hope. You know your prayers

and financial support are having a huge impact on millions

of people here and around the world. So thank you,

Thank you so much. And now Rick's going to share

a letter from one of our listeners who says Daily

Hope is making a real difference in their life.

Your generous prayers and support help us teach God's word

to people all around the world who've never heard about

the hope of Jesus Christ. And God is using your

prayers and your gifts to help us reach people who

would never set foot inside the door of a church.

Here's a letter from Cheryl who's said, Pastor Rick, your

obedience in teaching God's word brings blessings of hope in

my life every day through your daily email devotional, through

your teaching, God is continually changing my thinking and aligning

my heart with His word, which brings hope and happiness

to my life and positive thoughts for a great future.

Please pray that all keep the fight to keep the

enemy from stealing the truth from me. I can now

see why staying in God's word every day is so important.

I want to pray for Cheryl right now. Cheryl, let

me pray for you.

Father.

Together we join in praying for Cheryl right now. And

I asked that your word will grow deep in her

heart and in the hearts of everyone else who's listening

right now. Plant it like a seed in fertile soil,

and then make it grow, and let the weeds of

temptation not choke it out. Help her and help all

of us to stand firm in your and Father, I

pray for everyone who hears this message today. I pray

for every listener of daily hope, and I ask that

you strengthen them to be obedient to your word, to

see your purpose, and to depend on your power, trusting

Jesus that you'll help them through no matter what they face.

And I ask this prayer, and I pray this blessing

in the name of Jesus.

Amen.

Hey, you know a great way to stay in God's

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