Rick Warren - The Word of Humanity - Part Two

Thanks for joining us here today on Pastor Rick's Daily Hope,

the audio broadcast ministry of Pastor Rick Warren. Today we

continue in a series called the Seven Greatest Words of Love.

There are seven.

Words in particular that Jesus spoke during his final hours

on the Cross that hold the keys for finding fulfillment

in your life, relationships, and even your career. Right now,

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

the Word of Humanity.

It says that when Jesus says I thirst, they took

a hissop stick, They put a sponge on it, they

dipped it into pasca, this vinegary water, and they hold

it to his lips so he can slay his thirst

and cool his parched lips. Now, what is the significance

of a hissup stick? Any Jew standing around the cross

would know the meaning of that, because fifteen hundred years earlier,

when Moses led the children of Israel out of Egypt

and they had the passovernight, and remember all the firstborn,

we're going to.

Die in Egypt.

And God said, I want you to take a lamb,

and I want you to go, and I want you

to spread the blood on the doors of every Jewish family,

and then we'll pass over. That's where the word passover

comes from. Will pass over these homes and they'll go free,

and they won't be touched by the death and the destruction.

And in Exodus twelve, this is fifteen hundred years earlier.

Here's what it says. God tells Moses, and Moses tells

the people. Take a branch of the hissip plant, same plant,

dip it into the bowl filled with blood, and then

wipe the blood on the sides and top of the

door frames.

And that's the symbol.

This is not an Egyptian family, this is a Jewish family.

This is a believing family. They're the ones that are

going free, and they get passed over from the death

and destruction. Now, when the Roman soldiers do this, they

don't have any idea the symbolism's going on. But they

take the same hissip stick, dip it in the water,

and when they hold it to Jesus's mouth, every Jew

around the cross knew what that meant. It was a fulfillment,

It was another symbol. It was another metaphor that the

passover Lamb who saved the lives many years before.

Because of its blood.

Jesus blood was going to save them with a very

powerful symbol. So through these two words I thirst, we

know Jesus is truly a man. And to second, we

know Jesus is truly God. He's the Messiah, He's the

anointed one. He's the one that all these three hundred

and eighty predictions, even that one comes down to being

fulfilled in the last seconds.

But there's a third one. This is important.

It shows how much Jesus loves me. It shows how

much Jesus loves me. That Jesus Christ would go through

all of this pain for me is an amazing thing.

Have you ever gone thirsty to save the life of

somebody else?

I kind of doubt that, but Jesus did.

And Jesus, what he's doing here, the suffering he's going

through on the cross is called redemptive suffering. He hadn't

done anything wrong, he didn't deserve to be punished, he

hadn't sinned, He'd lived a perfect life.

So what is he doing.

He's suffering for the benefit of somebody else. You, He's

suffering for you. He's suffering for you. This is redemptive suffering.

He's paying for your ticket to heaven, and this shows

how much God loves me. Romans five eight says, this

God demonstrates his own love for us, and that while

we were still sinners, we're still rejecting God.

Christ died for.

Us, dying on the behalf of somebody else. You know.

Back in nineteen eighty seven, there was a young man

in our church named Rhett Wherette was a.

Friend of mine.

He had just graduated from high school at Mission Video

High School. He's nineteen years old. He was going to

start sattle Back College in the fall, and he went

back east to make a visit of some family. And

in August of that year, August sixteenth, he was got

on a flight and he started flying out of Detroit.

Interestingly enough, on the flight right behind him there were

planes backed up in Detroit was my brother. And my

brother watched this flight take off. It was called Northwest

Flight one fifty five, some of you remember that. And

it took off, but in a few mon minutes later

in the horizon, all of a sudden, it stalled and

it plummeted and it crashed and it killed one hundred

and fifty five people just out of the Detroit airport.

And my brother was on the plane right behind it,

watched it happened, and Rhett was killed.

I did his funeral at Mission Jeo High School.

But on that flight, when they started going through the

wreckage and one hundred and fifty five people killed, they

found one lone survivor. It was a four year old

little girl. The little baby girl, her name was Cecilia.

She was from Tempe, Arizona, and they couldn't figure out

how she had lived through this flight one fifty five crash,

only one four year old girl, and they didn't know

until they asked her, and she explained in her own

terms how her mommy, her mother, and her father and

her brother were all killed in the crash. How her mommy,

when they real they were going down, took off her

seat belt, turned around in front of her, got down

in front of her seat and wrapped her in her

arms like this to protect her. And the only reason

she was saved because it's her mother gave her life

for her.

That's exactly what Jesus did for you on the cross.

He covered you with his love, he covered you with

his blood, He covered.

You with his arms saying I love you this much, and.

He gave his life for you, so that you didn't

have to die for your sense. You know this theme

I first. I don't know if you know it, but

it was the life theme of Mother Teresa. It was

in fact, in every one of the homes for the

dying that Mother Teresa opened in her lifetime, and everyone

hung a picture of Jesus on the Cross with simply

the words underneath it, I thirst. It was in every

home that Mother Teresa started, I thirst because she said,

that is the goal of our ministry. That is the

goal of our ministry, even every home for dying. Let

me show you what she said about this. Watch this

on the screen.

The m of our congregation, the am of our existence,

is not just to do that work them is to

satiate the tust of God, the tirst of Jesus on

the cross for love for souls. And so who are

the nearest to him, the poorest, on the poor, that

hunger of Christ on the cross, the test of Christ

on the cross. We say sheiate by our love in action.

That thirst on the cross. We associate it with it

through our love in action. When you go to work

on Monday, people all around you are going to be

spiritually thirsty. When you go home to your house, the

people who live next door to you are spiritually thirsty.

When you go to the grocery store, or you go

to the soccer game, and everywhere you go, everybody around

you is spiritually thirsty. Now, they don't ever use that term.

Nobody ever says I'm spiritually thirsty. So let me give

you a few synonyms for spiritual thirst. I'm really unfulfilled.

I'm bored with my life. I'm super frustrated right now.

There's gotta be more to light than this. I'm in

over my head. I'm hanging on by a thread. I'm

about to go under. I'm ready to throw in the towel.

I don't feel like this is all there is to life.

I'm unfulfilled. My life lacks meaning.

I don't know what's missing, but I still haven't found

what I'm looking for.

I can't get no satisfaction.

Everybody on this planet is spiritually thirsty and they don't

know it, and they're looking to fill the void in

their heart with things that aren't going to satisfy them.

Then aren't going to quench their thirst.

They're bored, they're dissatisfied, they feel empty, they're unhappy.

They want more.

They go, I gotta have more. I got money. I

gotta get more.

I gotta get more. I gotta get more. I gotta

get more.

Now, what do we learn from the thirst of others,

the people around us? Well, the Bible talks about this

emptiness and spiritual hunger. The Book of Amos, chapter eight

says this. The time is coming, God says, when I

will send a famine on the land, and people will

be hungry, but not for bread. And they will be thirsty,

but not for water. They will hunger, and they will

thirst for a message from the Lord. And people will

stagger everywhere, from sea to sea, from the Atlantic to

the Pacific, searching for the word of the Lord. Running here,

going there, But they will not find that. They're on

this big search. Beautiful girls and fine young men will

grow faint and weary, thirsting for the Lord's where. It's

like Hollywood celebrities. They are beautiful people, but empty lives.

They look good, they feel good, they have the goods.

But they're not living good. And they're hungry, and.

They're thirsty for spiritual things. And they don't know what

they really want, so they try to find it in

sex They try to find it in fame. They try

to find it in drugs, they try to find it

in sports, they try to find it in a hobby.

They try to find in all kinds of other things

which are very good or very bad, but neither of

them are going to satisfy that hunger. Now, there are

two things you need to remember this week when you

go back to work or you go home, or you

go out in the community. Two things you need to

remember about everybody you see. Write these down. Number one,

I serve Jesus by serving others. They're hungry, and they're thirsty.

And when you serve their spiritual hunger and their spiritual thirst,

it's like you serving Jesus on the cross. I serve

Jesus by serving others. The Bible tells us that one day,

on the judgment day, we're going to stand before God.

And in Matthew twenty five it says this, Lord, we'll

say to Jesus, when did we ever see you hungry

and feed you? When did we see you, Lord thirsty

and give you something to drink? And he will tell them,

I assure you that when you did it to the

least to the one of the least of.

These, my brothers. You were doing it to me.

Now think about the irony of this fishth word on

the cross where Jesus, in this final moment, is saying,

I thirst Who invented water?

God?

Every single drop of water was created by Jesus. He

invented every rain, every river, every every every lake, every pond,

the ocean, ice. God invented h two O, the inventor

of water, the creator of water, every drop on the universe,

God created. Now he's hanging on the cross, and he's thirsty.

He certainly could have just done a miracle and given

himself water, you know, caused it the rain. He could

have done any kind of miracle he wanted to to

quench his thirst, but instead get this important Jesus God,

at this point asks for human assistance.

Is I'm thirsty? Is that a mind.

Blower that the God of the universe, who creates water,

invents water, made all the water, says I'm thirsty.

Can anybody help me out here?

I'm a little busy right now, I'm a little tied up.

His hands are nailed to the cross. He can't even

get a drink himself. Somebody's gonna have to put it

on a sponge and stick it to his mouth, and

he's asking for human assistance. Now, imagine you, two thousand

years ago being the guy who gives Jesus a drink

of water. This guy, in all likelihood, was not a believer,

followed Jesus Christ. He's just a Roman soldier and takes sponge,

sticks it on a hissup stick, dips it in someipaska,

and he offers water to the Son of God.

He realize, what a privilege that would be.

What a privilege to be the person who, when the

Son of God says I'm thirsty, you meet that need.

What a privilege that would have been. You have that

privilege every single day of your life, Jesus said, inasmuch

as you've done it under the least of these my brothers,

you did it to me. And when you help somebody

in pain, when you help somebody across the street, when

you give somebody some kind of answer to their need,

any little thing, Jesus said, you're doing it to me.

I serve God, I serve Jesus by serving others.

That is the privilege.

You have the same privilege that man had at the

foot across You have every day. When you help an

elderly person, a young person, a mentally ill person, a

confused person, a homeless person, when you help anybody, it's

the same thing, Jesus said. The second lesson we learned

about spiritual thirsty people around you is that Jesus notices

the smallest service. Jesus notices the smallest of services. It

could be so minor by comparison. In Matthew ten forty two,

Jesus said this, if you give even a cup of

cold water to one of the least of my followers,

you will surely be rewarded, even if you're just giving

water to somebody thirsty. The Bible calls that ministry. See,

we often think ministry is oh, teaching the Bible, leading worship. No, no, no,

ministry is here. Can I give you drink? Is like

to sit down, put your feet up for a minute?

Can I help you out? Can I do an errand

for you? Can I bring you a meal? A cup

of cold water? Jesus says, that's ministry. He said, You're

gonna be rewarded in Heaven for that. For slaking somebody's thirst,

emotional thirst, physical thirst, mental thirst, spiritual thirst. Doing these

simple things. Jesus notices the smallest service you see. What

I've discovered today is that everybody wants to do great

things for God. Stop trying to do great things for God.

The greatest things are actually the smallest things. It's not

the big things, it's the little things that God noticed.

He says, that's my girl, that's my boy.

You're feeding people, you're helping people, You're taking care of

their emotional, physic, mental, spiritual needs. Nobody's ever going to

know about it. But God says, I saw that. I

saw you help that person across the street. I saw

you do that kind word. I saw you give the

pat on the back. I saw you take a moment

when you didn't have a moment.

I saw you do that.

It's not the big things they are going to get

the credit. It's do I care about somebody in pain

in that moment and you're never going to know about it.

Do I show kindness in the little things to a child,

to an elderly person, to a lonely person, to a

hurting person, to an irritating person.

Now we're meddling.

Jesus notices the smallest of services.

You know.

I read this a while back, Doug Nichols.

He was an.

American Christian and he was living in India, and he

was trying to share the Gospel with people. He's trying

to tell people in India the good news of Jesus Christ.

Didn't speak a word of any of the Indian dialects,

and he wrote this Doug Nichols. When I got tuberculosis

in India, I was forced to stay in a sanitarium

for several months. I didn't speak the language, but I

tried to give Christian literature in their language to the

patients and to the doctors and the nurses, and not

a single person accepted. Everybody politely refused my Christian literature.

The first few nights I was there, I woke up

around two am coughing from my tuberculosis. And during one

of my coughing spells, I noticed an older, sicker patient

across the room trying to get out of bed. He'd

sit up on the edge of the bed. He'd try

to stand, but in weakness, he'd fall back into the bed.

I didn't understand what he was trying to do. He

finally gave up, exhausted, but I could hear him crying

softly through the night. The next morning, I realized that

he'd been trying to get out of bed to go

to the bathroom, and the stench in our ward was awful.

Other patients yelled insults at this man who'd soiled himself.

Angry nurses moved him roughly as they cleaned up the mess.

One nurse even slapped him. The old man curled up

into a ball and he wept. The next night, I

woke up again coughing, and I noticed the same man

trying to get out of bed, and like the night before,

he fell back into his bed whimpering. So I got

out of my bed and I went over to him.

When I touched his shoulders, his eyes opened wide with fear,

but I smiled, put my arms under him and picked

him up. He was very light due to old age

and advanced t b and I carried him to the toilet,

which was just a filthy small.

Room with a hole in the floor.

I stood behind him with my arms under his armpits

as he took care of himself, and after he finished,

I carried him back to bed. As I laid him down,

he kissed me on the cheek. He smiled and said

something an Indian I didn't understand. The next morning, another

patient woke me up and handed me a steaming cup

of tea. He motioned with his hands that he wanted

a gospel tract that I'd been trying to give out.

As the sun rose, other patients approached me, and each

of them indicated that they also wanted the Christian booklets

that nobody had been interested in before. Throughout the day,

nurses and interns and doctors asked for my booklet about Jesus.

Weeks later, a pastor came who spoke the language, and

he visited me, and he told me that several people

in the hospital had put their trust in Jesus Christ

as a savior as a result of reading those booklets.

So what did it take for me to reach these

dear people with the good news? Not my ability to

speak their language, not my ability to give a persuasive presentation.

I simply helped an old man to the bathroom. What

are you willing to do to get people into heaven?

Let's just pause on that for a minute. What are

you willing to.

Do to get people into heaven?

What kind of love do you really have for other

people who are physically spiritually and emotionally thirsty?

Is anybody going to be in heaven because of you?

Are you willing to pick up an old man and

take into the bathroom?

What are you willing to do?

Jesus said, inasmuch you've done it under the least of

these my brothers. You did it to me? Have you

done it to anybody? Will you do it to anybody

this next week? Will you show that kind of love?

Are you so insolated in self centeredness and my life

and my joke goals, and my problems and my needs

and my family that I don't have time to notice

the people who saying I'm thirsty around me? We learn

in the thirst of others that I serve Jesus by

serving others. And we learn that Jesus notices even the

smallest service. And the third thing, this is the hardest

one of all. Write this down. The most christ Like

service is to enemies. Oh come on, you know, I'm sorry,

but this is the Jesus way to live. The most

christ Like service is to enemies. I am most like Jesus.

You are most like Jesus when you're helping people you

totally disagree with.

You don't like their lifestyle.

You don't like their politics, you don't like their breath,

you don't like the way they look, you don't like

their culture, you don't like the way they talk, and

on and on and on. You are most like Jesus

when you respond with kindness to the people who don't

like you, when you're building bridges to people like that.

Pastor Rick Warren says that every word Jesus spoke was

important and has life changing power. The words that Jesus

spoke during his final hours on the cross hold the

key to finding fulfillment in your life, career, and relationships.

That's why Rick put together a powerful seven session study

kit called the Seven Greatest Words of Love. Get it

now and unlock the full meaning and amazing blessings of

Jesus's last words before his resurrection words of forgiveness, assurance, love, trust,

and more. And this is a life changing Bible study

with seven video sessions and a workbook. Request your copy

today by calling eight hundred, six hundred five thousand and four.

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