Rick Warren - Why Is Life in This World So Hard — Part Three

Today on Daily Hope with Pastor Rick Warren, we continue

in our riveting journey through the series The Invisible War.

In it will explore the unseen world of good and

evil and see how it impacts our day to day existence.

Join us for eye opening biblical insights into the spiritual

dimensions that influence our lives in ways we never imagined.

Right now, here's Pastor Rick Warren with the final part

of a message called why is life in this world

so hard?

Number four?

The fourth damage is in relationships, and sin results in

relational distance and discord. Relational distance and discord. In other words,

you have conflict with people. In a perfect environment, where

there is no sin, you're not going to have any conflict.

But in a marriage where you take one person who

is imperfect and another person who's imperfect, two imperfect people

cannot make a perfect relationship.

It is impossible.

One sinner marrying another sinner cannot create a perfect relationship. Guys,

you married a sinner and she married a bigger one,

and so you're not gonna have a perfect relationship. You're

gonna have problems in any relationship. Now Solomon mentions this too.

He says, you know what In Ecclesiastes, he said, I've

looked out and I've been watching people in the world.

You know what I discovered.

They're not nice to each other. People don't treat each

other kindly. People misuse each other, people abuse each other,

people lie to each other, people fake each other out.

People are phoning in their relationships. People wear masks, they

cover up, they abuse, they take advantage of each other,

and all of these things, and they hurt each other,

sometimes intentionally unintentionally. What because nothing works on this planet

because Sin broke it all. When we don't follow God's will,

it causes damage. And he says, we have all these

messed up relationships. Why are mess Why is it so

easy to mess up a relationship causes pain because we

don't follow what God says to do. Look at this

verse Ecclesiastes. For one, I saw all the people who

were mistreated here on earth, and I saw their tears,

and I saw that they had no one to comfort them. Now,

how did it get so messed up? Well again, you

go back to the first couple, to Adam and Eve.

Adam and Eve rebelled, and when they said, we're gonna

do the one thing that God said not to do.

It.

Not only disconnected them from God, it disconnected them from

each other. Now, listen, you cannot have intimacy the kind

of intimacy God wants you to have with your spouse

without intimacy with God first. When you're disconnected from God,

there's no way you're going to be fully connected the

way God meant for you to be as a husband

and wife. It is interesting to me that when Adam

and Eve got disconnected from God by blowing it and sinning,

what's the first thing they did? They made clothes, They

sewed fig leaves together.

And how does that happen?

How is it that being disconnected from God disconnects me

from you and causes me to want to cover up.

How is it that when I'm out of whack with God,

all of a sudden, I'm out of whack with you,

and I want to pretend and cover up my faults.

How is it that when I'm out of whack with God,

I am ashamed of my sexuality? How is it when

I'm out of whack with God, I don't really want

you to see the real me. I don't want to

be exposed, and I don't want to be vulnerable because

if I'm not right with God, then I cannot be

right with you. And so we cover up and we

sew fig leaves. What's your fig leaf? You got one?

And it's it's the way you act and the attitudes

that you have. It's emotions that cover up the things

that you're most embarrassed about, are most afraid of in

your own life.

Notice this verse.

It says in Genesis three, they suddenly felt ashamed of

their nakedness, so they strung fig leaves together to cover

themselves up. Out of whack with God, out of whack

with other people Genesis three. Ten later, God says, what

are you guys doing? You're wearing clothes Genesis God. Adam says,

I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid.

Sin always makes you defensive, Sin always makes you distant,

and sin always makes you demanding in a relationship.

You know, I remember a.

Guy who was preaching on this passage one time Genesis three,

about Adam and Eve covering up because they were embarrassed,

and he had one of these loose leaf bibles. I

don't know if you've ever seen these, but pastors have

loose leaf bible sometimes, so they can put their sermon

notes in there. So and they walk around with their Bible,

they can see their notes that they're trying to teach too.

And this guy had a loose leaf Bible, and as

he got up to speak from his chair, he walks

over to the podium, the page he's going to teach

on falls out on the floor.

He doesn't know it. He doesn't know it.

So he gets up and he starts to read the text,

and he says, and Adam said to Eve, and he

flips the page and obviously it's gone. It's out of order,

and so he says, because it's laying there on the floor.

And Adam said to Eve, and Adam said to he,

very interesting. It looks like a leaf is missing.

Now that's kind of result when you have you know,

so I used the real thing. I don't have one

of his phony, bolowny loose leaf Bibles. Okay, there it is. Okay,

Number five financial and vocational difficulties. Sin has damaged this

area too. He's damaged the area of your finances and

the area of your career. Sin has done that. How

do economies get broken? Oh's real simple. By ignoring the

biblical principles of finance that God has said in his word.

God has given us the principles for money management in

the Bible. They're very clear. We've covered them many, many,

many times. The principle of accounts, of accounting, keep good records,

the principle of spending budget you're spending, the principle of saving,

the principle of giving and tithing, the principle of investing,

the principle of being satisfied with what you have. I

could go on and on. There are many, many principles

of finance in scripture. When you and I ignore them

and we do not delay gratification, and we think I

got to have it now, even though I can't afford it,

and you spend what you cannot afford.

You're going to get in debt.

And all of the economic problems we have that the

government can't seem to put together and agree on is

because of irresponsible living, spending money we didn't have, and

not obeying God's financial principles. Now here's what he says

in Ecclesiastes. Here's a terrible thing I've seen in the world.

People save up their money for a time when they

may need it, and then they lose it all and

some bad deal or bad economy or bad market. They

lose it all and some bad deal and end up

with nothing left to pass on to their children. That's

because the world is broken financially too. And then in life,

work is not meaningful. It's not purposeful, it's not satisfying

because it's broken.

Look at the next verse.

I hated life because the work I did under the

sun was meaningless to me, because they just felt like,

I'm not putting in punching my time card. It was

meaningless to me, so I turned in despair from hard work.

It was not the answer to my search for satisfaction

in this life. He said, you know, I thought, if

I just make a really good career and I succeeded

my career, then I'm really going to be satisfied. He goes,

that didn't satisfy me. It's broken too. Guy told me

one time, He said, you know, Rick, I climbed the

ladder of success, and I got to the top. But

when I got to the top, I realized the ladder

was leaning against the wrong wall, and I had wasted

all that effort on something that didn't matter. Number six,

the sixth area is spiritual discontent and darkness. Spiritual discontent

and darkness. There are not only emotional, relational, financial, vocational,

physical consequences to ignoring what God says, but there are

spiritual consequences. There's discontent and darkness. Have you ever felt like,

you know, I feel like God's a million miles away.

I feel like I'm praying and he's not listening. My

prayers are bouncing off the ceiling. I'm not I don't

feel close to God. Well, of course you don't. Here's

what why, Isaiah fifty nine up here on the screen.

Your iniquities have separated you from your God, because God's holy,

and your sins have hidden his face from you so

that he will not hear. If you feel far from God,

guess who moved. God didn't move, but you moved away

by saying, I'm going to do my thing, be my

own God, call my own shots. I'm not going to

obey what the Bible says. I know what the Bible says,

but I'm going to do what I want to do.

And you move away from God and then you wonder

why God feels distant, and then you start searching, and

you start looking for God in all the wrong places,

and a lot of people don't even know they're looking

for God. They call it happiness. I'm looking for happiness.

I'm looking for peace. I'm looking for security, I'm looking

for fulfillment. I'm looking for meaning and purpose. What they're

looking for is God and they don't know it, and

they still have it found what they're looking for. Job

says it like this, and Job six here on the screen.

I'm like a caravan lost in the desert searching for

water because I haven't the slightest idea where I'm headed,

where I'm going. I'm in the middle of a dry desert.

I don't know which way I'm going, and I'm thirsty.

And you start looking for all kinds of things to

quench that thirst, looking for God in all the wrong places,

and what does it do. It leads to more darkness

and more discontent and more discouragement. The next verse says this,

they have refused for so long to deal with God,

and they just keep putting it off. I'm not going

to deal with God. They've refused for so long to

deal with God that they have lost touch not only

with God but with reality itself. And friends, if you

don't believe that. Turn on the television. A lot of

television has lost total touch with reality. They're not only

out of touch with God, they don't even know what

life's all about. They haven't the foggiest idea what life's

all about. They're spinning around in circles, making little tiny

things enormous issues.

They're majoring on the miners.

They don't know what life is all about, and they

are out of touch and they're in the dark. Now, friends,

that is not a pretty picture what I just shared

with you. And when I see that picture of what

sin does to the world, do you know what it

makes me want to do? Hate sin? You know the

problem today? We don't hate sin. We laugh at it.

We think it's a joke. We think it's a comedy line.

If you don't believe me, go home and turn on

HBO and any comedy show, and half the comedy is

going to be making fun of things that are wrong

and laughing about drug use, sexual promiscuity, all kinds of

sexual innuendos, immaturity, immorality, making fun of people who are

trying to do the right thing and celebrating the wrong

and we laugh at it like that's funny.

Friend.

When I hear about something that causes disasters and deformity,

death and decay, distress and disappointment, relational distance and discord,

financial and vocational difficulties, and spiritual discontent and darkness, that's

not a laughing matter. If you want to know how

bad sin is, you look at the cross. Jesus with

his arms outstretches. This is how bad the sin is.

I had to die for it. Now, that's not a

pretty picture. That's why you need a savior, because there's

no way you can undo all this damage in the world,

in your family, or in your own.

Personal life by yourself. You need a savior.

If you didn't need a savior for all of these things,

believe me, God wouldn't have wasted the time sending Jesus

as your savior. He sent you to save you and

to begin the restoration process in these six areas. Now

we're in the dark, he says, We're just totally in

the dark.

So what do I do? Well, there are two things

you need to do.

Number One, you need to accept I need to accept

Jesus as my savior.

That's the starting point.

Now in the week said we're going to talk in

detail about the answers to how.

To get along in a broken world.

But the first thing I've got to do is I've

got to accept Jesus as my savior because he's the

only one who can help me undo some of the

damage on this side of heaven.

John sixteen, verse thirty three.

Jesus says this in this world, in this world, you

will circle, will not might not could happen.

You will.

You can count on it. You will have trouble. But

he says, take heart, I have overcome the world. And

in the next few weeks, I'm going to teach you

how Jesus helps you overcome the world. In all of

these areas that have done damage in your life. You

got to accept Jesus as your savior. The second thing

I have to do is this, I must follow his light.

I must follow his light because a lot of times

I'm in the total dark about what I should do.

With the damage that's been done in my life. You know,

one of my favorite.

Vacations the number of years ago, we did a family vacation.

We went up to Montana and can and I and

then we went down to Yosemite, our Yellowstone and had

them fund. But right there in the corner of Montana

is a little known national park called Lewis and Clark Caverns.

It's underground caverns. I love this place. I think it's

better than Carlsbad Caverns. Carlsbad's a little too commercial for me.

Loosing car Caverns is still very rustic. You climb up

this mountain and then you go down this little shaft

on hundreds of rickety stairs and you're just walking down down, deeper, deeper,

hundreds of feet underground into the earth. And we got

down in the middle of this one of the big caverns,

hundreds of feet below, and they said, we're going to

show you what total darkness really looks like, because most people.

Have never seen total darkness.

And so they turn out a couple of the lamps,

the lamps that are there, and it's flat out pitch black.

I can hold my finger like this and I can't

see it. Kind of spooky total darkness. And then the

park ranger lights a match and lights a candle, and

that one little candle, all of a sudden, you go, okay,

maybe we are going to get out of here. Has

a little bit of hope. A little candle in darkness

gives me hope. It's not a big light, but it's

a light. And then he turns on his flashlight and

he says, follow me out.

Now, what do you think I'm gonna do? Go this way?

Not unless I'm an idiot, I'm not gonna do that.

I'm gonna follow the guy who's got the light.

If I'm in the.

Dark, I'm not gonna say I don't need you, mister ranger.

I'm gonna figure my own way out of this mess. No,

I'm gonna follow the guy who's got the light. That's

the only rational, reasonable, logical.

Thing to do.

Last verse John eight twelve, Jesus said, I am the

light of the world.

If you follow me, you won't be stumbling through the.

Darkness, because you will have the light that leads to life.

That's a bow our heads for prayer. Father.

We look at the world and we are disappointed. So

much of the time, we're disappointed in the events of life.

We're disappointed that things don't go the way we want

them to. We're disappointed with other people, and yeah, we're

disappointed with ourselves. Help us to realize that this is

not your plan. This is not your goal, but that

you want to restore that which was broken. Now you

pray in your heart, say, dear God, I admit that

I have rebelled against you. I've done things that I

wanted to do instead of what you wanted.

Me to do. I've gone my way.

I've gone days without even talking to you, and I've

been disconnected from you. So I'm disconnected from other people.

I have sinned and transgressed, and I've hurt other people,

and nothing works perfectly in my life. I ask you

to work on these areas in my life. Jesus Christ.

I affirm you once again as my savior. Just say that, Jesus,

I affirm you once again as my savior. If you've

never asked him to be your savior, say, Jesus Christ,

I ask you to become my savior today and restore

physical health in my body, emotional help in my feelings,

relational health where there's distance and conflict. I want you

to work on financial health in my life. And I

want to have a healthy career and job. Most of all,

I want to be spiritually healthy. I don't want to

be connected to you. I don't want to walk in

darkness anymore. Jesus, You've got the flashlight. You are the flashlight,

so I accept you as my savior and I want

to follow your light as best I know how. Use

this series to help me get some healing in the

areas that are.

Broken in my life. I pray this in your name. Amen.

Hi everybody, this is Rick and I hope you enjoyed

today's broadcast. You know, if you just prayed that prayer

for the very first time, or you just recommitted your

life to Jesus again today, would you let me know

about it. There's something real about sharing your commitment. So

write me Rick at pastor Rick dot com and say, Rick,

I prayed that prayer of commitment, I gave my life

to Christ. And I'll send you some material that will

help you on your journey with Jesus.

And I'll also pray for you.

God bless you.

You're listening to Pastor Rick's Daily Hope. We're so happy

you've chosen to study along with us today. Why is

everything in life so hard? Why does the right thing

often feel like a battle. It's because every day there's

a spiritual war raging all around you. Here's Pastor Rick

to tell you more.

You know, we all face temptations every day. It's a

spiritual battle that takes place inside us, and it makes

us vulnerable, particularly if we don't know how to fight it.

To overcome temptation is absolutely essential that you know the

tactics that Satan uses to trip us up, and it's

vital to learn the biblical defenses that God gives us.

He has told us in his Word how to handle

and how to manage the acts of Satan. In order

to help you learn how to respond to the predictable

patterns that Satan uses to tempt you, I've created a

study kit called The Invisible War, Winning the Battle of Temptation.

This kit, The Invisible War Winning the Battle of Temptation,

includes a DVD with seven different sessions and a simple

booklet that will help you learn how to overcome and

defeat temptation in your life. You really need this. In

the series, I will teach you the three kinds of temptation,

God's antidote to temptation, and even how to avoid temptation

in the first place. It is a steady guide that

you can use by yourself, but you'll actually get more

out of it if you'll gather a small group of

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