Rick Warren - God Can Restore Everything Thats Been Taken from You

We all know we're imperfect. But we say to God, God,

we're going to trust you. And when you come to

Christ and you say, you're going to take my sins

on you? Yeah. What are you giving me in return?

My goodness. You don't have to beg. Please, God, please,

please save me. You don't have to bargain. If you'll

do this, God, then I'll do that. You don't have

to bribe. I'll read my Bible every day. You just believe.

That's it. That's why it's called the good news. Now

he says he restores my soul. What does that mean? First,

what's your soul? What is your soul? Well the Bible

says that you have a spirit, you have a soul,

and you have a body. Just like the tabernacle and

the temple were a three part dwelling place of God,

the inner court, the outer court, and the Holy of Holies,

God dwells in you in three parts, in your spirit,

in your soul and in your body. What's the difference

between your spirit and your soul? Well, the Bible even

says itself that only the Bible can discern the difference.

That it is the word of God that is sharper

than a two-edged sword dividing even asunder a soul and spirit.

And so I don't wanna get into that, but I

do wanna tell you what your soul is. Your soul

is your mind, it is your will, and it is

your motion. So why don't you write this down if

you're taking notes, my soul is the part of me

that thinks, chooses, and feels. My soul is the part

of me that thinks, that chooses, and that feels. It's

your mind, it's your will, and your emotion. Now if

you don't have a soul, you don't have a whole lot.

But these three parts of who you are, the way

you think, the way you feel, and the choices that

you make, your mind, will, and your emotions, really determine

who you are. And it's very easy to get these damaged.

Can your mind be damaged? Of course it can, yeah,

by what you put in it, by experiences, by trauma, chemistry,

all kinds of things, your mind can be damaged. You

don't always think straight, and neither do I. And how

about your emotions? Can your emotions be damaged? Yes. Your

emotions can get raw, that you can get depleted emotionally,

you can be out of emotion, you could be over emotional.

And yes, our minds are broken, our emotions are broken,

and actually, can your will be broken? Yes. Can it

be damaged? Yes. Have you ever had a chance to

look at your life and you think, I really know

the right thing to do, and I wanna do the

right thing, but I never do choose it. Because our

choosers are broken. Our choosers are broken. We're all flawed

in many ways, and that's why there are addictions, and

that's why you do things that you don't wanna do,

and you don't do things that you wanna do. That's

part of your willpower doesn't always work. How many of

you agree willpower doesn't always work? Yeah, right. And so

when we talk about our soul, the way we think,

the way we feel, and the way we choose, the

decisions that we make, God says, I want to restore

that in your life. I want to restore you to wholeness.

I want to restore your mind and will and emotions

to health. That's one of the things the good shepherd

does for the sheep. The Lord is my shepherd. I

have everything I need. Well, sometimes I need to think straighter.

And sometimes I need to feel correctly because my emotions

aren't always right. Sometimes they lie. And sometimes I need

my will fixed because I don't have enough willpower to

do what I need to do. Now, what is it

that damages your soul? What I want us to do

this weekend is ask a couple questions. What damages our soul?

Because you can't get it restored unless you know what's

causing the problem. What damages my soul? We'll look at that.

And then we're going to look at what Jesus does

to restore it. How does Jesus restore? Right thinking, right feeling,

and right deciding. And then finally, we'll look at, just

very briefly, how do I make of the right decisions

to let my soul be restored. In other words, what's

my response to what God wants to do in my life, okay? Now,

let's begin with what is it that damages your soul?

Why don't you always think right? Why don't you always

feel right? And why don't you always choose right? There

are many things that could damage your soul, but I

wanna focus on the three most common. Three most common,

you might write these down. Number one, the first thing

that damages the way you think, the way you feel,

and the way you decide is under or unaddressed grudges.

Unaddressed grudges. When you get resentful, when you get bitter,

when you start thinking about retaliation or revenge in somebody

who's hurt you, it damages your soul. Now there are

a lot of verses about this, but let me first

talk about the background. The fact is in life, you're

gonna be hurt. Why? This is not heaven, this is earth.

And we're all broken people, we're all imperfect, Sometimes we

hurt each other intentionally. Sometimes we hurt each other unintentionally.

But the truth is, you're gonna be hurt in life.

And sometimes people hurt you, and sometimes you hurt them.

And so when that happens, we start to build up grudges.

Now let me just start at the bedrock. Life is

not fair. God never said that life would be fair.

This is not heaven, where everything is done perfectly. God's

will is always done instantly, perfectly, and completely. A lot

of times we choose not to do God's will. That's

called sin. And because life is unfair, the Bible tells

us that innocent people suffer. This is not something new.

Everybody can see it. That good guys don't always win.

Bad guys often are successful. That there is injustice in

the world. There's racism in the world. There's prejudice in

the world. There is unfairness in the world. And every

one of us in different ways have experienced unfairness or

prejudicial treatment against you in some way and you shouldn't

be surprised by that because the world is broken, everything

is broken. What I'm interested in is not so much

the fact that you're gonna be hurt in life, I'm

sorry for it, but what I'm more interested in is

how you respond to it. Because your response to how

you get hurt in life is far more important than

the hurt you have. Because they can either make you

bitter or they can make you better. And when God

wants to restore your soul, he wants to take all

of the bitter things in your life and turn them

into better things in your life. We'll come to that

in just a minute. Now when you have grudges, when

people hurt you, you can either let it go or

you can start dwelling on it and stewing and spewing

and worrying about all things. You start planning how to retaliate,

how to resent them, how to get even with them.

When you, somebody hurts you, that puts them beneath you

morally when they hurt you. But when you try to

get even, it just puts you on the same level.

You're no better than they are. When you let it go,

when you forgive them, it actually puts you in a

superior position. You don't want to ever get even with

people because that means you're the same as they are.

If you get even with them, you're no better than

they are. So what do you do when you're hurt? Resent? Retaliate?

Seek revenge? No. No you don't. Let me show you why.

A couple verses. Job 5 verse 2 says this. To

Job 5:2

worry yourself to death with resentment would be a foolish,

senseless thing to do. And in Job 18 verse 4

Job 18:4

it says this. You're only hurting yourself with your anger.

You're only hurting yourself. We've talked about this many times.

That when you When you hold onto a grudge, it's

not hurting them. It's only hurting you. They're out there

having a good time. They're watching movies. They're going to

nice restaurants. They're going to ball games. They're having a

whole lot of fun. They're totally oblivious. Who gets hurt

when you're resentful? You do. It's like drinking poison and

hoping it kills them. It's like taking fire into your

stomach or your chest and hoping they get burned. Resentment

is worthless. He says to worry yourself to death with

resentment would be a foolish thing to do. Now the

Bible does say that one day God's gonna even the score.

The Bible says that there is a judgment day and

that God is not just a loving God, he's a

just God. If God was not a just God, people

like Hitler could get away with everything they did. I'm

glad that God is a just God. Now you can

get around that judgment by accepting the grace of God

and accepting the salvation that Jesus Christ paid for your sins.

But there's gonna be a judgment day for everybody. And

God is gonna be just in measuring out what people

deserve based on their sinfulness. God says, I don't want

you to have to go through the judgment. God doesn't

like to judge. He likes to show mercy. All through scripture,

God is very patient. And God is very... reluctant to

judge and he'll wait and wait and wait and wait

before he judges a nation or a person, things like that.

He'd rather be merciful. But there is a judgment coming

one day and God is gonna even the odds and

people who were mistreated and misjudged and treated unfairly, there

will be an equaling out, a time of justice. But

that's not your job. If you try to show justice

yourself and you take matters into your hands and get revenge,

God says, fine, that's all we're going to do on that.

So what do you do in the meantime? You let

it go. You say, but Rick, you don't know how

much they've hurt me. You let it Why? Not because

they deserve it. They don't. You don't deserve to be forgiven.

You don't deserve to be forgiven at all either. But

God has forgiven you. You forgive people not because they

deserve it. You forgive people because you don't wanna carry

the pain around anymore. You don't wanna be stuck with

unaddressed grudges. Because it's not gonna hurt them, it's only

gonna hurt you. You know, Martin Luther King once said,

bitterness is blindness. Bitterness is blindness. And I like that

because when I get bitter against somebody over here, I

get blind to a whole lot of other things. I

get blind to how much God has done good in

my life. I get blind to the truth. I get

blind to all the needs of people around me. I'll

just say this. You're never gonna stop hurting. Your soul

will not be restored until you learn to forgive and

let it go. You gotta drop it. We'll come back

to that in a minute. The second thing that destroys

your soul from the inside, I said first unaddressed grudges,

the second is unconfessed guilt. Grudges and guilt are two

of the biggest things that warp your soul. And grudges

have to do with what people have done to you,

and guilt is what you've done to other people. And

we have both, we've hurt others and other people have

hurt us. And so, unconfessed guilt, nothing damages your life more,

your soul more. Nothing will rob your happiness quicker than

to go around carrying a load of guilt. A lot

of people have a misconception of God. They think that

God wants us to walk around feeling guilty. He does not.

God hates guilt. In fact, God loves to forgive guilt.

God doesn't want you to be guilty all the time.

In fact, he didn't make your body to handle guilt.

You should only handle guilt for about five seconds. That's

long enough to realize that was wrong and I confessed

it to God and I let it go. You don't

carry all your sins around in your life unconfessed. If

you do that, it's like carrying a garbage bag of

junk with you into the each new year. Many years ago,

I remember there was a couple in our church who,

they were singles and they found each other in our

church and they got married. And that's when the church

was much smaller and I actually was able to do

their wedding. About 10 years later, they came back and

they said, can we take you out to dinner? And

we had a dinner with them and I said, so

tell me what's happened in the last 10 years. And

I remember the woman told me, she said, you know, Rick,

I never realized that when I was walking down that

aisle in that beautiful white dress that I was carrying

a sack of garbage with me into this marriage. We

all do that. Now listen closely. Marriage does not create problems.

It reveals them. It reveals them. And the things that

need correcting in your life show up real quick when

somebody else is living with you. And what needs correcting

in their life shows up real quick when they live

with you. Marriage doesn't create problems. It reveals things that

need to be worked on. And the purpose of marriage

is not just to make you happy. It's to make

you holy. And the number one tool, if you're married,

the number one tool that God uses in your life

is your spouse. You say, oh, brother. My spouse isn't

even a believer. Doesn't matter. God will still use them

in your life. And so we start having guilt over

all of the things that we've done to other people.

Look at this verse, Psalm 38. David talks about guilt.

He says, my guilt has overwhelmed me like a burden

too heavy to bear. God doesn't want you to carry

that around. I'm bowed below, down, and I'm brought low,

and all day long, I go about mourning. Now there's

a couple problems with guilt. One of them is, every

one of us have a good reason to have it.

It's legit, because we don't always do what's right. We

always hurt other people, we do selfish things. I don't

know if it bothers you, but it bothers me, I

often say, The most unkind things to the people I

love the most. I'm just being honest with you. That

ever happen to any of you? Or are you all

so holy? Oh no, I never say anything mean to

my kids or my spouse. Yeah, right. Yeah. Why is that?

Because at root, we're selfish. I want what I want

when I want it and your spouse wants what they

want when they want it. And when two very self-centered

people hit together, it's gonna cause problems. And that creates guilt.

And you cannot have two imperfect people and all of

a sudden they're going in the same direction and they're

gonna create a perfect relationship. There are no perfect relationships.

And that's why we need forgiveness. Because unconfessed guilt causes

a lot of problem. Now look at this verse. Proverbs

Proverbs 20:27

20 verse 27 tells us the other reason why we

have problem with guilt. It's because we run from our

own consciences. Proverbs 20, verse 27. The Lord gave us

Proverbs 20:27

a mind and a conscience. And we can't hide from ourselves.

You see, you can hide all kinds of stuff from me.

And I'll never know about it. You might even hide

a whole bunch of things from a friend or your

boss or your spouse or your kids. But you're not

hiding anything from God And not only that, you're not

hiding anything from yourself. And when you try to hide it,

it just starts eating you on the inside. Because the

Lord gave us a mind and a conscience. We can't

hide from ourselves. And if you think, well, you know,

I just feel bad. I'm gonna go to, you know,

take a vacation. But you take yourself on vacation. And

so you take that same stress that's in your mind.

The grudges you have toward other people and the guilt

that you have about the stuff you've done wrong Now,

what do you do with guilt? What do you do

with guilt? Well, the answer is the same thing as grudges,

and it's forgiveness. In grudges, you gotta forgive them, but

in guilt, you've gotta ask God for forgiveness, then you

gotta forgive yourself. Now, normally, we do everything except that.

Let me show you all the ways that don't work,

and why our soul, the way we think, the way

we feel, and the way we choose, is often broken,

because when you or feel guilty, you don't make smart decisions.

And neither do I. Now, sometimes we just try to

deny our guilt. We just pretend like it doesn't exist.

You know, it's like those T-shirts we have in Celebrate Recovery,

denial is not a river in Egypt. Denial is the

thing that keeps you stuck in your guilt. And what

we do in denial is we just try to pretend

that it doesn't exist, and we say, you know, I'm

just gonna bury my past. You know what the problem

with burying your past? It resurrects itself at the most

inopportune times. And it comes back. And it resurrects and

it comes back to haunt you like the living dead.

And something that happened 20 years ago, all of a sudden,

it's back in your face again. So denial doesn't work.

Sometimes we just try to minimize it. And when we

minimize our guilt, it's kind of like, well, it's no

big deal. I mean, everybody else does it. You know,

it wasn't that bad. It's just a little teeny, tiny, teeny,

tiny sin. Well, if it's so tiny, why do you

still remember it? It's not. It's not tiny. If you

remember it, it's a big deal. And if it keeps

coming back in your mind, it's a big deal. And

you're not gonna get rid of it by denying it

or by minimizing it. Now, a third way we try

to deal with guilt that doesn't work is we rationalize it.

And I've said before, To rationalize means to tell yourself

rational lies. You're trying to convince yourself in your head

what your heart knows is wrong. That's to rationalize. We

live in a society where everybody rationalizes everything. And that

if I shout enough or I affirm it enough or

I march for it enough, then I'll think it's okay.

But inside your heart's going, it's not okay. Rationalizing doesn't work.

Trying to convince your heart with your mind doesn't work.

Your heart's gonna win out every time. Because there's an

inbuilt conscience in our lives that God put there. And

so we say, you know, I'm gonna rationalize it away,

but it doesn't make it right and your heart still knows.

And you're going around saying, why didn't everybody accept me?

Why didn't everybody believe in me? That's a rationalization. You

need to listen to your conscience. Another way we try

to deal with guilt is compromise. And that's the whole

idea of, well, I'm feeling guilty and here's the standard,

so what I think I'll do is I'll just lower

my standard and then I won't feel guilty anymore. And

I'll say, I don't believe that's a sin anymore. How's

that working for you? Again, it's trying to convince your

heart what your conscience knows is wrong and compromising, you know,

maybe if I just do it enough, then it won't

be a sin anymore. Right. Get back to me on

that one. Here's another one we try to do. When

we feel guilty, we blame other people. Because if we

can put the blame on them, it gets the focus

off us. Now, couples do this all the time. Boyfriend, girlfriend,

husband's wife, parents, kids. And it goes like this. There's

a scale in your mind. And on one side is blame.

And on the other side is guilt. And In this,

the only way you can feel good about yourself is

if it's kind of balanced. So when you do something wrong,

like this, you have to have somebody else to blame

because you did that, yeah, but you did that. You

did that, yeah, but you did that. But you did that, yeah,

but you remember that really big thing you did? There

are people who one of a spouse had really gone

over the edge in a wrong way. But they've come

back and they said, I'm sorry, I apologize, I wanna

rebuild trust, I wanna make this marriage work. But this

person won't let him off the hook, the other one.

And no matter how many good things this person does,

they ask, yeah, but you did that. And if you're

doing that with a spouse, you're killing your marriage. Because

you've become unpleasable. You're acting like you're God, you're not.

Anybody could hold you accountable for stuff you've done too.

And so, blaming doesn't work. We say blame is spelled

be lame, and it just makes you lame when you

do that. Every time you blame, you are being lame.

So you blame others, you got the scale in your mind.

Which is, by the way, why people don't wanna forgive.

Because if I don't forgive you, then I can keep

blaming you for that. You see, if I'm trying to

balance between guilt and blame in my life, and all

of the sudden, You ask for forgiveness, and that sets

me off balance, and I say, sure, I forgive you.

Now I don't have anything to blame anymore on this side,

so what happens? The scale tilts toward me, and I

feel bad. So I don't wanna forgive you because then

it's all on me. There's nothing to even the scales.

And you keep yourself in tension all the time. Your

soul needs to be restored. Restored. It's being chipped away at.

It's being eaten at. It's being like little bacteria, like

a virus. It's just working on your heart, making it

smaller and smaller and smaller. One other way that doesn't work.

We've talked about rationalizing, compromising, minimizing, blaming. One is, well,

I'll just beat myself up. And for the rest of

your life, you're trying to atone for your own sins.

You're trying to make up for it. And a lot

of people actually sabotage their own success and don't realize

they're doing it. Because they feel guilty about something in

the past, and they feel unworthy. And because they feel unworthy,

they go, well, this is too good. I shouldn't be

getting this much blessing. I know what I've done. I

know all the things. I'm not worthy of this. And

as a result, you start setting yourself up for failure.

You beat yourself up. Because internally you go, well, I've

done something wrong. Somebody's got to pay for it. And

subconsciously we try to pay for our mistakes and our

sins by getting sick or failing. And it can cause

all kinds of stuff. Guilt can make you depressed. It

can make you despair. It can set you up for failure.

I don't deserve to succeed. None of those things work.

There's only one thing that works to get rid of

unconfessed guilt. Confess it. Just admit it. The word confession

in the Bible in Greek is the word homo logeo. Homo,

we know what that means, it means same. Homogenized milk, homosexual,

homo just means same. Logeo is the word to speak.

Confession simply means to agree with God. You're right God,

that was wrong. I don't deny it, I don't minimize it,

I don't rationalize it, I don't compromise it, I don't

blame other people. I don't belittle myself. I don't beat

myself up. I just admit it. We'll come back to that.

Number three. The third thing that destroys your soul is

not unaddressed grudges or unconfessed guilt. It's unprocessed grief. Unprocessed grief. Now,

you're gonna have grief in life because you're gonna have losses.

There is no growth in life without change. There is

no change in life without loss because you give up

some old to get some new. There's no loss without pain.

And there's no pain without grief. So you've got to

learn how to grieve good. Now, grief is not a

bad thing. Guilt's a bad thing. Grudges are a bad thing.

Grief is actually a good thing. It's the way we

get through the transitions of life. What is a bad

thing is unprocessed grief. You haven't learned how to and

to deal with it, how to go through the stages

of grief. In Psalm 31, verse nine, David says, Lord,

have mercy, because I'm in misery. He's grieving, he's grieving.

I'm in misery, my eyes are weak from so much crying,

and my whole body, whole being is tired from grief.

If grudges don't get your guilt well, and if guilt

doesn't get your grief well, and all of us can

have these things that kind of eat away at our soul,

the way we think, the way we feel, and the

decisions we make. Now, the question is, how does Jesus,

our good shepherd, the Lord is my shepherd, I have

everything I need, how in the world does he help

me with my grudges and my guilt and my grief?

Three ways he does it. Here's how he does it.

when we are hurt by others. Jesus turns my hurts

into holiness. I need to explain this. Jesus turns my

hurts into holiness. What I'm saying is that God brings

good out of bad. He brings good out of evil.

He has a way of turning things around. The stuff

that happens to you, it's not all good. There's a

lot of bad stuff that happens to you. But God says,

I can turn it around. I can transform it. I

can bring good out of evil. Let's look at some verses.

It is the goodness of God that allows this. Now

one of the most famous verses in the Bible is

Romans 8, verse 28. We keep coming back to this verse, why?

Romans 8:28

Because you keep getting hurt. You have guilt, you have grief,

and you have grudges. And so you need to understand

that God says, yes, I know that happened, but I

can bring good even out of that. Romans 8, 28,

one of the greatest promises in the Bible. We know

that in all things, circle the word in, that in

all things, it doesn't say all things, it says in

all things, God works for the good of those who

love him. Let me stop right there. This is not

a promise for everybody. It's a promise for those who

love him and have been called according to his purpose.

We know that not everything that happens to you is good.

There's a lot of bad things that are happening to you.

Decisions that you make that are bad and decisions that

other people make that are bad for you. There's diseases,

there's all kinds of accidents and things like that. Nobody's

saying God is a Pollyanna Optimists who say, you know,

the sun will come out tomorrow. It doesn't always come

out tomorrow. Reality is the sun does not always come

out tomorrow. And that's the difference between optimism and hope.

Hope is based on a certainty, but optimism is based on,

you know, just wishful thinking. Pollyanna, it'll come out all right.

We know that in all things, God works for the good.

It's not all good, but God says, you know what,

I can take even that. Can God take the bad

things people do to do me, to do against me,

and use it for good? Yes. Can God even take

my own sins and bring good out of them? My

own mistakes and bring good out of them? Yes. Can

God take my own weaknesses and my damaged will and

my damaged mind and my damaged heart, my emotions and

the way I think, can God work even in that

for good? Yes. Now not everybody else can do that.

Anybody can bring good out of good. But God specializes

in bringing good out of the bad in your life.

And he turns my hurts into holiness. I was sitting

down this morning and I just started thinking of all

the different ways God uses bad things in your life

for good in your life. And I actually made a list.

He turns my hurts into holiness. He turns my wounds,

the things that hurt me, into wisdom. You're a lot smarter.

after you've gone through that. He turns my pain into gain.

He uses correction to bring me to perfection. He uses

offenses to remove my pretenses. You're a lot more humble

if you get criticized. He uses my bruises for good.

They're not good. Those bruises aren't good. but he can

use my bruise. He uses my bruises for good. And

when others want to bash me, God uses it to

bless me. That's the kind of God God is. He's

a good God. The Lord is my shepherd. He knows

how to bring good even out of bad. Now Romans 8, 28,

all things work together for good, is a wonderful promise,

but it makes no sense at all unless you read

Romans 8, 29, the verse right underneath it, which explains

why God uses everything for his purpose. And what is

his purpose? His purpose is to build your character. He

uses the conflicts and the crises to turn you into

your character. And he wants to make you like Jesus.

Look at verse 29. It's up here on the screen.

Romans 8, 29 says this. God knew his purpose from

the very beginning. So it's not a big surprise to God.

Before you even created, he knew what he wanted to

do with your life. He planned in advance that all

of us in God's family, here's the key, would become

like Jesus, his own son. God wants a family for eternity.

And God wants you to be his child. And he

sent Jesus to show what a child of God is like.

You wanna know what God wants you to become like?

Look at the character of Christ. Now listen, God is

far more interested in your character than he is in

your comfort. You know, people act like, well, I don't

understand it. Things aren't going good for me, and I'm

trusting God. Did God ever promise that everything will go

the way you want it to go? No, because if

it did, you'd be the selfish little snot. If you

got everything you wanted in life, this life is preparation

for the next. In heaven, there's no sorrow. There's no suffering.

There's no sickness. There's no sadness. You know, there are

no people throwing stones you know, arrows and barbs at you.

This is the preschool. This is the character development stage.

God wants you to grow up before you go to heaven.

And so when you go through tough times, you should

never ask, hmm, why is this happening? I'll tell you why.

Romans 8, 29, to make you like Jesus. And the

question you should ask any time you go through any

difficult time is not, Why is this happening? Or why

is this happening to me? Or why is this happening now?

The question you should be asking is, what? What do

you want to teach me, God? What character development do

you want me to grow like? God is far more

interested in your character, what you're becoming, than he is

in your comfort. Yes, God wants you to be comfortable,

but he's not gonna give you comfort at the expense

of character. You're gonna be comfortable for trillions of years

in heaven. Right now, He wants you to become like Christ.

So what is Jesus like? Romans 8, 28 says he

wants to make me like Christ using all things, verse 29. Well,

the perfect picture of Jesus is called the fruit of

the spirit. It's Galatians 5, 23 and 24. In Galatians,

it says nine qualities. The fruit of the spirit is love.

God wants you to be loving. Joy, God wants you

to learn real joy. Peace, God wants you to learn

real peace. Patience, God wants you to learn patience. Goodness

and gentleness and faithfulness and self-control. There are nine qualities there.

And when you look at those nine qualities, you know

what they are? Perfect picture of Jesus. Jesus is total love,

total joy, total peace, total patience. So you can wake

up every morning and say, well, Lord, I don't know

which one of these you're gonna teach me today. Patience.

How does God teach you patience? Waiting. Waiting. Have you

ever had to sit in God's waiting room? Have you

ever been in a hurry and God wasn't? The number

one way God teaches you patience, Department of Motor Vehicles.

And so God often teaches you those qualities in the

exact opposite situation. You learn love being around unlovely people.

You learn joy in the middle of grief. You learn

peace in the middle of chaos. It's easy to be

peaceful if you're out fly fishing in the mountains with

Brad Pitt. You know, a river runs through it, you know,

and you're out there. Who could not be peaceful? It

doesn't get any better than this. But if God's going

to teach you real peace, he'll put you in the

middle of chaos. Some of you are in it right now. Patience, gentleness.

How does God teach you gentleness? With people who annoy

you to death. Don't look at them, but you know

who they are. Teaching you how to be gentle. Self-control.

There are lots of ways he teaches you self-control. And

so God says, I want to turn your hurts into holiness.

And what's the purpose? Put Romans 8, 29 back on

the screen. God knew his purpose from the very beginning,

and he planned in advance that all of God's family

would become like Jesus. That's the number one goal God

has for your life. Not comfort, but character. Be like

Jesus' son. Now God's son is the firstborn of restored humanity.

There's that word restoration, restored. He restores my soul. We're

all broken. We all have broken relationships, broken minds, broken emotions,

broken wills. We're all broken. And God says, I want

to restore humanity to the original position I created it

to be in the Garden of Eden. So I'm sending

Jesus to come and die for your sins. And it

says then on the screen, so we see the intended

shape of our lives in him. Look at Jesus and

you'll know what God wants to do in your life.

We see the intended shape of our lives in him

and he will have many brothers and sisters in God's

eternal family. Like father, like son. Like father, like daughter.

He wants you to become not a god, but godly.

Genesis 50 verse 20 explains then why God allows people

Genesis 50:20

to hurt you. Knowing what God's goal is in verse

50 verse 20 he says, you intended it to harm

me but God intended it for good to accomplish what

is now being done, the saving of many lives. This

is a quote from a guy named Joseph. Joseph had

every reason to have unaddressed grudges because his own family

sold him into slavery. He was one of the youngest

kids in the family and his older brothers didn't like him.

They thought he was pompous. They didn't like him at all.

So they took him and threw him in a pit

and told the father that a bear had eaten him.

And then he's living in this pit by himself and

some slave traders come by on their way to Egypt

and the brothers pull him out, sell him into slavery.

He's taken down to Egypt and he's hired out as

a slave to a guy named Potiphar and he's Potiphar's

wife is a seductive woman and she gets the hots

for Joseph and she tries to seduce him and he

says I'm not going to do that I have integrity

I serve the God of you know of the ages

I serve the almighty God and so she's spurned she's

scorned what does she do she screams and claims that

he's taken advantage of her and falsely accused he's thrown

into prison The first 40 years of his entire life,

nothing goes right. Some of you might identify with that.

He's thrown into a pit. He's rejected by his family.

He's sold into slavery. He's taken to a foreign country.

He's falsely accused. He's put in prison. God had him

exactly where he wanted him to be. And the second

half of his life looked a whole lot brighter because

out of that, through a series of circumstances, he's raised

up to be the second most powerful man under Pharaoh

in Egypt, which was the most powerful empire in the

world at that time. And he not only saves Egypt

from a famine, but he saves all of the Middle

East from a famine. And when he finally comes face

to face with his brothers many years later, and they

come to buy grain from Europe, from Egypt, he looks

at them, he says, you meant it for bad. Let's

don't beat around the bush, you didn't like me. You

meant it for bad. God meant it for good, and

God's bigger than you, and God can bring good things

out of even bad things. When you learn that, you

will begin to rebuild your soul. The broken thoughts, the

broken emotions, and the broken choosing of decision making in

your will. So God says, I will turn your hurts

into holiness if you will trust me. Number two, what

about when we do wrong? What about when we sin?

What about when we have that unconfessed guilt? How does God,

the good shepherd, deal with that? Well, God's a good

God and here's the answer. When we do wrong, Jesus

takes my sin on himself. He says, I'm gonna take

your guilt. Please just hand it over to me and

I'm gonna go die on the cross and pay for

all your sins so you don't have to pay for

your sins. This is the best news in the whole world.

We call it the gospel, which is an old English

word for good news. And Jesus takes all my guilt

on himself. He says, I'm gonna give you all my goodness,

also called righteousness, I'm gonna give you all my goodness

so you can get into heaven and I'm gonna take

all of your guilt and I'm gonna pay for it

on the cross. Nearly 700 years before Jesus died on

the cross, so that would be about 2,700 years ago,

a guy named Isaiah was a prophet and God told

him in very specific terms that he was gonna send

a savior to the world, a messiah, to save all

our sins and to pay for them. 700 years he

gave them this prophecy. It's in many chapters of Isaiah,

but Psalm, I mean Isaiah 53 is the clearest. And

when you read these details, you gotta read that this

guy was saying this 700 years before it happened. Only

God could have told him this. And in Isaiah 53,

verses five and six, it says this about Jesus. 700

years before Jesus arrived. He was wounded. and crushed for

our sins. This is on the cross. He was beaten

and he took our punishment so that we might have peace.

And through his wounds, our wounds are healed. All of

us have strayed away like sheep. You know sheep I

told you last week are not real smart. We've all

done our own thing. We've left God's path to follow

our own. Yet the Lord laid on him the guilt

and sins of us all. Now what I just read

to you is the most basic fundamental truth of the Bible.

If this wasn't true, we could all go home right now.

Because we wouldn't have anything at all if Jesus Christ

hadn't come to pay for your sins. But the most

basic truth is that he did. That everything you're gonna

do wrong in life, including the stuff you're gonna do

tonight and tomorrow, and next week, and 10 years from today,

it's already been paid for. It's already been paid for.

You just have to accept God's grace and goodness. That

is the goodness of God. That he's already paid for

everything I'm even gonna do, not just in the past,

but in the future, it's already paid for. I remember

one time there was a guy out on the patio

at the Lake Forest campus, and he came up to

me frantically after the service, and he said, I need

to know, what do I need to do to get

to heaven? I said, well, you're too late. Just thought

I'd shock him. You're too late. He goes, no, no, no, really.

What do I need to do in order to get

to heaven? I said, sorry, you're too late. So what

do you mean? There's gotta be something I can do.

I said, there's nothing. It's already been done by Jesus

Christ 2,000 years ago. This is what makes Christianity different

from religions that are out there. Every religion has a

list of things to do to get to heaven. And

each religion says, this is our list, and this is

our list, and that's our list, and another religion, that's

our list. And if you'll do these things, it's all

based on your performance, you might make it into heaven.

Can't be sure, but you might. And so all the

other religions can be summed up in the word do.

Christianity is summed up in the word do. Done. And

when Jesus was on the cross, he cried out, it

is finished. Now notice, he didn't say, I'm finished, because

he wasn't. He came back to life three days later,

and he wasn't finished, and he's alive today. He lives

in my heart. I've been his friend now for over

50 years, and many of you have too. But when

he says, it is finished, he's saying, you don't need

to add anything. It's not, I die on the cross,

plus you do these 10 other things, then you get

to go to heaven. There's only one thing you need

to get into heaven. Humility. To realize you're never getting

there by what you do. The only way is to say,

I am a sinner and I need a savior. That's

what you say. That's humility. That's the sin that'll keep

you out of heaven. I don't need anybody to save me.

I'm good enough to get there on my own. Really.

It's a perfect place. I stopped being perfect about 30

seconds into this planet. And so nobody bats a thousand.

I've never met anybody who actually claimed to be perfect.

We all know we're imperfect. But we say to God, God,

we're gonna trust you. And when you come to Christ

and you say, you're gonna take my sins on you, yeah,

what are you giving me in return? My goodness. You

don't have to beg. Please God, please, please save me.

You don't have to bargain. If you'll do this, God,

then I'll do that. You don't have to bribe. I'll

read my Bible every day. If you do this, bribe, bargain,

you don't do anything. You don't beg, you just believe.

That's it. That's why it's called the good news. The

word gospel is just an old English word that means

good news. And what's the best news? You can't get

to heaven on your good works, but it's already been

paid for. You just have to humbly admit you need

a savior. that you're not good enough to go to

a perfect place. He said, but Rick, you don't know

what I've done. It doesn't matter. I don't need to

know what you've done because I know what Jesus has done.

And what Jesus has done is bigger than what you

have done. The good thing he did on the cross

is bigger than the bad thing you have done. That's

why we call it Good Friday when he died. It's

not good for Jesus. It's painful, but it's good for you.

You say, well, Rick, I've asked God to forgive me.

I just don't feel forgiven. It means you don't fully

understand it yet. Because once you understand how fully forgiven

you are, you just want to shout. You want to

jump up and down. And if God comes into your life,

it's going to make some changes. You can't have him

come into your life and not change you. So if

your life hadn't changed any, you might have gotten something,

but you haven't gotten God. Somebody as big as God

can't come into your life and not change you. And

the more you understand grace, the more joyful you'll be.

Many of you know that one of my mentors in

life was the father of modern management, Peter Drucker. And

he mentored me the last 30 years of his life

from about 65 to 95. And he trained all of

the who's who of business leaders that are leading businesses today.

And one day I was up at his house and

he was mentoring me on some leadership things and I said, Peter,

when did you step across the line? When did you

find Christ? When did you put your faith in Jesus?

And he said in that thick Austrian accent, well, Rick.

He said, when I finally understood the concept of grace,

I knew I was gonna never get a better deal.

When you finally understand how good God really is, you're

not gonna go anywhere else. Because he's a good, good father. Now,

as I said, Isaiah wrote that part about Jesus suffering

on the cross. Let me read you some more of it.

And listen to the details of this 700 years before

it actually happened. Isaiah 53, verses 7 to 12. He

Isaiah 53:7–12

was beaten down and punished. Talking about Jesus on the cross,

before the cross. But he didn't say a word. That

all happened. He was led out like a lamb to

be slaughtered. He was condemned to death without fair judgment.

And then he was put to death for the transgressions

of everyone else. That's us. He died like a criminal,

but then was buried with the rich, even though he'd

done nothing wrong and had never lied. You know this

is true. Jesus died on the cross as a criminal.

That was the worst capital punishment available. It's humiliating, death

on the cross. But when they took him down, there

was a wealthy man named Joseph of Arimathea who had

a brand new tomb he'd bought for his family, often

buried people in the same tomb for decades, like a

hole in the wall of a cave, and then covered

it up. And Joseph of Arimathea was quite wealthy, but

he offered his tomb for Jesus. He goes, you're not

gonna need it very long. Think about that. Like, you know,

what's a few days? He said he's coming back to life,

so why would I worry? He should borrow it for

a couple days. I don't intend to die between now

and then. But 700 years, Isaiah says, a rich man

is going to provide him a tomb. And it says,

yet it was God's plan to cause him to suffer.

It was God's plan. Who put Jesus to death? Not

the Romans, not Jewish leaders. God did. God did. Jesus said,

I lay down my life. He's part of the Trinity.

I voluntarily do this for you and me. It was

God's plan to cause him to suffer and make his

life a guilt offering for our sins. A sacrifice to

bring forgiveness. But after his soul suffered many things, he

will enjoy life and joy again. That's the resurrection. He's

saying this 700 years before it happened. But my suffering servant,

God says, will make many people right with God. and

he will bear all their sins, and he will willingly

give his life, and he was treated like a criminal,

but he took the place of everyone who had sinned,

and he interceded for their forgiveness. Now when Jesus died

on the cross, he covered all your sins, and he

forgave you, and the Bible says he throws your sins

in the deepest part of the sea, it's like a metaphor,

and then I wanna add, and he puts up a

no fishing sign. Why would you drag out something to

remember that God has already forgiven and forgotten? When you

keep feeling bad about something you've already confessed to God

and God's forgiven you and Jesus died for it, then

it says, I don't really believe Jesus paid for my sin.

That's unbelief. When you keep asking for forgiveness for something

you sincerely asked for already is unbelief. Because Jesus gives

completely and freely and instantly and with grace. When Jesus

forgave all your sins, which one were not included? None.

They're all included. Every single one. This is why I

serve Jesus Christ. I don't serve him for money. I

don't serve him for fame. I don't serve him out

of duty. I don't serve him out of fear. I

don't serve him out of guilt. I serve him out

of gratitude. And you should too. And if God has

forgiven all your sins, shouldn't you? Now what about the

third thing? We talked about guilt. We talked about grudges.

What about this third area that warps my soul? Grief.

You might write this down. When we experience loss, here

it is, loss and pain, Jesus feels my grief and

heals my heart. He feels my grief and he heals

my heart. Why does Jesus feel my grief? Because he

understands grief. He's been there, he's experienced it too, he understands.

He came to earth and became one of us. So

he's experienced all of the loneliness that people experience, the

betrayal that people experience, the rejection that people experience. And

he came to feel my grief and heal my heart.

That is the goodness of God. The Lord is my shepherd. Again,

more in this same chapter, Isaiah 53. Same place, 700

plus years before Jesus, came to earth, Isaiah says this.

Describes Jesus, the Messiah, the Savior. He was despised and

rejected by others. If you've ever been despised, you know

how that hurts. Maybe you were despised at school. That hurts.

Maybe you were despised because of a handicap or the

color of your skin or because you're female or male

or whatever. If you've been despised, Jesus understands. He was despised.

He was rejected. If you've ever had somebody reject you,

walk out on your life, Jesus understands that hurt. There's

no hurt you can experience that he doesn't understand, no grief.

Why can Jesus understand my grief? He's experienced it all. Isaiah,

he was despised and rejected by others. He was a

man of sorrows, which endured much pain and suffering. And

he experienced deep grief. Imagine leaving heaven and come here

to live with a bunch of people who hate you.

He experienced deep grief. But we ignored him and we

looked the other way. He was hated and we did

not care. Yet it was our weakness that he was

carrying on the cross. And it was our sorrow, our sorrow,

that weighed him down. So he understands. But he doesn't

just understand. He doesn't just feel. He heals. Look at

the next verse. Psalm 147, verse 3. He heals the

Psalms 147:3

brokenhearted and he binds up their wounds. I don't know

what's broken your heart. Some of your heart's breaking right now.

I'm sorry. I'm sorry and I'm glad you're here because

this is a place for the healing of broken hearts.

But the fact of life is Jesus says I heal

and I feel and I care about what you're going through.

Now so what are you doing with your grief? Maybe

you just had a big breakup. Maybe you just got

fired at work. Maybe you just go, does anybody want me?

Does anybody want me? Does anybody notice me? And there's

that ache in your heart. What do you do with

that ache? You take it to Jesus. Three things that

are my response. to what Jesus does for me because

of my guilt, my grief, and my grudges. How should

I respond? Well, it's all summed up in the attitude

of believe, trust, and number one is trust the good

shepherd to forgive my sins. Actually believe that he has

forgiven my sins. Start acting like all your sins are forgiven.

Romans 3, 23 and 24, all of us have sinned,

yet God declares us not guilty if we trust Circle

that word, trust in Jesus Christ, who in his mercy

freely takes away our sins. So I just trust, I believe,

I accept that my sins have been forgiven because of

what Jesus did on the cross. Number two, release my offenders.

Release my offenders, people who've hurt me and focus on

the future. Don't let them get under your skin anymore

because your soul cannot be restored until you let go

of resentment in your mind, in your thoughts, and let

go of revenge in your emotions and let go of

retaliation in your actions and your decisions. You gotta let

it go. Say, God, today I'm letting them go. And

the Bible says in Ephesians 4, 30, get rid of

all bitterness. Let me just, you should not, bitterness is

a barrier to your life. Forgiving each other just as

Christ forgave you. Not only that should you get rid

of resentment, he said you gotta get rid of retaliation.

Romans 12, never avenge yourselves, leave that to God. He

said he'll repay those who deserve it. So I trust

God really did forgive all my sins. And then because

of that, I start offering forgiveness to other people. I

let other people off the hook and I release my

offenders so I can focus on the future. I'm certainly

not gonna get stuck in the past for the rest

of my life. Then number three, I team up with

Jesus to carry my load. God never intended for you

to go through life carrying all your grief, guilt, grudges, problems, pressures, stresses,

situations by yourself. And Jesus says, I wanna team up

with you. I wanna yoke up with you. And when

he uses the word yoke, he's not talking about an

egg yolk. He's talking about the kind of yolk that

they would put over two cattle as a beam and

the beam, then the two cattle can pull the wagon together.

Here's what it says, look up here on the screen.

Come to me. Just come to Jesus. Come to me,

you who are weary, you tired, you carry heavy burdens,

and I will give you a lot more to do. No,

that's not what he says. Come to me and I

will give you what? Yeah, rest, we talked about that

last week. Take my yoke upon you, Let me teach you,

because I'm humble and gentle, and you will find rest

for your souls. For my yoke fits perfectly, and the

burden I give you is light. Now, when you read that,

it sounds like he's saying, okay, you know, this cattle yoke,

they would put over two horses or two cattle, they'd

pull the wagon. You go, wait a minute, he's putting

something else on me? That sounds pretty heavy. That doesn't

sound good, a little big heavy thing like that. No, no,

you don't understand the purpose of a yoke is not

to put more on you. is to take off half

of your load. If you're pulling the wagon by yourself,

it's 100% dependent on your energy. Jesus says, yoke up

with me. Let's share it, and guess what? I'll help

you carry, and it'll be half as difficult. Does that

make sense? The yoke is not to put more on you.

The yoke is to say, I'll pull your load. Jesus

doesn't have any load. He's God, he has no load.

Everything's easy for him. And so when you yoke up,

team up with Jesus, he says, I'll help you pull

your load. And by the way, when you're yoked up

to Jesus, it's impossible for you to run the wagon

into the ditch. Because he's not gonna let you do it.

You gotta go the direction he's going and you gotta

go at the pace he's going and he will go

at a more reasonable pace than you will. That's what

he says, I want to do in your life. Let's

bow our heads. Would you pray and would you talk

to God right now? Say, God, my soul needs restoring.

I don't always think right. I don't always choose right.

I don't always feel right. And I need you to

restore my damaged soul, my mind, my will, and my emotions.

And Lord, specifically today, I want to ask your help

on the things that do damage my soul. About those

unaddressed grudges. I know it's not doing me any good

to hold onto the hurt. I'm only hurting myself with

the anger. And every time I remember that, the way

they hurt me, it just hurts again. Would you turn

my hurts into holiness? Would you turn my pain into gain?

Would you do what only you can do? Would you

transform me and turn the conflict And the chaos into

character in my life. I need your help to do that.

And Lord, I'm going to ask you also with the

unconfessed guilt. And there's stuff I've been carrying around in

a large garbage bag for a long time. And it's

starting to stink. I'm going to say to you, I

need your forgiveness. And then more than that, I'm going

to believe it. I'm not gonna listen to my feelings

or what anybody else says or what thoughts that Satan

might try to put in my mind. Thank you, Jesus,

for taking all of my sins on yourself at the cross.

Thank you that you were wounded and crushed for me.

You're beaten, took my punishment so that I might have peace.

You've said in your word that your wounds heal my wounds.

I'm asking you to do that. And then Lord, all

of those losses that I've had in life that have

caused grief, I need your help with that. I need

you to feel my grief and heal my heart like

you've promised. Help me to realize that you understand how

I feel better than I do. And as I continue

this journey with learning about your goodness, I first wanna

say I'm gonna trust that my sins have been forgiven

Because I've humbly just come to you and said, I

need it. I need a savior. And I'm gonna release

the people who've hurt me. And every time I think

of them, help me to just pray a prayer of blessing.

Do not hold onto the hurt. Most of all, Jesus,

I wanna team up with you. Yoke up with you.

I'm gonna ask you to help me in the load

that I'm carrying. Amen. If you've never invited Jesus Christ

in your heart, say Jesus Christ today. I want to

get to know you. I want to learn to love you.

I want to learn to trust you. And I humbly

ask you to accept me into your family. And I

pray this not because I deserve it, but because on

the cross it was finished. You paid it all right there.

Thank you. In your name I pray. Amen.