Rick Warren - Path to Peace_ Your SURRENDER Will Lead to Freedom and Healing (Part 2)

So how does surrender help us find peace in this

grief as we think about a future, as we, like David,

understand that our loved one is not coming back or

that loss is not changing? How do we find peace

in that? Sarah Young writes in a devotional book I.

Love called Jesus Calling. She says this about the future.

She says, your future looks uncertain and feels flimsy, even precarious.

That is how it should be.

Secret things belong to the Lord and future things are

secret things. When you try to figure out the future,

you're grasping at things that are mine, Jesus says. This,

like all forms of worry, is an act of rebellion,

doubting my promises to care for you. Whenever you find

yourself worrying about the future, Jesus says, repent and return

to me and I will show you the next step

forward and the one after that and the one after that.

Relax and enjoy the journey in my presence, trusting me to.

Open up the way before you as you go.

As you can tell, I'm not totally there yet, but

I'm edging closer. The third step that we see from

this story of how David handled the loss.

Of his child is to take care of yourself.

Now, that may sound like a strange one, but every

single one of these steps is an important part of

the process of experiencing the peace of God.

2 Samuel 12, 20 says, It says.

Then David got up from the ground, washed himself, put

on lotions, and changed his clothes.

After his son died, King David.

He got up from the ground where he had been

lying prostrate in grief. He put on lotions, he washed himself,

and he changed his clothes. Those sound like.

Rather ordinary activities.

You know, you take a bath, you change clothes.

That's what we do every day, right? Except for grief.

and loss have a way of removing the desire to

even take care of yourself.

When you're in deep grief, when you're in suffering, when

you're in mourning, who cares what you wear?

It doesn't matter.

Who cares whether you took a shower today or how

many days it's been since you brushed your teeth? Who

cares what's happening on the news?

The newspaper is meaningless.

The ticker tape of world events don't matter at all.

In fact, eating can sometimes be completely immaterial.

Nothing tastes right. Or because nothing tastes right, you eat

more and more, just trying to make something feel again

and take that ache away. Sleep can become a challenge.

Either sleeping too much or not able to sleep night

after night. And exercise sounds like the most ridiculous thing

anybody could ever suggest to you. And this is all

so understandable if you have been through this kind of grief.

You know what I'm talking about. Because shock has a

way of paralyzing us.

Sorrow has a way.

Of overwhelming us. But King David gives us a concrete

example of how we can gradually begin to respond. Because

he had accepted what he couldn't change, he couldn't bring

his child back to him. And because he knew it

wasn't the end of the story and that each day

here was just one day closer to being reunited with

his son, he was willing to live in the tension

of both mourning and living. He was willing to stay

in that place of the tension of mourning and grieving

and still deciding that he was going to live. And

to live meant that he was going to have to

take care of himself physically.

So he got up from the ground.

I love that picture because it tells me that when

he got the news, he hit the ground. He hit

the ground when he got the news that his baby

had died. I understand that. I too hit the ground

when I got the news. So he got up from

the ground and he resumed taking a shower and combing

his hair. A month or so after Matthew passed away,

we were together as a family for a weekend. And

that entire weekend, I did not shower. I don't think

I'd change clothes. I know I didn't brush my teeth.

I didn't put on any makeup. And then when I

went back to saw my older son Josh about three

days later, I walked in the room and he.

Says, Mom, you look really nice.

And I said, it's amazing what personal hygiene can do

for you, isn't it? Because I hadn't done it for

a while. The point is this, that if we're going

to go on living, if we're going to take care

of ourselves, we have to make these symbolic. What David did,

it was symbolic of his decision to go on living,

to reenter into life, to participate in life again.

It's a tough place to be, but you.

And I have to learn to live that we can

simultaneously grieve and simultaneously live in this world at the

same time.

Which leads us to.

That next step of surrender, the step four, which is

to refocus.

On God through worship because God.

Will help us do this, even as difficult as it seems.

2 Samuel 12, 20 says, then he, talking about David,

went to the tabernacle and he worshiped the Lord. Psalm 73,

16 to 17 says, I tried to understand all this,

but it was too hard for me to see until

I went to the temple of God. Because King David

knew that worship can expand our spiritual insight and understanding,

he headed straight for God's house in his grief. When

he received that overwhelming news of the death of his child,

this loss that had taken him to the ground, that

laid him prostrate on the ground, he headed straight for

God's house.

It's because he knew that in.

Worship, we begin to catch a glimpse of how God

is moving and working in the losses how he's working

in our world and how he's working in our lives

when we come in humble surrender and adoration of him. See,

the temptation in our grief is to turn away from God.

It's to run from him. It's to go as far

in the other direction as we can because we figure

in some way God is responsible. And so if he

has allowed this to happen and we're mad and we're

angry and we're shocked and we're heartbroken, we run.

And all of those.

Emotions are okay, but they're not long-term responses. Long term,

we have to figure out how to be in worship again.

God will never abandon you in your anger. He will

never abandon you in your grief. He will never abandon

you in your tears. He will never abandon you in

your doubts ever.

He will never. But those emotions have a way of clouding.

They form a fog, if you will, a cloud that

keeps us sometimes from receiving the spiritual insight and the

comfort that God longs to give to us.

And it's hard to recognize.

God's working when we're lashing out at him or when

we're completely devastated by sorrow.

So David went to God's house. He went to the tabernacle.

But it's really not about the place.

The Bible talks about quietness and stillness. He talks about

reconnecting all through the word of God. So I'm advising

you what.

I've done for myself, what Rick and I have done,

what our family has done.

Is to find places that are quiet, that are serene,

that are tranquil, that would allow you to reconnect with

God somewhere, I think, in the beauty of the world

that God has created.

In the past four and a half months, we've been

to the Redwoods at Big Sur. We've been to Yosemite.

We've been to O'Neill Park. We've been to the beach.

These are places where we've gone to intentionally connect with God.

If I sit in my house, pretty soon all I

can see are all the memories, all the memories that

break my heart, and I get tunnel vision, and I

get claustrophobic, and grief threatens to just swallow me up.

And so when I get outside and I see the

world that God has made, and I see the majesty

that he has used to make this world, it reinforces

my faith and my belief in him. And I see

that this God, this God who designed this incredible beauty

and maintains it all, is the God that is still

in control and I can trust him. You can probably

already tell that I'm a pretty visual person, and I

like to use different objects in worship because I really

believe that using tangible objects like a mystery box or

a hope box have a way of connecting us to

the intangible.

God is spirit, and we can't see him.

And so sometimes with our faith, it's so helpful to

have tangible things that help us in our worship. This

is something that someone gave to me.

A few years ago. It's called the Clinging Cross. And

it's very twisted and broken. And I love that.

It's meant to fit here in the palm of your

hand so that you can grasp tightly to this cross

as you pray. And I have to tell you, in

the last four and a half months, I have clung

to this cross in prayer so many times. I love

the fact that it's twisted because it reminds me of

the twisted body, what Jesus went through as he gave

himself up for me. It reminds me of the twisted

nature of my grief and how I have been left broken.

But as I bring my broken.

Self to the cross where Jesus was broken. And in prayer,

he and I talk and we commune.

I find that I see spiritual insights that I don't

see any other way. Another thing that I've done, some

of you are going to start thinking I'm really weird,

and that's probably true, but go with me on it,

is I have taken a blanket and I have wrapped

myself up in a blanket along with the cross. Because

in my lowest moments, I've.

Needed just a safe place to be.

And in your lowest moments, if you can envision it,

maybe you're not all about the tangible things. Okay, fine,

we're all different in the way that we connect with God.

But for those of you who do, I'd urge you

to try it. But just to consider this, be in

a safe place. If it's God's house, if it's in nature,

if it's with a group of people where you feel

safe to yell, to scream, to cry, to weep, to moan,

to argue, to question, But know this, wrapped in his love,

clinging to his cross, wrapped in his love, you are safe.

And it is the place that you maybe can take

those first stabs again at worshiping.

Because grief has a way of keeping us from worshiping.

We're too overwhelmed.

But it's in worship that we connect with God and

find that he comforts us.

As I said, I'm just past the stage of where

I can breathe.

And now as I worship, maybe you're listening to this

today because God is gently inviting you again to surrender

your loss to him. A great Christian from hundreds of

years ago said this, God is not a spy. looking

to surprise you. He is not an enemy lurking in

the shadows.

To hurt you. God is your Father who loves you,

and he wants to help you if you will but

trust in his goodness. Rick's going to tell the next

point about surrendering.

Life can sometimes be challenging, isolating, and painful. Do you

or someone you know need some powerful encouragement right now?

Then let me tell you about the Journey Toward Hope.

This guided Bible study book takes you on a journey

to discover the five truths about who you are. You

are loved. You have a purpose. You belong. You have

a choice. And you are needed. This full-color vegan leather

study tool is filled with scriptures, prayers, exercises, spaces to journal,

and personal stories to help you uncover the hidden reasons

you may lose hope and teach you how to maintain

and bolster that hope for a lifetime. We'll send you

your very own copy of Journey Toward Hope when you

give a gift today to Daily Hope to take the

hope of Jesus to a hurting world.

Now, there are two other steps on this path to

peace that David did. He does these six things when

he has this crisis in his life. You need to

know these six things because you're gonna have crises in

your life. The fifth thing that David does is this.

Do something productive. In your grief, in your shock, in

your sorrow, in your sadness, in your struggle, part of

surrender is to do something productive. You see, when we're

hit with an unexpected loss, what happens is, we get

paralyzed by it. And you get stuck. And often you

can't even like, you lose your job. Let's say, if

you went to work tomorrow, and you go in and

they give you a pink slip and says, you're done.

How long have you served here? 10 years, sorry, you're done.

You're in shock.

Because all of a sudden, boom, you don't have a

job anymore. And you're paralyzed. You can't even think what

to do. One of the things you need to do

as you get to this stage is you start moving.

You start maybe just a little tiny step, one small

step at a time. The fifth step of David's recovery

is 1 Samuel 12, verse 20. And he says this.

1 Samuel 12:20

He got up from the ground. He washed himself. He

put on lotion. He changed his clothes. He goes to

the tabernacle and the temple, and he worships. It says,

after that, he returned to the palace and ate.

Now, why does he go to the palace? Well, he's

the king, duh. Okay, he's the king.

The palace is his place of productivity. The palace is

where he works. He's basically saying, I'm going to go

back to work. Now, let me ask you this. This

is just a day after this baby has died. Do

you think David's over that grief? Of course not. You

don't ever get over grief anyway. Remember we said you

don't get over it, you get through it. So is

he still grieving?

Yes.

Is he still sad?

Yes.

Is he still in a whirlwind? Yes. I remember writing

in my journal about a month ago, I don't have

to stop mourning in order to start moving. You might

write that down. I don't have to stop mourning in

order to start moving. In other words, if I wait

until I feel like moving, I'm not gonna feel like

it for a long, long time. And so this step

of doing something productive when you have had a major loss,

you just broke up with your boyfriend.

You had somebody just walk out of your life.

You just had something happen to you.

It was catastrophic.

You got the bad news that, Your friend or your

neighbor has cancer.

Something's happened to you.

What you've got to do at that point, you have

to take a first step. I don't have to stop

mourning and start moving, but it requires faith. Where do

you need to take a baby step? What are you

afraid to do? What do you know you should be doing,

but you've been paralyzed and you haven't done it? I

want to challenge you as your pastor, somebody who loves you,

take a step of faith. I want you today to say,

I'm gonna do it. I'm mourning, but I'm gonna start moving.

I am grieving, but I'm gonna start growing. I am hurting,

but I'm gonna start healing. I am wounded, but I'm

gonna start walking And I am sad, but I am

gonna step out. That is the path to peace. When

you surrender your fear to God, give God that thing

you're afraid to do. Grief doesn't paralyze, fear does. There's

one more step. The sixth thing David does is this.

Keep on loving despite your pain. Keep on loving, even

in your pain. In spite of your pain, keep on loving. Now,

why'd I have to say this? Because when you get hurt,

the natural reaction is to pull in into a shell,

build up giant walls around you, said, I'm never gonna

let another man hurt me again. I'm never gonna let

another woman hurt me again.

No way, Jose, that was too painful.

And you pull in and you build walls and you

build bridges Yeah, there's a way to live without pain.

Have no love in your life. Love equals pain. Sorry,

don't be afraid of that because the pain actually deepens

your love. It makes you a more loving, not less,

person when you let it deepen you. The pain that

comes from deep love makes your love even more fruitful.

When you lose somebody you love, whether it's they move away,

They die or they reject you.

It's heartbreaking. It doesn't matter what causes. It's heartbreaking.

And don't build that wall around you've got to keep

on loving. What do you do when somebody rejects your love?

You redirect it. You redirect it. Because there are a

lot of people in the world who need your love.

If you've always wanted to have children and you've been

unable to have children, what do you do with that love?

Just be bitter about it?

No.

There are 137 million orphans in the world that love

to be adopted.

You redirect your love.

And if somebody turns you off, rejects you, shuts you down,

what do you do?

There are plenty of people who need your love. You

redirect it.

And so you keep on loving in your pain and

you look at what you've got left, not just what

you've lost.

This is what David did. He went back and he

loved his wife.

2 Samuel 12, verse 24, the sixth thing David did.

2 Samuel 12:24

David then, it's after worship, after all these other things,

then David comforted Bathsheba, his wife, when he slept with her.

And she became pregnant and she gave birth to a

son And they named him Solomon. And you know what

happened to Solomon? He became the wisest man in the

world and the wealthiest man in the world and eclipsed

his father's kingdom. Solomon's kingdom was far greater than David's kingdom.

Far, far greater.

And because David did not just shut himself down and say,

I'll never love again. I'm never gonna be involved in

anybody's life. I'm never gonna reach out.

No, no, no.

The world was blessed because he gave I read a

quote from Mother Teresa this week. She said this, I

found a paradox that if you love until it hurts,

then there can be no more hurt and only more love.

Jesus knows what it's like to love in the middle

of pain.

It's called the cross.

Jesus knows what it's like to keep on loving when

you don't feel like loving. Jesus knows what it's like

to keep on loving when you feel like your love

is being rejected.

He keeps on loving.

1 John 3, 16, what we know, we know what

real love is because Christ gave his life for us.

In other words, he lost his life for us. So

we have to give up our lives for our brothers

and sisters. This is the path to peace. It is

the path of surrendering your pain, surrendering your hurt, surrendering

your fears, surrendering the problem, surrendering everything that's in your

life that's messing up. Say, God, I give it all

to you. If you read my weekly news and views,

you know that two weeks ago on Saturday night, a

young mother in this area had decided that she'd had

too many losses and she decided to take her life.

She'd had too many losses and said it's not worth living.

And she took a handful of pills and she took

a bunch of alcohol and she washed it down with

the alcohol and laid down by her one-and-a-half-year-old baby to die.

In the morning when she woke up, she was even

more depressed that the suicide had not worked. And in

her despair, she called her next-door neighbor who happened to

go to Saddleback. And that friend, that neighbor, brought that

Muslim woman the saddleback a week ago Sunday.

Here at Lake Forest.

She admitted that as a Muslim, she had never been

in a Christian church and that as a scientist, she

had studied science and decided that science.

And religion didn't go together. This is one of the

biggest myths out there.

But she came and she heard me do a message

on what do you do when your world is collapsing?

And she heard about the hope that is in Christ.

And she said, I want to know more. I need

to hear more. And she felt hopeful for the first time.

And she left the Sunday morning service, but that afternoon,

Sunday afternoon, all those waves of depression and discouragement and

loss and feeling alone all came.

Back into her life. You know what she did?

She came back to the Sunday night service. And when

she walked in that door, she said to Anasher, I

need to talk to somebody. And two of our members

talked to her and lovingly led her.

To surrender her life to Jesus Christ.

She came back the next week, that's last week, took

class 101, made seven new friends in the membership class

and all seven friends that afternoon came and watched her

be baptized. That is what happens when you have hope

in your life. I don't know what you're going through.

I hope it's not something major right now. Whether it

is or it isn't, you will go through these kind

of things in your life and you need to be

ready to walk the path of peace, which is surrender.

I surrender control. I surrender to your care. I surrender

to your love. I surrender the good, the bad, and

the ugly. We've all heard the serenity prayer, but most

people have never heard the whole prayer. We know the

first part goes like this. God, grant me the serenity

to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to

change the things I can, and the wisdom to know

the difference. And that's where it ends for most people.

They think that's all they know. Let me read you

the rest of the prayer. Living one day at a time,

enjoying one moment at a time, accepting hardship.

As the pathway to peace. That's what we're talking about.

Taking as Jesus did, this sinful world as it is,

not as I would have it. That's accepting things that

can't be changed. Trusting in your will that you will

make it all, all things right, if I surrender to

your will, so that I may be reasonably happy in

this life and supremely happy with you forever in the next.

Amen. That's the rest of the prayer. Let's bow our heads.

If you've never opened your life to Jesus Christ, you

need to surrender to him today. Whatever discouragement, whatever depression,

Whatever fatigue, failure, frustration, or fear you have, you need

to dump it on God right now. The Bible says,

cast all your cares on him for he cares for you. Say,

Jesus Christ, say this in your heart. Jesus Christ, as

much as I know how, I open my life to

you and I surrender the good, the bad, and the

ugly in my life. I surrender my fears. Jesus, I

surrender my flaws. Jesus, I surrender my failures. Jesus, I

surrender my frustrations. I surrender my faults. I give you

every area of my life. I surrender my past. I

surrender my future. And I surrender this moment. And I

wanna walk the path of peace with you. And I

pray this in your name. Amen.

Life can sometimes be challenging, isolating, and painful. Do you

or someone you know need some powerful encouragement right now?

Then let me tell you about the Journey Toward Hope.

This guided Bible study book takes you on a journey

to discover the five truths about who you are, You

are loved. You have a purpose. You belong. You have

a choice. And you are needed. This full-color vegan leather

study tool is filled with scriptures, prayers, exercises, spaces to journal,

and personal stories to help you uncover the hidden reasons

you may lose hope and teach you how to maintain

and bolster that hope for a lifetime. We'll send you

your very own copy of Journey Toward Hope when you

give a gift today to Daily Hope to take the

hope of Jesus to a hurting world. Thank you.