Rick Warren - Path to Peace_ Your SURRENDER Will Lead to Freedom and Healing

If you take out your message notes, we're in a

series on getting through what you're going through. This last

week was birthday week in the Warren household. We had

three family birthdays. Sunday morning is Amy's birthday, but earlier

in the week we had Cole's birthday and Caleb's birthday.

And so on Cole's birthday we went to a bounce

house and had a whole lot of fun playing in

the bounce house. And on Caleb's birthday we went to

a trampoline club. You can imagine me on a trampoline.

And so I was really getting into this and all

of a sudden Cassidy, Cassie comes up, she's seven years old,

she says, Papa, I have something I want you to

do with me. I said, okay, babe, you know, I'm

up for anything. So she grabs my hand and she

takes me around. to this balance beam jousting contest. So

we put on the headgear. This is like American Gladiator, okay? Now,

it's me versus a seven-year-old. I think this is gonna

be pretty easy, okay? And so we get up on

the balance beam, and it's over this giant pit filled

with real squishy, super soft sponges. So if you fall off,

it's no big deal. And so she's the one in

the bounce beam. She comes at me. She takes one

swack and I'm off.

Okay, I'm off.

So I fall into this pit. And then I think, okay, well,

that was fun. And then I start to get out.

But at my weight, those things just collapse. And they're

up to about here. Okay, so it's a pit filled

with these super soft sponges. And you're going like this

and you push down and they just all push right

back down.

And I thought, I'm gonna die in this pit. I

wanted to do a commercial. I've fallen and I can't

get out. And actually, I couldn't get out.

I literally, because there was nothing to step up on

And so finally, Josh and Amy grabbed my hands and

pulled me out. Have you ever been in a pit

you couldn't get out of? That's why we're doing this series.

Because we all have pits, financial pits, emotional pits, relational pits,

sometimes life's just the pits. And some things you can't

get around and some things you can't get over. You

can't go under. You can't climb out on your own.

You just gotta go through it. And sometimes you have

to ask for help. Now, we're about two-thirds through this series.

We're in week four. We've got three more that we

wanna look at. But before we do, I wanna go

back and review kind of where we've been. Because we've

been talking about the six different phases or six responses

or reactions to when you have a major loss in

your life.

You lose your job.

You lose your health, you lose your spouse, you lose

a loved one to death, you lose credibility, whatever. Everybody

goes through losses in life and we all have major

losses in life. Now these six phases that we've been

looking at, shock and sorrow and struggle so far, And

we're going to look at surrender, sanctification, and service. They're

not really linear. In other words, it's not like you

go through one and then that's it. And then you're done.

You can actually bounce back and forth between these stages.

In fact, you could have all six of them in

one day. And you could get through shock and be

going through sorrow and come out on struggle. And then

all of a sudden you find yourself back in sorrow again.

That's normal.

These are not linear like you graduate from them. In

a grieving period, you go through them all in different ways.

So let's just review this. First, we said the typical

reaction when you have a major loss in life is shock.

And in shock, you feel numb.

And we talked in that message about crying out to

God and letting others help me.

And we talked about how.

Really you need other people in your life. You need

fellowship when you're shocked. because you can't think straight, and

other people need to think for you. And you can't

pray straight, you need other people to pray for you.

And you can't even believe straight when you're in shock,

you need other people to believe for you.

And so we're in shock.

Then you move into the sorrow phase, and in sorrow

you move from feeling numb to feeling grief. Remember we

talked about how grief is a good thing. Grief is

God's way of getting us through the transitions of life.

that there is no life without change, there is no

change without loss, there is no loss without pain, and

there is no pain without grief. Grief is healthy. In fact,

to not grieve is unhealthy. In fact, grief is the

only thing that makes you different from the animals. It's

the most human emotion. God grieves. It's not a sin

to grieve. Jesus wept. We talked about that, that you

cannot go around grief. You gotta go through it. And

the reason why so many people have so many problems

in adulthood is because they have never grieved over losses

early on in life. They just stuffed it. And whenever

you stuff your grief, you're the one who's gonna get sick.

You're the one who it's gonna come out sideways. There's

all kinds of bizarre behaviors and things like that. You

have to face it to move on. We talked about

how men, we're not particularly good at grieving. because we

don't like to feel our emotions. In fact, we're often

afraid of our emotions. And so we stuff them, and

we don't want to deal with them. When you stuff it,

your stomach keeps score. The only way to get through

it is to go through it. And you can't stuff it,

you can't deny it. Remember we talked about listing the

losses that you've never grieved. There's some things that you went,

a lot of grief is more than just losing a

loved one. You can lose a lot of things in life.

You can lose your identity, you can lose your credibility,

you can lose your health, you can lose a position.

And then you identify what you really lost and then

you ask Jesus to heal your broken heart. Then last

week we talked about struggle. And if in shock you

feel numb and in sorrow you feel sad, in struggle

you feel angry. And now you're starting to get frustrated.

You're starting to get ticked off at God. You're getting

a little angry at God. You go, why is this happening?

That's the why questions of life. And remember I talked

last week about how you have to learn how to

what the Bible calls lament. Gave you a little acrostic care. Complain, appeal, remind, express.

You gotta complain. Tell God what I think's unfair and

then appeal to God's nature.

You're a good God. You're a loving God. Help me

out here.

You gotta remind God of what he said. God loves

to be reminded of his promises. And then I expressed

my total trust in God. This week, we're gonna look

at surrender. And if the emotion best described it with

surrender is peace, it's the pathway to peace. Remember last week,

I finished the message by saying, the only way you're

gonna win a fight with God is surrender.

But when you do, you win. because God pours out

blessings on you in that surrendered attitude.

Now specifically, what I want us to look at this

week in surrendering and the path to peace of how

do you let go of the pain.

In your life?

How do you get on? How do you move through it?

How do you get past the pain so you don't

get stuck? Because so many people are stuck at some

point of major loss. They had a divorce, and that's

defined their life. Now, everybody's going to have bad things

happen to them.

Everybody does. Everybody does.

And you have three choices when bad things happen to you.

You can let it destroy you. You can let it

define you. You can let it develop you. You can

let it destroy you. You can let it define you.

Or you can let it develop you.

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.

What Kay and I want to share with you this

weekend is how you let even the bad things in

your life develop you and grow you by the act

of surrender. Specifically, we're gonna look at a passage where David,

King David in the Bible, lost his son.

He had a baby that died.

Now, the Bible says, look there on your outline, Romans 15,

verse four, everything written in the scriptures was written to

teach us in order that we might have hope. Circle

that word hope. The Bible says that everything God gave

us in the Bible was given for our encouragement and

for our hope. And so these stories that are in

the Bible, they're not just there for stories. This story

of David losing a child is not just a story.

It teaches us the principles of the path to peace

through surrender. Now I don't know what losses you've had

and I don't know what the losses that are gonna

come in your life or in my life either, but

you're gonna need to know how to respond to them.

So let's look at David and this story of him

losing a child, and then what he learned to do

as a result of it. In 2 Samuel chapter 12,

2 Samuel 12:16–24

verses 16 to 24, it says this. David begged God

to spare the child. Now, let me just say it.

Bathsheba was pregnant, the baby was born, and then the

baby gets very, very sick, and it is near death,

and David is freaking out, and like any New dad,

he is on the floor praying and crying and weeping.

And it says, David begged God to spare the child.

He went without food. In other words, he's fasting. And

he lay all night on the bare ground. He's praying

to God. Now the leaders of the nation, remember David

is the king of Israel. The leaders of the nation

pleaded with David to get up and to go eat something,

eat with them. But he refused. Then on the seventh day,

the baby died. So this has been going on for

days and days. No food, no eating, just praying. On

the seventh day, the baby died. Now David's advisors were

afraid to tell him. He was so broken up about

the baby being sick, they said, what's he gonna do

to himself when he tell him that the child is dead?

So they're worried about him.

But when David saw them whispering, he realized what had happened.

Is the baby dead, he asked. And yes, they replied.

Now that's the setup of the story. And the rest

of the story that Kay and I are gonna share

with you are the six things that David does after

he has a major loss.

He's been praying all of his life for this baby

to be well, but the baby dies.

I told you that I prayed every day of Matthew's

life for 27 years that God would heal him of

his mental illness.

And it didn't happen. It was the number one prayer

of my life and it didn't happen.

Now what does David do after this? Is he gonna

let it destroy him? Is he gonna let it define him?

Or is he gonna let it develop him? David does

six things. If you ever needed to take notes, it's

this weekend. Write these down. The first thing I need

to do if I want to get on the pathway

to peace is this, accept what cannot be changed. That's

the first thing I have to do on the path

to peace. That's the first step in surrender. I have

to accept what cannot be changed. You know, when people

receive bad news, what's the first response to it?

I don't believe it.

Exactly. I don't believe it. We reject it.

In fact, usually if you tell somebody some really bad

shocking news, here's what they'll start doing.

They'll go like this.

No, no, no, no, no.

No, it can't be. I don't believe it. It couldn't be.

It's impossible.

It's not real because our minds reject shocking news.

And the first reaction is no, no, it can't happen.

It's not supposed to happen like this.

That's the first typical reaction. But slowly, reality starts to

set in, and you can't deny it anymore. That's where

surrender comes in. Surrender is accepting of reality. Here's what

David did. Look there in your outline. 2 Samuel 12,

2 Samuel 12:22

verse 22 and 23. David said this. I fasted and

I wept while the child was alive. For I thought

perhaps the Lord would be gracious and let the child live.

But why should I fast when he is dead? Can

I bring him back again?

The answer is no. What is David doing here? He's

accepting what cannot be changed.

And when you have an immediate loss, like when I

had a son who a few hours earlier, he was

alive and then all of a sudden he was dead.

And that was so shocking.

It wasn't like a six-month cancer where you get a

chance to prepare for it. It seemed so surreal in

those early hours because all of a sudden he was

not there anymore. And really for the first couple weeks

I kept expecting him to walk in the.

Door at night.

Now what I say when I say accepting what can't

be changed, in whatever loss you've had in your life,

no matter what the loss is, the first thing you

have to do is if it's over, it's over. And

you accept what cannot be changed. Now, acceptance doesn't mean

you stop caring.

No, no. And acceptance doesn't mean it doesn't hurt. It does.

And acceptance doesn't mean you even think that what happened

is good.

It's not.

None of that's acceptance. Acceptance simply means I can't change it.

David says, my son has died and I can't change that.

I want you to write this question on your outline.

What do I need to accept that's over in my life?

What do I need to accept is over in my life?

Maybe it's that job.

And you keep thinking, maybe they're gonna call me back

and give me another chance.

I made a big mistake. I blew it. I really

messed up. I really made a big mess of it.

It's over. there ain't gonna be another chance.

Maybe there's some relationship that's over and you just keep

hoping they're coming back and you keep hoping they're gonna

come back.

You keep hoping they're gonna call. They're not coming back.

It's over.

Maybe you need to say, what I need to accept

is that that season of my life is over.

You know, I one time went to a high school reunion.

I will never go again.

Because there were some people still reliving the high school

catch they made in a football game. I'm going, get

a life. That happened 20 years ago. I mean, you're

not in high school anymore. Have you looked in the mirror?

That season of your life is never coming back.

It's over. It's over. and you need to accept what

cannot be changed.

And the past in your life, for good or bad,

the good things and the bad things, they are seasonal,

and they're not there, and the past is past. Some

of you, you've had a dream, and it didn't happen,

and it's over. You need to get a new dream.

You need to get a new vision. You need to

get a new goal for your life. That's the first step.

Accept what can't be changed. The second, and Kay is

going to come and talk about this, is remember it's

not the end of the story.

It's not the end of the story is the second

step to finding peace through surrender.

When we experience a.

Devastating or catastrophic loss of some kind, it's really normal

to feel like this is the end.

This is over.

Nothing good can ever come from it. Everything is lost.

King David, as he experienced the loss of his son,

he was able to focus on the hope that was

ahead of him, believing that God wasn't finished. 2 Samuel 12, 23,

he says about his son, I will go to him

one day, but he cannot.

Return to me.

He understood and accepted that his son would never be

with him again on this earth, but he was confident

that he would be reunited with his child, that his

son was not going to come to him, but he

was going to go to his child, and that the

baby's death was not the end of the story. I

told you a few weeks ago when I spoke that

I know that Matthew's death is not the end of

his story. It's not the end of our family's story,

but that doesn't mean that there aren't moments that I

don't doubt because I do. Matthew is in heaven. heaven,

but I can't see heaven. I can stare out at

the sky, and I can stare as hard as I can,

and I can look, and I can look, and try

to penetrate the veil of this existence to catch a

glimpse of heaven, and I can't. I simply cannot do it.

And what I'm learning to say is this, Lord, I believe.

Help my unbelief.

And if you will be honest about your own walk

with God, there have got to be those moments in

which you would say that same thing.

God, I believe. I do. I believe. But there are

still these doubts.

There are these things that I can't see, things that

are mysterious, things that I don't know what to do with.

And so we just end that prayer with, God, help

my unbelief. There's nothing wrong with praying a prayer like that. See,

God never is content to let a single one of

our stories end in ashes. He promises that he will

bring beauty from ashes. Where I struggle is sometimes believing

not that he will bring beauty from ashes, but how?

How will he bring beauty from these ashes?

Because I am completely and utterly convinced that he will

not let our story end with just ashes. I told

you about the hope box that I had all the

years that Matthew was ill and that I believed and

how I stuffed it full of verses that I was

clinging to that God was going to heal Matthew and

then God didn't heal Matthew. And I told you that

what I had now besides rebuilding this hope box is

that I had a mental picture of a little pot

that I was collecting and I called it the mystery

pot and I was putting all the things that I

don't know what to do with in that pot.

Well I have a friend who knows that.

I'm very literal and I now have a little mystery

pot if you will and this little pot has Questions.

It has questions, and every time I think of another

question that I don't know how to answer, that I

don't know the answer to, that I can't figure out,

it goes in the pot, and it sits on my

devotional table, and it sits there as a reminder of

this is real. This is real stuff that I'm dealing with.

The questions that you have about faith and about.

The losses in your life, they are real questions that

And so if you do something like this, a little

pot or something else, but the point of it for

me as I look at it is not that I

have questions that I can't answer.

The point of this is to remind me that God

will not let ashes be the end of the story.

In grief, one of the most challenging transitions I'm discovering

is moving toward the future rather than hanging.

Around in the past. That's a really challenging thing for me.

Jerry Sitzer, who wrote a book that I recommended to you,

A Grace Disguised, we have in the pavilion, he lost his.

Mother, his wife, and his four-year-old daughter in a car accident.

And he wrote this incredible book. And he says, when

talking about how do we move into the future, he

says this, how could I conceive of a future without them?

The very thought was abhorrent to me. Whenever I thought

of the future, I still found them.

There, but they were never going to be there. which

only made me more aware of how devastating my loss was.

I remembered a past that included people I did not

want to give up.

And I imagined a future that excluded people I desperately

wanted to keep.

And I find this very true. When we think of

the past, our loved one is in it. Every time

you think of the past, that person you've lost is

in your past.

They were there. They were such an integral part of it.

And it's so impossible in these early stages, at least

for us, to envision a future.

In which our loved one isn't there.

And so what we do if we're not careful is

we get stuck in the present. We get stuck here

in this limbo land because we don't want to leave

the past because that's where the loved one was. And

we can't envision a future in which they're not there.

We're disbelieving that they won't. And so we stay in

this very uncomfortable limbo land of the present.

And some of you would probably.

Agree with me that A little nagging sense of guilt

can creep in.

It's been four and a half months. I'm breathing again.

But when you think of going into a future without

the one that you love, there's a little bit of

a sense of, if I move into a.

Future, am I forgetting him? Am I neglecting him?

And if any of you have been in any of

that situation, you know exactly what I'm talking about.

It's a very common response in grief or guilt or

denial or deep sorrow.

I don't want a future in which my loved one

isn't a part. 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.

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.