Rick Warren - How to Get Through What You're Going Through

Okay, okay, really. Have I told you lately that I

love you? Now you see two waters up here today,

that means you're gonna get a double barrel sermon. You

should turn to the person next to you and say

you're brilliant because you didn't come last night. There were 11,000

people here last night. And it was a big service.

And Kay actually had to pull up out on El

Toro Road and they drove her in on a golf

cart because she couldn't get in. If you take out

your message notes, inside your program. In the past 16 weeks,

since mental illness took Matthew's life, one of the passages

of the Bible that has encouraged me the most is

2 Corinthians chapter one. I want to begin with it today.

It's there on your outline. Verses three to 11. Praise

be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,

the Father of all compassion and the God of all comfort,

who comforts us in our troubles so that we can

comfort others. With the same comfort that we've received from God.

In other words, we go through problems, God comforts us,

and then we pass it on. For just as the

sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also

through Christ our comfort overflows. If we're distressed, it's for

your salvation And if we're comforted, it's for your comfort.

Our hope, now I want you to notice this sentence.

Our hope for you is firm because we know. We're

gonna come back to that. Our hope is firm because

we know. Our hope for you is firm because we

know that just as you have shared in our sufferings,

so also you will share in our comfort. Now we

don't want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about

the hardships that we have suffered. We were under great pressure.

Far beyond our ability to endure. This is Paul talking here.

Far beyond our ability to endure. So that we despaired

even of life itself. In other words, I'm so depressed,

I'm ready to kick the bucket. I'm ready to throw

in the towel. I'm ready to give up and die.

That's depression. We despaired even of life itself. Indeed, in

our hearts, we felt the sentence of death. But, but,

but this happened so that we might not rely on ourselves,

but on God, who raises the dead. And he has

delivered us. and we've set our hope on him that

he will continue to deliver us as you help us,

as you help us by your prayers. Then, Paul says,

many will give thanks to God for the gracious favor

granted to us in answer to your many prayers. I

love that last sentence. Then many will give thanks to

God for the gracious favor granted to us in answer

to your many prayers. Even in intense pain for 16 weeks,

four months, a third of 2013, even in that intense pain,

our family has felt the favor of God. And we

felt the favor of God because of your prayers for us.

And I want you to know that we intend for

the rest of our lives, to spend the rest of

our lives comforting others with the same comfort that we

have been given from God because of your prayers. So

I wanna begin with some thank yous. First, I wanna

say thank you to my staff, all 400 of them.

because they have been serving you with excellence, with integrity,

with compassion for a third of this year without their leader,

and they've done a great job. Let's just thank the staff.

What a great job. Yeah. I love these guys. Second,

I wanna say thank you to my fellow Southern California pastors.

And actually pastors all over America. I received maybe 20, 25,000 cards, letters.

And even today as I got up, my iPhone was

jammed with other pastors saying, Rick, we're praying for this service.

Last night there was a huge crowd of pastors who

came from all over Southern California just to be here

with me and to pray for me. And I want

to say thank you To those of you watching online

and around the world, thank you so much for your prayers.

And not just pastors, but a lot of people. In fact,

two of my favorite rabbis are right here in this

service today. They're good friends of Saddleback Church. I've been

at both of their synagogues, and they've been down here

to Saddleback. Ellie Spitz and David Wolpe are here, and

where are you guys? Why don't you stand up? Let

us say hi to Rabbi David and Rabbi Ellie. There

they are, hi guys. Love you guys. Thanks for being here.

Love you very, very much. Now they couldn't come on

Saturday for obvious reasons. So the pastors come on Saturday,

and the rabbis come on Sunday. That's a good thing,

all right? That's a great thing. I wanna say thank

you to my family. Not just to Kay, but to

Amy and Josh, who are really the heroes in this story.

Because they loved their younger brother, fiercely, and they protected.

Matthew was basically born with mental illness. He grew up

all of his life struggling, very difficult life. And his

bigger brother and big sister protected him, loved him unconditionally,

served him, talked him off the ledge, I can't tell

you how many times. And then when they married, Jamie

and Tommy, who adopted Matthew as a brother, and just

so many others, Tom and Shondell and Alyssa, and Ryan

and Andrew and Luke and Kay's brother Andy and her mom,

who's the one great-grandparent still alive, have just been incredible.

I am in a family of spiritual redwoods. I mean,

they are strong, they are giants in faith. Really, they are.

In fact, when all this happened, Amy looked at me

and she said, Dad, Satan picked the wrong family to

pick on. because he's gonna lose so bad in this

because of the platform that God has given to our family.

I wanna say thank you most of all to you,

to all of our Saddlebacks, to Saddleback Lake Forest, but

also the other eight campuses here in Orange County who

are watching right now, hi everybody, and to Saddlebacks all

around the world, Saddleback Hong Kong, Saddleback Buenos Aires, Saddleback Manila, Saddleback,

I'm forgetting them all, Moscow, Berlin, London, Amman, wherever. All

of the different places. We're starting Saddleback Mars next week,

you guys. It's intergalactic evangelism is what it is. The

world is not big enough for Saddleback Church. But I

want to say thank you that while I have been

gone for a third of the year, attendance was strong.

Giving was strong. I mean, you showed up. We had

record attendance last week Over 30,000 people were here at

Saddleback and I hadn't been here in 16 weeks. And

so it just shows this is not a personality driven church,

it's a purpose driven church. Now let's go back to

the text. Look at that on your outline. And I

want you to circle three phrases. I put them in caps.

Our hope is firm because we know. Would you circle those?

Our hope is firm because we know. What I wanna

say is that what you know is what gets you

through in life. You might write that down, what you

know is what gets you through. If you don't know

the right things, when the rogue winds of life come

and the tsunamis of life come, you're gonna fall over,

you're gonna cave, you're gonna crumble. And when the great

tragedies and the losses of life, which are inevitable, come

into your life, if you don't know the right truths,

you're not gonna stand spiritually strong. What you know is

what gets you through. Probably the question I've been asked

more than any other question is, how is your family

getting through this? And the answer is, it's because of

what we know. Because our lives are not built on

the shifting sands of popularity and popular culture which changes

every month, but our lives are built on rock solid

bedrock truth of the Bible so that no matter what

hits us, we have a solid foundation. We know some

unchanging truths. Today I wanna just mention three of those truths.

If ever you needed to take notes, it's this week.

Now I don't like to say this as your pastor

because I love you, but you're gonna go through tough times.

And you too will experience major losses in life. There

is no growth without change. There is no change without loss.

There is no loss without pain. And there is no

pain without grief. You're gonna go through losses in life.

And you need to know these things that we're gonna

talk about this morning, and you need to remember them

to make it through. How do you get through what

you're going through? Let's get right into it. Number one,

the first thing we know is this. We know that

life doesn't make sense. We know that. Life doesn't make sense,

but we know we can have peace because we know

God is with us and he loves us. Life doesn't

make sense, but we can still have peace because we

know God is with us and God loves us. Now

you have noticed, I'm sure, that life is often confusing.

There are a lot more questions than answers, and there

are a lot of unanswered questions. And the truth is,

we simply don't know why things happen the way they do,

and we're not gonna know. But we're always asking the question, why?

Why is this happening? Why is this happening now? Why

is this happening to me? Why, why, why? Why did

my husband walk out on me? Why did my wife

die of cancer? Why did I lose my job? Why

didn't I get that promotion? Why was my baby born

with mental illness? And we're not gonna know on this

side of eternity the answer to those why questions. You're

just not gonna know. Life does not make sense when

you just look at it. Bad people Prosper, good people suffer,

and all kinds of different things happen. You know, in

my grieving, I'm not just grieving, but I'm observing my

own grief because I'm a teacher. And as I looked

at what I was going through, I could see six

discernible stages of reaction to loss. You might write these

down because you're going to go through them And you

can go through them all at once, and you can

go back and forth, but here are the stages, what

I call the six stages of loss. Now the first

one is shock. Shock. And that your world is just

thrown upside down. You lose your job, you're in shock.

A loved one dies, you're in shock. The shock over

Matthew's suicide lasted not days, it lasted at least a

month in my life. At least a month. And I

was in shock for a month. But then you move

to stage two, which I call sorrow. You move from

shock to sorrow. And now you begin to grieve. Now

sorrow is a godly emotion. Shock is a purely human emotion.

God is never shocked because God knows everything. So God

never goes, wow, didn't see that one coming. So God

is never shocked, that's a human emotion. But sorrow is

a godly emotion. The Bible says God grieves. The only

reason you're able to grieve is because you're made in

the image of God. The Bible says Jesus wept. The

Bible says Jesus was a man acquainted with sorrows. He

understood sorrow. Grieving is a good thing. Grieving is the

way we get through the transitions of life. Then you

move from shock to sorrow, and the third stage is struggle.

Now in struggle is where you ask the why questions. Why? Why?

Why me? Why now? Why this? Why did this happen? Now,

you're not gonna get the answers to the whys, but

it's still okay to ask them. Even Jesus asked why.

On the cross, Jesus cries out, my God, my God, why?

Even Jesus asked the why questions. Because we don't always

know what's going on in that moment. So it's okay

to ask why. But the test of your faith is

what do you do when you don't get the answer?

Because you're not gonna get it. The fourth phrase is

if you wanna get out of the struggle into peace,

you've gotta go to stage four, which I call surrender.

And in surrender, it's where you just stop asking and

start submitting and start surrendering and start accepting. Surrender is

the only path to peace. It is the only path

to peace. And you just say, you know what, I'm

gonna give it up. I'm gonna give it up. Then

you come to stage five. This is a big Bible word,

but it's the word sanctification. Sanctification is when God starts

bringing good out of bad. When God starts making changes

in you, when your personality, when your character starts being

transformed like the metamorphosis of a caterpillar into a butterfly.

Sanctification is when God makes you more godly. Now you're

never gonna be God. You're never gonna be a God,

not even a little God. People say, you know, New

Age Movement says you're a God. Oh really? If you're

a God, why don't you solve all the world's problems?

You can't even solve your own. You're not a God,

you're not even a mini-me God. But you can become godly.

where you become more like God in love, joy, peace, patience, gentleness, goodness, faithfulness,

all those qualities, the fruit of the Spirit. And then

once you get into the sanctification where God is working

on you, then you come to stage six which is service.

And it's this, God wants to take your greatest pain

and turn it into your life message. He wants to

use your mess for a message, he wants to use

your test for a testimony. He wants to take the

thing that you're most embarrassed about, that you're most ashamed of,

that you most regret hadn't happened, and he wants to

use it for good in the lives of others. Who

can better help someone, parents of a Down syndrome child

than parents who had a Down syndrome child? Who could

better help somebody struggling with an addiction than somebody who

struggled with an addiction. The very thing you want to

least talk about is the very thing God wants to

use most in your life to help other people. Your

ministry comes out of your pain. Now, in the next

six weeks, we're going to look at each of these

stages individually, in detail. But what I want you to

get today is this one concept. No matter what stage

you're in, you're not in it by yourself. You're not alone.

God is with you and God loves you. And that's

why we can have peace even when life doesn't make

sense because God is with me and God loves me.

You're not gonna go through any of these stages on

your own. There are over 6,000 promises in the Bible.

Let me just show you a few of them. The

first one is Isaiah chapter 43 verse two. God says this.

Isaiah 43 · chapter mention

When you go through deep waters, I will be with you.

When you pass through rivers of difficulty, you will not drown.

When you walk through the fire, you will not be

burned up. It will not consume you. Somebody asked Kay

about two weeks after Matthew died, how are you doing?

She said, we're devastated but not destroyed. It will not

consume you. It will not consume. You know, for 27 years,

I prayed every day that God would heal the mental

illness of my son because he lived a very tortured,

painful life. His life was not a happy life. It

was a painful life. And yet that prayer was never answered.

And it didn't make sense. We went to the best

doctors in the nation. We had the best medications. We

had the best therapies. We had prayer. We had healing. Thousands,

tens of thousands of people praying. And just, it didn't

make sense. We had an incredibly strong family, deeply loving, supportive,

full of faith, strong family. It just didn't make sense.

And I remember after Matthew died, writing in my journal,

I would rather walk with God with none of my

questions answered than to walk through life without him and

know all the answers. Why? Because when in pain, explanations

don't help. They don't help. You see, whenever you have

a major loss, your tendency is to immediately look for

a cause, a reason, or an explanation. You go, why?

I gotta figure this out. Why did she leave me?

Why did I leave my job? Why did I get cancer? Why, why, why?

And you're looking for an explanation. Friends, explanations don't help.

You don't need an explanation. You need God. You need

the comfort of God. You need the presence of God.

If Kay were to drop dead tomorrow, and I knew

the reason, it wouldn't lessen the pain any bit. So

stop looking for an explanation. Stop looking for the why.

It's not gonna make you feel any better. You don't

need an explanation. You need God. You need his presence.

Now one day you're gonna understand why everything happens, but

right now your brain isn't big enough, and neither is mine.

God has not promised to give you an explanation for

why everything happens in the world. But he has promised

you're not gonna go through anything on your own. Look

at this next verse. Hebrews 13, five. I, this is

God talking, I will never leave you and I will

never abandon you. He says this over and over and

over again from Genesis to the end of the Bible,

all scriptures. God says I will never abandon you. Now

you may have been abandoned in life by a spouse

or a parent. Maybe you've been rejected. But God's never

gonna abandon you. God is never gonna reject you. You see,

when we're going through intense pain like the pain I've

been in, we are tempted to think that God has

forgotten us. It is impossible for God to forget you.

He created you as an object of his love. You

were made to be loved by God. In fact, here's

what the Bible says. Isaiah 49, verse 15. God says this,

Isaiah 49:15

can a mother forget forget the baby at her breast?

Or a child that she has born? The answer is

obviously no. No woman could not be nursing a baby

and forget the baby at the same time. Obviously not.

He said, even if that were possible, I will never

forget you. Look, I have engraved you on the palms

of my hands. Now look up here. God says, I

have engraved you on the palms of my hands, so

I can't forget you. A lot of people get tattoos

to remember somebody they love. God has a tattoo of you.

I have engraved you on the palms of my hands.

Where did he get that tattoo? On the cross. With nails,

pierced hands, outstretched arms, he said, this is how much

I love you. I love you this much. I love

you so much it hurts. I love you so much

I'd rather die than live without you. I love you

so much this is how much. Sacrifice. In heaven, no

one's gonna have any scars except Jesus. And he's gonna

have the hands, the feet, the side, the head.

Why?

Because he wants to always remember this is how much

I love you. It is impossible for God to forget

how much he loves you. And so we know that

no matter how we don't understand what's going on in

our lives, We do know this, I don't have the solutions,

I don't have the answers, I don't have the reasons,

I don't have the explanations, but I do have the

presence of God. And I do have his love in

my life. And when life doesn't make sense, you need

to hold on to the promises. You know what occurred

to me the day Matthew died? God knows what it's

like to lose a son. I've had many people ask

me as pastors, Pastor Rick, where was God when my

son died? The same place he was when his son died. Weeping, grieving.

Do you know that the Bible says that God weeps?

Do you know that the Bible says God has stored

up every tear you've ever cried? You don't even know that.

But God does. He knows more about you than you do.

As I said, Matthew lived a very tortured life. And

part of the problem was he was incredibly bright. A

lot of people who are mentally ill don't know they're

mentally ill. Matthew did. And growing up he said, why

can't I be normal? Because he was so smart, he

knew what wasn't right. He felt odd and he felt

on the outskirts. He felt like he didn't fit in.

He felt like nobody understood him. He just, why can't

I be normal? And he had a tender heart but

he had a tortured mind. And he struggled all through

life with the unanswered questions about his illness. Because it

didn't make sense. But I want to tell you this.

One second into heaven, all of Matthew's questions were answered.

And all of a sudden he understood it all. Life

doesn't make sense, but we can still have peace because

we know God loves us and he's with us. There's

a second thing you need to know. And you need

to remember, everything on Earth is broken. Everything on Earth

is broken. But we can still have joy because we

know God is good and he's got a greater plan.

Everything on Earth is broken. Now, the fact is, since

sin and evil entered the world, it messed up everything.

And nothing on this planet Everything on the planet is broken.

Nothing works perfectly. The weather does not work perfectly. We

have tsunamis and we have earthquakes and we have fires

and floods and all kinds of natural disasters. God didn't

want that. He created a garden of paradise, a garden

of Eden. Sin broke the planet. It broke the weather,

it broke the climate. The economy doesn't work perfectly. None

of your plans work perfectly. Have you noticed that? Not

one of your plans works perfectly. Your body doesn't work perfectly.

Anybody agree with that one? Yeah, yeah. No relationship works perfectly.

Anybody wanna give a testimony? No matter how much you love,

you still have this. No brain works perfectly. We all

have broken brains. We're all mentally ill. And we have

thoughts that we can't control and compulsions and desires and

attractions and fears and depressions and worries and rage and

you know, you name it. Everything is broken in this world. Now,

as I said, we're all mentally ill. We're not all insane.

Very few people are insane, but we all struggle with

mental illnesses. because everything is broken. Isaiah 24 says this.

By the way, if you ever want to read a

perfect description of modern culture, you need to go study

in detail Proverbs, excuse me, Isaiah 24. Because Isaiah 24

explains all of the problems in our culture today. People

locking their doors for fear of crooks and why the

cities are in chaos. It's an amazingly accurate passage. Let

me just show you a couple verses. Verse five and

verse 19. The earth suffers. Everything's broken. The earth suffers

for the sins of its people, for they have twisted

the instructions of God, violated his laws, and broken his covenant. Therefore,

the earth has broken down and has utterly collapsed. Everything

is lost. We're all lost spiritually. Everything's abandoned and confused.

We have confusion about everything. Confusion about the economy, there's

confusion in every area. About money, about sex, about life,

about time. There's confusion everywhere. Now why is there brokenness

and suffering in the world? Because of sin and evil.

Why is there sin and evil in the world? Because

God allows you and me a free choice. We can

choose to not love him, we can choose to go

our own way. Why doesn't God eliminate all the sin

on the earth? Well, God could easily eliminate all the

sin on the earth. Get rid of you. And me.

Because I make a lot of choices that flat out suck.

And they hurt people. And they sometimes intentionally, sometimes unintentionally.

And we've been hurting each other for thousands and thousands

of years. You get enough sin in habitual ways. lives

of people. It affects the environment. It affects your DNA,

your genetics. It affects everything. Everything is broken. Well, if

everything is broken, how can we have joy? Because we

know God is good and because we know he has

a better purpose and a greater plan. Romans 8, 28,

one of the greatest promises in the Bible says this,

but we know, circle that, we know We know, this

is the second thing you need to know. We know

that in all things, not some things, not the good things,

we know that in all things, God works for the

good of those who love him and have been called

according to his purposes. Now this is a great promise,

but I want you to notice it's not a promise

for everybody. He works for the good of those who

love him and have been called according to his purpose.

If you love God, everything that happens in your life,

God is using it. He's gonna work it for good,

even the bad. Anybody can bring good out of good.

God specializes in bringing good out of bad. Now if

you don't love God, all things are not working for

good in your life. In fact, all things are working

for bad in your life because you're going against your creator.

And that's gonna, your arms are too short to box

with God. You're gonna lose that one. Now, let me,

this is one of the most misunderstood, misinterpreted, and misused

verses in the Bible. Notice what it doesn't say. It

doesn't say everything that happens is good. No, it says

all things God works for the good. Doesn't say it's

all good. Doesn't say everything happens. There's a lot of

bad stuff in the world. There's a lot of evil

in the world. Racism is bad. Rape is bad. Bigotry

is bad. Terrorism is bad. Cancer and leukemia, that's bad.

God is not the author of evil. Doesn't say that

everything that happens is good. There's a lot of bad stuff.

He doesn't even say everything that happens is God's will. No,

that's nonsense. Friends, a lot of people confuse heaven and earth.

This is not heaven. In heaven, everything is perfect, why?

Because God's will is done perfectly, so everything is perfect.

In heaven, it's all perfect because God's will is always done.

On earth, everything is broken because God's will is rarely done,

rarely done. That's why Jesus said, we are to pray,

thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Because in heaven, it's done perfectly and instantly, and on earth,

it's done rarely or never. Not everything that happens on

this planet is God's will. I mean, when some people,

I've been at funerals, and people say, well, it must

have been God's will. Or they'll say, you know, God

must have needed Matthew more than you. There's a word

for that, nonsense. Just nonsense. God needed that baby more

than me so he took him home early. Are you

kidding me? God doesn't need anything. So don't blame God

for that. Death is the result of sin and evil.

It entered the world because of that. God is not

the author of it. Matthew's life was robbed by mental illness.

It was robbed by mental illness. And you need to

understand that you have an enemy on this planet. His

name is Satan. Satan is not your friend. He's not

your friend. In fact, the Bible says he came to

kill and destroy. He wants to destroy your life. Why?

Because he hates God. Satan cannot hurt God. God cannot

be hurt like that. So what happens? He tries to

hurt God's children. to hurt God. If you can't get

to me, the quickest way to hurt me is hurt

my kids. Satan wants to destroy your life, he wants

to mess up your life, he wants to keep you

away from God, because that makes God grieve. God grieves

when you don't love him the way he loves you,

when you don't know him the way he knows you. So,

God is not the author of evil. You know, when

Matthew died, Satan thought he'd won. But he had lost

big time.

Why?

Because he couldn't torture Matthew anymore. His entire life he

went through mental torture. But now he's out of reach

of that torture. Now in heaven there's no more pain,

there's no more sorrow, there's no more, he's at peace.

What's he doing today? He's in heaven in the grandstands

cheering me on. Right now. On the day that Matthew died,

were suspecting because we hadn't heard from him all day,

he hadn't texted all day, that our greatest fear had

probably happened. The day I prayed would never happen, the

day I feared might, that he would take his life.

We went over to his house and we couldn't get

into his house because we didn't have a key to

his house. His car was there and he wasn't answering

the door and we were worried that our deepest, greatest

fear had happened. And as we stood there, in the

driveway waiting for police to come to break in and

to see what inevitably was true. Kay and I stood

there in the driveway, hugging each other, sobbing. Our hearts

were breaking into a million pieces. And as we stood

there trembling and sobbing out loud, Kay reached up and

grabbed her necklace, which had two words on it. And

she showed it to me. It was the words of

a book that she wrote, the title of a book

she wrote a year ago, Choose Joy. And I thought,

are you kidding me? How in the world do you

choose joy in the deepest grief? How do you choose

joy in the worst pain? How do you choose joy

when your greatest fear is being realized? I'll let her

explain that, would you welcome Kay?

Thank you. Thank you.

Saddleback.

I've missed you.

As Rick said, I was wearing a necklace that says

choose joy after I wrote that several years ago. And

I wrote the book because I've struggled with low levels

of depression my whole life. And yet here's a verse

like Romans five, three to five on your outline that

says we can have joy, even in our troubles, because

we know that these troubles produce endurance and endurance produces character.

And character produces hope. And this hope will not disappoint.

Us because God has poured his love to fill our hearts.

I began to look for some jewelry that I could

wear on a daily basis to remind me that I

could choose joy, that there could be joy.

Even in troubles.

The day that Matthew passed away, as Rick said, I

in particular had a terrible sense of foreboding. And I

had very good reasons to believe that that might be

that he had taken his life. but we had to

wait hours before it could be confirmed. And so when

I got up that morning, I deliberately went to my

jewelry box and with my hands shaking and my heart

pounding and my stomach heaving, I picked this necklace out

of the jewelry box. I wasn't really thinking very clearly,

but I knew that by putting it on, in some way,

I was fighting back against the nightmare that I was

pretty sure that was going to unfold that day.

And as Rick said, as we stood.

At Matthew's house together waiting for the police to confirm

this terrible news, I don't know why, but in a

moment I looked down and saw it and then I

raised it to him in a very tiny, feeble attempt

to affirm what I knew to be the truth. Even

as he said, our hearts were shattering.

How could I do that?

How could I even wear the necklace that day? How

could I lift it to him in a gesture of

belief in God, a belief that joy could be chosen

even in our darkest moments. How could I do that

and how could he, through his tears, receive it and

not push me away and not tell me I was

crazy and to stop it and to just stop doing that?

It's because of what we know. Because we know that

joy is still present. We know it because God is good.

And because we have spent the last 50 years of

our lives putting our spiritual roots down deep into the

rich soil of God's grace, his mercy, his faithfulness, and

his goodness. And because of that, because of those roots

that have gone deep into the soil of who God is,

getting to know him, When troubles have come our way,

we have been able to produce endurance. It has been

produced and hopefully character. And from that character, hope and joy.

Verse 5 of Romans 3, again, look at that. Excuse me,

Romans 5, verse 5 says, and this hope will not

Romans 5:5

disappoint us because God has poured his love to fill

our hearts. I was learning a lot about joy in

the last few years. And so I could say somehow, yes, God,

I trust you and I'm going to have joy even

in this very dark day. But hope, I want to

talk to you a little bit about hope because I would.

Be lying to you completely lying to you.

If I said that hope didn't disappoint me in fact

I was crushed by hope that didn't come true but

that takes us to point three which is the next

thing that you and I need to know life is

a battle but we can have hope Because we know

that there's more to the story.

There's more to the story.

When Matthew's mental illness, his borderline personality disorder, and major

depression disorder, when it began to get worse about five

years ago, I found myself frantic. trying to find a treatment,

to find medication, to find a physician, to find a psychiatrist,

to find a hospital, to find anything that would make

a difference in his worsening condition. A lot of sleepless nights,

a lot of agonizing moments of darkness as we watched

helplessly as our son just spiraled slowly, slowly down. Each

member of our family tried to bend ourselves into pretzels

in some way to care for.

Him, to make a difference.

And eventually I realized that I needed a stronger spiritual

approach to the situation because it was a long haul.

Matthew wasn't getting any better. And my own emotional and

physical and spiritual resources were being taxed to the limit.

And so I enlisted a group of confidential friends and

family who would commit to pray for Matthew and for us.

And I began to send them very specific prayer requests

week after week. And these incredible people would pray for

him and for us and they would send back encouraging notes,

they would send back verses of scripture that would give

us hope to hold on to the belief that God

was going to heal Matthew's mind. And if you're in

this service or even somewhere around the world, around the

United States, you know who you are and I can't

ever thank you enough for the way that you prayed

for him and for us. You don't know the tremendous

strength that I have drawn from that. And then a

year ago, this drumbeat of mental illness just began to

beat harder and faster and harder and faster. And every

day was a guessing game of whether this would be

his last.

Day on earth.

And I found myself really losing hope that God was

going to heal Matthew's mind. And a dear friend gave

me this box. It looks like alabaster or marble. I

don't know, maybe it's plastic, but it looks good. And

in the middle of this box is the word hope.

And I began to take those scriptures that others had

sent to me, those verses that had been so enormously

comforting that held my faith strong. And I wrote them

on cards and I put them inside this box. And

it became part of a daily ritual of my time

with God. As I would spend time every morning, I

would pick up this box and I would open it.

I would read verse after verse that inspired and built

my faith and my hope. Verses like the verses in

Psalm 116 and Psalm 18 where it says, that the

cords of the grave have encompassed me and.

I'm held down tightly.

And then it would go a few other verses and

it would say, but God, you have removed the tears

from my eyes and kept my feet from stumbling so

that I can live in the land.

Of the living again.

And verses out of Isaiah, that no weapon formed against

me shall prosper. And verses where Jesus would say, greater

is he that is in you, that he that is

in the world. All these verses that talked about faith

and hope and God's healing. And one in particular verse

that I loved where it talked about my belief that

I would see Matthew again with his arms raised in

praise as he stood in the congregation. Those verses became

lifelines to me of what God was going to do.

I went out on.

The audacious faith limb, believing that God was going to

heal Matthew. In fact, even the morning that Matthew passed away,

very early in the morning, I opened this box, even

with a sense of.

Dread, and read through those verses.

I even created a playlist of songs on my iPhone,

probably 50 or 60 songs of hope and faith and courage, verses,

songs that talked about, that affirmed my faith in God

and my hope in what he was gonna do. They

were songs about healing and songs about restoration and songs

about God, you have the victory, and I would play

them over and over in my car and in the

sleepless nights and when I would go to bed at night.

And as I was doing housework at work, I was

listening to those songs over and over and over again.

And they built my faith and they built my hope.

I called it Kay's Picks. And then I even did

something that was kind of crazy. But in this journey

of believing and having hope of what God was going

to do in Matthew's life, I even put out what

we call a fleece. And if you're not familiar with that,

let me just tell you quickly, it comes right out.

Of scripture in Judges chapter six.

Gideon is told by God that God is gonna use

him to defeat the Midianites.

And Gideon is.

Basically like, you've got to be kidding me. I am

not a mighty man of faith. You can't possibly mean

that you're gonna use me. And God says, yes, I am.

And Gideon says, well, you gotta prove it to me.

And so Gideon takes a piece of wool fleece and

he lays.

It out before God.

And he says, in the morning, God, if this is

really you talking to me and you're really telling me

this is what you want me to do, then God,

I pray that in the morning, everything around this fleece

will be completely dry, but the fleece will be wet.

So in the next morning when Gideon got up, sure enough,

the ground all around that piece of wool was dry,

but the fleece was wet so much so that he

could twist it and bring water out of it. But

Gideon wasn't convinced. I might be a little convinced, but

he wasn't. And he's like, now, God, don't get mad

at me. This is really what he says. Now, God,

don't get mad at me. But could we do it again,

only this time reverse it? Just so that I make

sure it's really you talking to me. So this time,

instead of it being the fleece that's wet, I want

everything around the fleece to be wet and the fleece

to be dry. And if that happens, then God, I'll

know it's you talking to me. So God very graciously

did that. And the next morning when Gideon got up,

Everything around the fleece was wet, but the fleece itself

was dry. And Gideon then believed that God wanted to

use him. And God did. He used him to defeat

the Midianites. So, you know, I decided I was just

going to keep going on this faith journey. And so

I asked God for that. I had a very specific request.

And I said, God, I don't need this for my

faith because I'm gonna trust you no matter what, whether

you answer this specific prayer, this funny little fleece thing

that I'm doing, whether you answer that the way I

want to or not, God, I am yours. But it

would do so much for this mother's heart of mine

if you would just prove to me that you're going

to heal Matthew's mind here. And without telling you all

of what I did within a very short space of time,

exactly what I had prayed for happened. But then being

a little Baptist girl who doesn't do fleeces, okay, that's

so far outside my comfort zone, but I didn't know

whether it was really true. And so I came back

and I told my son Josh, okay, so this is

what happened, but I don't know if it's true and

I don't know if I should believe it. Was it

really a fleece? I don't know, maybe we should do

it again. And he just goes, mom, this is the

way faith works. You either believe it or you don't.

So are you gonna believe it or not, mom? Don't

you love it when your kids school you in faith?

And so.

I believed, and I believed that God had even given

me an answer in such a supernatural way that he

was going to heal Matthew's mind.

And then April 5th came, and Matthew died.

And with his death, my hopes for a healed mind

here on earth died too. My playlist of songs seemed pointless.

Stupid.

My fleece was just a piece of wool after all.

My hope box seemed to mock me. It sat next

to my chair where I have my morning time with

God and for a month I didn't even open it.

I tried not to even look at it because my

hope had been severely disappointed. I felt bruised by hope.

So what do you do? What do we do when

hope doesn't turn out the way we're expecting it to?

What do we do when we've gone out on.

Those audacious limbs of faith and things and life and

situations don't turn out the way we were so convinced

they were going to? Well, you've got a couple of options.

One of them, you can curse God. You can give

up on God. You can say God is a fake

and a phony and he's a tease. Or you can

give God an out and you can take the blame

on yourself. Well, it was my faith that wasn't strong enough.

If I'd been a better Christian, if I'd been a

better mother, if I'd been a better whatever, if I'd

had more faith, then Matthew would still be alive.

And you take the.

Blame on yourself and give God an out. Over these

nearly four months, I have decided that neither of those

responses is adequate or helpful. What I know about God

prevents me from concluding that he is a fake and

a phony and a tease. And what I know about

myself prevents me from concluding that it was my fault,

that I wasn't good enough, that I wasn't strong enough,

that I didn't have enough faith, that somehow my love

failed him, that.

Somehow it was my fault that Matthew died.

That I could somehow maybe have kept him from hitting

that mental illness brick wall. So what am I left

with if I'm not gonna blame God and I'm not

gonna blame myself?

Where do we go with these dashed hopes? Well, what

I'm left with is mystery. Big, fat mystery.

And what I have done is I have put all

that I know of God, all that I don't know

of God, and I've put it, if you will, in

a little pan on the saucer, on the burner of

my mind.

Not on the back burner.

Because I think of this every day, but I don't know.

As Rick said, I don't know the answer to the

contents of that little pan sitting on the stove of

my mind. But I'm content to leave it there because

I know that the day that I meet God face

to face, every single one of those mysteries.

Will be solved.

2 Corinthians 4, 8, 9, and 14 says we often suffer,

but we're never crushed. Even when we don't know what

to do, We never give up. In times of trouble,

God is with us. And when we are knocked down,

we get up again because we know God raised the

Lord back to life. And just as he raised Jesus,

he will also raise us back to life and bring

us into his presence together. So I'm rebuilding hope. You

can't live without hope. I'm in the process of rebuilding hope.

I'm rebuilding my playlist. It's now called Kay's Picks 2.

And it has a whole bunch of different songs.

There's songs about the future because I know this isn't

the end of the story. I know that Matthew's story

isn't at the end. My story isn't.

At the end.

God is still writing it. And because of that, I'm

willing to try hope again. And so I have a

new set of songs. There aren't quite as many, but

there's one that I love. It's called Not for a

Moment by Meredith Andrews. And some of the lyrics we

sing in here at Saddleback, some of the lyrics go,

not for a moment have you forsaken us. Not for

a moment have you abandoned us. And my hope is

that not for a second did God abandon my beautiful boy.

Not for a second.

And not for a second has God abandoned or forsaken us.

I'm rebuilding my hope box today.

I took out the verses that I had prayed for

several years, not because those verses are not true. They

are God's word, and they are true. But they don't

apply to my life right now. And I've begun to

put other verses in here that give me hope for

the future, for this unfinished story that God is writing.

1 Corinthians 15.43 is one of the incredible verses.

It comforts me and builds my hope. It says our bodies...

are buried in brokenness, but.

They will be raised in glory. They are buried in weakness,

but they will be raised in strength. And when I

leave the cemetery where I visit, often it helps me

mourn to be there and grieve and access God's comfort.

And when I leave, I say, I whisper it, Matthew,

your body was buried in brokenness.

That is true.

You, your body will be raised in glory. You were

buried in weakness, but you will be raised in strength.

Hope may not look the way I thought it would,

but hope is alive.

In me because of what I know.

And maybe today you're in that place where we were

for so long. You have your own figurative hope box,

and if you don't, please build one. Put the scriptures

that God uses to encourage you to believe him with

the situations where you're believing for healed minds here. Where

you're believing him for healed bodies here. Where you are

believing him for healed situations.

And marriages and things beyond your control. But you are believing.

You are going, I encourage you. I urge you.

To go out on that audacious faith limb and believe God.

God is still the Red Sea God.

He hasn't changed.

He still parts the waters and allows us to walk

across on dry land.

He still heals.

He still redeems and restores and revitalizes the ruins of

our lives.

That is God.

And I beg you to have hope. So there's hope

box number one. For those of you, you are still

dealing with a situation that needs God's incredible touch. And

then you may be like us and your hopes didn't turn.

Out the way that you thought that they would.

And some of the things or someone, something in your

life has died and you're tempted to walk away from hope.

No, rebuild your hope.

Don't be afraid to have hope Again, don't be afraid.

To trust again. God is good.

God is not finished writing the story. Please believe with

all that you have that what has been broken can

be restored.

It is not the end of our story.

You know, one of the most suspenseful TV shows that

was ever on was 24. Everybody remember that? I mean,

Jack Bauer could solve three world problems in every single episode.

I wanted to be Jack Bauer. But I have to

admit that I never even watched the show until it

went off the air and went into DVD, because I

hate watching commercials. But then I bought the entire, I

think it was like six or seven, more, seven years

of series, or five years, whatever it was. And I

remember Kay and I were watching the first year of

of 24, and we're sitting on the couch and Jack

is getting into one of his predictable really bad messes

like five seconds to save the whole world. And I

started to get a little tense and I started like,

is Jack gonna make it? Is this it? Is this

the end for our hero? Is Jack gonna make it?

And a little voice said in my ear, relax Rick,

there's five more seasons. Your tension goes down when you

know the end of the story. You're reading a mystery

novel and you're scared to death, but if you know

the end, you know it's gonna work out. This is

why believers grieve so very, very differently than the rest

of the world. We grieve with hope because we know

the end of the story. Now, we grieve, Christians, believers,

people who know Jesus, grieve just like everybody else in

that we sorrow when we lose loved ones. I told you,

I've cried every single day since my son died. But

I'm not grieving for him. I'm grieving for me. I

miss him. I'm not grieving for him. He's in a

far better place. No more sorrow, no more torture, no

more problems in his life. He's where we're meant to

be forever. We're not made to stay on this earth forever.

We're made to be in heaven forever. You were made

to last forever. God has long range plans for you.

And so when we grieve, we grieve for ourselves, but

we grieve with hope. Because we know the end of

the story. Now let me tell you, I know the

difference that makes. Because as a pastor, I've done the

funeral of people who didn't have any hope. And I

have looked into the faces and into the eyes of

people who don't have a relationship with Christ, who don't

have the hope of heaven, who don't know what we know,

what we've learned. And the fear and the panic And

the hopelessness in the eyes of people who don't have

that hope is crushing. It's just crushing. I have seen

it in their faces and it is not something you want.

But we grieve with hope. Now to live with hope

in a life of pain, and by the way, I'm

sorry to say this to you, you're gonna have pain

the rest of your life. But in that pain, you

can have hope. How? You're gonna have to get a

bigger perspective. You're gonna have to have a longer view.

You're gonna have to refocus your attention. You're gonna have

to stop thinking about just here and now, and you're

gonna have to start living in light of eternity. This

is not all there is. And if you just look

at today and what's happening right now, you're gonna be hopeless.

But if you can see in light of eternity, you

realize that this life is preparation for the next. You

get it the most 100 years on this planet, but

you get trillions and trillions of years in eternity. This

is simply the get ready stage for the real show.

Here's what the Bible says. There on your outline, 2

Corinthians 4.18. So we don't focus on the troubles we

see right now. Instead, we look forward to what we

don't see yet. For the troubles we see now are temporary.

Thank God they're only temporary. I mean, even if I

had a problem my entire life, it's only temporary, because

it's not gonna last an eternity. For the problems, the

troubles we see now are only temporary, but the joys

to come will last forever. You know, a lot of people,

when they have a loved one die, They have a

celebration of their life at a funeral, and they remember

all the happy times. That's a good thing. In fact,

I would encourage you to do that. Remember all the

happy times of your loved ones. But that's not my comfort.

It is not my comfort. Because Matthew's life was not

a happy life. In many ways, it was a tragic life.

He was tortured. He had a tender heart, but he

had a tortured mind. He was very, Matthew had an

ability to walk into a room at a party and

instantly know who was in the most pain and he

would make a beeline for that person and spend the

entire evening with them, comforting, consoling, and encouraging. He would

have made an incredible counselor. He had a very, very

tender heart, but he had a tortured mind. You know,

for the last two years, over here at the bridge entrance,

there's been a lone protester. And those of you who

come across the bridge have seen that guy, he's been

there every week. He's a very sad situation, a very

broken man, and some real resentment in his life. And

I think about the fact that every Sunday, thousands of

people drive across that bridge, not even caring about that guy,

seeing him there week after week, and not even knowing

his story. As far as I know, outside of myself,

and a few other pastors on staff who've actually taken

the time to talk to him and hear what his

hurt is, most people couldn't care less. And I remember

one day, and this was just in the last months

of Matthew's life, I happened to mention it something to Kate. Kate,

Matthew's ears picked up. What? And he hears about it.

He gets in his car and drives down and spends

two hours with that guy, talking to him.

Why?

Because he had a tender heart. But his life in

many ways was very tortured and very tragic. And so

as a father, my comfort doesn't come from thinking about

the happy moments of Matthew's life. There were some, but

not that many. My comfort comes not from thinking about

happy moments on earth, but holy moments in heaven he's

having now. And that is a comfort to me. You see, friends,

The biggest epidemic in our society, in our world today

is hopelessness. It's an epidemic for Persians. It's the biggest

problem on the planet. The biggest problem on the planet

is not poverty. We're trying to do something about that

with the peace plan. The biggest problem on the planet

is not disease. We're trying to do something about that

with the peace plan. The biggest problem on the planet

is not illiteracy or ignorance and lack of education. We're

trying to do something about that. The biggest problem on

our planet is hopelessness. People are living and dying without

any hope. And we are in a battle for hopelessness,

against hopelessness. That's why Purpose Driven Life is still a

big bestseller around the world. Why it's the most translated

book in the world except for the Bible. Because people

are hungry for hope. You know the week Matthew died,

I was in a massive battle for hope and against hopelessness.

Let me tell you the behind the scenes story that

happened that week. Matthew lost his battle with mental illness

five days after Easter. Last Easter, I spoke, I don't know, 13,

14 times, about 50,000 people, and I preached on the

hope of the resurrection, that we know there's a life

hereafter because Jesus came back from the death. the hope

of the resurrection. On Monday, we announced nationally that after

me 33 years of saying no, I was gonna allow

my sermons to be put on the radio, and we

started a nationwide radio program called Daily Hope. That's Monday.

On Tuesday, I announced that I was gonna take a

four-month sabbatical and write the first major book in 11

years since Purpose Driven Life, and it was gonna be

called The Hope You Need. You can see a pattern here. Sunday,

the hope of the resurrection. Monday, daily hope. Tuesday, the

hope you need. On Wednesday, I sent out the newsletter

I send to all of you who are signed up

for it, News and Views, and I announced this next weekend,

the weekend after Easter, we're gonna start a series on hope,

and the first message I'm gonna do is out of

2 Chronicles 20 on when you feel like you're under attack.

That was the message I announced on Wednesday. On Thursday,

Christianity Today released a major article on our peace plan

and to mobilize churches and organizations to take down the

final frontier, the last 3,000 tribes in the world that

don't have hope, that don't have a Bible, don't have

a believer, and don't have a body of Christ. And

the title of the article was called Rick Warren's Final Frontier.

And there's an article on taking hope to the final

people who still don't have any hope at all, haven't

heard the message of Jesus. That was on Thursday. Friday

was the day Matthew died. The message that was playing

on Daily Hope all across America that day was this,

winning the battle for your mind. That was the message

I was teaching on the radio across the world, across America.

I got up Friday morning, not knowing what was gonna

happen that day, and my chest was caving in. And

Kay goes, are you having a heart attack? And I said, no, no, no,

I got a strong heart. I think I got bronchitis.

So David Shawn takes me to a doctor, and he

does an x-ray, he says, you got double pneumonia. I

couldn't count the number of times I've gotten double pneumonia

or pneumonia after a Christmas or Easter. Because I preach 13,

14 times, wear myself out, hug 3,000 people, pick up

your germs and get pneumonia. It's the cost of being

a hugger, okay? So what? You're worth it. You're worth it,

believe me. But really, I've gotten upper respiratory and pneumonia.

I couldn't count the number of times. So it's not

a big deal to me after Christmas or Easter. But

I'm sitting in the doctor's office and I call Pastor Tom,

our senior teaching pastor. I said, Tom, I'm not gonna

get to start the series on hope this weekend. You're

gonna have to preach. But I don't want you to

preach my message on when you feel like you're under

attack I want you to preach on 1 Samuel 30,

where David, King David, goes back to his hometown, Ziklag.

He goes to that town, and the enemy has burned

the town down, and they've taken all of the women

and children and residents captive. And David and his men

are devastated, and they sit down on the ground, and

they just weep, and they grieve. And then they do

certain things, and I said, and I want you to

call the message, what to do on the worst day

of your life. Little did I know, a few hours later,

it would become the worst day of my life. We

are in a battle against hopelessness. Now when something happens

and you have a major loss in your life, you

tend to think this is the end of the world. No,

it's not the end of the world. It's an end

of the moment. And in your life, you're gonna have

many ends of the moment. It's not the end of

the world. I don't know what you're going through, and

I don't care how, well, I do care, but I

don't know how important, it doesn't matter how deep you

think your problem is right now, the one you're going

through right now, it isn't the end of the world. Why?

Because when the real end of the world comes, Jesus

shows up. Then you know it's the end of the world.

But one day, Jesus is gonna settle the score, even

the odds, pay off the debts, and heal the hurts.

And the Bible says what it's gonna be like in

heaven when it's all over here on earth. The last

chapter in the last book of the Bible, Revelation 21,

verse four, says this. Then God, this is in the future,

then God will wipe away every tear from their eyes,

this is in heaven, Wipe away every tear from their

eyes and there will be no more death. No more death.

And there will be no more mourning.

And there will be no more crying. And there will

be no more pain. For the old order of things

will pass away. I'm looking forward to that day. But

we're not there yet.

And what do we do now in this little parentheses

between the sweet by and by and the nasty now

and now? Where everything is broken and the life doesn't

make sense and it's an incredible battle. What do we

do during this middle time? We live in peace even

when life doesn't make sense because we know that God

is with us And God loves us and he'll never

stop loving us and he'll never forget us. And we

live with joy even when everything on this planet is

broken because we know that God is good and God

has a good plan and God has a plan that

is greater than the problem you're going through. His purpose

is greater than your problem. And we live with hope, why?

We live with hope even when we know life's a

battle and everything's hard and there's a lot of conflict.

But we live with hope because we know there's more

to the story than just here and now. Now in closing,

I wanna talk to four different groups. Just say a

word to each of you. Everybody here is in one

of those four groups. Those of you who are watching

online at our different campuses here in Southern California overseas

and Saddleback Manila and Buenos Aires, Saddleback Buenos Aires and

Saddleback Berlin and Saddleback Hong Kong, all the different places.

This next week we're starting Saddleback Mars. We're doing intergalactic evangelism.

We think big around here. But wherever you are, you're

in one of these four groups first. to those of

you who haven't yet stepped across the line spiritually. You

know about God, but you don't know him personally. You've

heard about Jesus, but you don't know him personally. You

don't have a friendship with him. Hang in there and

be with us. Come back in the succeeding weeks, and

I'll talk to you more about how to establish that relationship.

You can begin tonight by just praying the prayer we're

gonna pray together in a minute. He said, well, you know,

Jesus wouldn't want me. Oh, really? I recently wrote down

who Jesus came for. Jesus came for the chewed up

and the pushed around, the cracked up and the put down,

the crossed off and the ripped off, the crying out

and the run down. Jesus came for the dropped out

and the run over, the edged out and the shrugged off,

the shut in, the flamed out, the shut out, the

smashed up. Jesus came for the have nots and the

squeezed outs and the held back and the stacked against.

Jesus came for the hung over and the strung out

and the knocked down and the kicked around and the

torn up and thrown away, the left out, loaded down,

turned off and used up. Jesus came for the looked over,

the lorded over, the walked over and the washed out.

For the led astray, the laid off, the leaned on,

the let down. He came for the messed up, the

mixed up, the passed over, the picked on, the piled on,

the pinned down. Jesus came for the wiped out and

the written off. Jesus came for Matthew. Jesus came for me.

Jesus came for you. God has never made a person

he doesn't love. God has never made a person he

doesn't have a purpose for. God has never made a

purpose a person that he doesn't want to know him.

And Satan's gonna do everything he can to keep you

from establishing that relationship because he hates you. If you

are that person, we want you here at Saddleback. Group

number two. Many of you, and I mean many of you,

are struggling with your thoughts. And actually, your thoughts torture you.

And you don't tell anybody about it, but it bothers you.

and your thoughts torture you with depression, or your thoughts

torture you with anxiety, or your thoughts torture you with

self-loathing or shame. Some of you are tortured with blame

and resentment, and some of you are tortured with fear

and worry, and some of you are tortured with compulsions

and attractions and addictions, And some of you are tortured

with anger. And some of you just feel out of place.

I'm the odd person out. I don't fit. I'm not

in the in crowd. I'm just on the edge. I

just feel like the square in a round world. And

you have these thoughts and you can't get them out

of your mind. And you can't make your mind mind.

Let me just say this to you, somebody who loves you.

You're not going crazy. You're not going crazy. If you

are afraid that you're going crazy, I'm afraid I'm losing

my mind. Let me tell you this. People who are

insane aren't afraid of losing their mind. The fact that

you're afraid means you're not losing your mind. So take

a deep breath and let that one out. People who

are insane, don't worry about it. The fact that you're

worried means you're rational. So you're not going crazy, but

you do need help. with your thought life. Second thing

I want to say to you is this, you're not alone.

With 3,000 people in this room here tonight, if this

is average, on average in America, 600 of you are

struggling with some kind of mental illness. 600. 60 million

Americans struggle with some kind of mental illness, 400 million worldwide.

That would be larger than the United States if it

were a nation. And I wanna just say this. You

may have a chemical imbalance in your body that messes

with your mind, but your chemistry is not your character.

And your illness is not your identity. And God's grace

doesn't just cover our genetics, our genes and genetics. It

covers our guilt and everything else. And God's mercy doesn't

just cover the things we do wrong, it covers our DNA.

And we want you here at Saddleback Church. And it

is not a sin to be sick. And there's no

shame in taking meds. There's no shame in seeing a psychiatrist.

If my back is broken, I go to a back doctor.

If my heart doesn't work right, I go to a

heart doctor. If my kidney stops working, I go to

a kidney doctor. If my brain isn't functioning right, I

go to a brain doctor. There's no shame in that.

Why is it that any other organ in your body

cannot work and there's no stigma attached to it? If

my spleen stops working, there's no shame. If my pancreas

stops working, if I have diabetes, there's no shame, there's

no stigma on that. But if my brain stops working,

why am I supposed to keep quiet and not talk

about it and be ashamed of it? That's just wrong.

10 years ago, God called Kay and then called me

and then called many of you at Saddleback to remove

the stigma of HIV and AIDS. It's not a sin

to be sick. And now 10 years later, God is

calling us as a church to remove the stigma of

mental illness. And we're gonna do that. Thank you. And

if you're struggling with any kind of mental torture, we

want you here, because we're all a little crazy here. Now,

if you're perfect, we don't want you in this church.

Go somewhere else. By the way, if you ever find

a perfect church, please don't join it, because then it

won't be perfect anymore. Once you join... At Saddleback Church,

we take this so seriously, we have literally hundreds and

hundreds of support groups and thousands and thousands of people

in those support groups. In fact, in all of our

small groups, we have over 32,000 people in 7,000 small

groups from Santa Monica to Carlsbad. Now, in front of

you is a card. I want you to pull this out.

It says Saddleback Cares. And if you're on the second row,

hand one to the person in front of you. I

want you to take two of these with you. As

you go. Two of these with you. One for you

and one for you to give away to somebody else

who you know in pain. Here's just a list of

some of the support groups we have. Support groups for ADD,

for Alzheimer's, for Asperger's, for bipolar, breast cancer, cancer, chronic pain, depression,

divorce care, eating disorders, empty arms. That's people who've lost

a miscarriage. People who have families, loved ones in prison,

grief support, hepatitis, infertility, kidney disease, living with AIDS, Parkinson's,

on and on and on. There's almost no problem you

can name, we don't have a small group for her.

And you can go out on the patio and get

information after the service. Take this with you. Take one

and give one to a friend. Third group I wanna

talk to. Those of you who are in families and

you have a family member like the Warren family did

who is seriously mentally ill. Maybe it's your dad, maybe

it's your mom, your husband, your wife, your brother, your sister,

a child. We want you in Saddleback Church, this is

your church. And we will support you and we will

help you and we will work on the pain you're

going through together. You should not suffer in silence. We

are here to help your family, but you've gotta speak

up and you've gotta let us know about the pain.

And as I said, we wanna remove that stigma together.

Then finally, I wanna just say this to all of

you who are part of our Saddleback Church family and

those of you at all of our campuses. You better

buckle up because we're moving into hyperdrive, because I'm back.

Okay?

And.

And... Get ready. Just get ready. You know, when you've

gone through what I've just gone through publicly in front

of the world, it honestly makes you fearless. It really does.

Greg Laurie asked me, he said, how are you feeling

coming out? I said, honestly, I feel fearless. If I

ever cared what people thought, I certainly don't care now.

Because when you have gone through, you know, as a pastor,

there are different kinds of funerals. The easiest kind of

funeral is for an older person who's lived a godly life.

It's a homecoming. It's a celebration of their life. My parents,

Kay's dad, others like that. It's an easy funeral because

they're ready to go to heaven. A more difficult funeral

is the death of a spouse. More difficult than that

is the death of a spouse and little children still

at home. That's a tough funeral to do. A murder...

is a more difficult funeral. Without a doubt, the most

difficult funeral of all is the death of a child.

Because parents aren't supposed to outlast their kids. And without

a doubt more than that, the most painful funerals of

all are suicides. Now I'm doing a funeral for the

death of a child. And it's my child. And it's

a suicide. And I'm a public figure and the whole

world knows about it. And I have people who don't

like me, enemies, who are writing blogs celebrating my son's death.

Laughing at my pain. And may Rick Warren burn in

hell with his son, and on and on and on.

And when you have that kind, you go through that

kind of fire, when you come out of it, you go,

what else, is that the best you got? You know,

is that the best you got? Okay, really? And, and,

And you come out of it honestly fearless. We are

going to redouble our efforts to help anyone hurting from

the very start of this church. When it was just

Kay and I, just two people, you know I preached

the first sermon, she heard it, she said it's too long,

been downhill ever since. And she's still saying it's too long.

The world is full of broken hearts, broken bodies, and

broken minds. And we're gonna do everything we can to

help those people. Now, everything we have done and will

do in this church is motivated by love, by love

for God and by love for the people that he created.

And whether it's the 300 ministries we do in the

community of Southern California, whether it's the campuses, the other

Saddlebacks we start in Southern California, whether it's the international saddlebacks,

whether it's the peace plan, whether it's the Rwanda project,

whether it's the final frontier project, everything we do is

to say this to the world. You matter to God.

And there is hope. And we are in this battle

against hopelessness. And I just need to know one thing.

Are you with me? As if I had to ask.

Now the next six weeks, on the back of your outline,

we're gonna look at each of these phases in detail.

And we're gonna look at a Bible character for each one.

We're gonna look next week at shock, when your world

falls apart. Bring somebody who needs to hear that message.

Then the next week, we're gonna look at sorrow, when

your heart is breaking. And then the next week, we'll

look at struggle. What do you do when you don't

understand what's going on in your life? Then the next week, surrender.

How do you experience peace in life? Then the next week, sanctification.

How do I let God turn the bad in my

life into good? And then the next week, service. How

do I let God use the pain in my life

to help other people? Don't miss a single week. Let's

bow for prayer. Dear God, I look out on these

people that I love so much, and I thank you

for their love for you, their love for each other,

their love for people who are hurting. I thank you

for our church family. I don't know any other church

like it in the world. And I pray that this

series will help us be prepared to stand on the

solid rock of truth so that we're not blown away

when the tough times come into our lives. I pray

it will prepare them to not just stand firm, but

to help others. Now you pray. In your mind, say,

dear God, I want to know you better. Just say that.

Dear God, I want to know you better. I want

to become a man or woman of faith. I want

to fulfill the purpose that you made me for. Dear God,

help me to remember that I'm never really alone, that

you are always with me, you're always thinking about me,

and that you will always love me and you will

never abandon me. Help me to build my life on

those truths. Help me to remember that you are a

good God, that you have a good plan for my life,

and that plan is to give me a future and

a hope. And God, even when life is a battle

and when everything is broken, help me to remember that

this is not the end of the story, that we

win in the end. that ultimately there will be no

more tears, no more sorrow, no more mourning, no more crying,

no more death. Say this in your heart, Jesus Christ,

as much as I know how, I give you every

area of my life. I open up myself to you.

Make yourself real to me. I wanna learn to love

you more. I wanna learn to trust you. And I

pray this in your name, amen.