Rick Warren - How to Prepare for a Life Reset

Yesterday, as I was about an hour before the first

service on Saturday, I was finishing up my message and

I'd spent about 18 hours on it and my computer

froze up and I lost all my teaching notes. Now,

there was about a 30 minute period of panic where

I wondered, am I gonna have anything to say, or

are we just gonna sing some extra verses of songs tomorrow? Fortunately,

RJ Hughes, the wonder kind workaround artist on our staff,

once again saved the day. He was able to recover

about a third, not the whole thing, about a third

of the message and I could reformat at least a

third of it, I immediately gave him a raise of

$ 1 million on a staff. Now, my computer had been

sluggish for some period of time. And it finally just

stopped working because too many programs were clogging up the

system and the screen froze and then all of a

sudden you start getting all these error messages going, you know, error, error,

and they start piling up and finally it just freezes.

Now you've had this happen with your computer and there's

only one thing to do. Hit the reset button. Okay, reboot.

When in doubt, reboot. My computer needed a clean memory.

It needed a fresh start. It needed a reset. Now

people are like that. Because we all live complicated lives.

You have a complicated life, I have a complicated life.

And there are a lot of different programs running in

your life, running in your brain, running in your body.

And after a while, those programs can be so overloading

and conflicting that you quickly find yourself on overload. You

know what I'm talking about? In your life, and you

just feel like you're on overload because you start getting

error messages in your brain. And when that happens, what

you need is a life reboot. You need a fresh

reset of your life, a fresh start. You need a

clean slate. And actually, you're gonna need resets in your

life many, many times, not just one time in your life.

And you're gonna need resets in different areas of your life,

your career, your marriage, your education, your finances. You need

a fresh start, a clean slate. That's what Jesus Christ

came to do. is to offer you a fresh start.

If you were to ask me to sum up what

Saddleback Church is all about and has been about now

for decades, the goal of Saddleback Church, I could summarize

the goal of this church in two words. We are

about changed lives. That's it. Everything we do in this

church is about changed lives. We are in the changed

life business. The transformation of lives. Helping people become what

God always intended them to be. The transformation of life.

And Saddleback is not about buildings. It's not about our size.

It's not about music. It's not about the messages. It's

about changed lives. People wanna go where their lives get changed.

And when we want our church to be known for

or not, oh, they got great music or they got

a beautiful facility or whatever. We want them to be,

that's where you go if you want your life changed. Now,

this transformation has many, many different kinds of names. It's

called salvation, when you first step across the line to

open your life to the love of God. It's called sanctification,

which are the steps you go in growth and maturity

as you become the woman God wants you to be

or the man God wants you to be. That's called Sanctification.

It's called conversion, a fresh start. It's called starting over.

It's called being born again. It's called getting a new life,

having a life reset, a fresh start. And in the

history of our church family, Saddleback, hundreds of thousands of

people have had a spiritual reset in their lives over

the last four plus decades. Most of you could tell

your own story of transformation. My life changed, God changed

my life, Christ changed my life through Saddleback Church in

this way or that way or this way or that way.

This last week, I receive a lot of letters all

the time, but always after Easter, I receive letters from

many of the 38,000 people who attended an Easter service

last weekend at one of our Saddleback campuses. And I

wanna read you just one typical letter because it sets

up where I want us to go in this new

series called Resetting Your Life. Here's the letter. First time

attender last week. Dear Pastor Rick, I've known about Saddleback

Church for about 15 years. And I was always curious

about why it attracted so many people. But I had

never attended a service until a friend invited me to

last week's Easter service. So I went out of curiosity. Honestly,

I was not prepared for what I experienced. Everybody was smiling.

Everybody was smiling. They were so happy and joyful and welcoming.

And the love on their faces immediately put me at ease,

even though I'd never been in church. But when the

people started singing with all their hearts, tears instantly started

flowing down my face. Do you realize that when you

sing like you just did, Jesus Christ, my living hope,

just a second ago, with all your heart, you are preaching,

you are proclaiming the love of God. When you sing

in church, you are witnessing to the people around you.

They may not hear your voice, but they can see

your face and they can see the intensity of how

you mean thank you God for all you've done in

my life. You are a witness every time you sing

with gratitude. Said, when the people began started singing with

all their hearts, tears instantly started flowing down my face.

I didn't know any of the songs, but the way

that the people sang them stunned me. I could feel God.

for the first time in my life. I didn't understand it,

but I instantly realized that I had been missing out

on something I desperately needed. Then Pastor Rick, you spoke

about God's love and God's purpose and how God wants

everybody in his family. I took it all in with

great wonder. And at the close of the service, When

you led everybody in a prayer, I prayed it too.

And while I was saying those simple words, the tears

returned and I felt overwhelmed by God's love for me.

Pastor Rick, I don't know what my next step should be,

but I do know this. that the direction of my

life was reset in that moment. Please help me now

to know what to do next. Now what caught my

attention with that letter, and that's just one of many,

what caught my attention was how this person used the

word reset. In a single moment, the direction of my

life was reset. I was going this way, hopelessness, doubt, fear, despair.

This way, now I'm going to hope, purpose, meaning, significance.

The direction went from guilt to forgiveness. I went from

anger to peace. These kind of directional changes happen all

the time. They are a spiritual reset in people's lives,

and it's happened literally hundreds of thousands of times in

our church family. That caught my attention, that word reset.

Because I told you that I've been going up to

a clinic near Stanford University up in the Silicon Valley

where a team of doctors has been studying why I

had constant pain in my body literally for months. And

they're trying to figure out the cure for it. And

evidently it's something rare, I don't even know. But at

the first meeting with all those doctors at that clinic,

I asked the lead doctor, so doc, what exactly are

you trying to accomplish here? And he looked at me

and he said, Pastor Rick, we intend to reset your health.

He said, we're gonna reset your health. And we're gonna

use a number of different biological tools that we didn't

even have 10 years ago to reset your health. And

I heard that word reset again. And I thought, hey,

that's great. I'm all in for a biological reset and

while you're at it, can you make me 30 years

younger and give me breath Pitt's face? I mean, let's

just do a total makeover. That's the new Ricky Warren. Now,

a year ago, some of you may remember that when

COVID started, The restrictions ended and we were able to

start meeting outside, down the hill. And at the very

beginning of that, I did a single message on this theme, reset.

I wanna come back to it and actually do a

whole series on it now. But I did a series,

a message, and I said, we've had this timeout during

COVID and God doesn't want you to simply resume your

old way of living now that COVID is winding down.

He doesn't want you to resume your old way of living.

Instead of resuming the old, God wants to reset our

lives in a new and a higher dimension. So, starting

this weekend, our preaching team, Pastor Tom, Pastor Buddy, and

I are gonna begin a series called Restarting My Life.

And if you look at your notes, the notes that

are inside your program, the definition of reset is to

make a fresh start, the opportunity to make a fresh start,

or to begin again. Now that's something Jesus Christ specializes in.

He gives people fresh starts, start over, begin again all

the time. The S in our name, you know, S-A-D-D-L-E-B-A-C-K,

every one of those letters represent a value of this church.

And the first value, S, is second chance place of grace.

If you've messed up, this is the place to start over.

This is a place for imperfect people who want a

fresh start, a reset, a rebooting of their life. Now

there's tons and tons of verses in the Bible about

God wanting to give you a restart, a reboot, a refresh,

and a new beginning in any area of your life.

And you'll need these many times in your life. We're

gonna look at all of those verses in the weeks ahead,

but let me just give you one of them Right here,

at the top of your outline, Ephesians chapter four says this.

You've learned the truth that is in Jesus. Jesus said,

I'm the way, the truth, and the life. You've learned

the truth and you've stepped across the line. Now, so,

in regards to your former way of life, that means

before you had Jesus in your heart, before you knew

the Lord, your former life, before you were a believer,

He said, in regard to your former way of life,

put off your old self and be made new in

the attitudes of your mind and put on your new self,

created to be like God, truly good and holy. Now,

this is, God's saying here that once you've invited Jesus

into your life and you've put your trust in him,

then there's a process of growth and change and growing

and becoming and resetting every area of your life. And

he says it's kinda like changing your clothes, where you

take off some stuff and you put on some stuff.

You take off all the old clothes that are smelly

and sweaty and dirty, take off the old clothes and

you get rid of those, and you put on some

new clothes which are fresh and smell good and make

you feel good too. He said there's some things you

should take off, there's some things you should put on.

deal with this now for several weeks. How do I

do a life reset? Whether you're in retirement or whether

you're at midlife or whether you're just starting out and

you're in your 20s or your teens, there are different

times in your life you're gonna need to do a reset.

Now today, what I'm gonna just do, we're not gonna

go over the steps of how to reset your life.

That'll take us weeks to do that. But in this point,

I want us to look at the four preparation steps.

In other words, these are preliminary things you need to

do to get ready for a major reset in your life.

Number one, start asking God to do something new in me.

I start asking God to do something new in me.

And you don't just ask him once. You show that

you mean business by asking him more than once, by

repeatedly bringing your request to God. You know, any parent

knows that when at Christmas time a child says, I

want this for Christmas, if they only mention it one time,

they don't really want it. They have to say it

three or four times, then you go, now this is

the difference between a whim and a genuine want. Okay,

and God says, are you serious about changing your life?

Are you serious about being a different guy, a different gal,

a man of God, a woman of God? Are you

serious about breaking some of those bad habits in your life?

I need you to tell me. Now, you might wonder,

is it okay for me to ask God to do

something new in my life? God, I want you to

do something new, something fresh, something different, something unique in

my life. Can you do that? Yes, in fact, it's

in the job description of Jesus Christ. First verse there

under that point, Revelation 21, Jesus says, I am making

everything old. No, that's not what he says, is it?

I'm making everything boring. I'm making everything the same. No,

he said, I'm making everything what?

New.

This is what he does. Jesus transforms life. So, if

you're tired of your old way of living, this is

the guy you come to. I make everything new. Now,

a good prayer that you could pray is the one

that David prayed in Psalm 51. And in Psalm 51,

he asked God to create a new heart in him,

create a clean spirit, do some new work in him.

And in Psalm 51, verse 10, I love this verse,

Psalms 51:10

particularly in the message paraphrase where David says this. God,

make a fresh start in me. I like that. Shape

a Genesis week from the chaos in my life. You

need this verse. Make a fresh start in me. Shape

a new creation from the chaos of my life. You

might wanna write that on a little card and put

it on your refrigerator and memorize that verse this week. Now,

it's not only a good prayer to be the start

of asking God to do something new in your life,

but it's also significant even more when you realize that

David wrote this after stealing another man's wife and having

the man, the husband, murdered. We got a little bit

different context now. David has created two of the top

sins up there, adultery and murder. And he's saying, God,

I need you to make a fresh start in me,

shape a Genesis, weaken the chaos of my life. What

that implies is really quite good news. What it implies

is that you are never too far gone for God's grace,

for God's forgiveness. You can't do a bad enough thing

that God's gonna say, time out, you don't get any

more chances. This is a message of grace. God, do

something new in me. I have so messed it up,

so screwed up my life, so made a fiasco of everything.

and I've done this sin and this one and this

one and this one and this one, but I need

a fresh start. I don't care what you've done. I

don't care who you've done it with and I don't

care how long you've done it. You can get a

fresh start and a life reset starting today if you'll

come to God and the first preliminary is to just say, God,

I need a fresh start. I'm carrying too much baggage,

I'm carrying too much sin, I'm carrying too much guilt,

I'm carrying too many regrets. Listen, your past is past.

It's over. Did you do some dumb things? Yes, but

you can't change that. You are a product of your past,

but you are not a prisoner of your past. You

might write that one down. In fact, you might tweet

that one. Rick says, You're a product of your past.

You have been shaped by the good and the bad

and the ugly things in your life. But you're not

a prisoner of it. You can change. That's the gospel.

That's the good news. That's what Christianity's all about. There

can be pushing the reset button. And I get a

second chance. I get a new life. I get born again.

I get new freedom. And I can get a second

chance and a third chance and on and on. Now

here's what God says about your past. Are you listening?

Isaiah 43, verse 18 and 19. Here's what God says

Isaiah 43:18

about your past. Forget the former things and do not

dwell on the past, whether it's good or bad. Instead,

God says, look at the new things I'm going to do.

They're already starting to happen. Can you see what I've

begun to do? God says, I don't want you constantly

looking in the rearview mirror. If you're always looking in

the rearview mirror, you're going to crack up while you're driving.

The only way you can drive effectively is look to

the future. Not look at what's behind you, but look

to the future. All of the rest of your life

is in the future, not in the past. As I said,

your past is past. So don't dwell on it. Start

asking God to do something new in me. Do you

know why nothing's happening new in your life right now?

Because you're not asking. Look at the next verse. James

chapter four, verse two. You do not have what you

want because you don't what? Ask God for it. Circle

that start. You don't have it because you don't ask

for it. Have you ever asked God for a reset

in your life? God, I need a fresh start. I've

blown it. I've made a big mistake. Mistakes, plural. And

I need a fresh start. I need a new start.

I need a revamping. I need to reboot my life.

This is the first preparation step. You're gonna have to

start asking God, God, I want you to do something

new in my life. And I pray that in the

weeks ahead during this series, you're gonna be praying this

prayer every day. And I want you to pray it

every day this week. I want you to, when you

think about it, go, God, would you do something new

in my life? Would you do something fresh in my life?

Would you give me a fresh start? Would you give

me a renewed energy, renewed spirit, renewed hope and heart?

The first step in preparation is to ask God for

a reset. Here's the second thing in preparation. These are preliminaries.

Pinpoint specifically what I want changed in me. That's the

second thing you do. If you wanna get a brand

new start in life, pinpoint specifically what I want changed

in me. Nothing becomes transforming until it becomes specific. You

don't just say, God, I want you to change me.

And God's gonna say, specifically, what do you have in mind?

Change what? What do you want changed, okay? You can't

change a generality. So don't just say, God, change me.

Don't say change, you have to clarify, you have to identify,

you have to decide where you wanna be different, as

a man or as a woman. Where do I wanna

be different? You see, you cannot solve any problem, obviously,

till first you identify it as a problem. Do you

know the problems in your life? Or are you just

still in denial about them all? You gotta identify the

problems in your life. You gotta clarify the problems in

your life. You gotta admit that they are problems in

your life. Oh no, I'm not really in debt. Oh no,

I'm not really habitually procrastinating. Whatever. No, I don't need

help in an area. Well then you'll be helpless. Now

the more specific you are about what you want God

to change in your life, the easier it's gonna be

for God to do it and to help you and

to do it faster. Now what I've done on your

message notes is I've created a little checklist to jog

your memory. Where do I need help? What would I

like to change in my life? What are the things

in my life, relationships or whatever, that I'm dissatisfied with?

I just not cook them on all burners. I'm not

on all the cylinders. So I wanna do, this is

worth it for us to take some time right now

in this service. This may be one of the most

important things you do this week is to take this

personal inventory right now. The Bible says, In 2 Corinthians

2 Corinthians 13 · chapter mention

chapter 13, verse five, look closely at yourself. That means

do a little self-examination. Test yourselves to see if you're

really living in the faith, okay? So here are a

dozen or so areas. Let's look at these. Where do

I need a reset? What would I like God to

change in my life, to give me a fresh start?

How about in my connection to God? So how do

I know if I need a reset there? Has there

ever been a time in your life when you felt

closer to God than you do right now? If the

answer is yes, you need a reset. You need a reboot.

You need a reconnection. So you need to check that box, yes.

If you say I've never been closer to God than

I am right now, you don't need to check that one. Copacetic,

you're a-okay. How about, do I need a reset in

my health and body? Like the doctors are trying to

do with me right now. Do you need help in

your metabolism, in some area of your chronic illness or something?

You mean I could ask God about that? Of course

you can. Do I need a reset in my priorities?

Are your priorities out of whack? And things that really

aren't important, all of a sudden you're spending all your

time doing those and the things that are really important,

you're not doing those, that's your, I need a reset

in my priorities. Okay, check that one. How about a relationship?

Do you have a relationship, boyfriend, girlfriend, friend, or whatever,

and you're going, it's stagnating, or it may be deteriorating.

Do I need a reset in that relationship? How about

in your energy level? He said, I'm finding it going

lower and lower. Do I need to restart there? How

about in your career? In my career or in my job?

If you're out of work right now, you need to restart.

If you just got laid off or fired, you're out

of work, you need to restart there. How about in

my thought life? I'm having thoughts that I don't like.

I can't control them. They scare me. They're the wrong

kind of thoughts. I shouldn't have these kind of thoughts.

And they bother me, check that. Do I need a

reset in my marriage? No marriage ever stands still. At

every point in your marriage, you're either growing closer together

or you're drifting further apart. No marriage just stands still.

So if you're not growing closer together, you're drifting apart.

And maybe you need a reset in your marriage. I

need to re-fall in love. I've had to re-fall in

love with my wife many, many times. in almost 47

years of marriage. You just have to re-up and recommit.

How about in your routines? Are your routines out of whack?

The routine I'm in right now, it started during COVID,

it's not helping me. And I need to change my routine,

I need to reset there. Maybe you need to check

that one. Or how about habits? Do I need to

replace some bad habits with some good habits? How about

in my parenting? Some of you need to reset in

your parenting. And right now, you need to reset a

relationship with one of your kids. They may be an

adult child, but you're out of whack with them. And

you need to reset in that relationship. You check that one.

How about in my time and my schedule? Have you

figured out that it's easier to fill your schedule than

to fulfill your schedule? Have you discovered that it's easier

to get in to something rather than to get out

of it? It's easier to commit than to actually fulfill.

And you say, my time's out of control, my schedule's

out of control, I'm always pressured, I'm always late, whatever.

You check that one, I need to reset there. How

about in your self-confidence? You say, why would I need

to reset my self-confidence? Well, if you've just experienced a

major rejection, you probably do. If you've been rejected at work,

or you've been rejected by a friend, or a parent,

or a lover, you've been rejected by your spouse or somebody,

anytime you have rejection, your self-confidence takes a hit. And

you say, I need to reset that, Lord, in my life.

How about finances? Am I in denial about all the

debt that I'm in? I'm just pretending it's not really there?

Or do I need to reset in my dream? Now

what we're gonna do, I told you, this week is

just an introduction. In the weeks ahead, we are going

to cover many of these areas in detail. So I

don't want you to miss any of the messages in

this series on resetting my life, because this is news

you can use. Now, before we move on, I need

to say a word to a special group of you.

And that is the few of you who just now,

as I went through that list, did not check a

single box. Really? You're that perfect? You're in such denial

you couldn't even find a single box to check? Hello?

You gotta touch with, you must be Jesus, you're so perfect.

Why don't you come up here and just take over

and you start teaching, because I would certainly like to

learn from somebody who's perfect. You can't find a single

thing that you said, yeah, I need help in that area.

If not, it's a desperate time for you. The most

desperate thing is when you're out of touch with the

reality in your life. And the Bible says the heart's deceitful,

which means you lie to yourself more than you lie

to anybody else. And for those of you who didn't

check a single box, this is what God says to you,

next verse. Romans 12, three. Do not think you are

better than your really are. Decide what you really are

by the amount of faith that God has given you.

So I wanna highly recommend, even if you use false humility,

go back and check a few things. Because trust me,

you're not perfect. Trust me, there's things on that list

that need a reset in your life. And if you

don't understand that, you really are out of touch with

your own self. Because nobody's perfect, we're all flawed. We

know that, God knows that, and actually you know it,

but you're just trying to tell yourself something different. You rationalize.

You know what rationalize means? You tell yourself rational lies.

You tell yourself in your mind, what your heart is

telling you is wrong and your mind's like, it's okay,

it's not. Now, in this brief intro to the series

we're gonna go into, I wanted you to hear a

real life example of somebody who had their life reset

and where we're going. So I want you to hear

the story of Alice Park. Would you give her a

warm welcome?

Welcome, Alice.

Hi, my name is Alice.

Pastor Rick asked me to share my story of how

God helped me reset my life when I put all

my life into his hands. It happened when I got

serious about learning and applying the principles of change and

recovery found in God's word. I can honestly tell you

that my reset and recovery has brought positive changes in

my life that I never imagined could happen to me

and in me. Born in Los Angeles, I grew up

in a loving Korean-American Christian home. But as the third

of four children, I often felt out of place, like

the ugly duckling. I wasn't as pretty as my smart

older sister who became a successful doctor. And I wasn't

the youngest, like my baby brother, who seemed to me

to get so much more favor and attention. And lastly,

I was outranked by my older brother, who was, dramatic pause,

the firstborn son. In Korean culture, that is the premier

position with high expectations. My siblings were taller than me,

they were more attractive, they seemed more attractive to me.

And to top it off, The real stinger was that

they all had bigger eyes.

Now that may not.

Seem like a big deal to you, but I envy

is real for many of us Asians. I yearned for

my parents' undivided attention and resented that they gave more

attention to our family's dry cleaning business. They were always busy.

In reality, they were just trying to make ends meet,

but growing up, I compartmentalized my pain, resentment, and fears,

even repressing a family secret of my own sexual abuse

as a child. And that secret really blurred my boundaries.

By college, I had become a pro at ignoring my feelings,

struggling with poor boundaries and codependency.

Low self-worth was the.

Core of my life. So I became a professional people pleaser.

I tried to please people, but I didn't actually trust

them at all because of all the ways that I'd

been hurt. And I didn't trust God either because I

doubted that God thought much of me seeing all of

my bad choices. All my suppressed pain led to a

lot of bad decisions, including getting stuck in a destructive, codependent,

and verbally abusive relationship, which resulted in an unplanned pregnancy

and unwanted abortion. But God had not forgotten me. During

my low point, God led me to discover Saddleback Church.

And it was large enough for me to hide in

the back, but I also felt deeply loved here in

this church family. Pastor Rick told us that every week. Still,

I was numbing myself with promiscuity, bad relationships, and spending

myself into deep debt.

I managed to get two.

More graduate degrees, but then when I got pregnant again

with the same person, believing this time would be different,

that relationship quickly unraveled and deteriorated into physical abuse. That

abuse just piled on more shame and self-loathing. I desperately

needed a reset in my life. Then, in September 2007,

I gave birth to my beautiful daughter, who God used

to change the trajectory of my life.

I knew I.

Needed change, but I didn't know how. And I didn't

have the power to do it. Of course, being part

of this Saddleback Church family, I had heard of Celebrate Recovery,

which was created by John Baker and Pastor Rick. But

I had never considered that the CR family could help

me reset my life. I held the common misconception that

CR was only for people struggling with addictions, certainly not me. Also,

I had not yet specifically identified what.

I wanted to change in me.

But one day, I heard someone share how they had

experienced a recovery from both a hurtful relationship and from

financial debt at Celebrate Recovery. And that spoke to my

needs and it changed my perception of what CR could do.

I had just come out of another failed relationship, was

struggling at work, feeling anxious, stressed, and overwhelmed all the time.

I couldn't fathom a way out of my financial mess.

I was stuck in repeating cycles of pain that continued

year after year. I was desperate for change and ready

to try.

Anything.

So I humbly asked God to do something different in

my life. And I started attending a Celebrate Recovery step

study group. At that time, I was uncertain of what

I was saying yes to. But that small step became

the most transformative decision of my life. It began the

healing journey of resetting my life. God replaced my hurt

with healing. And then he replaced my pressure with peace.

And finally, he reset my resentment with restoration.

Through studying and.

Applying God's word to my life in the fellowship of CR,

I gained the power to face the chaos and destruction

that my poor choices kept creating in my life. My emotions, finances,

and even physical health began improving when I started practicing

God's principles. my old habits of people pleasing, always trying

to control and fix everything, and staying in an abusive

relationship out of fear. These powerful patterns began to break

and change. With God's help, I faced the bucket of

wounds of my past. I identified my emotional triggers and

I learned.

How to say no.

Not only did I become more healthy, so did my

relationship with my daughter. I wasn't parenting her with an

empty heart and I was so grateful to God that

He loved me at my worst and led me to

our Saddleback family and Celebrate Recovery. I am now doing

life together with my dearest friends. I'm also enjoying an

intimate relationship with Jesus. I can now feel His love

and I'm learning to base my identity and self-worth, how

my heavenly Father sees me instead of who the world

says I am or what I do. And this is

also a pressure reliever. God's principles in CR helped me

out of my denial of my deep financial debt. I

surrendered my finances to God and asked him to do

a reset in that area too. Doing it God's way,

I put him first in my finances. I started tithing

and budgeting consistently. And now I'm closer to being debt-free

than I've ever been. In closing, Let me say that

I don't know the struggle that you are going through

right now, but I have learned that you are not

going to get better on your own.

We need each other.

One of Saddleback's slogans is we are better together, and

that is 100% true. Staying connected to our church family

and to my CR family has proven to be a

lifeline for me through job losses, my breast cancer diagnosis

in 2018, the COVID pandemic, and many other rough spots.

I'm never going back to that old way of living.

So if you're looking for a safe place that offers

non-judgmental love as you let God do a reset in you,

I can testify that Saddleback and CR are places of

true healing and hope. We want you and we want

you to join us in the journey to healing and wholeness,

regardless of what problems you bring with you. And we

meet right here on Friday nights at 7 p.m. That's

my plug. The love and grace and power of Jesus

Christ has reset my life and recovered my joy. And

it's available to you too. So come and join us

and God will bless you too.

Thank you.

Wow, that was great. Fantastic. Fantastic. All right, so this

weekend we're just identifying the four preliminary steps for a

total reset of your life, okay? Number one, start asking God,

I want you every day this week, pray this prayer. God,

do something new and fresh in my life. Just start

praying that every day. God, I want you to do

something new, something fresh, something unique in my life. Step two,

I want you to spend some time pinpointing specifically what

you want changed in your life. Now the last two

steps real quick. Third step, preparation. Find some people to

support my reset. You wanna find some people to support

my reset. You can't do this by yourself. Something as

big as a total life change, a reboot, a reset,

you're not gonna do it on your own. If you could,

you would, but you can't, so you won't. You haven't

done it because you've tried in the past by yourself.

You need other people in your life. God has wired

us so that we don't get better, we don't get healthy,

we don't get whole and healed until we get other

people involved in our lives, why? that requires humility. It

means you need other people. As long as you think

you can do it on your own, have it your way.

It's not gonna work. It hasn't worked so far, it's

not gonna work in the future. You need other people

in your life. That's why we talk about small groups

all the time at Saddleback. This church is built on

small groups. It's more important than the weekend. We have

over 7,000 small groups right now meeting in homes and

offices and places In 193, 196 cities in Southern California

from Malibu to San Diego, every city in Southern California

has Saddleback Small Groups in it. And so, don't tell

me I can't find one. I'll find one for you.

If you wanna start your own group, Get some friends, great.

So I don't have any friends. I will buy you

some friends. I've told you this many times. I have influence.

I can buy you some friends. Now why is it

important to find some people to support my reset? Couple

of verses, look at this verse. The Bible says in

Ecclesiastes chapter four, a person can stand alone, standing alone

can be attacked and defeated. But two can stand back

to back and conquer And three are even better, for

a triple braided cord is not easily broken. Two people

working together, you're not gonna be defeated. Three people, that's

even better. Four people's even better than that. A small

group is what we're talking about. Look at the next verse.

If one person falls, another can reach out and help.

But people who are alone when they fall are in

real trouble. You will fall in your reset. You will

make mistakes. You're not perfect, none of us are. and

in your desire to be a different kind of man,

the man that God wants, to be a different kind

of woman, the godly woman that God created you to be,

you're gonna fall. You're gonna make mistakes. You need other

people in your life who are just gonna love you

through that, carry you through it, help you through it.

You need a small group. Write this down. Community is

God's antidote to discouragement and defeat and failure. If you're discouraged,

I know why. You're not in community. You're not in

a small group all the time. If you feel defeated,

if you feel like a failure, it's because you don't

have people around you who are giving you a true perspective.

I'm not a really good judge of myself. You aren't

a really good judge of you. You need people in

your life who can see what you can't see. You're

a terrible judge of yourself. Now, the Bible says this

is particularly true for those of us who are Christians,

Romans 12 five, since we're all in one body in Christ,

we belong to each other and each of us needs

each other. Do you realize that in the body of Christ,

in the family of God, you belong to me and

I belong to you. And the other people on your

row who belong to the family of God are your

brothers and your sisters and that relationship is actually longer

lasting than your family relationship. Your physical family, it's not

gonna last. People grow up, they get married, they form

their own families, they divorce, they separate, they die. Physical

families don't last, but your spiritual family is gonna last

for eternity, which means that your connection and your commitment

to other believers in God's family should be stronger than

any other commitment. political commitment, a financial commitment, a business commitment,

your commitment to the body of Christ is more important

because it's the only relationship that's gonna last forever. I'm

a six foot two tall white American male, overweight. Now,

You would think that I would have most in common

with other six-foot-tall to male white Americans who vote like

I do. But actually, God says, I have more in

common with Alice, who is short Asian female. And my

commitment to her is actually greater than the people who

look like me, come from my background, and vote like me.

Does that make sense? And as a brother to my

sister in Christ, I am, if you mess with her,

you hurt her, then you're gonna mess with me, because

I'm her brother. And if you put her down, I'm

not gonna let you put her down. because we're in

the family of God. And that's a different kind of

loyalty that you may have never thought of before, but

God says, if you're my child, I expect you to

be more loyal to your brothers and sisters than to

people who think like you, look like you, act like you,

or have the same background as you do. That makes sense,

but it's a new way of thinking. So Hebrews 10,

Hebrews 10:25

verse 25, let us not give up the habit, circle

the word habit, Let us not give up the habit

of meeting together. Instead, let us encourage one another. Why

do we meet together in small groups? To encourage each other. Now,

let's be honest. COVID was a small group killer. It

was a church attendance killer. We didn't even meet for

a year and a half. And a lot of those

people got out of the habit of coming to church

or being in a group. Some of you have been

in small groups in the past, but you're not in

an active one right now. Now's the time to get

back involved. Let us not give up the habit of

being together in a group. Why? That's where you get

the encouragement. Now you heard one testimony, but I wanted

you to hear just a few more. And this is

part of a video clip of Celebrate Recovery. Watch this

on the screen.

I thought CR would be a great way to combine

my recovery with my Christianity. I quickly discovered that there

were issues that I was not aware of that were

making my life unmanageable.

Inside, I was unraveling.

Resentments and fears were building, and the solutions I had

used in the past no longer worked. Everything I tried

was to.

No avail, and I was hopeless.

That hopelessness brought me out of denial and into willingness.

a willingness to try God and the steps and principles

of recovery.

You know, I was struggling, and a lot of times

I never wanted to show up, but I showed up,

I suited up, and I booted up, and I spilled.

When those times are you feel like you didn't want

to go, you'll find you have a lot to say.

God helped me, not when things got better in my

life or when I cleaned up or got religious, but

it was when I was at my worst and lowest

point that God helped me.

As we say in Celebrate Recovery, God never wastes a hurt.

God has taken my pain and brought good out of it.

He can do that for you too, no matter what

your issue is. I don't fully understand how Celebrate Recovery works.

I just know that it does. And there are thousands

of people whose lives have been changed through Celebrate Recovery.

God wants to do a miracle in each of you.

Don't stop before.

Your miracle happens.

It was in Celebrate Recovery that God began healing me

from some of the worst parts of myself that led

to my addictions and convictions. If I had to wait

for recovery and healing until after I got my life

cleaned up, the true healing would never have happened.

You know, I'm just a normal guy who had a

lot of luggage, who had a lot of pain. And ultimately,

I was able to release all that pain with the

step work that I've done. I found that with time,

I became a better father, better husband, just a better.

Leader in my community.

Even though attending Saddleback Church for the past 10 years,

I didn't realize how Christ worked in my life until

I entered CR. I could talk to others about my secrets, shame.

Most importantly, I was not alone in this anymore.

When I heard the shares of the other women, I

couldn't believe how similar our stories were, mainly the struggles.

different backgrounds, similar struggles, and one common solution, that our

hope is in Jesus Christ. Now that is a beautiful thing.

It led me to people who knew and understood the

pain I was in and the way through to freedom.

Sometimes they led. Sometimes they pushed. This recovery journey is simple,

yet not easy. And I'm grateful I don't have to

do it alone.

I considered quitting many times.

As a single mom, I didn't feel like I had

the time to make it to meetings week after week.

And it could be emotionally draining doing the deep work.

But my first sponsor encouraged me to keep going and reminded.

Me that I can't afford to quit.

If I want to break the cycle and be better

for my daughter.

This kept me coming back then and keeps me coming

back today.

Celebrate Recovery is much more than a way to combine

my faith and my recovery. For me, it's real church.

It's the way God intended it to be, where it's

okay if I'm not okay, and I'm free to let

God work on the messy parts of my life. It's

also a safe place to let other people know the

real me without judgment.

Okay. All right, so.

If you're serious about having a total life reset, I

mean getting a fresh start, okay, you're gonna need to

get in a group. Get in a small group, a

celebrate recovery group, some kind of group here at Saddleback

will help you do that in a day's head. You

can't do this on your own. Here's the fourth preliminary.

Eliminate anything unhelpful or unhealthy. Eliminate anything unhelpful or unhealthy.

This is another preliminary before you actually start on the

reset process. Hebrews 12 one, we should remove anything from

our lives that would get in the way and the

sin that holds us back. Now, if you've ever gone

on a diet, you know what I'm talking about here.

Before you do anything else on a new diet, you

go into your refrigerator and you take out all the

junk food and throw it away. And you go into

the kitchen cabinets and you throw away all the stuff

that would be a temptation to you. You wanna eliminate

the junk food so you can get on the straight

and narrow way. We worry about junk food and what

it does for us, but what about mental junk food?

If you wanna change your life, maybe you need to

unplug or cancel your cable subscription for a few months.

If you wanna really change your mind, stop the junk

that's coming in over the internet and the stuff of

social media. I read an article yesterday that depression is

at the highest level it's ever been in teenagers and

young adults in their 20s. Highest it's ever been, why?

Because they're the highest consumers of social media. and they're

looking at everybody's so-called perfect life, and they're comparing themselves,

and they're feeling left out, and they feel like I'm

never gonna measure up, and they're always comparing, and they're depressed.

Hebrews 12, one and two, the CEV version says this.

We must get rid of everything that slows us down,

or slows down our progress, because we wanna make progress

in our lives, especially those sins that just won't let go.

That's those habitual things that hold onto us. We'll talk

about those. We must be determined to run the race

that is ahead of us and we must keep our

eyes on Jesus who leads us. So here's the question,

write this. This fourth question, write this down. What do

I need to get rid of or let go of?

What do I need to get rid of or let

go of? It might be a relationship that's pulling you down.

A friend that's not really being a friend. They're dragging

you in the wrong direction. If I stand up here

and you're down there and I'm trying to lift you

up and you're trying to pull me down, who's gonna win?

There's no question. It's easier to pull somebody down. So

while I'm trying to help them, pray for them, love them,

invite them to church, but you should have as your

closest friends those people who are actually making you a

better woman, a better man, not taking you the wrong direction.

So what do I need to let go of? Maybe

there's some stuff, some reading material in my house. I

need to get it out of the house. I need

to clear out. Only you will know what cleaning out,

what eliminating anything unhelpful and healthy will mean to you.

Now one of the things in the days ahead we're

gonna have to work on are attitudes. because there are

some attitudes that need to be cleaned out of our lives,

and there's some new ones that need to be replaced.

We need to put on good attitudes and throw out

bad attitudes. That's easier said than done, but we'll talk

about how you do that. How do you replace an

attitude that you've had for 20 years? How do you

uproot it in your life? Colossians, the Bible says this,

chapter three, verse seven to 10, you used to live

It's talking about before you became a Christian. You used

to live according to selfish desires. In other words, before

I knew Christ, I just did what was best for me.

Didn't matter if it hurt anybody else, I just did

what was best for me. You used to live according

to selfish desires when your life was dominated by them. Me, me, me, me, myself,

and me, okay? But now, you must get rid of

all these things. And he just gives a few examples

of bad attitudes. Anger. hot temper, hating others who believe

or vote differently than you, no insults, so that rules

out a lot of the social media, no insults or

filthy talk must ever come from your lips, and stop

lying to each other, for you have put off your

old self with its habits, and you have put on

your new self. That's a reset, that's what we're gonna

do in the weeks ahead. Since we're gonna do this,

let me wrap this up. Since we're gonna do this

series on resetting your life, different areas, and you always

will need resets at different parts of your life, I

went and looked up the word reset in scripture and

found that it's only used one time in the Bible,

the word reset. In the Hebrew language, the word reset

in Hebrew is only used in the book of Isaiah.

Now here's the background, because this means a lot. The

nation of Israel had been beaten in war by the

empire of Babylon. And when they won the war, they

took the entire nation as prisoners of war back to Babylon,

which is Iraq. So an entire nation was transported from

living in Israel. They moved them all to Iraq where

they were prisoners of war for 70 years. They're pretty discouraged.

They're pretty displaced. They're like the Ukrainians in Poland right now,

displaced because of a war. Only that was escaping. This

was taking them hostage. And it said that they destroyed

the capital of Jerusalem, the holy city. So God's people

are pretty discouraged. And in the midst of all this,

God did not want them to realize, did not want

them to think that he'd forgotten them. He still loved them,

and he was going to rebuild and reset their lives.

And here's what he says in Isaiah 54. This is

God talking. The mountains may shake and the hills may crumble.

In other words, everything may be falling apart in your life,

but my unfailing love for you will never be shaken.

Everything else could be shaken in your life, but nothing

could shake me in loving you. It's never gonna stop.

And my promise of peace will never change, says the Lord,

who has compassion on you. And then he turns to

this city of Jerusalem as a symbol of hope for Israel.

And he says this, oh Jerusalem, you suffering, storm ravaged

city needing comfort. Maybe you feel like that. You feel

like you're suffering, you've been ravaged by trials and storms,

and you need comfort. He says, I will rebuild you

with priceless jewels. and I will reset, there's the word,

I will reset your foundation with sapphires. What's he talking about?

It's a metaphor saying I'm gonna rebuild you, I've not

forgotten you, I've never stopped loving you, We're gonna rebuild you,

your life, and your city. But this time, we're not

gonna build it on the shaky sand that can You

can lose your foundation. I'm not gonna build your foundation

of your life on clay. I'm not even gonna build

your foundation on cement. I'm gonna build it on precious jewels, sapphires.

In the next verse he says, and rubies for your walls.

Sapphires and rubies. Why would God build a foundation on

precious jewels? Because they are unchangeable. Everything else can rust

or rot or decay, but sapphires and rubies don't decay

and rot. They last, they're eternal. That's why they're so expensive. Sapphires,

incredibly expensive. Rubies, incredibly expensive. The top of the line

ruby can cost $ 1. 1 million a carat for a really

good ruby. There was recently a ruby sold, 30 carat

ruby for nearly $ 35 million. 35 karat ruby for $ 35 million.

He says, I'm gonna build your foundation not on stone,

but on the most precious things on earth. More precious

than gold. Actually, even more precious than diamonds. Diamonds are

much more available than either rubies or sapphires. He said,

I'm gonna build your life on a precious foundation and

it's going to last. So, what I recommend as we

start this series on resetting your life, that you listen

to what God told Job to do and you follow that.

Look on the screen. Job chapter 11 says this. Job

Job 11 · chapter mention

gone through a lot of hard time. He said, put

your heart right, Job. Reach out to God and get

rid of all the evil and wrong from your home.

All that junk that's in your home, you need to

clean it out, eliminate it. Then face the world again

Firm and courageous. And he says, if you do that,

here's the promise, then all your troubles will fade from

your memory like floods that have passed and remembered no more.

He said, you know all that hurt from your past?

It would be like water under the bridge. It's just gone.

How long do you remember water under the bridge? It's gone,

you forget it. And he said, your life will be

brighter than the sunshine at noon and you will live

a secure, you'll live secure and full of hope. Now, guys, friends,

as somebody who loves you, this is my prayer for you.

That in this series, there will be a life reset

where you go to a new level of living And

all that junk in your past, it'll be like water

under the bridge. It's gone, you don't have to deal

with it anymore. It's forgiven, it's forgotten, it's over. And

then your life starts shining bright as sunshine at noon.

You live securely, you live full of hope. That's my

prayer for you in this series. Now most of you

are already believers. You've stepped across the line. You're in

the family of God. But we still have to have

resets at different point in our life. Some of you

have not yet stepped across the line. And so the

last verse is a verse for you. And the Bible

says this, 2 Corinthians 5, 17. When someone becomes a Christian,

you invite the Lord into your life, he becomes a

brand new person inside He is not the same anymore.

A new life has begun. That's what you call a

real fresh start. That's called salvation. So whether I've already

done the first step or I need to do the

first step, all of us can take the next step

in a reset of our lives. It's gonna be cool.

Let's bow our heads. So as I pray, just follow

me in this prayer. God, I want you to do

something new in me starting this week. I'm asking you

to do something new in me. You make everything new. God,

make a fresh start in me. Shape a Genesis week

from the chaos in my life. You told me to

forget the former things and to focus on the new

things you're gonna do in me. I wanna do that.

And then say, Lord, help me to spend some time

this week pinpointing specifically what I want changed in me.

To look closely at myself, to test myself, and find

out what you want to change in me. And then Lord,

I'm asking you to help me to find some people

who will support my reset. I know that standing alone,

it's not gonna work, that I need group support. And

I commit to getting in some kind of a group

as we work on this life reset in my life.

Help me to remember that when I get discouraged, when

I feel defeated, when I feel like a failure, it's

because I'm not in community at that moment. And Lord,

during COVID, it was easy to give up the habit

of meeting together. But I commit to being in church

every week and being in a small group because I

know that's where I'm gonna get the encouragement I need. Finally, Lord,

help me to eliminate anything that's unhelpful or unhealthy in

my life. And this week, help me to think through

what I need to get rid of and what I

need to let go of as you prepare me for

the new me, the new improved me. I want you

to do a reset in my life. You've never invited

Jesus into your life. Say, Jesus Christ, come into my life.

Make yourself real to me. I'm opening my heart to you.

And as much as I know how, I'm asking you

to come in and save me. And I humbly ask

this in your name, amen.