Rick Warren - There's HOPE After Loss - God Has a Plan for Your Grief

Now the fact of life is that life is tough.

It's not easy. Life is tough. Life is hard. Life

is difficult. Since Adam's sin, the world was broken and

everything on the planet is broken. Nothing works perfectly. I've

said this many times. Your body doesn't work perfectly. The

economy doesn't work perfectly. No relationship works perfectly. Your marriage

doesn't work perfectly. And life is full of losses. We

have defeats and we have disappointments. This is not heaven.

That's why we pray, thy will be done on earth

as it is in heaven. Because in heaven, there are

no defeats. There are no disappointments. But on earth, nothing

works perfectly all the time. How do you rise above

the inevitable losses in your life. How do you rise

above them? Well, today we come to the second beatitude.

It's Matthew chapter five, verse four, and Jesus says this.

God blesses those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

What in the world does he mean by that? In

other words, the way to be happy is to be sad?

That just seems like a great reversal. What does he

mean by this? God blesses those who mourn. Well, that's

what we're going to look at this weekend on how

to handle the losses of life and how God blesses

a broken heart. Now, I don't know what you're going

through right now. I hope you're going through a relatively

easy time, but you may not. You've got conflicts. You've

got chaos. You've got a bad health report. You just

got laid off. You've had a fight with your Boyfriend, girlfriend, husband, wife,

the money isn't there where you need it, and you're

under tension. There are things, you've had a loss in

your life, or you've had a death in your life,

or you've had something that has caused you to have grief.

I wanna just give you a few things on how

to be blessed in a broken world. One of them

is this, God doesn't expect me to be happy all

the time. That's just a fact of life. God doesn't

expect you to be happy all the time. There is

this myth that Christians, if you're a believer, if you

know Jesus, you should be always smiling, always happy, always cheerful,

skipping the hills and picking flowers and talking about peace

and love. No, no you're not. In fact, the Bible

says in Ecclesiastes 3, 4, there's a time for everything.

There's a time for everything. And there's a season for

every activity under heaven. In other words, life is a

series of opposites. There's a time to weep. There's a

time to laugh. There's a time to mourn. And there's

a time to dance. And so the Bible says that

sometimes weeping is appropriate. Sometimes mourning is appropriate. Sometimes grieving

is appropriate. Because the fact is the world is filled

with a lot of sadness. All you have to do

is read the paper and read about little girls getting

kidnapped and fires and murders and wars and all kinds

of things. There's a lot of pain on this planet.

And sometimes the only appropriate logical response to life is grief.

God doesn't expect you to simply grin and bear it,

to stuff your emotions, and to smile in the middle

of all of the storms of life. No, in fact,

the Bible says, blessed are those who mourn. God blesses

you when you grieve. Why? Why does he do that? Well,

we're gonna look at that. Now, a lot of people

think that grief is only for funerals, like, you know,

if you lose a loved one then you grieve. But

the fact is, there are a lot of losses in life.

There are thousands of losses. You can lose your health,

you can lose your job, you can lose your money,

you can lose your reputation, you can lose your energy,

you can lose a dream. There are thousands of different

losses in life. And God says, the only appropriate response

to the losses of life is not to fake it,

but to face it. And not to go around grinning,

but to actually grieve But the Bible says I'm to

mourn my losses, which is things, bad things that happen

to me. And the Bible says I'm to mourn my disappointments,

which are good things that didn't happen to me. Good

things that didn't happen to you. That's a reason to mourn.

The Bible says I'm to mourn my sins, that I'm

to grieve over my sins. The Bible says I'm to

grieve and mourn over the suffering in the world and

not be, you know, blasé about it. The Bible says

I'm actually to grieve for my friends who don't know Jesus,

who are spiritually lost. And there are a lot of

things the Bible tells us to grieve over, but God

doesn't expect you to be happy all the time. Second thing,

write this down, is that grief is essential to my health.

It's essential to my emotional health, to my spiritual health,

to my physical health, and to my mental health. In fact,

If you never grieve about anything, if you're never sad

about anything, it means one of three things. A, you're

out of touch with reality, because there's a lot of

things to be sad about in this world. Or B,

you are out of touch with your own emotions and

you're living in denial, because when you love and you

see sad things, that makes you grieve. Now grief is

a painful emotion, but it's a healthy emotion, and it's

a helpful emotion. And it is God's gift, it's the

tool that God gives us to get through the transitions

of life. I've told you this before. There is no

growth in your life without change. You can't grow without change.

There is no change without loss, because you lose some

of the old for the new. There is no loss

without pain, and there is no pain without grief. To

go through life without grieving would be like a mother

who says, I wanna have a baby without going through

the pain of labor. It isn't gonna happen. Now, there

are two unhealthy reactions to the losses of life. One

is repression and the other is suppression. Repression is when

I unconsciously try to block a painful thought out of

my mind. That's repression. I unconsciously try to block a

painful thought out of my mind. Suppression is when I

consciously try to block a pain. I'm not gonna think

about that. I'm not gonna think about that. when I

consciously try to block a painful thought out of my mind.

Both of these are denials. When you go through a

tough time, when your heart is hurting, when your heart

is breaking, God doesn't want you to suppress it. God

doesn't want you to repress it. God wants you to

express it to friends and confess it to him. And

when you do that, you're on the road to healing.

If I don't let it out, I will act it out.

If I don't let it out in healthy ways, I'm

gonna act it out in unhealthy ways. Some of you

were hurt many years ago growing up. Maybe your parents divorced.

Maybe you were abused. Maybe you were hurt by something

somebody said about you. And it hurt very, very deeply.

But as a child, you didn't know how to grieve healthy.

You didn't know how to grieve good. So you just

pushed it down and you stuffed it down and you've

never grieved over that hurt. Well, you need to go

back and grieve over it. Why? Because if you don't

grieve the losses of life, you get stuck at that stage.

Let me say that again. This is one of the

most important things you're ever gonna learn. When you don't grieve,

when you don't go through grief, when pain happens in

your life and you don't let it, you don't feel it,

you push it down, you get stuck emotionally at that

stage and you spend the rest of your life reacting

to something that happened a long time ago and you're

taking it out on the people around you now and

that's not fair. It's unhealthy to stuff it. You've heard

me say this before. When I swallow my grief, my

stomach keeps score. If I don't talk it out, I

take it out on my own body or on other people.

And if I don't let it out in healthy ways,

then I'm gonna act it out in unhealthy ways. And

when you swallow negative emotions, your body gets sick. I've

said many times, it's not just what you eat, it's

what eats you. that makes you sick. David talked about

this in Psalms. David says in Psalm 32 verse three,

when I kept things to myself, I felt weak deep

inside me and I moaned all the day long. When

you go through a loss in life, you lose a job,

you lose a friend, you lose a deal, you lose

something in your life that you were hoping would happen

or something you had and you lost it. You lose

a marriage. You can either mourn or you can moan.

Moaning is negative. Mourning is positive. Mourning is having a

pity party. Mourning is calling out to God in your

grief and in your pain. Psalm 39 verse two, David says,

I was silent and I held my peace to no

avail and my distress only grew worse. The things that

happen to you around you, the bad things happen to you,

they're not your choice. But grief is a choice. And

it's a healthy choice. And when you choose to let

it out, you have to choose to allow yourself to

feel the sad emotions. So I don't like feeling sad. No,

you don't. But not everything that's helpful feels good. Not

everything that's healthy feels good. If you don't mourn the

losses of life, you get stuck at that stage. What

I want us to look at is how God blesses

broken hearts. Because the second beatitude, Jesus says this, God

blesses those who mourn. I want God to bless your

life in spite of all the bad things that have

happened and in spite of all the bad things that

are gonna happen. And in order for God to bless

your life, Jesus says, blessed are those who mourn for

they shall be comforted. How does God comfort me when

I grieve? I can speak from experience on how God

comforts And as I've looked back over my life, I

see six ways that God blesses a broken heart. So

how do you get through? You don't get over it.

A lot of people think, well, I'm just gonna get

over this grief. No, you're not gonna get over it.

If it's serious, if you're married for a certain number

of years and then you divorce, you don't get over it,

you get through it. If you have a loved one,

a husband, a wife who dies, you don't get over that,

you get through it. Now, you can't go over grief.

You can't go under grief. You can't go around grief.

You gotta go through the grief. And if you're scared

to express emotion and you refuse to go through it, that,

as I said, that's where you get stuck. But how

do I get unstuck? You let God help you. Let

God comfort you. Blessed are those who mourn, for they

shall be comforted. And how does God comfort us? Six ways.

The first way God blesses a broken heart is God

draws us close to himself. Psalm 34, verse 18. The

Psalms 34:18

Lord is close to the brokenhearted and he saves those

whose spirits have been crushed. When you are grieving, you

often feel like God's a million miles away, but he's

not a million miles away. He's never been any closer.

What you feel and what's real are not the same thing.

Not everything you feel is real, and not everything that's

real do you feel. The Bible says God is close

to the brokenhearted. He's paying attention. He's not aloof. He's

not distant. Hebrews 13, 5, I will never leave you.

That means even in your worst pain. It means even

in your most embarrassing disgrace. It means even in your

most massive failure. Even in the thing you're most ashamed

of in your life. I will never leave you and

I will never abandon you. In 2 Corinthians 6.10, it

says this, our hearts ache, but at the same time,

we have the joy of the Lord. What does that mean?

That's the difference Jesus makes. If you don't have Jesus

in your life, then God isn't close to you at

that moment and you're on your own. You don't have

any other resources. You're there to handle the pain by yourself.

God never intended for you to handle the pain by yourself. First,

the Bible says God draws us close to himself. And

then here's the second thing, write this down. God grieves

with us. Now, the reason you have the ability to

grieve is because you are made in God's image. The

only reason you have any emotion at all is because

God is an emotional God. God is a suffering God.

And God is a sympathetic God. He's not aloof. He's

not apathetic. He's standing, not standing on the sidelines. He

suffers with us. Isaiah 53 verse three says this. Jesus

was a man of sorrows. Have you ever seen that verse? Jesus,

it's out of Isaiah, it's prophecy, was a man of

sorrows acquainted with bitterest grief. He knew suffering firsthand. So

when you come to Jesus, it's not like Jesus goes,

I have no idea what you're talking about When your

heart is breaking and you're in pain, it's not like

Jesus is going, I don't understand it, I don't get that,

just buck up and put on a happy face. No,

Jesus was a man of sorrows. He was acquainted with grief.

I told you that grief is actually an evidence of love.

And the more you love, the more you're gonna grieve

about things. The more you love, the more you're gonna

understand grief. Sadness is not weakness. Jesus was the strongest

man who ever lived. For a man to show emotion

is not a sign of weakness. It's actually a sign

of strength. Weak men are scared of their emotions. Weak

men are afraid of tears. It freaks them out. They

go nutty. Why? Because it scares them. When you're a

strong man, you're not afraid of emotion. You're not afraid

to show it. You're not even afraid to cry. Jesus

was the strongest man who ever lived. So never be embarrassed.

Never be embarrassed by tears. Now there's a third thing

that God does in blessing our broken hearts. And that

is this. God gives us a church family for support.

God never meant for you to go through life on

your own. And God says, I didn't intend for you

to go through grief. You know, the old statement that

when you share a joy, it's doubled, and when you

share a sorrow, it's halved. When you carry it all yourself,

you're carrying a load that God never intended for you

to have. When something bad happens to you, and you say,

I'm not gonna tell anybody about this, I'm gonna keep

it a secret, I'm gonna keep it to myself, you

have just broken one of the principles of God's word.

God says we're meant to grieve in community. Healing comes

in groups. Healing comes in the church. Healing comes in community.

We're better together. You weren't meant to carry it on

your own. Look at this verse, Romans 12, five, 10,

and 15. Three verses in Romans chapter 12. In Christ,

Romans 12 · chapter mention

we who are many form one body, and each member

belongs to all the others. Be devoted to each other

like a loving family. Rejoice with those who rejoice, and

mourn with those who mourn. Now, these are commands, and

if you call yourself a follower of Christ, they're commanded

for you. In Christ, we form one body, that's the church.

The church is the family of God, and it's the

body of Christ. 1 Thessalonians 5.11 says, comfort each other,

and give each other strength. Now let me give you

a couple suggestions, because right now, you're in one of

two positions. You're either going through pain yourself, and you

need comfort. or you're not going through pain and you

need to comfort others. Let me give you two suggestions

for comforting people when they go through any kind of loss.

Number one, never minimize another's pain. Kay was talking the

other day, we were in London, and she was speaking

and she said, one of the words you can delete

from your vocabulary when you're talking to somebody in pain

is the word at least. And she told me about

a lady, a mother, who had lost a child through drowning.

And a neighbor came over in a meaningful attempt to comfort, said, well,

at least you're young enough to have another child. Are

you kidding me? I'm sure that mama said, I'm not

wanting another child. I want my child back. I want

my child back. Don't tell me. Well, at least you've

got three other kids. Are you kidding me? Well, at

least you've got your, eliminate the phrase at least from

your vocabulary when talking to somebody in pain. It doesn't help.

Just never minimize the pain of others. And I would

say again, parents, stop trying to teach your kids to

stop it. Don't cry now. You know, the typical reaction

when somebody's in pain, we try to fix it immediately.

Don't be in a hurry to fix anything. You don't

need to fix it. God will fix it in due time.

What you need to do is just be there and

be aware and care. So never minimize. The other thing

is never rush people. Never rush people. Pain and grief

takes time. And nobody can figure out how long the

grief's gonna take for any particular thing in your life

but you. I can't tell you what's the appropriate time

to grieve. For anything in your life. You're just going

to have to figure that one out yourself. And it's

different for everybody else. A feeling is neither right or wrong.

It's just a feeling. Let me say that one again.

A feeling is never right or wrong. It's just a feeling.

So husbands, quit trying to talk your wife out of feelings. Why?

quit trying to talk your husbands out of feelings. And

so you show grace to each other and you never

rush people. There's a fourth way that God blesses broken hearts.

God uses grief to help us grow. God uses grief

God uses pain, even, to help us grow. And he

does it in three ways. Here are three verses that

illustrate three different ways. First, God uses pain to get

our attention. Pain is God's megaphone. Pain is saying, hello!

We rarely change when we see the light. We change

when we feel the heat. Here's what the Bible says,

Proverbs 20, verse 30. Sometimes it takes a painful experience

Proverbs 20:30

to make us change our ways. That's in today's English version.

Anybody agree with that verse? Yeah, sometimes it takes a

painful experience to make us change our ways. Second way,

he brings good out of bad. One of the most

famous verses in the Bible is Romans 8, 28. We know,

we know, not guess, not hope, we know that in

all things, not some, not just the good, In all things,

God works. In all things, God works for the good

of those who love him. It's an opportunity to grow

in character. Every time you go through pain. And the

third thing he does is he prepares us for eternity.

Look at this next verse. 2 Corinthians 4, 17 and 18.

These troubles are getting us ready for an eternal glory.

What troubles? the pain you're going through right now. These troubles,

that sickness, that sadness, that suffering, that lack, that loss,

that pain, that pressure, that problem, these troubles are getting

us ready for an eternal glory that will make all

our troubles seem like nothing, like nothing. Things that are

seen don't last forever. The things that are not seen

are eternal. God's more interested in your character development than

in your comfort. Why? Because comfort's gonna be on for

trillions and trillions and trillions and trillions a year. This

is the get ready stage. This is the learning stage.

You see, you can handle an enormous amount of pain

when you can realize there's a good purpose in it,

like labor and having a baby. But when you don't

see any purpose in the pain, then it's easy to

give up. When the pain is unceasing, when the pain

never stops, when the pain keeps going, you need to

see God's purpose. And what is God doing? First, is

he trying to get my attention? Second, is he trying

to bring good out of bad? Third, is he preparing

my character for heaven? Is he giving me an opportunity

to grow in Christ-likeness? Things that are seen don't last forever,

but things that are not seen are eternal. The fifth

way that God comforts us when we mourn is that

God gives us the hope of heaven. This life is

not all there is, that this is just the warm-up act,

and that we're living for so much more. The amount

of time you're gonna spend on earth is really quite small.

You're only gonna get 80, 90, at the most, maybe

100 years. That's nothing, nothing. It's gonna be over before

you realize it. It's nothing compared to millions and millions

and millions and millions and millions and millions of years

in heaven. The Bible says we have the hope of heaven.

If there were no hope of heaven, I would be

in despair. Because there's just too much bad in the world.

But the fact is, the Bible says, 1 Thessalonians 4.13,

talking about believers who died. Paul says, we don't want

you to be ignorant about believers who've died. We don't

want you to grieve like the people who have no hope.

There's two kinds of grief. You can grieve with hope

or you can grieve without hope. Let me tell you,

you want the first one. I don't know how many

funerals that I've done. I don't know how many times

I've stood at the bedside of somebody taking their last breath.

I have been at the funerals and looked in the

faces of people who had no hope when a loved

one died. And I've seen the terror on their face

and the despair on their face. You see, the test

of your faith, the test of your belief system, the

test of your worldview is not how you handle the

parties of life. The test of your worldview is how

you handle the failures and how you handle the funerals

and how you handle the deaths of life. That's the

acid test. The Bible says we have a hope, and

so we grieve, but we grieve with hope. When a

Christian dies, why do we grieve? I mean, that Christian

is going to heaven, they're going where they're made for,

they're going where they're gonna spend eternity, and they're going

where you're gonna go too if you know the Lord.

We're not grieving them in a funeral. We're grieving us.

We miss them. We grieve with hope. Nonbelievers grieve without

any hope. That's disastrous. It's devastating. It's debilitating. It's despairing.

What is our hope? Revelation 21 verse four says this.

God will wipe every tear from their eyes and there

will be no more death or mourning or crying, or pain.

For the old order of things will have passed away.

I am looking forward to that day so much. Finally,

there's one more thing, and this is a big one.

God uses our pain to help others. There's a purpose

in your pain. This is called redemptive pain. This is

the highest and best use of the pain you go through.

God does not want you to waste a hurt. God

never wastes a hurt, but we often do because we're

not willing to use it to help other people. God

uses our pain to help others. This is the highest

and best use. Who can better help the mother of

a special needs child than another mother of a special

needs child? Who can better help somebody who's lost a

son or daughter in a war than somebody who lost

a son or daughter in a war? Who could better

help somebody who has gone through the pain of an

addiction or a marriage failure or a molestation or any

of the other evils in the world than somebody who

went through that? God does not want you to waste

your hurt. This is redemptive hurt. He wants you to

redirect your focus. 2 Corinthians 1.4, God comforts us in

all our troubles so that we can comfort others with

the same comfort we receive from God. Now listen very closely.

Your greatest ministry will come out of your deepest hurt.

Your greatest ministry will come out of your deepest hurt.

You see, we think the world is impressed by how

we handle prosperity. But the world is actually impressed by

how we handle adversity. We think that it is our

success that gives us credibility to be a witness. But

God says, no, it is our suffering that gives us credibility.

And here's the bottom line, I'll say it again. We're

in a broken world, and so every day, nothing works perfectly.

And that means every day you need to be either,

you either need comfort or you need to comfort others.

Right now, you're in one of two categories. Put yourself

on it. Right now, you either need help because you're

in really bad pain or you need to help others.

And maybe, just maybe, God wants to do both at

the same time. That's called being a wounded healer. If

you wait until you're completely healed to help other people,

guess what? You're gonna wait a long time. Because you're

not gonna be fully healed of everything in your life

until you get to heaven.