How God’s Goodness Can Restore You—Part Three

Pastor Rick Warren: Hello everybody. This is Pastor Rick's Daily Hope with Rick Warren. I'm really glad you're here. Today, we're continuing our series from Psalm 23 called Living in the Goodness of God. It's all about how God's goodness meets you right where you are and brings hope even in difficult seasons. Okay, and now here's the final part of a message called How God's Goodness Can Restore You. Number two. What about when, when we do wrong? What about when we sin? What about when we have that unconfessed guilt? How does God, the good shepherd, deal with that? Well, God's a good God, and here's the answer. When we do wrong, Jesus takes my sin on himself. He says, "I'm going to take your guilt. Please just hand it over to me and I'm going to go die on the cross and pay for all your sins so you don't have to pay for your sins." This is the best news in the whole world. We call it the gospel, which is an old English word for good news. And Jesus takes all my guilt on himself. He says, "I'm going to give you all my goodness," also called righteousness. "I'm going to give you all my goodness so you can get into heaven, and you're, and I'm going to take all of your guilt. And I'm going to pay for it on the cross." Nearly 700 years before Jesus died on the cross. So that would be about 2,700 years ago. A guy named Isaiah was a prophet, and God told him in very specific terms that he was going to send a savior to the world, a Messiah, to save all our sins and to pay for them. 700 years, he gave them this prophecy. It's in many chapters of Isaiah, but Psalm, I mean Isaiah 53, is the clearest. And when you read these details, you got to read that this guy was saying this 700 years before it happened. Only God could have told him this. And in Isaiah 53, verses 5 and 6, it says this about Jesus, 700 years before Jesus arrived. "He was wounded and crushed for our sins." This is on the cross. "He was beaten and he took our punishment so that we might have peace. And through his wounds, our wounds are healed." "All of us have strayed away like sheep." You know, sheep, I told you last week, are not real smart. "We've all done our own thing. We've left God's path to follow our own. Yet the Lord laid on him the guilt and sins of us all." Now, what I just read to you is the most basic fundamental truth of the Bible. If this wasn't true, we could all go home right now, because we wouldn't have anything at all if Jesus Christ hadn't come to pay for your sins. But the most basic truth is that he did, that everything you're going to do wrong in life, including the stuff you're going to do tonight, and tomorrow, and next week, and ten years from today, it's already been paid for. It's already been paid for. You just have to accept God's grace and goodness. That is the goodness of God. That he's already paid for everything I'm even going to do, not just in the past, but in the future, it's already paid for. I remember one time there was a guy out on the patio at the Lake Forest campus, and he came up to me frantically after the service, and he said, "I need to know what do I need to do to get to heaven?" I said, "Well, you're too late." Just thought I'd shock him. "You're too late." He goes, "No, no, no, really. What, what do I need to do in order to get to heaven?" I said, "Sorry, you're too late." "So what do you mean? It's got to be something I can do." I said, "There's nothing. It's already been done by Jesus Christ 2000 years ago." This is what makes Christianity different from religions that are out there. Every religion has a list of things to do to get to heaven. And each religion says, "This is our list," and "This is our list," and "That's our list," and another religion, "That's our list." And if you'll do these things, it's all based on your performance, you might make it into heaven. Can't be sure, but you might. And so all the other religions can be summed up in the word do. Christianity is summed up in the word done. And when Jesus was on the cross, he cried out, "It is finished!" Now notice, he didn't say, "I'm finished," because he wasn't. He came back to life three days later, and he wasn't finished, and he's alive today. He lives in my heart. I've been his friend now for over 50 years, and many of you have too. But when he says, "It is finished," he's saying, "You don't need to add anything. It's not, I die on the cross plus you do these ten other things, then you get to go to heaven." There's only one thing you need to get to heaven: humility, to realize you're never getting there by what you do. The only way is to say, "I am a sinner, and I need a savior." That's what you say. That's humility. That's the sin that will keep you out of heaven. "I don't need anybody to save me. I'm good enough to get there on my own." Really? It's a perfect place. I stopped being perfect about 30 seconds into this planet. And so, nobody bats a thousand. I've never met anybody who actually claimed to be perfect. We all know we're imperfect. But what we say to God, "God, we're going to trust you. And and when you come to Christ and and you say, 'I'm going to, you're going to take my sins on you?'" Yeah. "What are you giving me in return?" "My goodness." You don't have to beg, "Please, God, please, please save me." You don't have to bargain, "If you'll do this, God, then, then I'll, I'll do that." You don't have to bribe, "I'll read my Bible every day if you do this." Bribe, bargain, you don't do any, you don't, you don't beg, you just believe. That's it. That's why it's called the good news. The word gospel is just an old English word that means good news. And what's the best news? You can't get to heaven on your good works, but it's already been paid for. You just have to humbly admit you need a savior, that you're not good enough to go to a perfect place. You say, "But Rick, you don't know what I've done." It doesn't matter. I don't need to know what you've done because I know what Jesus has done. And what Jesus has done is bigger than what you have done. The good thing he did on the cross is bigger than the bad thing you have done. That's why we call it Good Friday when he died. It's not good for Jesus. It was painful, but it's good for you. You say, "Well, Rick, I, I, I've asked God to forgive me. I just don't feel forgiven." It means you don't fully understand it yet. Because once you understand how fully forgiven you are, you just want to shout. You want to jump up and down. And if God comes into your life, it's going to make some changes. You can't have him come into your life and it not change you. So if your life hadn't changed any, you might have gotten something, but you haven't gotten God. Somebody as big as God can't come into your life and not change you. And when you, the more you understand grace, the more joyful you'll be. Many of you know that one of my mentors in life was the father of modern management, Peter Drucker. And he mentored me the last 30 years of his life, from about '65 to '95. And he trained all of the who's who of business leaders that are leading businesses today. And one day I was up at his house and he was mentoring me on some leadership things, and I said, "Peter, when did you step across the line? When did you find Christ? When you, when did you put your faith in Jesus?" And he said in that thick Austrian accent, "Well, Rick," he said, "When I finally understood the concept of grace, I knew I was going to never get a better deal." When you finally understand how good God really is, you're not going to go anywhere else, because he's a good, good father. Now, as I said, Isaiah wrote that part about Jesus suffering on the cross. Let me read you some more of it. And listen to the details of this 700 years before it actually happened. Isaiah 53, verses 7 to 12. "He was beaten down and punished." Talking about Jesus on the cross, before the cross. "But he didn't say a word." That, that, that all happened. "He was led out like a lamb to be slaughtered. He was condemned to death without fair judgment." "And then he was put to death for the transgressions of everyone else." That's us. "He died like a criminal, but then was buried with the rich, even though he'd done nothing wrong and had never lied." You know this is true. Jesus died on the cross as a criminal. You know, that was the worst capital punishment available. It's humiliating, death on the cross. But when they took him down, there was a wealthy man named Joseph of Arimathea who had a brand new tomb he'd bought for his family. They often, you know, buried people in the same tomb for decades, like a hole in the wall of a cave and then covered it up. And Joseph of Arimathea was quite wealthy and, and but he offered his tomb for Jesus. He goes, "You're not going to need it very long." Think about that. He's like, "You know, what, what's a few days? He's, you know, he's said he's coming back to life, so why would I worry?" He said, "Borrow it for a couple days. I don't intend to die between now and then." But 700 years Isaiah says, a rich man is going to provide him a tomb. And it says, "Yet it was God's plan to cause him to suffer." It was God's plan. Who put Jesus to death? Not the Romans, not Jewish leaders, God did. God did. Jesus said, "I lay down my life." He's part of the trinity. "I voluntarily do this for you and me." "It was God's plan to cause him to suffer and make his life a guilt offering for our sins, a sacrifice to bring forgiveness. But after his soul suffered many things, he will enjoy life and joy again." That's the resurrection. He's saying this 700 years before it happened. "But my suffering servant," God says, "will make many people right with God. And he will be, he will bear all their sins, and he will willingly give his life, and he was treated like a criminal, but he took the place of everyone who had sinned and he interceded for their forgiveness." And when Jesus died on the cross, he covered all your sins, and he forgave you. And the Bible says, he throws your sins in the deepest part of the sea. It's like a metaphor. And then I want to add, and he puts up a no fishing sign. Why would you drag out something to remember that God has already forgiven and forgotten? When you keep feeling bad about something you've already confessed to God, and God's forgiven you, and Jesus died for it, then it says, "I don't really believe Jesus paid for my sin." That's unbelief. When you keep asking for forgiveness for something you sincerely asked for already is unbelief. Because Jesus gives completely and freely and instantly and with grace. When Jesus forgave all your sins, which ones were not included? None. They're all included. Every single one. This is why I serve Jesus Christ. I don't serve him for money. I don't serve him for fame. I don't serve him out of duty. I'm, I don't serve him out of fear. I don't serve him out of guilt. I serve him out of gratitude. And you should too. And if God is forgetting all your, forgiven all your sins, shouldn't you? Now, what about the third thing? We talked about guilt, we talked about grudges. What about this third area that warps my soul? Grief. You might write this down. When we experience loss, here it is, loss and pain. Jesus feels my grief and heals my heart. He feels my grief and he heals my heart. Why does Jesus feel my grief? Because he understands grief. He's been there. He's experienced it too. He understands. He came to earth and became one of us. So he's experienced all of the, the, the loneliness that people experience, the, the, the, the betrayal that people experience, the rejection that people experience. And he came to feel my grief and heal my heart. That is the goodness of God. The Lord is my shepherd. Now again, more in this same chapter, Isaiah 53, same place, 700 plus years before Jesus came to earth, Isaiah says this. He describes Jesus, the Messiah, the Savior. "He was despised and rejected by others." If you've ever been despised, you know how that hurts. Maybe you were despised at school, that hurts. Maybe you were despised because of a handicap, or the color of your skin, or because you're female or male or whatever. If you've been despised, Jesus understands. He was despised. He was rejected. If you've ever had somebody reject you, walk out on your life, Jesus understands that hurt. There's no hurt you can experience that he doesn't understand, no grief. Why can Jesus understand my grief? He's experienced it all. Isaiah, "He was despised and rejected by others. He was a man of sorrows, which endured much pain and suffering. And he experienced deep grief." Imagine leaving heaven and coming here to live with a bunch of people who hate you. He experienced deep grief, "But we ignored him and we looked the other way. He was hated and we did not care. Yet it was our weakness that he was carrying on the cross. And it was our sorrow, our sorrow, that weighed him down." So he understands me. He doesn't just understand. He doesn't just feel, he heals. Look at the next verse. Psalm 147, verse 3. "He heals the brokenhearted, and he binds up their wounds." I don't know what's broken your heart. Some of your, your heart's breaking right now. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I and I'm glad you're here because this is a place for the healing of broken hearts. But the fact of life is, Jesus says, "I heal and I feel, and I care about what you're going through." Now so what are you doing with your grief? Maybe you just had a big breakup. Maybe you just got fired at work. May, maybe you just go, "Does anybody want me? Does any, anybody want me? Does anybody notice me?" And there's that ache in your heart. What do you do with that ache? You take it to Jesus. Because he heals and he feels. He understands it all. Now, Jesus never wanted us to forget the sacrifice he made to handle your grudges and your grief and your guilt. And he gave us a symbol called communion, the Lord's supper. He said, "I want you to remember what I've done for you." Now, I know you can't stand to have an unfilled blank. So I'm going to give them to you real quick. All right? You want to write these down? All right, you can write these down. Three things that are my response to what Jesus does for me because of my guilt, my grief, and my grudges. How should I respond? Well, it's all summed up in the attitude of believe, trust. And number one is, trust the good shepherd to forgive my sins. Actually believe that he has forgiven my sins. Start acting like all your sins are forgiven. Romans 3:23 and 24, "All of us have sinned, yet God declares us not guilty if we trust," circle that word, "trust in Jesus Christ. Who in his free mercy, freely takes away our sins." So I just trust. I believe. I accept that my sins have been forgiven because of what Jesus did on the cross. Number two, release my offenders. Release my offenders, people who've hurt me, and focus on the future. Don't let them get under your skin anymore, because your soul cannot be restored until you let go of resentment in your mind, in your thoughts, and let go of revenge in your emotions, and let go of retaliation in your actions and your decisions. You got to let it go. Say, "God, today I'm letting them go." And the Bible says in Ephesians 4:30, "Get rid of all bitterness." I mean, just, you should not, bitterness is a barrier to your life. Forgiving each other just as Christ forgave you. Not only says you got to get rid of resentment, he said, "You got to get rid of retaliation." Romans 12, "Never avenge yourselves, leave that to God." He said he'll, he'll, he'll repay those who deserve it. So I, I trust God really did forgive all my sins. And then because of that, I start offering forgiveness to other people. I let other people off the hook, and I, I release my offenders so I can focus on the future. I'm certainly not going to get stuck in the past for the rest of my life. Then number three, I team up with Jesus to carry my load. God never intended for you to go through life carrying all your grief, guilt, grudges, problems, pressures, stresses, situations by yourself. And Jesus says, "I want to team up with you. I want to yoke up with you." And when he uses the word yoke, he's not talking about an egg yolk. He's talking about the kind of yoke that they would put over two cattle. It's a, a beam and, and the beam then the two cattle can pull the wagon together. Here's what it says. Look up here on the screen. "Come to me." Just come to Jesus. "Come to me, you who are weary, you're tired, you carry heavy burdens, and I will give you a lot more to do." No, that's not what he says. "Come to me and I will give you what?" Yeah, rest. We talked about that last week. "Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you because I'm humble and gentle, and you will find rest for your souls, for my yoke fits perfectly and the burden I give you is light." Now, when you read that, it sounds like he said, "Okay, you know, this cattle yoke that they would put over two horses or two cattle, they'd pull the wagon." You go, "Wait a minute, he's putting something else on me?" That sounds pretty heavy. That doesn't sound good, a little big heavy thing like that. No, no, you don't understand the purpose of a yoke is not to put more on you. It's to take off half of your load. If you're pulling the wagon by yourself, it's 100% dependent on your energy. Jesus says, "Yoke up with me. Let's share." And guess what? "I'll help you carry, and it will be half as difficult." Does that make sense? The yoke is not to put more on you. The yoke is to say, "I'll pull your load." Jesus doesn't have any load. He's God. He has no load. Everything's easy for him. And so when you yoke up, team up with Jesus, he says, "I'll help you pull your load." And by the way, when you're yoked up to Jesus, it's impossible for you to run the wagon into the ditch. Because he's not going to let you do it. You got to go the direction he's going, and you got to go at the pace he's going, and he will go at a more reasonable pace than you will. That's what he says, "I want to do in your life." Let's bow our heads. Would you pray, and would you talk to God right now? Say, "God, my soul needs restoring. I don't always think right. I don't always choose right. I don't always feel right, and I need you to restore my damaged soul, my mind, my will, and my emotions. And Lord, specifically today, I want to help, ask your help on the things that do damage my soul. About those unaddressed grudges. I, I, I know it's not doing me any good to hold on to the hurt. I'm only hurting myself with the anger, and every time I remember that the way they hurt me, it just hurts again. Would you turn my hurts into holiness? Would you turn my pain into gain? Would you do what only you can do? Would you transform me and turn the conflict and the, the chaos into character in my life? I need your help to do that. And Lord, I'm, I'm going to ask you also with the unconfessed guilt. There's stuff I've been carrying around in a large garbage bag for a long time, and it's starting to stink. I'm going to say to you, "I need your forgiveness," and then more than that, "I'm going to believe it." I'm not going to listen to my feelings or what anybody else says, or what thoughts that Satan might try to put in my mind. Thank you, Jesus, for taking all of my sins on yourself at the cross. Thank you that you were wounded and crushed for me. You were beaten, took my punishment so that I might have peace. You've said in your word that your wounds heal my wounds. I'm asking you to do that. And then Lord, all of those losses that I've had in life that have caused grief. I need your help with that. I, I need you to feel my grief and heal my heart like you've promised. Help me to realize that you understand how I feel better than I do. And as I continue this journey with learning about your goodness, I first want to say, "I'm going to trust that my sins have been forgiven because I've humbly just come to you and said, 'I need it. I need a savior.'" "And I'm going to release the people who've hurt me. And every time I think of them, help me to just pray a prayer of blessing. Do not hold on to the hurt. Most of all, Jesus, I want to team up with you, yoke up with you. I'm going to ask you to, to help me in the load that I'm carrying." If you've never invited Jesus Christ into your heart, say, "Jesus Christ, today, I want to get to know you. I want to learn to love you. I want to learn to trust you. And I humbly ask you to accept me into your family. And I pray this not because I deserve it, but because on the cross, it was finished. You paid it all right there. Thank you. In your name I pray. Amen." You know, if you just prayed that prayer for the very first time, or you just recommitted your life to Jesus again today, would you let me know about it? There's something real about sharing your commitment. So write me, Rick, at pastorrick.com and say, "Rick, I prayed that prayer of commitment. I gave my life to Christ." And I'll send you some material that will help you on your journey with Jesus, and I'll also pray for you. God bless you.
Guest (Male): Man, I love hearing Pastor Rick. What a great message. We also love hearing from our listeners. Here's Rick with a very encouraging letter.
Pastor Rick Warren: Let me close this broadcast by sharing a letter from a listener in Rome, Italy. Her name is Hishan, and she says, "Pastor Rick, I've relocated to Rome, Italy where I'm currently working at the World Food Program. I really love listening to your sermons, and I also love reading your daily devotionals, which I share with many of my colleagues serving in the field offices in Africa and in other hardship duty stations. They appreciate receiving the message very much. God bless you, Hishan, in Rome." Now, did you get this? A message that is starting in Southern California in the United States of America is being sent to Europe, in Rome, Italy, and then it is being re-sent out to other continents like Africa. That is the amazing age of technology that we live in today. And that's why your gifts go much further than they used to go even 20 or 30 years ago. Our ability to reach listeners like Hishan and her friends, not just in Europe, but in Africa, is a direct result of your prayers and your support for Daily Hope. So thanks so much. And by the way, join me next time when we continue looking into God's word for our Daily Hope.
Guest (Male): This program is sponsored by Pastor Rick's Daily Hope and your generous financial support.