Pastor Rick's Daily Hope

Guest (Male): None of us can earn our way into heaven because eternal life is a free gift when you accept Jesus as the Lord of your life.

Guest (Male): Hey everybody, this is Pastor Rick's Daily Hope. Today, Rick Warren continues a series called Good News About Grace. You can't truly understand the Christian life until you understand grace. It's at the heart of your faith and your relationship with God. In this series, you're going to discover how to not only understand grace but how to experience it and the joy that it brings. Right now, here's part one of a message called Living in God's Amazing Grace.

Rick Warren: I want us to just review the benefits of grace. The Bible says that we're saved by grace, that the only way to heaven is the doorway through grace. If you're going to get to heaven, that's the only way you're going to get there. You can't earn it, you can't work for it, you can't buy it; it's just by God's grace. The Bible says, "For by grace you are saved through faith, and even that is not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, not of works, so no one can boast." If you could work your way to heaven, can you imagine how boring heaven would be? Everybody would be bragging about how they got there. "Well, I did this." "Oh yeah, but I did this." The Bible says we're just simply saved by grace.

But more than that, we're forgiven by grace. The Bible tells us in Isaiah 43, "I forgive your sins for my own sake." We don't deserve it, but God says, "I forgive you." The Bible says that we're sustained by grace. Philippians 2:13 says, "God is always working in you to give you the will and the power to do what he's called you to do." God will never ask you to do anything that he doesn't give you the ability and the power to do, and that power and ability is called grace.

Then the Bible teaches that we're healed by grace. It says that he heals our broken hearts and binds up our wounds. The Bible says we're liberated by grace. We talked about how you don't have to live under the rules and regulations of legalism. Jesus said, "Come to me if you're tired and weary, and I will give you rest." Not a whole bunch of other chores to do. He says, "I will give you rest." If your Christian life is not a life that says it's a life of resting in Christ, it means that I'm moving back into that legalistic background.

The Bible says that we're given talents by grace. God has given us each the ability to do something well, and we're to use it for him. Scripture tells us in Romans 12, "The Bible says God uses us by grace, that we're kept saved by grace." We talked about how you cannot lose your salvation because it's a gift. If you worked for your salvation, then obviously the moment you stopped working for it, you'd lose it. If you had to earn your salvation, then the moment you stopped earning it, you'd lose it.

Since it's all by grace, it's on the basis of what Jesus did. You'd have to lose it by what he didn't do, but he did it all. The Bible says that he said on the cross, "It's finished. It's paid in full." So he keeps us saved by his grace. The verse there in Jude 1:24 says, "He is able to keep you from falling." You don't have to keep yourself saved. And then we're transformed by grace. The Bible says we're transformed by the renewing of our mind. The scripture says in 2 Peter 3:18, "Grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus."

The more you grow in grace, the more you're going to grow spiritually. So the bottom line really is this: it's all by grace. That's the bottom line. Everything that God does in you, everything that God does for you, and everything that God does through you, he does by grace. Robert Louis Stevenson said, "There's nothing but God's grace. We walk upon it, we breathe it, we live it, and we die by it. It makes the nails and axles of the universe." Everything is by God's grace. We wouldn't even have our own lives if it weren't for God's grace.

Now, that's what we've looked at for 10 weeks. But it would be a tragedy if we had gone through this entire series and some of you had still never received it, had never really opened your life up to receiving the grace of God. As we conclude this series, I want to ask again the question: how do I get it? You say, "Rick, this sounds like a good deal. I want to be saved, forgiven, sustained, healed, liberated, given talents, used, kept saved, transformed, and matured. How do I get it? How do I receive the grace of God?"

The Bible says in three simple words: by trusting Christ. God made it so simple that nobody could say it was too hard to understand. It's not 23 steps and four pathways and eight guide roads and 32 rituals to go through. He just says, "By trusting Christ." That's it. It's as simple as just putting my faith in him. The Bible says this in John 1:17: "The law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ."

All of grace, all of what we've just talked about for 10 weeks, is wrapped up in a person. He is the source. Grace and truth come through Jesus Christ. If you don't get it through Christ, you don't get it. What's he saying here? He's saying that you don't get God's grace—that's his power and ability to do the right thing, to make it in life, to be sustained, to become what God meant for you to be in the first place—you don't get grace through religion. You don't get grace through ritual, not even baptism or communion.

You don't get grace through rules. You don't get grace through religion, rules, or regulations, but you do get it through a relationship. Look at the next verse: "Now we rejoice in our wonderful new relationship with God, all because of what our Lord Jesus Christ has done in dying for our sins, making us friends of God." That's what you call having friends in high places, folks. You become a friend of God. How? By becoming in relationship with Christ, his Son.

Circle the word relationship because he says that's how we get the grace we need to live. But I also want you to underline the phrase, "in dying for our sins." It says that this grace came to us because of what Jesus has done in dying for our sins. Now grace is free. All you have to do is accept it. It's free to you, but it's not cheap. It cost Jesus's life. In fact, grace is the most expensive commodity there is. Jesus died on the cross to pay for it, and Jesus never wants us to forget that.

He never wants us to forget the sacrifice that he made so that we could experience the grace of God. So he gave us a reminder. He created a symbol: communion. The Bible says that this is a symbol of what Jesus did so that we could have his grace. What happened when Jesus died on the cross? What really took place when he hung there 2,000 years ago that makes something so significant that we celebrate it and we remember it with a symbol 2,000 years later?

When Jesus died on the cross, he did three things. You might want to write these down. Number one: he paid the penalty for sin. That means my penalty for my sin has already been taken care of. It's kind of like getting a "get out of jail free" card if you remember Monopoly. That's what grace is. One day you're going to stand before God, and he's going to say, "Obviously, you blew it from your sins. Somebody has to pay for those sins, either you or somebody else."

And Jesus did it. He paid the penalty of sin so I can be forgiven for that. The second thing he did is he broke the power of sin. What that means is Jesus now gives us the power to change the habits and the hurts and the hang-ups in our lives that mess us up. The penalty of sin is paid for, the power of sin is broken, and the presence of sin will be obliterated. One day we're going to go to heaven, and there isn't going to be any sin there. And he's guaranteed it because of the cross.

It's guaranteed. Now there's a lot of mystery and misunderstanding about taking communion. Most of us come from many different backgrounds, and the question is often, "What should be my attitude when I take the Lord's Supper? How should I feel when I remember the death of Jesus Christ? Should I feel guilty when I take communion, remembering all the sins that I've committed? Should I feel guilty?" The answer is no. Communion is not to make you feel guilty because communion says remember Jesus has already paid for all your wrongs.

So you don't have to feel guilty anymore. That's grace. Should I feel grief? Should I feel when I take the Lord's Supper like this is like a funeral and it's something sad as I remember the death of Jesus Christ? Should I feel grief when I take communion? No, because Jesus didn't stay dead. Three days later after they put him in a tomb, they said, "He's back." He didn't stay dead. So we don't serve a dead God, a dead Savior, so we don't have to grieve.

So we don't have grief, we don't have guilt. What should the attitude be when we take communion? Gratitude. When I take these two elements that symbolize what Jesus did for me, I should be thinking, "How could God love me like this? How could God love me this much?" You see, the Bible tells us how much he loved us. Look at this verse: "This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us." He laid down his life for us. That's what we should be grateful for.

Now communion, the Lord's Supper, is a symbol, but it's not for everybody. It's only for believers. It's only for those who've accepted that grace gift. But you can become a believer right now. There's nothing to stop you. When we take these symbols of bread and juice and as we remember what they symbolize, I want you to say, "Lord, by taking this," in your mind you'll be saying, "I believe that Jesus died for me, and I accept his grace today." That's what you're saying. "I believe that Jesus died for me, and I accept his grace today."

Near the city of San Juan Campos in Brazil, there's a remarkable facility. It's a prison. 20 years ago, the Brazilian government turned it over to a band of Christians and said, "You can run it, and you can run it on Christian principles." So they cleaned up the prison, and they renamed it Humaita. With the exception of two full-time staff members, all the work there is done by inmates. Families outside the prison adopt an inmate to work with during and after his term.

Recently, Chuck Colson went and visited this prison. He says this: "When I visited Humaita, I found the inmates smiling, particularly the murderer who held the keys, opened the gate, and let me in. When I walked in, I saw men who were at peace with themselves and with God. I saw clean living areas. I saw people working industriously. The walls were decorated with biblical sayings from Psalms and Proverbs. My guide escorted me to the notorious prison cell that was once used for torture. Today, he told me that block houses only a single inmate."

As we reached the end of a long concrete corridor, he put the key in the lock. He paused and said, "Are you sure you want to go in?" "Of course," I replied impatiently. "I've been in isolation cells all over the world." Slowly, he swung the massive door open, and I saw the prisoner in that punishment cell. It was a beautifully carved crucifix by the Humaita inmates. The prisoner Jesus hanging on the cross. "He's doing time for the rest of us," my guide said softly.

You see, folks, this is what the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus is all about. Jesus has served your time. He paid your penalty. He was hung up for your hang-ups. He died in your place. And when we take communion, we remember that Jesus took the punishment that we should have taken. The Bible says this in 2 Corinthians 8: "You are familiar with the generosity of Jesus Christ. Rich as he was, he gave it all away for us in one stroke. He became poor that we might become rich." You can spell grace, G-R-A-C-E, as God's Riches At Christ's Expense.

Guest (Male): Hey, thanks so much for being with us today and listening to Pastor Rick's Daily Hope. I hope that you were just as blessed as I was from today's broadcast. Right now, here's Pastor Rick with a special message.

Rick Warren: When I started Saddleback Church over 40 years ago with just a handful of people in our living room, I also began writing a simple devotional just for the people in our church to help them start each day with hope, and with truth, and with peace that comes from Jesus Christ. Well, that little devotional grew and grew, and today Daily Hope is one of the largest email devotions in the whole world. And each day, people all around the globe are reconnecting with God's promises and finding fresh strength in his word to face whatever comes their way.

Now here's the best part: it's absolutely free. We don't have any charge for this. Every day, you'll get a quick devotional read and a podcast that you can listen to on the go. In a world that's more distracted and uncertain than ever, I want to help you start your day centered on what never changes. And what never changes is God's love—his unconditional love for you—and his promises to you. If you'll just spend just a few minutes a day in the morning with the Lord, it can bring so much more clarity, more purpose, more peace to everything that happens in your day.

Particularly since psychologists have said that what you do with the first five minutes of your day pretty much sets the tone. So friend, you were never meant to go through life alone. I want to personally invite you to just sign up for the Daily Hope devotional. Do it today. I think it's going to bring fresh encouragement to your walk in God.

Guest (Male): If you'd like to sign up for the daily devotional, it's easy. Just go to PastorRick.com. That's PastorRick.com. Be sure to join us next time as we look into God's word for our daily hope. This program is sponsored by Pastor Rick's Daily Hope and your generous financial support.