Pastor Rick's Daily Hope

Guest (Male): Hello, and thanks for joining us today on Pastor Rick's Daily Hope. This is the Bible teaching ministry of Rick Warren, and today we are continuing in a series called The Miracle of Mercy. Rick will show us how God's mercy can lift your guilt, heal your wounds, and transform the way you live. Okay, here's part one of a message called How Much You Matter to God.

Rick Warren: Now one of the purposes of the Miracle of Mercy series is to help you better understand what God is really like. Most people have poor misconceptions of God. They don't understand fully or deeply the mercy of God—that God always acts in mercy toward us. Every good thing in your life is because of the mercy of God. You wouldn't be alive if it weren't for the mercy of God. The talents, the gifts, and the abilities you have are gifts of the mercy of God.

The fact that all of the good things and the relationships happen in your life, and the fact that you're going to go to heaven one day, is only due to the mercy of God. Without that, we would have nothing. Now the Bible says in Titus chapter 3, if you'll pull out your message notes—all of the verses we're going to look at this weekend are on your notes—Titus chapter 3, verse 5 says this: Jesus saved us, not because of the good things that we did, but because of his mercy. His mercy. He washed away our sins, and he gave us new life through the Holy Spirit.

Now, God is such a God of mercy that he came to Earth in human form, as Jesus Christ. He came in human form to show us his mercy. He came on a mission of mercy, and that mission of mercy was to save us. In fact, Jesus says it like this in Luke chapter 19, verse 10: I have come to seek and save those who are lost. Now this is the ultimate expression of mercy. Jesus said the whole reason I came to Earth—why we have Christmas, why we have Easter, why we have everything that exists—is I came to seek and save those who are lost. The ultimate expression of mercy: mercy seeks, mercy takes initiative, mercy makes the first step, mercy saves.

By the way, this is the reason Saddleback Church exists. The whole reason we have church is because of this verse. We exist to seek and to save those who are lost. That's the whole purpose of Saddleback Church. Now I want you to circle the word "save" and the word "lost." Saved and lost. In God's eyes, there are only two kinds of people. There are only two distinctions that really matter. There are saved people, and there are lost people. Every one of us is in one of those categories. We're either saved or we're lost. Ultimately, no other human distinction matters.

Gender doesn't matter. It doesn't matter whether you're female or male. Race doesn't matter. It doesn't matter what your culture is, what your language is, or what your background is. It doesn't matter what your religion is. Your wealth doesn't matter in God's view. Your education doesn't matter. God doesn't distinguish people by their IQs, by their abilities, by their looks, by their talents, or anything else. God says there are two kinds of people in the world. There are people who are saved, and there are people who are lost who have not yet been saved by God.

Now, maybe you're thinking, "Well, I'm not in the saved, so I must be in the lost." Don't consider that to be a put-down. It's not. In fact, it's a compliment. Both of these phrases, saved and lost, imply somebody loves you. Both of these phrases, saved and lost, imply you have enormous value. Both of these phrases, saved and lost, are actually compliments. They're saying you matter to God. And he knows whether you're in this condition or in that condition. You're valuable, you're worth seeking, you're worth saving, you're worth finding. They're expressions of love.

I want you to write this down on your outline: lostness implies value. Lostness implies value. If I'm spiritually lost, it doesn't mean I'm not valuable. No, you're incredibly valuable to God—so valuable that Jesus Christ came to Earth to seek and to save you. Lostness implies value. You see, invaluable things are misplaced, but valuable things are lost. In other words, nobody loses a toothpick. You may misplace a toothpick. You may misplace a paper clip. You may misplace a Kleenex. But you don't lose a Kleenex because it's not that valuable. You don't go seeking and saving the Kleenex because it's not valuable enough.

Let me give you an example. This is a Paper Mate Flair pen. I think it cost 19 cents. It's about the cheapest pen you can get. I have used this type of pen for over 35 years. I have signed hundreds of thousands of books with this blue pen. People try to give me Montblancs and all these other things. I wouldn't use them. Why? I'd lose them. These I can lose a hundred a day and it doesn't matter. So if I'm traveling internationally, we always take a stack of about 50 of these Flair pens because I can lose two or three in an hour.

But because they're so cheap, it doesn't matter to me. I don't even consider them lost. I consider that's my donation to wherever I left it behind. And so while I could have a much more expensive pen, this is Rick Warren's pen of choice. Now somebody should pay me a product promotion for that. I bought it, and you should try it too. But it's cheap, so I don't lose these. I just misplace them.

Now, this is my wedding ring. If I lost this, it would be a real loss because it represents over 40 years of commitment to the same woman. She gave it to me, and I love her. If I lost this, I would not just misplace my wedding ring. I would lose it. You only lose stuff that's extremely valuable. When my son, my youngest son, died, I didn't misplace my son. I lost him because my son was priceless to me, and it was a major loss in my life. Something invaluable you misplace. Something priceless, you can't put a price tag on it, you lose that.

You know, this year, all of the airlines in America together will permanently lose—they do this every year—over 300,000 pieces of luggage. It happens every year. I'm not talking about the ones you lose and then find. I'm talking about they permanently lose 300,000 pieces of luggage a year. Now, most of those are filled with worthless stuff, like dirty clothes. But some of them are filled with stuff that's priceless. In fact, when a masterpiece in art is lost, the price actually goes up. So when we talk about whether you're saved or whether you're lost spiritually, both of them imply enormous value. It's not a matter of is one more important or one more valuable than the other; they're not. They're both incredibly valuable.

Now, what I want to do this weekend as we look at the mercy of God is ask three questions. What do I lose when I am spiritually lost? What do I actually lose? I mean, you've heard people talk about, "Well, I'm saved," or "I'm lost," or whatever. What do I actually lose? Now many of you say, "I know the Lord." You need to know what I'm about to teach you because you need to know how to explain it to somebody else. What do you actually lose when you're spiritually lost? We're going to talk about that. And then second, what does God's mercy do when I am lost? How does God respond to that? And then the third question I want to ask is, how can I experience God's mercy? How do I experience God's mercy?

Fortunately, all of the answers to those three questions are in the same chapter in the Bible. It's Luke chapter 15. In Luke chapter 15, Jesus tells three stories: the story of a lost sheep, the story of the lost coin, and the story of the lost son. In these three stories, he tells us the answers to these questions. Actually, this passage is often called by Bible scholars the "lost and found chapter" of the Bible because the word "lost" and the word "found" together are used 10 times in one chapter. So Luke 15 is called the what chapter? Lost and found chapter of the Bible. Because it's a story of the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the lost son. Three different stories all saying the same thing: you matter to God.

In these stories, the shepherd, the woman, and the father all represent God. And in these stories, the sheep, the coin, and the son represent you and me. So let me just tell you the three stories real quick. First is the story of the lost sheep. Jesus says there's a guy, a shepherd, who has 100 sheep. Every night he brings them back to the sheep pen, the sheepfold, to lock them up for the night so that they're safe from wolves and predatory animals. He counts them every night. As they're coming back in: 98, 99, and then there's no 100. He realizes that one is missing.

He counts them because, just like we say at church, we count people because people count. Every life matters. Every number represents a name, and every name has a story, and every story is somebody that Jesus Christ died for. The story of the good shepherd here is he leaves the 99 saved sheep in the pen to go out and search for the one that's lost. As long as there is one lost, he's going to keep reaching out. He doesn't say, "Well hey, I got 99 saved sheep, forget the lost one." No, they all matter. They all matter. As long as Saddleback Church has one person who doesn't know Christ, they all matter. We gotta keep reaching out to people. So he goes off and he searches all night and he finds the one lost sheep. He brings him back and puts him in the fold. He's so happy he throws a party. And everybody comes to his party.

Then there's the second story: the story of the lost coin. Jesus says there's this woman who has 10 coins, valuable coins. I don't know if they're laying on a table or whatever, but somehow one of them gets lost. She loses it and she can't find it. Now, she doesn't say, "Well, you know, I got nine coins, they're all valuable, I'm not going to worry about this one lost coin." No, she turns the house upside down. She's frantically searching and she's tearing the furniture apart and looking all over until she finds the one lost coin. Then she's happy about it and she throws a party and invites all of her neighbors and friends to celebrate that she's found her one lost coin.

Then there's the third story that Jesus tells, the story of the lost son. Sometimes this story is called the prodigal son. The story goes like this: there's a wealthy man who has two sons. One of the sons, the younger son, is kind of rebellious and comes to him one day and says, "Dad, this is really boring living here at home. I'm leaving. I'm splitting. I want you to give my half of the family inheritance to me now. I'm not going to wait till you die. Give it to me now." So the father gives the younger son half of his entire wealth. The son splits, he leaves, and he moves to Vegas, or the Sunset Strip in downtown Jerusalem. There, it says, he wasted his substance in riotous living. In other words, wine, women, and song—special emphasis on women.

He's partying hearty and he's having a fun time, and he's having a blast. He's got a lot of friends as long as he's got plenty of money. But eventually, he runs out of money. When he runs out of money, he runs out of friends. All of a sudden, he ends up on the skids, and he can't get a job anywhere. He ends up feeding slop to pigs and living in the pigsty, in the pigpen.

Now, this is not a good thing for a kosher Jew, to be living and eating with a pig. Laying there in the pigpen, in the slop, he has a moment of clarity. He comes to his senses. He goes, "What in the world am I doing?" He's thinking about home. He says, "The servants who work for my dad are better treated than this. I know what I'll do. I'm going to go home and say to my dad, 'Dad, I'm not worthy to be your son anymore. I blew half the family inheritance. Big mistake. I have sinned. Just make me one of your hired servants, and I'll just serve you because your hired servants live better than I'm living out on my own in rebellion.'"

The loving father, instead of being angry, grabs him in a big hug, kisses him, hugs him, and welcomes him home. He says, "Bring the best robe, put it on him." He says, "Bring the signet ring, which is like the credit card, and give it to him. Find the best head of beef, and we're going to have a barbecue tonight." He throws a party. He says, "My son has been lost and now he's found." Now, did you notice any common denominator between the three stories? What is it? There was a party. Exactly. I was actually going to call this sermon "Come to the Party." Because God wants to throw a party for you in his mercy.

So let's look at God's mercy and what it has to do with being lost or saved. Now, to be lost in God's terms means to be spiritually disconnected from God. If I'm not connected in a daily relationship, in a vital connection with God, if I don't have a relationship with God, I am spiritually lost. So what happens when I am lost? What do I actually lose? Well, these three stories that Jesus told in Luke 15—the lost son, the lost coin, the lost sheep—give us five things we lose. You might write these down so you can explain them to other people. What do I actually lose if I'm lost?

Number one, I lose my direction. I lose my direction. We see this in the story of the lost sheep. Now, no sheep intends to get lost. It just wanders off. It's natural for sheep to get lost on a warm spring day. They're not intentionally trying to get lost. They just think, "That looks like better grass over there. I'll wander over there and munch around a little bit." "That even looks a little better over there." You wander over there and taste a little bit of that. "Hey, I think I see some water down there." You wander over there, and pretty soon, the sheep is lost. He didn't intend to get lost, just naturally wandered.

It is human nature in us, the same way as with sheep. Humans do this too. As a kid, I often wandered off. In fact, my parents would have heart attacks for all the times I wandered off on vacations and things like that. I wasn't being rebellious, and I wasn't being sinful. I was just wandering off. We'd go out camping and I'd think, "Hey, there goes a butterfly," and I'd start following the butterfly. "Well, that's kind of interesting, and I think I'd like to climb that." Pretty soon, "Where's Rick?" "I don't know, where is he?" I would just by nature wander off. That happens to us, too.

The Bible says in Isaiah 53, verse 6: All of us have strayed away like lost sheep. We've left God's path to follow our own paths, our own ways. We always get lost when we follow our own ways. If you are following your plan for your life right now rather than God's plan, you're lost. If you're following your plan, you lose your direction. You lose your direction.

What I've discovered, and I've talked to countless numbers of people, is that most people are drifting through life. That's why I wrote The Purpose Driven Life. They don't have any purpose. They don't have any direction. They don't have a vision. They're not clear on their destination. They don't know where they're going. I couldn't tell you how many hundreds of people have told me over time, "You know, Rick, I have no idea where I'm going with my life." That's called drifting. You lose your direction. We do this naturally as human beings, just as sheep do it naturally. We lack direction, purpose, and meaning. A lot of times it doesn't mean we're going slow. You can be going very fast and not know the direction.

It's like that famous World War II pilot who radioed into control and the home base said, "Where are you?" He said, "I don't know where I'm at, but I'm making record time." We do this a lot in life. We think that speed is direction. No, you can have a lot of speed in your life and absolutely have no idea where you're headed. We wander off. We lose our direction.

Number two, the second thing we lose is our protection. We lose God's protection in our life. We find this in the story of the lost sheep. Sheep are very vulnerable. They're pretty defenseless animals. They don't have claws, they don't have sharp teeth, and they don't have fangs. They certainly can't run fast like gazelles or other animals that can get ahead of predators. If you're a sheep, you're pretty vulnerable unless you have a shepherd. If you've got a shepherd who can beat off the wolves or scare away the bears or, in some nations, actually lions or tigers or other animals, you're kind of up for grabs if you don't have a shepherd. They're very vulnerable, and a sheep that wanders off has no protection from the shepherd. So they're going to get hurt. They're going to get hurt bad.

God says this is true of us. In Zechariah chapter 10, verse 2: My people are wandering like lost sheep without a shepherd to protect them and to guide them. Now, you know the most famous chapter in the Bible is Psalm 23, which goes like this: The Lord is my shepherd. Exactly. Jesus was called the Good Shepherd. We're the sheep, he's the shepherd. But if you're not following the shepherd, you're on your own. You are defenseless in life, and you're going to get eaten up. You're going to get eaten up. You lose your direction, and you lose your protection if you're not following the shepherd.

This, by the way, is why you get stressed out. It's why you worry. It's why you have fear, why you have anxiety—because you're trying to work this thing all out on your own. You weren't meant to. You know how vulnerable you are in this world: how close you are to not making it financially, how close you are to not making it in your health. You know how vulnerable you are. One phone call can turn your world upside down. When you are spiritually lost and you're not connected to your shepherd, if you're a sheep, you lose your direction, you wander, and you lose your protection.

God is not protecting you if you're out here going your way instead of God's way. God will protect you if you go his way. He's not going to protect you if you go your way. Now you're on your own. You're just wandering off. One of God's great promises, Romans 8:28, is on the screen: We know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose.

Now, we've talked about this verse many times. It doesn't say everything is good in life. It's not. There's a lot of bad, evil, harm, and suffering in the world. It doesn't say it's all good. It says God causes even the bad stuff to work for good. Is this a promise for everybody? No, it's a promise for those who love God. If you're not following the shepherd, this isn't working in your life. All things are not working for good in your life if you're ignoring God. All things are working for bad. You're on your own. But when I place myself as a sheep under the shepherd's care, now I get direction and now I get protection, and even the bad stuff that comes in my life, God says, "I can use that. I can make it work for good." But it's a promise for those who are under God's protection.

Guest (Male): I don't know about you, but I am encouraged after that message. Let's keep the encouragement going with a letter from one of our listeners. Here's Rick.

Rick Warren: Have you ever taken a step of faith with no idea what's next? Well, with the help of Daily Hope, Nicole did just that. She wrote this note to me: "Hello, Pastor Rick. A close friend of mine suggested I listen to Daily Hope four years ago, and while I had faith and I loved the Lord, I was lost. But Daily Hope rescued me. My relationship with Jesus Christ grew in ways that I never knew possible. I was soon baptized, and over the next four years, I grew in boldness and in faith in the Lord. I even left a high-powered and high-salaried position to follow a different purpose-driven path with the Lord's guidance. It's been a literal step forward in faith without knowing the next steps—certainly not something I was capable of years ago—and already God is showing me his goodness. As my husband explores his own relationship with Jesus, again, your ministry is literally a godsend. Your ability to teach the good news in ways that are easy to understand and apply is just amazing. We also follow your suggestion to find a good local church. So thanks for all you do for believers and those who are seeking Christ around the world. Rick, you're loved and appreciated and no doubt a vessel of God's grace and mercy. Signed, Nicole."

Well, Nicole, I'm so glad that you've grown in your relationship with Jesus and you've taken the important step of getting baptized. What an important step this is. Finding a church home, really listening to the Lord, and living a purpose-driven life—all of that happens when you take time to listen to God's word. I love how your friend shared Daily Hope with you and now you've shared it with your husband. Any of you can do this. Anybody can do this. You can share Daily Hope with your friends, with your relatives, and with people you don't even know, and then watch how God brings life to others through his word.

Guest (Male): You know, I share Pastor Rick's Daily Hope all the time. Whether it's a friend or someone you meet in a restaurant, everyone needs hope and encouragement from the Bible every day. So tell the people you know and love about Daily Hope. Hey, be sure to join us next time when 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.