Pastor Rick's Daily Hope

Guest (Male): Hello, and welcome to Pastor Rick's Daily Hope with Rick Warren. We are so glad you're here with us today. We're going to continue our series called the Keys to a Blessed Life. Now, in these messages, Rick walks through Jesus's sermon on the Mount and shows us how to live a truly hopeful and purpose-filled life. All right, now here's part one of how God blesses broken hearts.

Pastor Rick Warren: Now, the fact of life is that life is tough. Everybody agree with that? It's not easy. Life is tough. Life is hard. Life is difficult. Since Adam sinned, 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.

So, we have trials and tribulations. We have sorrow and we have suffering. We have problems and pressures. We have, as I said, defeats and disappointments. 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 5 verse 4, and Jesus says this, God blesses those who mourn. For they will be comforted. Now, in the eight ways to be blessed by God, the second way, this seems so ludicrous when you think about it, so un normal, so irrational, when he says, the way to be blessed is to mourn.

What in the world does he mean by that? In other words, the way to be happy is to be sad? That 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. Some of you came to service this weekend all churning inside. You've got conflicts, you 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. There are the money isn't there where you need it, and you're under tension. And many people watching online right now, they're the things you've had a loss in your life, or you've had a death in your life, you've had something that has caused you to have grief.

Now, this last year, as you know, I I've gone through a a year-long journey with grief since Matthew died. And I've learned a lot. I've learned a lot about grief that I didn't even know a year ago. And what I want to do this weekend is just kind of summarize a few of those ideas. I think someday I'll probably write a book on it because I've learned so much about it. But I want to just give you a few things on how to be blessed in a broken world.

Now, let me let me give you a couple of things. Write these down. Here's just a couple of insights before we actually get into it. 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, that's Rainbow Bright, not a Christian. Okay? And when you become a follower of Jesus, it doesn't mean you become a Pollyanna or an Annie, little orphan Annie, and the sun will come up tomorrow, and it's always up, up into the pool, and you're always happy. 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 of um opposites. There's a time to weep. There's a time to laugh. It'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 going to we're going to look at that.

Now, a lot of people think that grief is only for funerals, like, you know, if you lose a loved one, uh then 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, uh 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.

There's a time for every activity under heaven. I actually went through a a study this week of what the Bible says we're supposed to mourn and grieve. And I'm not going to get into that, that would be two or three sermons. But the Bible says I'm I'm to mourn my losses, which is um things, bad things that happen to me. The Bible says I'm to mourn my disappointments, which are good things that didn't happen to me. Did you hear that? 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. 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. Or C, you don't love. 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 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 uh a mother who says, I want to have a baby without going through the pain of labor.

It ain't going to happen. It isn't going to happen. Now, there are two unhealthy reactions to the losses of life. One is repression and the other is suppression. Repression is when I consciously unconsciously try to block a painful thought out of my mind. That's repression. I unconsciously try to block a pain, painful thought out of my mind. Suppression is when I consciously try to block a pain. I'm not going to think about that. I'm not going to think about that. I'm not going to think about it. 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.

I want you to write this down. If I don't let it out, I will act it out. If I don't let it out in healthy ways, I'm going to 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 going to learn. When you don't grieve, when you don't go through grief and a pain when pain happens in your life, and you don't let it, you know, you don't feel it, you 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 going to 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. Notice on your outline. David says in Psalm 32:3, when I kept things to myself, I felt weak deep inside me, and I moaned all the day long. Now, circle the word moaned. 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. Moaning is having a pity party. Mourning is calling out to God in your grief and in your pain. Psalm 39:2, David says, I was silent and I held my peace to no avail, and my distress only grew worse. If you don't grieve the losses in your life, if you if you're too busy, and you just have to stuff it, I can't think about it. You try to do the Clint Eastwood, you know, strong silent type. We're just grin and bear it, and you press on, and you don't even stop to mourn a loved one's death. If you don't do that, then what happens is, he says, my distress only grew worse.

So, what am I saying? The things that happened to you around you, the bad things that 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. You say, well, I 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.

Now, this weekend, 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. Now, I want God to bless your life. 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 going to 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'm an authority on this one.

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. Since Matthew died, I have cried every single day since he died. That's not a sign of weakness, that's a sign of love. Deep love cares. Deep love is strong.

So, how do you get through? You don't get over it. A lot of people think, well, I'm just going to get over this grief. No, you're not going to 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 or 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 got to 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. Write these down. Number one, the first way God blesses a broken heart, is God draws us close to himself. He draws us in close to himself. Look at these verses. Psalm 34:18. The 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. Circle that, never. 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.

Second Corinthians 6:10 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 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.

God grieves with us. Now, the the reason you have the ability to grieve is because you were made in God's image. The Bible tells us that God grieves. The Bible tells us that God weeps when he sees humanity on Earth, he weeps. When God sees a sin, it he weeps. When God sees wars destroying people, when God sees this planet being destroyed, God weeps, God grieves. And we're made in God's image, and the Bible says God weeps with us. In other words, he's 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.

Look at this verse up here on the screen, Isaiah 53:3 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 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. Let me just give you one example. There on your outline, when his friend Lazarus died, the Bible says in John 11, when Jesus saw Lazarus's sister sobbing, and he saw how all those with all those with were crying, he was were crying also. His heart was touched, and he was deeply moved. Then Jesus started crying. See how much he loved Lazarus, they say. Circle the word love.

You know, I told you that that grief is actually an evidence of love. And the more you love, the more you're going to grieve about things. If you're apathetic, if you're callous, you don't have any love in your life, you don't care what happens to anybody else. It doesn't bother you. You don't grieve about the tragedy of your next door neighbor. If you don't love him, you don't care.

The more you love, the more you're going to understand grief. And it says Jesus started crying. You know the shortest verse in the Bible is John 11:35. It's two words, Jesus wept. John 11:35. That's your memory verse for the week, okay? Everybody can do that. Say it, John 11:35. And what did it say? Jesus wept. And where is that? John 11:35. That's the shortest verse in the Bible. You just memorized a Bible verse. It's only two words. Jesus wept. But what does it say? It says we have a suffering God. We have a God who sympathizes, who understands, who knows us.

And the Bible says, Jesus started crying. Now, let me just say to the guys. Guys, we're not very good at grief. It's not a macho thing. We don't like negative feelings. Men don't like to feel negative. They don't like bad things. They don't certainly don't like sorrow. And we're taught, uh growing up, you know, in fact, parents, you need to stop teaching your kid to stuff their emotions. Because one of the first things parents did, stop your crying, stop your crying, stop your crying. Really? Is that what you really want? You want to teach people to stuff their emotions?

The Bible says, Jesus started crying. Sadness is not weakness. Jesus was the strongest man who ever lived. A showing 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 whoever lived. So, never be embarrassed, never be embarrassed by tears. In fact, the Bible says Jesus was sent to comfort us. Look at this, Isaiah 61:2 and 3. The Bible says, he has sent me, Jesus, to comfort all who mourn, to give those who mourn in Zion joy and gladness, instead of grief, and a song of praise instead of sorrow.

So, the first two ways that God blesses a broken heart is he draws us close to himself. He says, I'm going to be with you. You're not going to go through this on your own. And number two, I'm going to feel it with you. The pain you feel in that separation, God feels it. The pain you feel in that loneliness, God feels it. The pain you feel in that rejection, God feels it. The pain you feel in that embarrassment, that disgrace, God feels it. He is with you, and he is feeling it with you.

Guest (Male): Such a great message from Pastor Rick today, and I hope you were just as encouraged as I was. Once again, here's Rick.

Pastor Rick Warren: Hello, everybody. This is Rick, and I have just returned from Amsterdam where I was at a conference where we had over 6,000 church leaders, pastors from all around the world. Literally 140 nations came to Amsterdam for a week of training where we were teaching them about the Good News of Jesus Christ, and more importantly, how to share the Good News of Jesus Christ, and help finishing the task around the world in the next 10 years. That is the goal to get the gospel to every person in the world in the next 10 years by 2033, which is the 2,000th birthday of Christianity.

And you know what was most exciting to me is that people came to me from all around the world. Like I said, 140 nations and said, I listen to Daily Hope every day. In Kazakhstan, in Bhutan, in Bolivia, in uh Namibia, on every continent, I heard time and time again, Pastor Rick, the Word of God is changing my life. Friends, that's what Daily Hope is all about. And for me, since I get your letters, and I love to read your letters, and I love to hear your stories, but to be face to face with about 6,000 people who were listening to Daily Hope on a regular basis, and hearing how it's changed their lives and influenced their ministries, just makes me want to say to all of you who pray for this ministry, and all of you who support this ministry, thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you for your prayers, for your gifts, for your support. You're making a difference. When you get to heaven, you're going to meet people in heaven who've come to Christ because you prayed and because you gave.

Guest (Male): 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.