Pastor Rick's Daily Hope

Announcer: 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. So let's get started with the final part of a message called How Jesus Treats His Sheep.

Rick Warren: Like all sheep, we not only wander, we also stumble. We also fall down many, many times in life. Anybody want to give a testimony on that? We've all stumbled. We've all fallen flat on our face. We do it with great regularity. Every time I wander, I get into trouble. The further I get away from God, the more problems I'm going to have in my life. The closer I get to the Shepherd, the fewer problems I'm going to have because he's going to be guiding me, guarding me, protecting me, and directing me.

All sheep stumble, all sheep fall, and how does Jesus react to this? Let me just put it on the spot to you. What do you think Jesus does when you fall, when you fail, or when you flub up? When you really embarrass yourself? When you do something really evil, wicked, mean, bad, and nasty? How does Jesus Christ respond to your failures? You say, "I'm a child of God. I should know better than this, but I really messed up just now." How does Jesus respond to your failures?

Let's look at what he says in the scripture. Matthew chapter 12, verses 11 and 12, talks about when a sheep stumbles and falls. Jesus said, "If any of you has a sheep and it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, will you not rescue it and lift it out?" In Jewish law, that is the day you're not supposed to work. Jesus says even though it's the Sabbath, you're going to go save that sheep. "Will you not rescue it and lift it out of the pit? How much more valuable is a man than a sheep?"

Jesus is saying if a sheep falls into a pit, if a sheep fails and stumbles and falls into a pit, good common sense means you're going to rescue it, you're going to lift it out, and you're going to recover it, even if it's on the day that ceremonially you're not supposed to work. He says, well, what about in your own life? Isn't God going to act that way toward you? Let me give you an example of how you think God responds to your failures. Unless you get this right, you're going to avoid God all the time.

Every time you fail, and that's daily, it's going to cause you to pull away from God instead of going close to him. If you think God is going to restore you and rescue you when you fail, you're going to run to him every time you mess up. But if you think God is going to scold you and raz you and give you a long sermon about it and condemn you, you're not going to go to God on that. Let's say you're walking down the street one day and there's construction nearby and you happen to trip and stumble and you fall into a ditch.

In fact, it's not a ditch, it's a pit. And it's about 25 feet deep and there's no way you can get out on your own. You fall into a pit like this sheep in Matthew 12 has fallen into a pit. It needs to be rescued and lifted out. What's your response when you fall into a major pit? A moral pit, an ethical pit, a pit of depression, or a pit of despair? What are you going to do in that pit? You've only got about five major choices. They're called worldviews.

Let me explain to you the difference. I don't in any way mean to demean any of these religions, I'm just going to explain to you what they would say. When I was a young man and a young adult, I lived in Japan and I studied all the world religions. Let me sum them up for you about this particular issue. If you were 30 feet down in a pit and you couldn't get out and you're stuck down there, if Buddha walked by and he looked down there, he would say you are there because of karma.

It's your karma. Karma means you get what you deserve in life. And because you were bad in a previous reincarnated life, you're now paying for it in this life. If you're poor, you deserve to be poor because in the previous life you were bad. And if you're having people abuse you, it is because you abused them in a previous life. Karma says you get what you've given in life. There's no such thing as innocent suffering in Buddhism.

So there's no comfort in karma in Buddhism on that. I remember being in Louisiana three days after Katrina when thousands of people had lost everything they had. I was on Larry King with a Buddhist monk. Larry King asked me what Jesus would say and I explained about the comfort. Then he asked the other guy, "What words can you say that will comfort the people?" He didn't have anything to say. In Buddhism if you have suffering, it's your fault. It's called karma and you deserved it.

I don't believe that. I believe there's innocent suffering in the world. But that is a legitimate worldview that people believe. Of course there's innocent suffering in the world. But a Buddha would walk by and he says you're there in the pit because of karma. You did something bad in your last life and you deserve where you're at. And maybe if you do a little good, you'll have a better life the next round. What about Mohammed? If Mohammed walked by, he would see you in the pit and say you are there because you have violated the dignity of Allah.

You have broken his commandments, you have disobeyed his rules, and you're there because you have violated the laws of Allah. That is a Muslim view of life. If you're in the pit and a Hindu guru comes by, the Hindu guru says the pit you're in is an illusion. I'm not making this up. Hindu guru says this is an illusion because they believe all pain is an illusion. It's all in your mind. You're not really in a pit, maybe the pit is in you.

So really, it is an illusion. You should not really be in pain because if you can just get to a certain state, you won't feel the pain because you won't think you're in the pit anymore. That is essentially Hinduism. If you are a New Age movement person and you are a New Age coach or self-help coach, they would walk over and see you in the pit and say, "Just believe you can be out of the pit on your own. Believe you can fly. What man can conceive, he can achieve. Pull yourself up by your own bootstraps. You can do it."

If a bird has had its wing cut off, you can tell that bird a thousand times believe you can fly, but it is never going to fly. Reality says its wing was cut off. It is never going to fly no matter how much you believe it. It's nonsense to say you can be whatever you believe. You could never be an opera singer if you don't have that talent. You can be everything God designed you to be. I will never be an Einstein because I hate math.

The bottom line is this whole idea of just believe enough and you'll just come out of the pit is wrong. You're not coming out of the pit just believing. That's Pollyanna optimism which has no basis in reality. I believe in positive thinking. It's far better than negative thinking. But it only works on stuff you can control. All the positive thinking in the world will not change stuff you can't control, and most of the world is out of your control.

So you're down there in the pit. Buddha says karma. Mohammed says you violated the laws of Allah. The Hindu says it's not really a pit, it's an illusion in your mind. And the New Age says you're a god. You're not a god. If you were a god, why are there so many problems in the world? You can't even solve your own problems, much less the world's problems. You're not God. That is the old lie. It's the oldest lie known to man. It's the first lie Satan told Adam and Eve when he said eat this fruit and you'll be a god.

Christ could be in you but you're not God on your own. Jesus comes by and here's what he says: "Can I give you a hand out?" He doesn't make any excuses. "Can I help you out?" That's called being a Savior. He doesn't excuse it, he doesn't judge it. Jesus said I didn't come to judge the world, I came to save it. "Can I give you a hand out?" That's the Savior I serve. And that's the Savior that 2.3 billion people in the world serve. That's the salvation that God offers.

He says I want to help you. There is real suffering in the world. It is not an illusion. Now God does not cause suffering. He doesn't have to, there's plenty of it in the world. But he does allow it. Why does God allow suffering in the world? God could take away all the suffering in the world just like that. All he'd have to do is take away our freedom of choice. If I always did the right thing and you always did the right thing and everybody else did the right thing, the world wouldn't be broken.

But because God wants to give us a choice, God wants a group of people who choose to love him voluntarily. It's not love if you don't have a choice to not love. If you're forced to love, it's not love. God loves you, but he wants you to love him back. He could have made you a puppet on a marionette thing where you pull a string and you pray six times a day, but that's not love. That's being manipulated. So God gave you the freedom to make choices.

The freedom to choose that God gave you is your greatest gift and your worst curse because we all make bad choices. As a result, we wreck the economy and we wreck the environment. And the environment takes people's lives who are innocent of particular things. We all hurt each other, sometimes intentionally, sometimes unintentionally. God does not cause suffering, but he does allow the consequences of our own decisions.

You are free to make any decision you want to in life, but you're not free the moment you make that decision because now you've got the consequences of it. You're not free from the consequences of your decision. You're free to make the decision, you are not free from the consequences. The Bible says in Psalm 71:20: "You allowed me to suffer a lot," see allowed, didn't cause, "but you will bring me back from this deep pit and you will give me a new life."

You're in a deep pit? Jesus says let me help you out. You need a new life? Jesus says be born again. This is the good news. When you let Jesus be your Shepherd, you're no longer on your own. That takes away a lot of stress in your life. Proverbs 3, verses 25 and 26: "You never need to be afraid of sudden disaster or hidden troubles that ensnare the wicked, for the Lord is your security and he will keep you safe and he will keep your foot from getting caught in a trap."

Like that Shepherd who's got that hook in the end of his staff, he'll pull you out of the brier bush and he'll pull you away from the edge of the cliff when you're about to go over. You don't have to be afraid. He's going to be your security. He'll keep you safe. He'll keep your foot from stumbling. Finally, one more thing. If I bring my hurts to Jesus, he shows me compassion. If I choose to follow Jesus, he's going to lead me in the right way, never the wrong way.

If I get confused and wander off, he's going to find me and bring me back like a sheep that's wandered. And if I fail or I fall into a ditch, he's going to rescue and recover me. And then finally, number five, because he's a good shepherd and God is a good God, if I trust him to save me, Jesus keeps me saved. I told you last week that it's the Savior's job to keep you saved. It's not your job to save yourself.

It's not your job to keep yourself saved. It's your job to put your hand in the hand of God. And when you put your hand in the hand of God and say, "God I'm all yours, the good, the bad, and the ugly and I could never earn heaven, it's perfect and I'm not and I never will be. But I'm putting my hand in yours. I'm accepting your gift of salvation. I'm accepting your son as my Savior and I'm putting my hand in your hand." There will be days you want to let go, but God is never going to let go of your hand because he loves you.

Notice John chapter 10, verse 27 and 29. Jesus' words directly. He says, "My sheep listen to my voice and I know them and they follow me." That's how you know who's a believer and who's not. Then he says, "And I give them eternal life," which starts the moment you put your hand in his hand, "and they will never die and no one can steal them out of my hand. My Father gave me my sheep to me and he's greater than all and no person can steal my sheep out of my Father's hand."

Once you have put your life in the hand of God, there will be times you might want to pull back and say I don't even know what I believe. God says I'm not letting go. He says you're in God's hand and no man can pluck you out of God's hand. Your salvation is secure. You cannot lose your salvation once you've got it. If you were saved by works, the moment you stopped working, obviously you could lose it. But you're saved on the merits of Christ. You'd have to be unsaved on his demerits and he didn't have any.

This is grace. You put your life in his hand and he says they're in my hand and nobody can pull them out of God's hand. I've actually had people tell me, "I don't think people can steal your salvation, but I think you could jump out of God's hand by choice." And I say, "How big do you think God's hand is? Really? You think it's so small you could get to the edge of it and then jump off? You could never get to the edge of God's hand. It is so big."

It is not your job to keep yourself saved. It's your job to keep loving God. But it is God's job to keep you saved. He said nobody can pull you out. And what I'm telling you, and you can relax over it, is that if you truly trusted Christ and known that you're not getting to heaven on your own but only through the blood of Christ and the death of Christ and the resurrection of Christ and you've committed your life to him and your hand is in the hand, Satan cannot steal your salvation.

Sorrow cannot steal your salvation. Sickness cannot steal your salvation. Suicide cannot steal your salvation. Society cannot steal your salvation. You're in his hand. Romans chapter 8, verses 38 and 39, says it about as clear as it could be. There is nothing that can ever separate us from his love. Death can't, life can't, the angels can't, the demons can't, our fears for today and our worries about tomorrow, and even the powers of hell can't keep God's love away.

If you put your hand in his hand, it's there, it's secure. Whether we are high above the sky or in the deepest ocean, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord. That's good news. When you can truly say the Lord is my shepherd, you are eternally secure and everything else is taken care of.

Jesus has the power of God because he is God in human form and came to earth. 2 Peter chapter 1, verse 3: "Jesus has the power of God by which he has given us everything we need to live and to serve God. We have these things because we deserve them? No. Because we've promised to be perfect? No. We have these things because we know him." Do you know the Shepherd?

Let's bow our heads. I end by asking this question, no matter where you're listening to this: who's your shepherd? Who is your shepherd? Can you truly say the Lord is my shepherd? Or are you a sheep without a shepherd? You're not going to last very long in this life as a solitary sheep on your own. There are just too many predators. You need a shepherd, that's Jesus. And you need a flock to be a part of, that's a church.

Knowing now how Jesus treats his sheep, whose flock do you want to be in? If not Jesus, who's going to offer you a better deal? There is no political group that can offer you that, no economic group, no sexual identity group, no social group, no age group, and no gender group. Nobody can offer these five benefits to you. You only get them from the Creator of the universe, the Son of God, the Good Shepherd.

I invite you to pray this prayer right now, no matter where you are. Say, "Dear Jesus Christ, I want you to be my shepherd. I need you to guide me and I need you to guard me, like the rod and the staff. I want you to protect me and I want you to direct me, like the rod and the staff. I thank you for your power and authority which can protect me, and I thank you for your care and compassion which can care for me.

Jesus, I want you to be the shepherd of my life, the Lord of my life, and the master of my life. I want you to be the manager of my life, the CEO of the board of my life. I want to bring my hurts to you when I'm hurting because I know you'll show me compassion. I want to follow you because I know you'll lead me in the right direction. Lord, it is comforting to know that if I get confused and wander off, you're going to find me and you're going to bring me back.

Thank you that you came to earth to seek and save me because I was lost. Lord, I even thank you for your discipline in my life. I realize it's not punishment. It's not out of anger, it's because you want what's best for me and you're a good God. Lord, if it takes afflictions to teach me things, I know some things I'll only learn through difficulty.

You may say to Jesus, "Lord, I'm in a pit right now and I need you to rescue and recover me. I'm in a pit of frustration, a pit of discouragement, a financial pit, a pit of depression, or a pit of confusion and I need you to rescue and recover me. Jesus Christ, thank you that because I trust you to save me, you're going to keep me saved. Nobody can steal it. No illness, no authority, no government, no powers, nothing will ever separate me from the love of Jesus Christ."

At this moment, I put my hand in your hand and I give you all of myself and I'm going to trust you to take me through my life and into heaven. I want to be a part of your family, I want to be a part of your flock, and I want to follow you. Thank you, the Lord is my shepherd. Amen.

Announcer: Hey, if you've just prayed along with Rick to accept Jesus in your life, Rick would love to hear from you. Just email rick@pastorrick.com. Right now, here's Pastor Rick with a letter from one of our listeners.

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 resent out to other continents like Africa. That is the amazing age of technology that we live in today. 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. Thanks so much. Join me next time when we continue looking in God's Word for our daily hope.

Announcer: This program is sponsored by Pastor Rick's Daily Hope and your generous financial support.