Pastor Rick's Daily Hope

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. And now, part two of a message called, How Jesus Treats His Sheep.

Now number three, what about when he’s leading me, what if I get confused when he’s leading me through life? And what if I wander off? Well, that’s the third thing we learn, is that if I get confused and I wander off, Jesus finds and brings me back. He finds me and he brings me back. Now, we’re all going to wander, and Jesus had some specific things to say about this.

In Matthew chapter 18, verse 12, he says, "If a shepherd has a hundred sheep," this is Jesus talking, "if a shepherd has a hundred sheep and one wanders away and is lost, won’t he leave the 99 safe sheep to go search for the lost one? Yes." Why? Because every sheep matters. You matter to God. He says if I've got 100 sheep, 99 of them are safe and one of them is lost, I'm going after the lost one.

That by the way is the heartbeat of Saddleback Church. It’s why we never stop growing. Last weekend you heard we had over 71,000 people at Saddleback Church in all of our campuses, and yet we’re not going to stop growing. Why? Not because we need more people, we don’t. My favorite size church was 300 people. Really, it was, because I could know everybody, every kid, every cat, every dog, and I can go play golf three times a week, except I hate golf.

And I loved it because I knew everybody. The fact is the bigger church gets, the more headaches, the more problems, the more stress. Why do we do this? We do it because Jesus says if there’s one person out there who still doesn’t know me, we’re going after them. We don’t grow for our benefit, we grow because people need the Lord. And as long as there’s one person still out there who hasn’t heard the good news of Jesus, we’re going to leave the 99 safe sheep and go after the one. Why? Because that’s what Jesus did.

It takes unselfish people to grow a church, to leave the 99 and go after the one, and yet that’s what Jesus did. The church that doesn’t want to grow is basically saying to the world, go to hell. That’s what they’re saying. We’re all saved, we’re happy, we’re going to heaven, the rest of you can go to hell. It takes unselfish people to be like Jesus and say, we’re going to keep reaching out, there’s still one more who needs the Lord.

So, if there’s somebody out there confused and wandering, Jesus says, I’m going after them, we’re going to bring them back. This is the reason Jesus came to earth. Look at the next verse, Luke 19 verse 10, Jesus said, "I came to seek and to save those who are lost." That’s why Jesus came to earth. God came to earth in human form to seek and save the lost. He’s on a rescue mission, a search and rescue mission. Now follow the logic on this. If we weren’t lost, Jesus wouldn’t have needed to come.

So it clearly implies we’re lost without God. If you could get to heaven simply on being a kind of nice person and you have more good works outbalancing all your bad works, then Jesus dying on the cross was a total waste of time. Believe me, if there was any other way for you to get into heaven except by Jesus Christ, God, coming and living a perfect life, then dying for your sins because he didn’t have any, don’t you think God would have used it? Don’t you think God would have chosen an easier way to gain your salvation if it was possible?

There was no other way. And Jesus says, I came to seek and save that which is lost, which means the world is lost. Everybody is not going to heaven. If they were, Jesus didn’t need to come to earth. Let me say it again, if everybody was automatically going to heaven, Jesus did not need to die on the cross. That was a big total waste of suffering and sorrow and sadness and pain. But he said, I came to seek and save that which is lost. Look up here on the screen, the Bible says we are lost without God.

Isaiah 53 verse 6, "We’re all like sheep who’ve wandered off and gotten lost. And we’ve all done our own thing and we’ve all gone our own way, and God has piled all our sins, everything we’ve done wrong, on him." Now he says we’re all like sheep. It’s human nature to wander. It’s human nature to get lost. Let me ask those of you who are parents, could I see your hands? All right. Question, is it easy or is it hard for a little child to wander in a crowd and get lost?

Kind of obvious. You never had a class, let me tell you how to get lost in a mall, son. They already know how to do it naturally. By our nature we naturally wander. We wander away from our parents, we wander away from God, we wander away into situations we shouldn’t be in, and we get lost. And the Bible says all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. We’re all lost. So God says I’ll be the good shepherd and I’m going to come and seek and save and I’m going to find you.

It’s in our nature, we naturally wander, we naturally get lost in life. You may be feeling lost right now. You’re going, I haven’t the slightest idea what I’m supposed to do next with my life. You’re lost over what to do with your finances, you feel a little lost over what should I do about my career? Do I stay here, do I move? Sometimes you don’t know, do I hold on or do I let go? That’s a hard one to discover. What do I do now? Do I keep going, do I give up, do I try something different?

You’re feeling confused about things in your life. That’s called being lost because you don’t have a guide who’s walking through you with it or you’ve got the guide but you’re not depending on him. And you wonder what should I do now? Now, any parent who’s lost a child in a mall or at a campground, let me ask you this question. When your child wanders off and your heart is in your throat and you’re searching for minutes or maybe even an hour trying to find them and it’s getting worse and worse, when you actually find them, your adrenaline settles, you calm down a little bit, the fear subsides, do you then just go, oh that was no big deal, and you just brush it off? Oh no.

If your child has been lost and then now they’re found, you don’t just brush it off and treat it like it’s no big deal. Because you love them deeply you have the talk. You can’t run away from Daddy like that. It’s serious, it’s dangerous, you need to be near Mommy, you need to hold my hand when we’re in a crowd because this is not good. And you correct your child. Now are you correcting your child out of hate? No, you’re correcting your child because you love them. You discipline them because you love them.

An undisciplined child is an unloved child. A child that can get its way and do everything it wants is not a loved child, it’s an unloved child because kids need discipline. We need direction, we need training. Well, let’s just take this now to your relationship with God. What does God do when you wander off? He disciplines you. He has the talk. He corrects you. Look at the next verse, Psalm 119, David says, "I used to wander off until you, Lord, disciplined me."

He says, "I had a tendency to just walk off, leave God, leave everything else that was valuable. I used to wander off till the Lord disciplined me, but now I closely follow your word. You are good." Talking about God. God is a good God. "And you only do good." So even when he disciplines you it’s for a good purpose. "So train me in your principles." Now I want to clear this up for you so I want you to write this down, discipline is not punishment. Please write that down. Discipline is not the same thing as punishment.

Punishment is when you pay a penalty for the past, and it’s usually done in anger. You’re punished in anger for something you did in the past. Discipline is not punishment. Discipline is training and correction for the future and it’s always done in love. You’re not angry, but you’re doing it out of love because you want the person, the child, or in this case the sheep to go in the right direction.

Sometimes if a shepherd has a sheep that is so prone to wander it’s going to wander and kill itself, and they live in very dangerous places where there’s mountain lions, they will often wrap and hold a sheep’s leg so it can’t move or sometimes they would even in olden days break the leg so that the sheep could not wander off. Was that done in anger? No. Was it done in hate? No. It was done in love because they love the sheep and they don’t want it to die.

And sometimes God might put a limp in you to keep you from wandering off. That’s not punishment, that’s discipline. Punishment, penalty for the past motivated by anger. Discipline, training for the future motivated by love. Now why is that important for you to know the difference? Because when something goes wrong in your life, sometimes you’re going to be tempted to think this thought, God is getting even with me right now. God is punishing me for something I did in the past and it’s a secret.

You’re even a Christian, you’ve given your life to Christ, you’ve confessed your sins, you’ve been baptized, you’re active in the church, and you think God is angry with me now, he’s punishing me for this problem. Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong. I want you to listen very closely. God never, never, never punishes his children. He disciplines them, but he doesn’t punish them. God never punishes those who have put their trust in Jesus Christ for salvation.

Why doesn’t he punish me? Because you obviously keep sinning, you’re sinning, he doesn’t punish you, he doesn’t make you pay for your past. Why? Because it was already paid for 2,000 years ago. Jesus Christ paid for the sins you haven’t committed yet. And the Bible says all of the punishment for your sins was paid for on the cross. If God now punished you for your sins, that’s double punishment. It means Jesus' punishment on the cross was not enough, and of course it was enough.

All the guilt, all the regret, all the shame, all the penalty for your sin was paid for by Jesus. So Jesus is not going to punish you for something that his son already took. He disciplines, but he’s not going to punish you. On Good Friday, Jesus Christ took all your punishment. Look up here on the screen, Isaiah 53 verse 5 says this, "He was crushed for the sins we did, and the punishment we deserved was given to him. So, now we’re healed because of his wounds."

You say, wait a minute, I’m not ever going to be punished for my sins? Not if you’ve trusted Christ for your salvation. I’m not ever going to be judged for those sins? Not if you’ve trusted Christ for your salvation because he took the punishment, he took the judgment. And so don’t you ever again say God’s getting even with me, because that means he was saying that what Jesus did for you was not enough. God’s not going to let the punishment of your sin go on the cross and then put it on you too. It’s already been paid for.

You say, I get to go scot-free? Yep. Well, that’s not fair. Who said it was fair? It’s called grace. Grace is when God gives you what you need, not what you deserve. We talked about that on Good Friday. So God never punishes us for our sins if we have trusted Christ who took that punishment. Now he does discipline. Look at the next verse, Psalm 119, verse 71, David says, "It was good for me to be afflicted so that I might learn your decrees."

Notice, this is a problem that’s come in this life for the purpose of education, not condemnation. The Bible says there’s no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, it’s already been forgiven. But there is education that I might learn. It was good for me to be afflicted. What’s an affliction? Well, there can be many. There can be an emotional affliction in your heart, it could be a relational affliction in your relationships, it could be a physical affliction in your body, you can get sick. This is not punishment.

And David looking back on it goes, hey it was a good thing that I actually was disciplined because I learned your statutes. Now the only way you’re going to learn the statutes is when you stop asking why is this happening to me and start asking what do you want me to learn? No matter what happens in your life, stop asking why, you’re not going to know why on this side of death for most things that happen in your life. Instead you should be saying what do you want me to learn, God?

David says it was good for me to go through this trial, this trouble, this suffering, this difficulty, this affliction. I can even thank God because I know God is a good God even when things are bad in my life because I learned some things I would have never learned any other way. You know that there are some things you only learn through pain. God whispers to us in our pleasure, God shouts to us in our pain. Pain is God’s megaphone, pain is the way God gets your attention.

So he says it was good for me. Now, go back to that verse that we just looked at, Psalm 119, verse 67, he says this, "I used to wander off until you, Lord, disciplined me." And he says, "But now I closely follow your word." That’s a good thing. "You are good and you only do good, so train me in your principles." Now, this verse is very deep here, it gives us several principles. First, how do I keep from wandering off?

You know I have a tendency to go off the reservation, I have a tendency to go off the rails, I have a tendency to do the wrong thing. How do I keep from wandering off into preventable problems? You do realize that most of the problems in your life you don’t have to have. And you are the source of the preventable problems, most of them. And if you were trained in God’s principles, you could avoid them. What does it mean to be trained in God’s principles? It means to learn to be wise.

Wisdom is being trained in God’s principles. Where are the principles? They’re all in this book. And the more you understand God’s principles, the wiser you’ll be. The wiser you’ll be, the fewer problems you bring on yourself because when I’m not wise, I make dumb decisions and then I make the problem worse rather than better. So if you want fewer problems, get wisdom. How do I get wisdom? Learn God’s principles. How do I get trained in God’s principles?

Well, he says there in the verse, "I closely follow the word." You need to spend more time in this book. The more time you spend in this book, the wiser you become because you know God’s principles. The wiser you become, the fewer problems you make for yourself. That is how God wants it to be. Your life gets easier the wiser you get because you’re not bringing all these problems on yourself. How many times has somebody said something to you and you said the wrong thing and made it worse because you weren’t wise in that moment?

And so God says I stop wandering by being trained in this principle. I get trained in God’s principles by closely following the word. How do I closely follow the word? Well, welcome to Saddleback Church. We’ve got hundreds of ways to help you get closer following God’s word. First thing you need to do is have a daily quiet time. That means you take 5, 10, 15 minutes, as you get more mature 20 minutes, 30 minutes, and you read the Bible for a little bit and you talk to God in prayer and you write down some thoughts and you prioritize your life and you pray about it to God.

That’s called a quiet time. We have an entire class that teaches you how to do that, it’s called Class 201. If you forgotten that, you took Class 201 before, go back to that class, discovering the habits for spiritual growth and learn how to have a quiet time so you can become wise. The more time you spend in this book, the wisdom comes from the word. If you spend three, four, five hours a day watching TV and you spend zero time reading the Bible, are you going to become wise? No.

Why is it that we spend more time listening to and reading something we don’t believe than something we do? Why do you spend more time reading magazines that you know have a lot of false stuff in it, newspapers, listening to talk radio that you know has a lot of dumb stuff in it, when the stuff you know is true, God’s word, you don’t spend any time in it at all? So, have a quiet time. You should maybe subscribe to Drive-Time Devotions. Pastor Tom systematically takes us through the Bible, one book at a time, in nice bite-sized daily bits.

You can go through the whole Bible just listening to Drive-Time Devotions with Tom. You should subscribe to Daily Hope. That’s my little, there’s a short version of it on an email. About a million people get Daily Hope every day. If you’re not reading that you should be, it gives you input into the word. And then as I always say, get in a small group. We have thousands, over 8,000 small groups in this church. Get in the word every day and get in a Bible study.

Saddleback is committed to helping you get in the word so you become wise, so you make better choices, so life becomes easier, so you have fewer problems that you bring on yourself. That’s what the Good Shepherd wants in your life. All right, number four, let’s look at this. Number one he says if I bring Jesus my hurt, he shows me compassion. If I choose to follow him, he’s going to lead me in the right direction. If I get confused and wander off, he’s going to find me and bring me back.

And here's the fourth one. If I fall or if I fail, you’re going to do both, if I fail or fall, Jesus rescues and recovers me.

Hey, if you’re looking for daily encouragement from God’s word, I’d like to invite you to download the Daily Hope app. It’s designed to help you grow in your faith every day. It has easy access to devotionals, audio messages you can listen to anywhere, and video teaching right at your fingertips. You can even search for topics that matter to you and set a daily reminder so you never miss time with God. Just search Daily Hope in the Apple App Store or Google Play and I hope it’s a real blessing to you. 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.