Hello, and welcome to Daily Hope with Pastor Rick Warren. You've joined us
during our Easter series, and we're so glad you're here. As Rick continues
to share the six major benefits that the resurrection of Christ brings to people who
choose to follow him. Okay, here's part one of a message called the
Mystery of God's Plan. Now, my favorite show on television is the show
Lost. Anybody's seen this show Lost? And I really like Lost because it's
a very complex mystery. But if you don't know the storyline with all of
the flashbacks and all of the flash forwards, if you tried to come into
this series in the middle of the series, you're lost. It makes no
sense unless you know what's going on. If I were to pull out a
novel, a mystery novel, and I were to turn two thirds through the
novel and just start reading a section to you, it may be a really
terrific novel, but if I'm reading two thirds through it, it would not
make sense to you at all. Now, that's the problem with Easter.
For a lot of people. They know that Jesus Christ died on the cross,
was buried in a tomb for three days, and on Easter Sunday he
rose again, and that's basically all they know. So they don't know the
rest of the story. They don't know the backstory, they don't know the
context, they don't know the background, and as a result, it doesn't
make sense. In other words, so what why did God send Jesus to
Earth? Why did Jesus have to die? What did he die for?
What's the significance of him coming back to life? And really does it have
any possible relationship to my life today? You've got to know the storyline in
this mystery. Actually, Easter is act three in a five act mystery.
It actually occurs in the Bible story through the Bible. And if you don't
know the first two thirds and you don't know basically the ending, then Jesus'
death and resurrection doesn't make that much sense. So here's what I want us
to do this Easter. I want to give you the bird's eye view.
I want to give you the panorama of history like maybe you've never seen it
before, from the beginning of the universe to the end of time, and
show you all five acts in God's plan for the universe and God's plan for
you we'll call this the mystery of history. And I want you to listen
today as if your life depended on it, because it does. So what
is the mystery of history? Well, let me tell you what the Bible
says in Ephesians chapter three. In the Bible, Paul has talked, and
he says, this God gave me the responsibility of bringing his grace to you,
and he let me understand the mystery of his plan through a revelation and
the mystery about Christ. Now, in past generations, this mystery was not
known by people. But now God's spirit has revealed his plan through his apostles
and prophets. And this mystery is that the good News, that's the Gospel.
Through the good News, people who are not Jews, Gentiles that's us,
may now share with the Jews in God's blessing. They belong in the
same family, the same body, and share the same promise that God made
in Christ Jesus. Now, the mystery of history is played out from beginning
of time to the end of time in five acts, and here they are.
Act one in the mystery of history goes back to the very beginning.
It starts this way, God made it all that's act one. God made
it all. The very first verse of the Bible starts this way in the
beginning, which is a good place to start, in the beginning God,
which is a good person to start with. In the beginning, God created
the heavens and the earth. God made the universe. Now most of us
don't have a problem with that, But have you ever thought about this question?
Why why did God go to all of the trouble to create a universe?
Why did it even make a universe? The Bible says he did it
for three reasons. Number one, he made it all to reveal his glory,
in other words, to show us what He's really like. God's glory
is his character, It's who he is. It is this nature. And
God made the universe to demonstrate, to show, to reveal what God is
really like. And there are a lot of things we can know about God
just by going out in nature. For instance, we know that God likes
variety. Have you noticed this. You go out there and there there's not
one kind of flower. There are millions of kinds of flowers. There's not
one kind of plant, there are millions of kinds of plants. God loves
variety. Look down your row. There's not another person like you in the
universe. God never makes a clone, never makes a copy. It's all
unique. Every snowflake is different. God overdoses on variety. We know that
God is creative as we look at his creation. We know that God is
organized how things fit together. In fact, the more we study the universe
and the more we study ecology, we know that every single thing has a
place and a connection and has a value as a purpose. We know that
God is powerful when we look at, for instance, the power of waterfalls,
or the power of volcanoes, or the winds and all these kind of
things. We know that God likes beauty and all of the colors and all
of the beauty that we see in creation, in sunrises and sunsets. And
the more science discovers about the universe, the better we understand what God is
really like. And we go, oh, that's the way God did that,
and that's why God fit that together, things that we didn't even know.
One hundred years ago. Albert Einstein said, science is thinking God's thoughts
after him. And the more we understand about nature and the universe, the
more we better we understand what God is really like. It reveals his glory.
The Bible says, the heavens declare the glory of God. In fact,
the Bible says this there on your outline. Everything comes from God.
Everything exists by his power when it exists without God, and everything is intended
for his glory. History is the story of God's glory. History is his
story. It's not your story. It's not my story. We're just a
little tiny part of it. History is his story. God started it,
God sustains it, and God will end it when he chooses. It's all
about God, and so God created the universe first to reveal what he's really
like his glory. Second, God created it all in order to love it,
to express his love. God made everything in the universe just to love,
and he loves it all. He loves every planet, he loves every
star, he loves every plant, he loves every animal. And because he
created you, he loves you. The Bible tells us that God is love,
not that God has love. That God is love. He is the
essence of love. It is his nature, it is his character. All
love comes from God. The only reason you were able to love somebody,
and the only reason you were able to receive love is because the God who
created you is love. And if God hadn't been a loving God, there
would be no love in the universe. All love comes from God, and
your ability to give and receive it comes because you were made in the image
of God. And everything God does he does to express his love. The
Bible says this in Psalm one five. His compassion, that's his love is
intertwined in everything he does. Everything God does, he does it out of
love. Now, God has never made anything he doesn't love, including you.
God has never made anything he doesn't have a purpose for, including you.
God has never made a person that he does not want in his family
forever. That's part of his love. And the whole reason you're alive is
that God made you to love you. If somebody ever asked you, why
am I alive? The reason why you are alive, the reason why your
heart is beating right now, the reason why you're taking your next breath.
God made you just to love you. And if God had not wanted to
love you, believe me, you would not take your next breath. You
would not exist if God hadn't created you as an object of his love.
Now doesn't mean you always do everything right. You don't. When my kids
were grown up, they didn't always do everything that's right, But I still
loved them because I made them. I created them, and God created you.
And God loves you on your good days and on your bad days.
He loves you when you feel it and when you don't feel it. God
loves you when you think you deserve it and when you think you don't deserve
it. Because God's love is not based on what you do. God's love
is based on who he is. God is love. God's love for you
is unconditional. That means you can't make God stop loving you. You can
try, but you will fail because God's love isn't based on your performance.
Everybody else loves you conditionally. If you do this, then I will love
you. If you don't do this, then I won't love you. But
God's love for you is unconditional. He will never, never, never stop
loving you because his love is based on who he is. And God says,
I created it all first to show what I'm really like. Second in
order to love it. God made you to love you. Now. There's
a third reason God created it all. And you may have never heard this.
God wanted a family. He created it to form a family. God
wanted children, that's what the Bible tells us, and that's the reason he
created the entire universe. God wanted children to show his love too, to
express his love too, and to share his love with And we were created
to become part of the family of God. The Bible says this in James
Chapter one. In his Goodness, God chose to make us his own children.
That's the family of God. He wanted children by giving us his true
word, and we, out of all creation, became his choice possession.
Now, that verse in the Bible tells us two astounding facts. First,
you matter more to God than on everything else He's created. The Bible says,
we are his choice creation. God says, yes. I love all
the birds, I love all the fish, I love all the animals,
I love all the stars. I love everything I've made. I love all
the plants. But I love people the most because I wanted children and I
wanted them to be like me. I created them in my image with the
ability to love me back in ways that can't love me back and birds can't
love me back. I gave them the ability to love me, and I
love them more than anything else I've created in all of creation. The second
thing it teaches is that God created it all so you could exist. Did
you know that? Many times in the Bible God says that before he created
the universe, he thought you up. There are verses in the Bible says
God had you in his mind and knew he was going to create a family,
and that's why he decided to create the universe. In fact, God
created the entire universe just so he could create this galaxy, just so he
could create this planet which would sustain human life, just so it would operate
on an axis that the Earth is tilted in a way that if we moved
one degree this way, we would burn up, and if we moved one
degree that way, we would freeze up. And were it just the right
axis so that it would sustain human life, just so we could create the
human race, just so we could create you, just so He could love
you. Now, if you ever let that sink into your mind, and
you don't just get that intellectually, but you let it touch your emotions,
it will radically transform your life. That's how much God loves you. No
man will ever love you like God does. No woman will ever love you
like God does. God's love is lasting and everlasting, and he created the
whole universe in order to create a family that he could love. Now,
God wasn't lonely. God didn't need us. He was like, oh,
I'm so lonely. He just wanted us. And if you ever understand how
much God, deeply, desperately, passionately he loves you, you will never
again have a problem with low inferiority, low insecurity, low self esteem,
because you realize that you are the choice his creation, and He made it
all to give you an opportunity to be in his family. Paul says this
in the Bible. He says, when I think of the wisdom and the
scope of God's plan, I fall down on my knees. In other words,
ingratitude to the Father of all the great family of God. There's that
phrase. God wanted a family. And some of them are already in Heaven
in the family, and some of them are still down here on earth.
It is so important that you understand all five acts of the Mystery of history,
because until you understand God's purpose for the universe, you'll never understand God's
purpose for your life. And you got to have meaning. So Act one
in the Mystery of History is God made it all. Act two in the
Mystery of History is Adam messed it up. I had a little help from
me, but Adam messed it up. God, when he created this Earth,
created a perfect planet, and he put Adam and Eve, the first
man and woman, in a perfect environment. They called it the Garden of
Eden, and everything was great. No sorrow, no suffering, no sickness,
no sadness. Think about this, Adam and Eve, perfect tropical paradise,
no in laws, no distractions, a perfect wife, and no clothes.
What a God. And he says, enjoy it all, kids,
I made it all for you. It was all for fun, and I
enjoy watching you enjoy what I've given you. But here's the thing. God
wanted his children to be able to love him back. And it's not real
love if you're forced to love. Love is only love is if you have
a choice. If you can choose not to love, then when you choose
to love, that's legitimate love. Now, God loved his kids, but
he wanted us to love him back voluntarily, so he had to create a
choice. He had to give us a choice. Otherwise there's no choice.
God's the only one around. Then it's like Adams saying to Eve, you're
the only woman on earth for me. Okay, I didn't have much of
a choice there. But God said, okay, I'm going to give you
a choice. And so he says, out of all creation, enjoy it,
kids, have fun with it, enjoy it. But I'm going to
put one tree right in the middle, and this is the one that's off
limits. And I'm just putting it there for you to have a choice,
so you can show that you choose to obey me, choose to love me,
choose to honor me. Everything else is free. Now, God could
have said ninety percent of the world's off limits, but he didn't. He
could have said fifty percent of the guard the ed is off limits. He
did the minimum possible. Just one little bitty thing is off limits. And
what does Adam do? Head right for that tree? Okay? And then
he sinned, He disobeys God, and he takes it like a man.
He blames his wife. And ever since then, men and women have been
blaming each other ever since. Now, the effect of that sin, that
disobedience, was catastrophic on the earth, and we have been bearing the brunt
of that catastrophe now for thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands of years,
and that did three things to the Earth. First, it brought death onto
the planet. It brought death onto the planet. The Bible says this sin
came into the world because of what one man did. That's Adam's rebellion against
God. And with sin came death, the virus of sin, and infected
the entire world. It'd be like taking a little vial of Ebola virus and
dropping it into the water system here in the Saddleback Valley. Nobody'd be drinking
the water anymore because it would infect the entire system. And sin brought with
it death. Why do you realize that before this happened, before Idam disobeyed
God, there was no death on the planet. God said, it's perfect,
it's environment. There's no reason for you to die, and need to
take you to a perfect place called heaven because Earth is perfect, and so
you can just enjoy it there, have fun, have kids. It's going
to be great, and we'll have a great relationship, and I'll have my
children. But the moment Sin entered the world, it ruined everything, and
all of a sudden. We have an imperfect world, and God did not
want us living in imperfection for eternity. Thank God. So he said,
I'm going to allow death because I don't want my kids living in an imperfect
planet with evil and destruction and everything for all of eternity. I will take
them to a new place that will be perfect. Hey, thanks for listening
to Pastor Rick's Daily Hope. Pastor Rick has created a beautifully illustrated book called
Journey with Jesus, and this book is stunning. It's filled with beautiful photographs,
colored mosaics that depict the sacrificial journey Jesus made to save us. Here's
Pastor Rick to tell you more. Every year, Christians from all over the
world remember the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ by traveling to Jerusalem, where
they walk the path that Jesus took on the way to the Cross. That
path is called the Via dol Rosa, which literally means the way of suffering.
Now, since you may not be able to ever travel to Jerusalem,
I want to suggest a way for you to celebrate and reflect on and pray
about what Jesus did for you on the Cross. So I've created a brand
new, one of a kind resource that will take you through the fifteen stops
that the Bible tells us Jesus took on the road to Calvary and his death
on the Cross. Now we're calling this resource Journey with Jesus. Journey with
Jesus is a deluxe hardcover gift edition book that's illustrated with really beautiful photos,
high quality glossy photos of mosaic tile artwork that reflect each of the stops that
Jesus made on his journey to the Cross. You're not ever going to forget
this gift. It's a great gift book to keep and to study over and
over again, and it make a great gift for your family and your friends
too. All right, there's only three days left to get this great resource,
so don't wait. We'll send you a copy today. Just go to
pastorrig dot com or text the word Hope to eight hundred, six hundred five
thousand and four. That's pastorrig dot com. Or text the word Hope to
eight hundred six hundred five thousand and four. Thank you so much for your
support. You know your gift to Daily Hope helps share the hope of Christ
with people everywhere. We hope you'll 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.