Speaker 1: Hello, everybody. This is Pastor Rick's Daily Hope with Rick Warren.
Speaker 1: I'm really glad you're here today. We're continuing our series
Speaker 1: from Psalm twenty three called living in the Goodness of God.
Speaker 1: It's all about how God's goodness meets you right where
Speaker 1: you are and brings hope even in difficult seasons. And
Speaker 1: now part two of a message called how Jesus treats
Speaker 1: his sheep.
Speaker 2: Now number three, what about when he's leading me? What
Speaker 2: if I get confused when he's leading me through life?
Speaker 2: And what if I wander off? Well, that's the third
Speaker 2: thing we learned, is that if I get confused and
Speaker 2: I wander off, Jesus finds and brings me back. He
Speaker 2: finds me and he brings me back. Now we're all
Speaker 2: going to wander and Jesus had some specific things to
Speaker 2: say about this. In Matthew chapter eighteen, verse twelve. He says,
Speaker 2: if a shepherd, this is Jesus talking. If a shepherd
Speaker 2: has a hundred sheep and one wanders away and is lost,
Speaker 2: won't he leave the ninety nine safe sheep to go
Speaker 2: search for the lost one?
Speaker 3: Yes? Why?
Speaker 2: Because every sheep matters. You matter to God. You matter
Speaker 2: to God. He says, if I've got a one hundred sheep,
Speaker 2: ninety nine of them are saved and one of them's lost,
Speaker 2: I'm going after the unsaved one. I'm going after the
Speaker 2: lost one. That, by the way, is the heartbeat of
Speaker 2: saddle Back Church. It's why we never stopped growing. Last weekend,
Speaker 2: you heard we had over seventy one thousand people at
Speaker 2: Saddleback Church in all of our campuses. And yet we're
Speaker 2: not going to stop growing. Why not because we need
Speaker 2: more people.
Speaker 3: We don't.
Speaker 2: My favorite sized church was three hundred people. Really it
Speaker 2: was because I could know everybody, every kid, every cat,
Speaker 2: every dog. Not to pay my salary, and I go
Speaker 2: play golf three times a week, except I hate golf.
Speaker 3: I love that because I knew everybody.
Speaker 2: The fact there's the bigger church that gets, the more headaches,
Speaker 2: the more problems, the more stressed. Why do we do this?
Speaker 2: We do it because Jesus says, if there's one person
Speaker 2: out there who still doesn't know me, we're going after them.
Speaker 2: We don't grow for our benefit. We grow because people
Speaker 2: need the Lord. And as long as there's one person
Speaker 2: still out there who hasn't heard the good news of Jesus,
Speaker 2: we're going to leave the ninety nine saved sheep and
Speaker 2: go after the one.
Speaker 3: Why because that's what Jesus did.
Speaker 2: You see, it takes unselfish people to grow a church
Speaker 2: to leave the ninety nine and go after the one.
Speaker 3: And yet that's what Jesus did.
Speaker 2: The church that doesn't want to grow is basically say
Speaker 2: into the world, go to hell. That's what they said.
Speaker 2: We're all saved, we're happy, we're going to Heaven. The
Speaker 2: rest of you can go to hell. It takes unselfish
Speaker 2: people to be like Jesus to say we're going to
Speaker 2: keep reaching out. There's still one more who needs the Lord.
Speaker 2: We're still one more who needs the Lord. So if
Speaker 2: there's somebody out there confused and wandering, Jesus says, I'm
Speaker 2: going after him. We're going to bring him back. This
Speaker 2: is the reason Jesus came to Earth. Look at the
Speaker 2: next verse, Luke Ate Luke nineteen, verse ten. Jesus said,
Speaker 2: I came to seek and to save those who were lost.
Speaker 3: That's why Jesus came to earth.
Speaker 2: God came to earth in human form to seek and
Speaker 2: save the lost. He's on a rescue mission, a search
Speaker 2: and rescue mission. Now this follow the logic on this.
Speaker 2: If we weren't lost, Jesus wouldn't have needed to come.
Speaker 2: So it clearly implies we're lost without God. If you
Speaker 2: could get to heaven simply on being kind of a
Speaker 2: nice person and you have more good works out balancing
Speaker 2: all your bad works, if that's how you could get
Speaker 2: to heaven, then Jesus dying on the cross was a
Speaker 2: total waste of time. Believe me, If there was any
Speaker 2: other way for you to get into Heaven except by
Speaker 2: Jesus Christ, God coming and living a perfect life, dying
Speaker 2: for your sins because he didn't have any, don't you
Speaker 2: think God would have used it. Don't you think God
Speaker 2: would have chosen an easier way to gain your salvation if.
Speaker 3: It was possible. There was no other way, And.
Speaker 2: Jesus says I came to seek and save that which
Speaker 2: is lost, which means the world is lost. Everybody is
Speaker 2: not going to heaven. If they were, Jesus didn't need
Speaker 2: to come to earth. Let me say it again. If
Speaker 2: everybody was automatically going to heaven, Jesus did not need
Speaker 2: to die on the cross. That was a big, total
Speaker 2: waste of suffering and sorrow and sadness and pain. But
Speaker 2: he said I came to seek and save that which
Speaker 2: is lost. Look up here on the screen. The Bible says,
Speaker 2: we are lost without God Isaiah fifty three, verse six.
Speaker 2: We're all like sheep who've wandered off and gotten lost.
Speaker 2: And we've all done our own thing, and we've all
Speaker 2: gone our own way. And God has piled all our sins,
Speaker 2: everything we've done wrong on him. Talking about what Jesus
Speaker 2: did on the cross. Now he says, we're all like sheep.
Speaker 2: It's human nature to wander, it's shuman nature to get lost.
Speaker 2: Let me ask those how many of your parents got
Speaker 2: your hands?
Speaker 3: Your parents? All right? Question?
Speaker 2: Is it easy or is it hard for a little
Speaker 2: child to wander in a crowd and get lost?
Speaker 3: Kind of obvious.
Speaker 2: Have you ever had to teach your child how to
Speaker 2: get lost? No, you never had the class. Let me
Speaker 2: tell you how to get lost in.
Speaker 3: Them all, son, But they already know how to do it.
Speaker 2: Naturally, by our nature, we naturally wander. We wander away
Speaker 2: from our parents, we wander away from God, We wander
Speaker 2: away in the situations we shouldn't.
Speaker 3: Be in, and we get lost.
Speaker 2: And the Bible says allus in and comes short of
Speaker 2: glory God, We're we're all lost. So God says, I'll
Speaker 2: be the good shepherd, and I'm going to come and
Speaker 2: seek and save. I'm gonna find you. It's in our nature.
Speaker 2: We naturally wander, we naturally get lost in life. You
Speaker 2: may be feeling lost right now. You're going to I
Speaker 2: have the slightest idea what I'm supposed to do next
Speaker 2: with my life? Feel a little lost. You're lost over
Speaker 2: what to do with your finances. You feel a little
Speaker 2: lost over what should I.
Speaker 3: Do about my career? Do I stay here? Do I move? Sometimes?
Speaker 3: You don't know. Do I hold on? Do I let go?
Speaker 3: That's a hard one to discover. What do I do now?
Speaker 2: Do I keep going? Do I give up? Do I
Speaker 2: try something different? You feel a little confused. You're feeling
Speaker 2: confused about things in your life. That's called being lost, friend,
Speaker 2: because you don't have a guide who's walking through you
Speaker 2: with it or you you've got the guide, but you're
Speaker 2: not depending on him, And I wonder what should I
Speaker 2: do now?
Speaker 3: Now?
Speaker 2: Any parent who's lost a child in a mall or
Speaker 2: got a campground something like that, let me ask you
Speaker 2: this question when your child wanders off and your heart
Speaker 2: is in your throat and you're searching for minutes or
Speaker 2: maybe even an hour trying to find them, and it's
Speaker 2: getting worse and worse. When you actually find them, you're
Speaker 2: adrenaline settles, you calm down a little bit.
Speaker 3: The fear subsides.
Speaker 2: Do you then just go, that's no big deal and
Speaker 2: you just brush it off. Oh No, if your child
Speaker 2: has been lost and then now they're found, you don't
Speaker 2: just brush it off and treat it like it's no
Speaker 2: big deal. Because you love them deeply. You have the talk.
Speaker 2: You can't run away from daddy like that, and it's
Speaker 2: not it's serious, it's dangerous. You need to be near mommy.
Speaker 2: You need to hold my hand. We're in the rear
Speaker 2: crowd because this is not good. And you correct your child.
Speaker 2: Now you're correcting your child out of hate. No, you're
Speaker 2: correcting your child because you love them. You love them,
Speaker 2: You love them, and so you correct them.
Speaker 3: You love them.
Speaker 2: Because you you discipline them because you love them. An
Speaker 2: undisciplined child is an unloved child. A child that can
Speaker 2: get its way and do everything it wants is not
Speaker 2: a love child. It's an unloved child. Because kids need discipline,
Speaker 2: we need direction, we need training. Well, let's just take
Speaker 2: this now to your relationship with God. What does God
Speaker 2: do when you wander off? He disciplines you, He has
Speaker 2: the talk, he corrects you. Look at the next verse
Speaker 2: Psalm one nineteen. David says, I used to wander off
Speaker 2: until you Lord disciplined me. And he said, you know,
Speaker 2: I had a tendency to just walk off, leave God,
Speaker 2: leave everything else that was valuable. I used to wander
Speaker 2: off to the Lord discipline me. But now I closely
Speaker 2: follow your word. You are good talking about God. God
Speaker 2: is a good God and you only do good. So
Speaker 2: even when He disciplines you, it's for a good purpose.
Speaker 2: So train me in your principles. Now I want to
Speaker 2: clear this up for you, so I want you to
Speaker 2: write this down. Discipline is not punishment. Please write that down.
Speaker 2: Discipline is not the same thing as punishment. Let me
Speaker 2: explain the difference. Punishment is when you pay a penalty
Speaker 2: for the past, and it's usually done in anger. You're
Speaker 2: punished in anger for something you did in the past.
Speaker 2: Discipline is not punishment. Discipline is training and correction for
Speaker 2: the future, and it's.
Speaker 3: Always done in love.
Speaker 2: You're not angry, but you're doing it out of love
Speaker 2: because you want the person, the child, or in this case,
Speaker 2: the sheep to go in the right direction. You know,
Speaker 2: sometimes if a shepherd has a sheep that is so
Speaker 2: prone to wander, it's going to wander and kill itself.
Speaker 2: And if they live in a very dangerous place where
Speaker 2: there's like a mountain lions, they will often wrap and
Speaker 2: hold a sheep's leg so it can't move, or sometimes
Speaker 2: they will in olden days break the leg so that
Speaker 2: the sheep could not wander off.
Speaker 3: Was that done in anger? No? Was it done in hate? No?
Speaker 2: It was done in love, because the love of sheep,
Speaker 2: and they don't want to die. And sometimes God might
Speaker 2: put a limp in you to keep you from wandering off.
Speaker 2: That's not punishment, that's discipline. Punishment penalty for the past,
Speaker 2: motivated by anger, disciplined training for the future motivated by love.
Speaker 3: Now why is that important?
Speaker 2: You know the difference because when something goes wrong in
Speaker 2: your life, sometimes you're going to be tempted to think
Speaker 2: this thought, and it's not a thought from God. God
Speaker 2: is getting even with me right now. God is punishing
Speaker 2: me for something I did in the past.
Speaker 3: And it's a secret. You're even a Christian.
Speaker 2: You've given your life to Christ, you've confessed your sins,
Speaker 2: you've been baptized, you know, you're active in the church.
Speaker 2: And you say, God is angry with me. Now he's
Speaker 2: punishing me for this problem. Wrong wrong, wrong wrong wrong
Speaker 2: wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong.
Speaker 3: I want you to listen very closely.
Speaker 2: God never, never, never punishes his children. He disciplines them,
Speaker 2: but he doesn't punish them. God never punishes those who
Speaker 2: have put their trust in Jesus Christ for salvation, never never, never,
Speaker 2: never never. Why doesn't he punish me? Because you obviously
Speaker 2: keep sinning. You're sinning. He doesn't punish you. He doesn't
Speaker 2: make you pay for your past. Why because it was
Speaker 2: already paid for two thousand years ago. Jesus Christ paid
Speaker 2: for the sins you haven't committed yet. And all the
Speaker 2: Bible says all of the punishment for your sins was
Speaker 2: paid for on the cross. If God now punished you
Speaker 2: for your sins, that's double punishment. It means Jesus punishment too.
Speaker 2: Took it on the cross was not enough, And of course.
Speaker 3: It was enough.
Speaker 2: All the guilt, all the regret, all the shame, all
Speaker 2: the penalty for your sin was paid for by Jesus.
Speaker 2: So Jesus is not going to punish you for something
Speaker 2: that his son already took. He disciplines, but he's not
Speaker 2: going to punish you on Good Friday. Jesus Christ took
Speaker 2: all your punishment. Look up here on the screen. Isaiah
Speaker 2: fifty five, verse fifty three, Verse five says this, he
Speaker 2: Jesus was crushed for the sins we did, and the
Speaker 2: punishment we deserved was given to him. So now we're
Speaker 2: healed because of his wounds. He said, wait a minute,
Speaker 2: I'm not ever going to be punished for my sins,
Speaker 2: not if you've trusted Christ for your salvation. I'm not
Speaker 2: ever going to be judged for those sins, not if
Speaker 2: you've trusted Christ for your salvation. Because he took the punishment,
Speaker 2: He took the judgment. So don't ever if you are
Speaker 2: a Christian, if you know the Lord, don't you ever
Speaker 2: ever against that. God's getting even me, because that means
Speaker 2: he was saying that what Jesus did for you was
Speaker 2: not enough. God's not gonna let the punishment of your
Speaker 2: sins go on Christ and then put it on you too.
Speaker 2: It's already been paid for. You say, I get to
Speaker 2: go Scott free. Yep, Well that's not fair. Who said
Speaker 2: is fair. It's called grace. Grace is when God gives
Speaker 2: you what you need, not what you deserve. We talked
Speaker 2: about that on Good Friday. So God never punishes us
Speaker 2: for our sins. If we have trusted Christ, who took
Speaker 2: that punishment, Now he does discipline. Look at the next verse,
Speaker 2: Palm one nineteen. Up here on what's on the screen,
Speaker 2: verse seventy one, David says, it was good for me
Speaker 2: to be afflicted so that I might learn your decrees. Notice,
Speaker 2: this is a problem that's coming. This is life for
Speaker 2: the purpose of education, not condemnation. The Bible says there's
Speaker 2: no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. It's
Speaker 2: already been forgiven. But there is education that I might learn.
Speaker 2: It was good for me to be afflicted. What's an affliction, Well,
Speaker 2: there can be many. There can be an emotional affliction
Speaker 2: in your heart. It could be relational affliction in your relationships.
Speaker 2: It could be a physical affliction in your body. You
Speaker 2: can get sick. This is not punishment, and David, looking
Speaker 2: back on and goes, hey, it was a good thing
Speaker 2: that I actually was disciplined because I learned your statues. Now,
Speaker 2: the only way you're going to learn the statutes is
Speaker 2: when you stop asking why is this happening to me
Speaker 2: and start asking what do you want me to learn?
Speaker 2: No matter what happens you in your life, stop asking why.
Speaker 2: You're not going to know why on this side of
Speaker 2: death for most things that happen in your life. Instead,
Speaker 2: you should be saying what do you want me to learn?
Speaker 3: God?
Speaker 2: And David says, it was good for me to go
Speaker 2: through this trial, this trouble, this suffering, this difficulty, this affliction.
Speaker 2: I can even thank God because I know God is
Speaker 2: a good God even when things are bad in my life,
Speaker 2: because I learned some things I would have never learned
Speaker 2: any other way. You know that there's some things you
Speaker 2: only learn through pain. God whispers to us, and our pleasure,
Speaker 2: God shouts to us in our pain. Pain is God's megaphone.
Speaker 2: Pain is the way God gets your attention. So he
Speaker 2: says it was good for me. Now go back to
Speaker 2: that verse that we just looked at, Psalone nineteen.
Speaker 3: There on your outline.
Speaker 2: He says, this, I used to wander off until you
Speaker 2: Lord discipline me. Okay, And he says, but now I
Speaker 2: closely follow your word. That's a good thing. You are
Speaker 2: good and you only do good. So train me in
Speaker 2: your principles. Now this verse is very deep here. It
Speaker 2: gives us several principles. First, how do I keep from
Speaker 2: wandering off? You have a tendency to go off the reservation.
Speaker 2: I tendency to go off the rails, have a tendency
Speaker 2: to go out of bounds. I have a tendency to
Speaker 2: do the wrong thing. How do I keep from wandering off?
Speaker 2: In to prevent problems? You do realize that most of
Speaker 2: the problems in your life you don't have to have,
Speaker 2: and you are the source of the preventable problems, most
Speaker 2: of them, and if you were trained in God's principles,
Speaker 2: you could avoid them. What does it mean to be
Speaker 2: trained in God's principles? He said, you train me in
Speaker 2: God's principles. And what does it mean? It means to
Speaker 2: learn to be wise? Wisdom is being trained in God's principles.
Speaker 2: Where are the principles? They're all in this book. And
Speaker 2: the more you understand God's principles, the wiser you'll be.
Speaker 2: The wiser you'll be the fewer problems you bring on yourself.
Speaker 2: Because when I'm not wise, I make dumb decisions and
Speaker 2: then I make the problem worse rather than better. So
Speaker 2: if you want fewer problems, get wisdom. How do I
Speaker 2: get wisdom? Learn God's principles? How do I get trained
Speaker 2: in God's principles? He says, they're in the verse. I
Speaker 2: closely follow your word. You need to spend more time
Speaker 2: in this book. The more time you spent in this book,
Speaker 2: the wiser you become because you know God's principles. The
Speaker 2: wiser you become, the fewer problems you make for yourself.
Speaker 2: That is how God wants it to be. Your life
Speaker 2: gets easier the wiser you get because you're not bringing
Speaker 2: all these problems on yourself. How many times have somebody
Speaker 2: said something to you and you said the wrong thing and.
Speaker 3: Made it worse because you weren't wise in that moment?
Speaker 2: And so God says, I stop wandering by being trained
Speaker 2: in the principles. I get trained in God's principles by
Speaker 2: closely following the word. Okay, how do I closely follow
Speaker 2: the word? Well, welcome the saddle back church. Okay, we've
Speaker 2: got hundreds of ways to help you get closer following
Speaker 2: God's word. First thing you need to do is you
Speaker 2: have a daily quiet time. That means you take five, ten,
Speaker 2: fifteen minutes, as you get more mature, twenty minutes, thirty minutes,
Speaker 2: and you read the Bible for a little bit, and
Speaker 2: you talk to God in prayer, and you write down
Speaker 2: some thoughts, and you prioritize your life and you pray
Speaker 2: about it to God. That's called the quiet time. We
Speaker 2: have an entire class that teaches you how to do this.
Speaker 2: It's called Class to one. And if you've forgotten that
Speaker 2: you took Class two on before, go back to that
Speaker 2: class discovering the habits for spiritual growth and learn how
Speaker 2: to have a quiet time.
Speaker 3: So you can become wise.
Speaker 2: The more times you spend in this book, the wisdom
Speaker 2: comes from the word. Now, if you spend three, four
Speaker 2: or five hours a day watching TV and you spend
Speaker 2: zero time reading the Bible, are you going to become wise?
Speaker 2: Why is it that we spend more time listening to
Speaker 2: and reading something we don't believe than something we do.
Speaker 2: Why do you spend more time reading magazines that you
Speaker 2: know have a lot of false stuff in it newspapers,
Speaker 2: listening to talk radio that you know has a lot
Speaker 2: of dumb stuff in it. When the stuff you know
Speaker 2: is true God's Word, you don't spend any time in
Speaker 2: it at all. So you have a quiet time. You
Speaker 2: should maybe subscribe to Drive Time Devotions. Pastor Tom systematically
Speaker 2: takes us through the Bible one book at a time,
Speaker 2: and in life bit sized, daily bits, you can go
Speaker 2: through the whole Bible just listening to Drive Time Devotions
Speaker 2: with Tom. You should subscribe to Daily Hope. That's my
Speaker 2: little you know that's on the radio, but it's also
Speaker 2: there's a short version of it on an email.
Speaker 3: About a million.
Speaker 2: People get Daily Hope every day. If you're not reading that,
Speaker 2: you should be. It gives you input into the Word.
Speaker 2: And then, as I always say, get in a small group.
Speaker 2: We have thousands, over eight thousand small groups in this church.
Speaker 2: Get in the Word every day, and get in a
Speaker 2: Bible study. There's just so many ways. Saddleback is committed
Speaker 2: to helping you get in the Word. So you become wise,
Speaker 2: so you make better choices, so life becomes easier, so
Speaker 2: you have fewer problems that you bring on yourself. That's
Speaker 2: what the good shepherd wants in your life.
Speaker 3: All right, number four. Okay, let's look at this. Number one.
Speaker 2: He says, if I bring Jesus my hurts, he shows
Speaker 2: me compassion. If I choose to follow him, he's going
Speaker 2: to lead me in the right direction that makes life simpler.
Speaker 2: Get a guide. If I get confused and wander off,
Speaker 2: he's going to find me and bring me back. He
Speaker 2: seeks and saves, and he says, here's the fourth one.
Speaker 3: If I fall or if I fail, you're going to
Speaker 3: do both.
Speaker 2: If I fail or fall, Jesus rescues and recovers me.
Speaker 1: Hey, if you're looking for daily encouragement from God's word,
Speaker 1: I'd like to invite you to download the Daily Hope app.
Speaker 1: It's designed to help you grow in your faith every day.
Speaker 1: It has easy access to devotionals, audio messages you can
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Speaker 1: You can even search for topics that matter to you
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Speaker 1: Be sure to join us next time as we look
Speaker 1: into God's word.
Speaker 3: For our daily hope.
Speaker 1: This program is sponsored by Pastorick's Daily Hope and your
Speaker 1: generous financial support.