Speaker 1: Hello, and thanks for joining us today on Pastor Rick's
Speaker 1: Daily Hope. This is the Bible teaching ministry of Rick Warren,
Speaker 1: and today we are continuing in a series called the
Speaker 1: Miracle of Mercy. Rick will show us how God's mercy
Speaker 1: can lift your guilt, heal your wounds, and transform the
Speaker 1: way you live. All right, we'll pick up where we
Speaker 1: left off with part two of a message called God's
Speaker 1: Mercy and My Failures.
Speaker 2: I just think the crisis that's going on. Jesus Christ
Speaker 2: has been arrested. He's back behind this wall, going through
Speaker 2: mock trials and being tortured. And I, Peter, I'm on
Speaker 2: the other side of the wall, out in the courtyard,
Speaker 2: wondering what's going on. And then all of a sudden,
Speaker 2: stranger comes up and says, hey, you're with that guy.
Speaker 2: And he says, no, no, no, no, I'm not. He's
Speaker 2: worried about what other people think. And now his anger
Speaker 2: comes out, and the Bible says this in verse seventy
Speaker 2: one of Matthew twenty six. Then Peter went out to
Speaker 2: the entrance of the courtyard, and there another woman saw
Speaker 2: him and said to those standing there, this man, this
Speaker 2: guy pointing at Peter. This man was with Jesus of Nazareth.
Speaker 2: Now again Peter denied it, and this time he swore, okay,
Speaker 2: now he's cussing. He swore an oath and said, I
Speaker 2: don't even know the men.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 2: But after a while, it says the men who had
Speaker 2: been standing there, evidently a bunch of people milling around
Speaker 2: just bystanders. The men who were standing there came over
Speaker 2: to Peter and said, we know that you are one
Speaker 2: of them. Don't you hate being called one of them?
Speaker 2: That's like the kiss of death at the office. You're
Speaker 2: one of them. We all want to be one of us.
Speaker 2: We all want to be one of the in crowd.
Speaker 2: And one of the reasons why you never talk about
Speaker 2: your faith to anybody else is because you don't want
Speaker 2: to be one of them. You want to be one
Speaker 2: of us, one of the guys, one of the boys,
Speaker 2: one of the girls. And he said, hey, we know
Speaker 2: you're one of them. Again, that's the fear of disapproval. Okay,
Speaker 2: Peter's getting up tight here. We know that you're one
Speaker 2: of them because your Galilean accent gives you away. Now,
Speaker 2: Jesus was from Galilee. The Twelve Disciples in his small group,
Speaker 2: we're all from Galilee. So the accent gave him away.
Speaker 2: Just like in America in the South, people from the
Speaker 2: south have a Southern accent, people from the north have
Speaker 2: a north East have a Northeastern accent. People in Midwest
Speaker 2: have Midwestern accent. Only Californians speak English perfectly, okay, the
Speaker 2: Canadians speak with a Canadian accent.
Speaker 3: And so he said, we understand. We know who you are.
Speaker 2: You're one of them because you have the Galilean accent.
Speaker 2: It gives you way, it says Peter. The Bible says,
Speaker 2: Peter lost his temper. I started cursing and swearing. I
Speaker 2: don't know the man, and immediately he heard the rooster crow. Now,
Speaker 2: swearing is always a sign of frustration. Swearing is always
Speaker 2: a sign of fear. When you get afraid, you go emotional,
Speaker 2: and you're not thinking rational, you're not thinking logical, you're
Speaker 2: not thinking reasonable, you're thinking emotional. And when people swear,
Speaker 2: it's because they've they've given up on their logic and
Speaker 2: they have to resort to emotion. He's not thinking, he's
Speaker 2: speaking without thinking. The Bible says this causes so many
Speaker 2: problems in our lives. James Chapter three, Verse five and six.
Speaker 2: The tongue is a small thing, but what enormous damage
Speaker 2: it can do?
Speaker 3: Everybody agree with that? Yeah? Oh yeah?
Speaker 2: And am I want to give an example of today,
Speaker 2: just today driving in the car to church. Okay, you
Speaker 2: said the wrong thing and it lit a fire. Okay,
Speaker 2: the tongue is small thing, but what enormous damage it
Speaker 2: can do. Just as a tiny spark can burn up
Speaker 2: a great forest, Your tongue, your tiny.
Speaker 3: Little petite tongue, is a.
Speaker 2: Flame of fire. That part of your body, This is
Speaker 2: God talking. That part of your body is full of wickedness,
Speaker 2: and it can poison everything else in your life.
Speaker 3: And we all know that's true.
Speaker 2: You've seen relationships poisoned, you've seen deals poisoned, you've seen
Speaker 2: future dreams poisoned, all because of a misplaced word. The
Speaker 2: Bible says, it is set on fire. Your tongue is
Speaker 2: set on fire by Hell itself, and it can turn
Speaker 2: our whole lives into a blazing flame of destruction and disaster.
Speaker 2: So we overestimate our strengths, We fear the disapproval of others,
Speaker 2: and we speak without thinking. Peter did all three, and
Speaker 2: he had the biggest failure of his lif and we
Speaker 2: do all three and we have failures in our life. Now,
Speaker 2: that's what Peter did wrong? What did he do right?
Speaker 2: What did he do right? Peter actually did three things right.
Speaker 2: Once he failed, he actually did several things right. And
Speaker 2: these are actually some of the steps to recovering from
Speaker 2: a financial failure, a marriage failure, relational failure, career failure,
Speaker 2: or any other failure in your life.
Speaker 3: What do you do?
Speaker 2: You do these three things? Number one, first thing you
Speaker 2: do grieve. You grieve. You grieve the failure. You don't
Speaker 2: minimize the failure. You don't pretend it didn't happen. You
Speaker 2: don't justify the failure. You don't rationalize the failure. You
Speaker 2: don't make excuses for the failure. You grieve it. You
Speaker 2: feel the pain. You don't brush it off, you don't
Speaker 2: downplay it. You feel the pain, and you don't rush
Speaker 2: to feel better. Now, listen, this is the principle of life.
Speaker 2: About to tell you to get past it, you gotta.
Speaker 3: Go through it.
Speaker 2: That's true in so many areas, but it's particularly true
Speaker 2: with failure. To get past your failure, that failure in
Speaker 2: your eye, you gotta go through it. You can't go
Speaker 2: around your failure. You can't go over your failure. You
Speaker 2: can't go under your failure. You can't ignore your failure.
Speaker 2: You need to grieve the failure. You need to feel
Speaker 2: the pain. Now, we don't like feeling bad, but grief
Speaker 2: is a good thing. Grief is the way we get
Speaker 2: through the failure, and grief is the way we learn
Speaker 2: the lessons. So often we want to just when we fail,
Speaker 2: we want to just forget it, push it aside, stuff
Speaker 2: our emotions, and then immediately go to the next thing.
Speaker 2: When you stuff your emotions, when you swallow your emotions,
Speaker 2: your stomach keeps score. It's kind of like what if
Speaker 2: you took a can of coke and you shook it
Speaker 2: up for a long time and then you put it
Speaker 2: in the freezer. What's going to happen to it. It's
Speaker 2: gonna explode eventually, it's gonna come out sideways. And this
Speaker 2: happens in your life when you don't deal with your
Speaker 2: emotions properly. This is why sometimes six months after failure,
Speaker 2: a marriage falls apart, or six months after somebody gets
Speaker 2: laid off work, there's another problem, and there's a physical
Speaker 2: health problem.
Speaker 3: Things like this.
Speaker 2: Because you've shaken up the can and you've got all
Speaker 2: these emotions feeling inside of shame and regret and fear
Speaker 2: and insecurity and all the things that come with failure,
Speaker 2: and you're not dealing with them. And so you shake
Speaker 2: it up, and you said, we're just gonna put this
Speaker 2: in refrigerator and try to forget about it, and we're
Speaker 2: gonna freeze it, and it's gonna explode, and it's gonna
Speaker 2: come out sideways in an affair or in wrong behavior,
Speaker 2: or in impulsivity or an addiction, or all kinds of
Speaker 2: other things. I have seen this thousands of times in
Speaker 2: people's lives. You don't minimize it. You don't rush to
Speaker 2: feel better to get past your failure. You've got to
Speaker 2: go through the failure, and you got to grieve. In
Speaker 2: Matthew twenty six, seventy five, when Peter heard the rooster crow,
Speaker 2: he remembered that Jesus had said, before the rooster crows,
Speaker 2: you'll deny me three times, then Jesus. Then Peter went
Speaker 2: outside and wept bitterly. Circle the wept bitterly. That's grieving. Now,
Speaker 2: imagine how disappointed Peter must have felt in himself. He
Speaker 2: goes man, I've just lived with the Son of God
Speaker 2: for three and a half years. I watched him do miracles.
Speaker 2: I watched him heal people. I watched him raise the dead.
Speaker 2: I watched him teach like no one has ever taught.
Speaker 2: I watched him offer mercy and forgiveness to me dozens
Speaker 2: and dozens and dozens of times. I watched him never
Speaker 2: do anything wrong. And yet the first time that I'm
Speaker 2: put to test about my commitment, my faithfulness, my trust
Speaker 2: in Jesus, I deny him three times in a row
Speaker 2: because I'm worried about what three strangers think. Are you
Speaker 2: more worried about what strangers think about your faith and God?
Speaker 2: Are you more embarrassed to let people know that you're
Speaker 2: a believer? That's that fear. And he's disappointed. But Peter,
Speaker 2: I love the fact that he owns up to his failure.
Speaker 2: He doesn't go well, I had there was a good
Speaker 2: reason I did this. You know, they might have killed
Speaker 2: me or or you know he didn't do No, he
Speaker 2: just goes out and he grieves, and he's humbled by this,
Speaker 2: and he's regretful of it. Grief, as I said, is
Speaker 2: a good thing. It is the key to healing. A
Speaker 2: lot of people want to take shortcuts when they have
Speaker 2: a failure. They want to bypass a failure. You want
Speaker 2: to just put it out aside, out of mind, and
Speaker 2: go out and say, yeah, I had a failed business here,
Speaker 2: I'm gonna go start another one right now. The next day, Yeah,
Speaker 2: I just had a marriage fail. But I don't turn around.
Speaker 2: I'm going to find somebody immediately. I gotta find somebody
Speaker 2: else immediately. And they rebound into another relationship and they
Speaker 2: never learned the lesson. The problem is if you don't
Speaker 2: go through the greed, you don't learn what God wants
Speaker 2: you to learn in that failure. And then you take
Speaker 2: the same old you into the new marriage, into the
Speaker 2: new job, into the new goal, into the new dream,
Speaker 2: and nothing's changed because you didn't learn anything, because you
Speaker 2: weren't willing to feel bad for just a little bit,
Speaker 2: and you're afraid of negative feelings.
Speaker 3: You're afraid of feeling bad. It's okay to feel bad.
Speaker 3: Grief is the way we.
Speaker 2: Get through transitions and losses and failures in life. The
Speaker 2: greater the failure in your life, the more time it's
Speaker 2: going to take. The greater the loss in your life,
Speaker 2: the greater it's going to take. You have to let
Speaker 2: God work in your heart, and you have to let
Speaker 2: time work in your heart. You cannot force healing, you
Speaker 2: cannot rush healing. You cannot will it by sheer willpower.
Speaker 2: I'm going to be different now you can't do it.
Speaker 2: Recovery is an act of God's mercy. Healing is an
Speaker 2: act of mercy, and it comes slowly with time, and
Speaker 2: recovery and growth coming in stages. And all God wants
Speaker 2: you to do is just be honest. I blew it
Speaker 2: to be humble. The Bible says this in Psalm fifty one.
Speaker 2: And by the way, this is a from Psalm fifty
Speaker 2: one as the prayer David wrote after he committed adultery.
Speaker 2: The whole prayer is this prayer confession, and in verse seventeen,
Speaker 2: he says the sacrifice God wants is a broken and
Speaker 2: contrite spirit, and God will not reject a humble and
Speaker 2: repentant heart. Now he's saying, God is looking for humility, contriteness.
Speaker 3: Just you're right, God, I blew it.
Speaker 2: And when you come to God and say God, I'm
Speaker 2: broken hearted over this. I had all my hopes penned
Speaker 2: on this, but it didn't work.
Speaker 3: It failed.
Speaker 2: It failed, the business failed, the dream failed, the relationship failed. God,
Speaker 2: it failed, and I'm broken hearted over it. I'm a
Speaker 2: little bit more humble than I was. I don't think
Speaker 2: I'm the captain of my soul anymore. I don't think
Speaker 2: I'm the manager of the universe. I don't think I've
Speaker 2: got it all figured out. I'm coming with a humble
Speaker 2: spirit and a contrite heart and a repentant attitude. God goes,
Speaker 2: that's the person who's going to recover. So he does
Speaker 2: the first thing right is simply by grieving. Now, the
Speaker 2: Bible says there that when Peter heard the rooster crow,
Speaker 2: he wept bitterly.
Speaker 3: Okay, he ate crow.
Speaker 2: He went out and he said, oh, I have really
Speaker 2: messed up, and he felt the pain. And you know what,
Speaker 2: I imagine that every time for the rest of Peter's
Speaker 2: life when he heard a rooster crow, what do you
Speaker 2: think it reminded him of? Every time he heard a
Speaker 2: rooster crow? Probably reminded me my biggest failure in life.
Speaker 3: It was a trigger.
Speaker 2: It's truer and by the way you have in your life,
Speaker 2: and there's certain things that when you hear them or
Speaker 2: smell them, or think them, or listen to them, or
Speaker 2: whatever you see them. It triggers the memory of your failures.
Speaker 2: Now you can't stop the triggers. Sorry, can't do that.
Speaker 2: I can't even tell you how to even stop those triggers.
Speaker 2: But you can stop what they do to you. And
Speaker 2: you do have a choice. You don't have a choice
Speaker 2: over your triggers. There are some things that are gonna
Speaker 2: happen in your life. When that happens, it reminds you
Speaker 2: of the painful failure in your life. But your choice
Speaker 2: then is will I choose to focus on the mistake,
Speaker 2: the failure, the pain, or am I going to choose
Speaker 2: to focus on God's forgiveness, God's mercy and God's grace.
Speaker 2: That's choice, and that's what you can do. And here's
Speaker 2: what's gonna happen. When you start changing your focus. Satan's
Speaker 2: gonna stop passling you about this Satan your triggers, and
Speaker 2: he wants to condemn you. And here's what happens. You see,
Speaker 2: before you fail in some area or before you commit
Speaker 2: a sin, Satan always minimizes the sin.
Speaker 3: He minimizes it.
Speaker 2: He goes, this is no big deal, go ahead and
Speaker 2: do it. I mean, everybody does this. Times have changed,
Speaker 2: things are different, We're in a different culture. Doesn't matter
Speaker 2: what God has said, this is okay, times have changed.
Speaker 2: Everybody does it. Go ahead, it's no big deal. He
Speaker 2: minimizes the sin. The moment you commit that sin, Satan
Speaker 2: changes his strategy to the exact opposite, and he starts
Speaker 2: maximizing it. And he starts going, are you kidding me?
Speaker 2: That's the biggest sin I've ever heard of. God will
Speaker 2: never use you. You're never gonna be blessed, You're never
Speaker 2: gonna have an answered prayer. Who do you think you are?
Speaker 2: You may as well just chuck it in. You may
Speaker 2: just give up because you are used material. You're wasted,
Speaker 2: you're wrong, You're in the dust. If you're gonna sit
Speaker 2: on the bench the rest of your life, forget it.
Speaker 2: It's over. This is so big God could not possibly
Speaker 2: ever use you.
Speaker 3: See how he switched.
Speaker 2: He starts saying it's so big deal before you do it,
Speaker 2: and then afterwards it goes it's the biggest deal in
Speaker 2: your life because He does not want you focused on
Speaker 2: the mercy of God. He wants you focused on your pain.
Speaker 2: See when you don't understand who you are you don't
Speaker 2: have that when he still have that soul pain, You
Speaker 2: don't know your identity. You've give in to these kind
Speaker 2: of fears over and over and over, and Satan and
Speaker 2: other people and just whip you around and manipulate you
Speaker 2: with all kinds of memory triggers. You need to say,
Speaker 2: you know what, every time that trigger brings the thought
Speaker 2: that that memory, that painful mistake, I'm just gonna go, Yep,
Speaker 2: it was wrong. And then I'm gonna go thank God
Speaker 2: for his grace, Thank God for his mercy, thank God
Speaker 2: for his love, thank God for his forgiveness, and I just, oh,
Speaker 2: thank you God. I am a trophy of grace. Now
Speaker 2: here's an interesting thing. If Satan figures out that every
Speaker 2: time he uses that trigger, you're gonna praise God. He's
Speaker 2: going to stop bugging you about it because he certainly
Speaker 2: doesn't want you. All of a sudden, it's not working anymore.
Speaker 2: If he can pull a trigger and you get into depression,
Speaker 2: he's going to keep pulling it. But if he can
Speaker 2: pull a trigger and it causes you to praise God
Speaker 2: for his mercy and forgiveness and greace, focus, he goes, oh,
Speaker 2: I don't want him doing that so he will stop.
Speaker 2: In a couple of weeks ago, we sang that song,
Speaker 2: I'm no longer a slave to fear. I am a
Speaker 2: child of God. This is what we're talking about here,
Speaker 2: Understanding the deeper pain that causes you to give in,
Speaker 2: to overestimate your strength, to speak when you shouldn't, and
Speaker 2: to live for the approval of other people. When you
Speaker 2: know who you are and who you are, you know
Speaker 2: God's mercy and God's grace is going to be there.
Speaker 3: I'm a child of God.
Speaker 2: So even though I've just really messed up, God's gonna
Speaker 2: still love me. He's not gonna change. That's the miracle
Speaker 2: of mercy.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 2: The second thing Peter did right, and this is gonna
Speaker 2: sound funny to you, but it's what it says write
Speaker 2: here in scripture, let my small group support me. And
Speaker 2: that's exactly what Peter did. The very first thing Jesus
Speaker 2: did when he started his ministry is he formed a
Speaker 2: small group and he chose twelve people to be part
Speaker 2: of that small group. This is why we make such
Speaker 2: a big deal about small groups at Saddleback Church because
Speaker 2: Jesus did it, and for three hundred years, all Christianity
Speaker 2: was done in small groups. They didn't have big gatherings
Speaker 2: like this. All Christianity for three hundred years was done.
Speaker 3: In small groups.
Speaker 2: Let me just show you some example of Peter getting
Speaker 2: support from his small group after his biggest failure. Matthew,
Speaker 2: excuse me, Mark sixteen, verse ten. Easter morning. You know
Speaker 2: that Mary Magdalene and the other Mary had gone up
Speaker 2: to the tomb of Jesus, and the Angel said, he's
Speaker 2: not here, He's gone. Go tell the disciples. And so
Speaker 2: it said.
Speaker 3: Mary Magdalene went and found.
Speaker 2: The disciples together, grieving and weeping, circle the word together.
Speaker 3: I want you to listen very close. When you go.
Speaker 2: Through a major failure in your life, you must resist
Speaker 2: the urge to isolate yourself. When you go through a
Speaker 2: major failure in life, you must resist the urge to
Speaker 2: insulate yourself. When you get laid off from work, you
Speaker 2: don't want anybody to know about it. When you have
Speaker 2: a bankruptcy, you don't want anybody to know about it.
Speaker 2: When you have a failure in your life, you don't
Speaker 2: want you want to keep it a secret. That's the
Speaker 2: worst thing you could do. You need you don't need
Speaker 2: to tell everybody. You need to tell a few people
Speaker 2: who love you, who are going to pray for you,
Speaker 2: and who will support you. Because when you share a
Speaker 2: problem in your life, it's cut in half. The burden
Speaker 2: is cutting out. When you share a joy in your
Speaker 2: small group, it's doubled. You were never meant to go
Speaker 2: through life on your own. You were never meant to
Speaker 2: go through life by yourself. We were better together. We're
Speaker 2: meant for community. And the basic unit of life is
Speaker 2: the small group. Jesus formed a small group. And where
Speaker 2: does Peter go instantly after he's had his biggest failure.
Speaker 2: He didn't go hide in a cave. He goes to
Speaker 2: small group. The disciples were together, grieving and weeping. Now
Speaker 2: you need God to supports.
Speaker 3: More than ever.
Speaker 1: Hey, did you know that the number one attribute of
Speaker 1: God in scripture is his mercy? It is and he
Speaker 1: wants to be merciful too. Jesus said, blessed are the merciful,
Speaker 1: for they will be shown mercy Matthew five p. Seven.
Speaker 1: Now you can dive deeper into our current study with
Speaker 1: Pastor Rick's Miracle of Mercy study kid through his sixth
Speaker 1: session video and workbook study. He'll show you the five
Speaker 1: marks of mercy. You'll discover how mercy forgives the fallen,
Speaker 1: helps the hurting, is patient with difficult people, is kind
Speaker 1: to its enemies, and cares for the loss. And as
Speaker 1: you grow in mercy, you'll experience the blessing God promises
Speaker 1: to the merciful. The Miracle of Mercy. Sixth session video
Speaker 1: study kit is perfect for both personal and small group
Speaker 1: study time, so please be sure to request your copy today.
Speaker 1: When you give a gift to help Daily Hope share
Speaker 1: the certain Hope of Jesus with people everywhere. That's our
Speaker 1: way of saying thanks. Just go to pastorick dot com
Speaker 1: to get your copy of this great resource. That's pastorick
Speaker 1: dot com. Or you can just text the word hope
Speaker 1: to seven oh three oh nine. Again, that's the word
Speaker 1: hope to seven oh three oh nine. Be sure to
Speaker 1: join us next time as we look into God's word
Speaker 1: for our daily hope. This program is sponsored by Pastor
Speaker 1: Rick's Daily Hope and your generous financial support.