Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to Pastor Rick's Daily Hope, the Bible
Speaker 1: teaching ministry of Rick Warren. You know, with Thanksgiving just
Speaker 1: around the corner, we're pausing our current series to bring
Speaker 1: you a special message from Pastor Rick, one that will
Speaker 1: help you reflect on God's goodness and grow a heart
Speaker 1: of gratitude. Now, let's jump right in with part one
Speaker 1: of a powerful message called being thankful even in bad times.
Speaker 2: Thanksgiving is not an easy holiday for a lot of people.
Speaker 2: Anybody in pain has a hard time being grateful. How
Speaker 2: do you be thankful of Thanksgiving if the doctor just
Speaker 2: told you it's cancer. How do you be thankful of
Speaker 2: Thanksgiving if the person you love the most just walked
Speaker 2: in and said, I don't love you anymore and I'm
Speaker 2: leaving you for somebody else. How do you be thankful
Speaker 2: when you have a chronic illness that just isn't getting
Speaker 2: any better. How do you be thankful this Thanksgiving when
Speaker 2: you've been laid off and you've gone to fourteen job
Speaker 2: interviews and they've all turned you down. How to be
Speaker 2: thankful when your dream has collapsed, or when an economic
Speaker 2: tsunami has wiped out everything you've earned in your lifetime.
Speaker 2: How to be thankful when your son commits suicide? Twenty
Speaker 2: thirteen was the worst year of my life. How am
Speaker 2: I supposed to be thankful at Thanksgiving? And yet the
Speaker 2: Bible tells us to always be thankful? And one Thessalonians
Speaker 2: five eighteen, the first verse on your outlined. It says this,
Speaker 2: give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will
Speaker 2: for you in Christ Jesus. You want to know God's
Speaker 2: will for your life. Part of God's will is that
Speaker 2: you give that in all circumstances. Now, the key to
Speaker 2: this verse is the little word in, I am grateful
Speaker 2: that it doesn't say give thanks for all circumstances. It says,
Speaker 2: give thanks in all circumstances. The difference between the word
Speaker 2: in and the word for is the difference between maturity
Speaker 2: and masochism. God doesn't expect you to be grateful for
Speaker 2: everything in your life because there's a lot of bad
Speaker 2: in your life. There's a lot of bad, there's a
Speaker 2: lot of evil, there's a lot of sin in the world.
Speaker 2: And it would be stupid, it would be masochistic to
Speaker 2: be grateful for sin and the suffering it causes. I'm
Speaker 2: not grateful when somebody gets leukemia or loupus. I'm not
Speaker 2: grateful when a woman is raped or a child is molested.
Speaker 2: I'm not grateful when there are wars. I'm not grateful
Speaker 2: when there's racial profying and people are prejudiced and bigoted.
Speaker 2: Again it's because of their race. I'm not grateful when
Speaker 2: there's injustice in the world. In fact, the Bible says,
Speaker 2: there's some things you ought to get mad about. You
Speaker 2: gotta get anger is often an evidence of love. Somebody
Speaker 2: hurt my kids or grandkids, I get angry. That's an
Speaker 2: evidence of love. God gets angry when he sees evil
Speaker 2: in the world. So the Bible doesn't say be thankful
Speaker 2: for everything. That would make God a tyrant. But the
Speaker 2: Bible says, in everything, give thanks. Why Because even in
Speaker 2: the darkest times, in the worst periods of desperation, even
Speaker 2: when my life is totally falling apart, there's always some
Speaker 2: good things that I can thank God for. No matter
Speaker 2: how good things are in your life, there's some bad
Speaker 2: things you need to be working on. And no matter
Speaker 2: how bad things are in your life, there are some
Speaker 2: good things and some blessings you can be grateful for.
Speaker 2: So how do I be grateful when I don't feel
Speaker 2: like how do I be thankful even in bad times?
Speaker 2: Will you look at the things that you can always
Speaker 2: be thankful for? And the Bible gives us five things
Speaker 2: you can always be grateful for. I don't know what
Speaker 2: you're going through right now as we go into the
Speaker 2: Thanksgiving holiday, but I do know that these are five
Speaker 2: things you can always be grateful for. So one of
Speaker 2: the things I can always thank God for, well, let's
Speaker 2: get right into it. Number one. The Bible says, I
Speaker 2: can always be thankful for the grace God shows me.
Speaker 2: I can be thankful for the grace that God shows
Speaker 2: to me. Now, what is grace. Grace is when God
Speaker 2: gives me what I need, not what I deserve. Grace
Speaker 2: is when God gives me what I don't deserve. Everything
Speaker 2: in your life is a gift of God's grace. The
Speaker 2: air you're breathing right now is a gift of God's grace.
Speaker 2: You didn't own it, you didn't buy it, you don't
Speaker 2: deserve it. The next beat of your heart is a
Speaker 2: gift of God's grace. The Bible says, every good and
Speaker 2: perfect gift, everything in your life you owe to God,
Speaker 2: even your own life. He gave you your mind, he
Speaker 2: gave you your sight, he gave you your hearing, he
Speaker 2: gave you your voice. Everything in your life is a
Speaker 2: gift of God. And if God hadn't decided to create
Speaker 2: you to love you, then you wouldn't exist. So it's
Speaker 2: all by God's grace. Now, the Bible says in Ephesians
Speaker 2: two eight, you have been saved by grace through believing.
Speaker 2: You did not save yourselves. It was a gift from God.
Speaker 2: I can't earn my way to heaven. I can't work
Speaker 2: my way to heaven. I can't buy my way into heaven.
Speaker 2: I can't bargain my way into heaven. It is just
Speaker 2: a flat out gift of God's grace. He says, you
Speaker 2: earn it, No, you receive it. It is a gift.
Speaker 2: Salvation is a gift you receive, and the only thing
Speaker 2: you have to do is believe. You have to believe
Speaker 2: that Jesus Christ came and died for your sins paid
Speaker 2: for your ticket to heaven. That's it. You didn't do anything.
Speaker 2: It was all done by Jesus. And on the cross,
Speaker 2: he cries out, it is finished. In other words, I
Speaker 2: have paid for your salvation. It's all a gift. In
Speaker 2: some one O three David gives us a list of
Speaker 2: the gifts of God's grace. These are things we can
Speaker 2: be thankful for. I will not forget the glorious things
Speaker 2: God does for me, in other words, the gracious gifts
Speaker 2: of God. He forgives all my sins by grace. He
Speaker 2: heals me by grace. He ransoms me from hell by
Speaker 2: his grace. He surrounds me with his love. He fills
Speaker 2: my life with good things by his grace. He's merciful
Speaker 2: and tender towards those who don't deserve it. That means me.
Speaker 2: He's slow to get angry. He never bears a grudge man,
Speaker 2: I like that one. He never bears a grudge by grace.
Speaker 2: He has not punished us as we deserve for our sins.
Speaker 2: If I got what I deserved in life against God,
Speaker 2: my trying to be God, my playing God, my thing,
Speaker 2: I don't need God, I wouldn't even exist. I can
Speaker 2: always be thankful for grace, the grace that God shows
Speaker 2: me every single second of my life. I don't deserve anything.
Speaker 2: God gave me this next second of my life, and
Speaker 2: if He didn't want me to have it, I wouldn't
Speaker 2: have it. So I'm grateful for the grace that God
Speaker 2: shows me every moment of my life. Number two, I
Speaker 2: can always be thankful for the plans God has for me,
Speaker 2: the grace He shows to me, and the plans He
Speaker 2: has for me, because God has good plans for your life. Now,
Speaker 2: it's very obvious that life is not always good. A
Speaker 2: lot of things that happen in life are bad. They're painful,
Speaker 2: they're difficult. Life is tough. Life is not all sunshine
Speaker 2: and lollipops and roses and rainbows and my little ponies
Speaker 2: and rainbow bright. And although life is not always good,
Speaker 2: God is always good, and God's plan for your life
Speaker 2: is always good. They said, well, not everything that happens
Speaker 2: in my life feels good. Well, not everything that happens
Speaker 2: in your life God planned. Don't blame God for your mistakes.
Speaker 2: Don't blame God for your choices. When we say that
Speaker 2: God has a plan for your life, that doesn't mean
Speaker 2: that you're in it. If you could be out of
Speaker 2: God's plan your entire life, you have to choose to
Speaker 2: be in God's plan for your life. God says, there
Speaker 2: are many ways that seem right into a man but
Speaker 2: the ends there life in the way of death. There's
Speaker 2: one road. You've got to choose. God's plan. The Bible
Speaker 2: says this. I have good plans for you, says the Lord.
Speaker 2: Jeremiah twenty nine to eleven. I circle the word good.
Speaker 2: I have good plans for you, say the Lord. I
Speaker 2: don't plan to hurt you. I plan to give you
Speaker 2: hope and a good future. Some people believe they worship
Speaker 2: a God who causes all their suffering. I worship a
Speaker 2: God who bears all my suffering Isaiah fifty three and
Speaker 2: Isaiah fifty six. And he was bruised for our transgressions.
Speaker 2: He was wounded for our iniquities. The chastisement of our
Speaker 2: sins was laid upon him. Jesus Christ on the cross
Speaker 2: took my suffering, took my death. We have a God
Speaker 2: who doesn't watch our suffering callously. We have a God
Speaker 2: who suffers with us, and not only that takes our
Speaker 2: suffering on himself dies in our place. That's the plan
Speaker 2: of God. Now, as I said, God doesn't plan, God's
Speaker 2: plan does not. God doesn't plan the sins, either the
Speaker 2: ones you do or the ones other people do and
Speaker 2: hurt you, and you get hurt, you know, innocently because
Speaker 2: of other people's sins. God didn't plan those. But God's plan, says,
Speaker 2: my plan is bigger. And since God already knows every
Speaker 2: stupid mistake I'm gonna make and you're gonna make in life,
Speaker 2: He goes, I can fit that into the plan. And
Speaker 2: God already knows how other people are gonna hurt you
Speaker 2: and sin against you. And God goes, that's not good.
Speaker 2: But I can fit that into the plan. I can
Speaker 2: use that, and I can use that, and I can
Speaker 2: use that, and I can use that. God has no
Speaker 2: plan B for your life. That's something I'm gonna be
Speaker 2: thankful for. I'm not on plan eed FG or H.
Speaker 2: God says, yeah, you know all this stuff. I didn't
Speaker 2: want this for you. It wasn't part of my plan.
Speaker 2: But because you walked off and did your thing, that happened.
Speaker 2: But you know what, I can fit that into the
Speaker 2: plan for your life. That's something that we can be
Speaker 2: grateful for. That's something we can we can expect God
Speaker 2: to use in our lives. Let me compare your life
Speaker 2: to a cruise line. Let's say we got on a cruise,
Speaker 2: you and I and you and me, and we got
Speaker 2: on the cruise and we go from La to say Tokyo.
Speaker 2: Now that cruise ship is headed toward Tokyo. But while
Speaker 2: we're on that cruise ship, like in your life, you
Speaker 2: have a lot of free choices. You have a free will.
Speaker 2: It's just not completely free. You have limited free will. So,
Speaker 2: for instance, on that cruise line, you could eat all
Speaker 2: seven buffets. I would advise it, but you could and
Speaker 2: stay up for the midnight buffet and all of that too.
Speaker 2: You could go play shuffle board. I don't know why
Speaker 2: anybody would want to, but you could. You could go dancing,
Speaker 2: You could play some slot machines. Most likely, you could
Speaker 2: sleep the whole time. You could a lot of things
Speaker 2: you could do on a cruise ship. But no matter
Speaker 2: what you do on that ship, it's going to Tokyo
Speaker 2: and nothing's gonna change it. And it is the CAP's
Speaker 2: job to get it to Tokyo, not your job. God
Speaker 2: has a plan for your life, and once you put
Speaker 2: your hand in Christ's hands, he says, I'm gonna get
Speaker 2: you to heaven. Whether you realize it or not, it's
Speaker 2: not in your hands anymore. And there are times you
Speaker 2: may want to let go of God's hands. But God's
Speaker 2: not gonna let go of yours because you put your
Speaker 2: hand in his by putting your faith in Christ. And
Speaker 2: like the captain's job to get us to Tokyo, it's
Speaker 2: God's job to get you to heaven. It doesn't depend
Speaker 2: on you. Can you be grateful for that? Oh baby,
Speaker 2: oh baby, Yeah, yeah you can, because it doesn't depend
Speaker 2: on me to keep myself saved. If I worked to
Speaker 2: earn my salvation, then anytime I stopped working, the salvation
Speaker 2: would stop working. But I don't earn my salvation. It
Speaker 2: is the gift of God's grace. And I put my
Speaker 2: hand in his and I accept it through Christ, and
Speaker 2: then He's gonna hold on for the rest of the
Speaker 2: cruise line. So God says, I'm gonna use it all.
Speaker 2: I can use the plans that God has for you. Now,
Speaker 2: sometimes we doubt God's plan. Ca and I decided to
Speaker 2: do one television broadcast interview on Matthew's death, and I
Speaker 2: chose CNN because I knew CNN the scene all around
Speaker 2: the world, unlike a lot of other networks. And one
Speaker 2: of the parts of that one hour interview, Piers Morgan
Speaker 2: asked both Ky and me, did we ever doubt God
Speaker 2: and did we ever doubt his plan? And I want
Speaker 2: you to hear our response when Matthew died, Satan thought
Speaker 2: he had won, but actually he had lost. Why because
Speaker 2: he couldn't torture him anymore.
Speaker 3: Pastor Rick's first summon off his son Matthew's tragic suicide.
Speaker 3: Rick and his wife Kay am back with me. Now,
Speaker 3: you oversely have talked about how difficult it was. At
Speaker 3: the same time, you're one of the most famous pastors
Speaker 3: in America, and you knew it to have to be
Speaker 3: a moment when he got back out there and talked
Speaker 3: about this. What was that moment? Like, I know you
Speaker 3: both went out on the stage. Kay, you only lost
Speaker 3: a couple of minutes because you found it scient difficult,
Speaker 3: which is completely understandable. But for you rate that moment
Speaker 3: when he walked.
Speaker 2: Out, I was overwhelmed by the love of our people.
Speaker 2: Can I have given thirty three years to this church
Speaker 2: and I feel like they all gave it back in
Speaker 2: a moment. It was just a very tender moment for me.
Speaker 2: As a pastor. I have walked through the valley of
Speaker 2: the Shadow depth with thousands of people. I have walked,
Speaker 2: I've stood at the bedsides and seen lots of people
Speaker 2: take their last breath. I have been there for those
Speaker 2: people for thirty three years, and they were there for
Speaker 2: us when we needed it most. There are different levels
Speaker 2: of grief. The easiest funeral to do is when an
Speaker 2: elderly person dies. They've lived a good life, they loved
Speaker 2: the Lord. They're ready to go to heaven. When my
Speaker 2: parents died, case bad died, it was kind of a homecoming,
Speaker 2: celebration of a life. More difficult is the death of
Speaker 2: a spouse. More difficult than that is the death of
Speaker 2: a spouse with little children at home. That's tough. A
Speaker 2: murder is a tough funeral to do, without a doubt.
Speaker 2: The most difficult kind of funeral is the death of
Speaker 2: a child, because parents aren't supposed to outlast their children.
Speaker 2: And then on top of that is a suicide. Why
Speaker 2: now I'm doing the death of a child funeral, the
Speaker 2: death of my child's funeral. The death of my child's
Speaker 2: funeral is a suicide. And then, as you said, as
Speaker 2: a well known person, everybody knows it's on the CNN
Speaker 2: ticker and it's on everywhere else, and that's difficult. And
Speaker 2: that's why we just decided. I decided I was going
Speaker 2: to use social media to grieve.
Speaker 3: This is the tough question for you, right, there must
Speaker 3: have been a moment after Matthew took his life when
Speaker 3: even you questioned your faith in God.
Speaker 2: I never questioned my faith in God. I questioned God's plan.
Speaker 2: There's a big difference. I know God is a good God.
Speaker 2: Nothing can shake that from my life. I know God
Speaker 2: is a loving God. The question is, it's like my children.
Speaker 2: My children have never doubted that I love them, but
Speaker 2: they sometimes doubt my wisdom and they don't think I've
Speaker 2: made the right decision. Not Everything that happens in the
Speaker 2: world is God's will. Everything that happens in the world
Speaker 2: God allows, He permits, but because it couldn't happen without
Speaker 2: his permission. But we live in a world where there
Speaker 2: are free choices, and if I choose to do wrong,
Speaker 2: I can't blame God for that. So God isn't to
Speaker 2: blame for my son's death. My son his life. It
Speaker 2: was his choice. And if I chose to go out
Speaker 2: and get drunk and get in a car and I
Speaker 2: was in an accident killed somebody, I can't blame God
Speaker 2: for that.
Speaker 3: Kay have you gone through any doubt about your faith.
Speaker 4: You know, as Rick said, it's not Our faith is
Speaker 4: probably what's got is the foundation what's gotten us through,
Speaker 4: and it's solid and strong. But I have to tell
Speaker 4: you that, you know, before I have something I want
Speaker 4: to show you. There's this this box that that I
Speaker 4: that I was given to me a few years ago,
Speaker 4: and and I it's got the word it's a it's
Speaker 4: a marble box, and it's got the word hope on it.
Speaker 2: And her hope box.
Speaker 4: It's my hope box. And I filled it with verses
Speaker 4: that gave me comfort, that gave me encouragement, that versus
Speaker 4: that just kept my faith really strong. Before Matthew passed away,
Speaker 4: and every day I would sit and I would read
Speaker 4: these verses. And that morning, after we had been to
Speaker 4: his house the night before and I was pretty certain
Speaker 4: that he had taken his life, I got up that
Speaker 4: morning and I opened my hope box and I went
Speaker 4: through those verses one more time. And then after that
Speaker 4: I didn't open it for a month.
Speaker 5: I couldn't. And then I started to think, so where
Speaker 5: do I go from here?
Speaker 4: What do you do when your hope has been crushed?
Speaker 5: And the only way I know how to rebuild.
Speaker 4: It is to go back to my faith into God's word.
Speaker 4: And this time I started putting verses in that give
Speaker 4: me hope.
Speaker 5: For the future.
Speaker 4: Like there's this amazing verse that's in one Corinthians fifteen
Speaker 4: forty three.
Speaker 5: It says, our bodies are buried in brokenness, but they
Speaker 5: will be raised in glory. They are buried in weakness,
Speaker 5: but they will be raised in strength. And so every
Speaker 5: time when I go to the cemetery, I quote that
Speaker 5: verse because you know what, Matthew's body was broken. A
Speaker 5: gun broke his body, and he was buried in brokenness,
Speaker 5: but he's going to be raised in glory. He was
Speaker 5: buried in weakness. I say, Matthew, you were buried in weakness,
Speaker 5: but you will be raised in strength. So the struggle
Speaker 5: has been not.
Speaker 4: In believing that God exists, not that God.
Speaker 5: Is evil, because God is good.
Speaker 4: But I have this other little tiny pot. When there's
Speaker 4: questions I can answer, like did Matthew think of.
Speaker 5: Before he pulled the trigger?
Speaker 3: Did he.
Speaker 5: Was there any moment in which he suffered? Why after
Speaker 5: all those years of prayer and effort did he die?
Speaker 5: All these things that I have no answers for. And
Speaker 5: I put him in this little pots my mystery pot.
Speaker 5: So here's my hope box, not a little mystery pot.
Speaker 5: And so every day almost I fill it with another
Speaker 5: question that I can't answer. But what I know to
Speaker 5: be true is that God will answer those questions. They
Speaker 5: will be answered. And my hope is very certain.
Speaker 2: And that Matthew was not in heaven three seconds when
Speaker 2: all of his questions.
Speaker 5: Were answered, his life makes sense to him that yet.
Speaker 1: Wow, what a great message from Pastor rig today, and
Speaker 1: I have some exciting news to share with you.
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Speaker 6: Hope devotional three hundred and sixty five days of Purpose,
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Speaker 6: each day is what you focus on, and this devotional
Speaker 6: will help you center your heart on God every day.
Speaker 6: You'll find a Bible verse to ground you in God's
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Speaker 1: That's Pastorick dot com. Or you can text the word
Speaker 1: hope to seven oh three oh nine. Again, that's the
Speaker 1: word hope to seven oh three oh nine. Be sure
Speaker 1: to join us next time as we look into God's
Speaker 1: Word for our daily hope. This program is sponsored by
Speaker 1: Pastor Rick's Daily Hope and your generous financial support.