Speaker 1: Hi, this is Rick Warren, Bible teacher the Daily Hope Broadcast.
Speaker 1: Did you know that because of Easter, your past can
Speaker 1: be forgiven, you get a purpose for living, and you
Speaker 1: can have a home in heaven. That's good news. Where
Speaker 1: else can you get that kind of news? Nowhere else?
Speaker 1: And did you know that at Easter, studies have shown
Speaker 1: people are more open to an invitation to go to
Speaker 1: church than at any other time of the year. Don't
Speaker 1: go to church by yourself, but bring somebody who doesn't
Speaker 1: know Jesus Christ, a family member, a friend, a coworker,
Speaker 1: a neighbor, a relative. And if you bring them to
Speaker 1: that church service and they come to know Christ, You're
Speaker 1: going to be making a friend for eternity. It'll be
Speaker 1: the most important investment you can ever make in their lives.
Speaker 1: And by the way, if they come to Christ, would
Speaker 1: you let me know about it. I'd love to hear
Speaker 1: that story that you brought somebody to Easter and they
Speaker 1: found Jesus. You can write to me Rick at Pastorrick
Speaker 1: dot com. That's rickat Pastorrick dot com. I would love
Speaker 1: to hear from you. God bless you and happy Easter.
Speaker 2: You know, none of us can earn our way into
Speaker 2: heaven because eternal life is a free gift when you
Speaker 2: accept Jesus as the Lord of your life. Hey, everybody,
Speaker 2: this is Pastor Rick's Daily Hope. And today Rick Warren
Speaker 2: continues a series called Good News about Grace. You can't
Speaker 2: truly understand the Christian life until you understand grace. It's
Speaker 2: at the heart of your faith and your relationship with God.
Speaker 2: And in this series you're going to discover how not
Speaker 2: to only understand grace, but how to experience it and
Speaker 2: the joy that it brings. And now here's part one
Speaker 2: of a message called Offering Grace.
Speaker 1: Today, I want us to look at offering grace because
Speaker 1: the Bible says that God didn't just intend for you
Speaker 1: to receive it.
Speaker 3: He wants you to pass it on.
Speaker 1: If you have been blessed by God, he wants you
Speaker 1: to bless others. If you have been cared for by
Speaker 1: God wants you to care for others. If you've been
Speaker 1: forgiven by God, he wants you to forgive others. Jesus
Speaker 1: said it like this, they're on the top of your outline.
Speaker 1: In Matthew ten, verse eight, he says, give as freely
Speaker 1: as you have received whatever you've been given by God,
Speaker 1: you are to offer to others. Now this morning, I
Speaker 1: want us to think in particular about forgiveness, because we've
Speaker 1: received that more than anything else.
Speaker 3: How do we give forgiveness to other people? Now?
Speaker 1: We live in a society today where this theme of
Speaker 1: forgiveness is frequently in the headlines. There's a lot of
Speaker 1: shoddy thinking today about forgiveness. There are a lot of myths,
Speaker 1: There are a lot of misconceptions when it comes to forgiveness.
Speaker 1: Some people water it down. In fact, in our society
Speaker 1: we're seeing an epidemic of this. It's cheap grace, it's
Speaker 1: an abuse of grace, and it's making a forgiveness apply
Speaker 1: to anything and everything so much that forgiveness means nothing.
Speaker 1: It's almost as if we're afraid that somebody somewhere might
Speaker 1: feel guilty for one second, so we just go around saying, well,
Speaker 1: everybody's forgiven all the time, anywhere and everywhere. So today
Speaker 1: I want us to look at what is really forgiveness.
Speaker 3: What is it?
Speaker 1: Before we do that, I want us to take a
Speaker 1: little test. So if you'll take out your outline here,
Speaker 1: here's a little quiz that I'd like for you to
Speaker 1: look at five questions right or wrong, true or false.
Speaker 1: This is not a thing you're going to be graded on.
Speaker 1: And if you get the wrong answer, I gave you
Speaker 1: permission to cross out yours and put in the right answer.
Speaker 1: Nobody's going to look at your little quiz. So you
Speaker 1: just write down true or false what you believe about
Speaker 1: these statements, and don't say him aloud because you might
Speaker 1: be embarrassed. Number one, A person should not be forgiven
Speaker 1: until he asks for it. Now, I want you to
Speaker 1: circle true or false what you believe about that. A
Speaker 1: person should not be forgiven until he asks for it,
Speaker 1: true or false. Number two, Forgiveness includes minimizing the offense
Speaker 1: and minimizing the pain caused.
Speaker 3: True or false.
Speaker 1: Forgiveness includes minimizing the offense and the pain cause. Number three,
Speaker 1: forgiveness includes restoring trust and reuniting a relationship. Restoring trust
Speaker 1: and reuniting a relationship true or false?
Speaker 3: Is that a part of forgiveness?
Speaker 1: Number four, you haven't really forgiven until you've forgotten the offense.
Speaker 3: True or false.
Speaker 1: You haven't really forgiven until you've forgotten the offense. And
Speaker 1: then number five, when I see someone else hurt, it
Speaker 1: is my duty to forgive that offender. I see someone
Speaker 1: else hurt, it's my duty to forgive that offender.
Speaker 3: True or false.
Speaker 1: Now, if you were to take the word of God,
Speaker 1: and you were to particularly read through the Gospels and
Speaker 1: to read what Jesus said about forgiveness, you would come
Speaker 1: to the conclusion that all five of those statements are false.
Speaker 1: All five of them are false. Now, do I have
Speaker 1: your attention. We're going to look today in what forgiveness
Speaker 1: really is. But before we can look at that, we
Speaker 1: need to look at what it isn't. And the Bible
Speaker 1: says that there are five things that forgiveness is not.
Speaker 1: Would you write these down? Number one, forgiveness is not conditional.
Speaker 1: It's not conditional, in other words, based on some kind
Speaker 1: of condition. In fact, the Bible says the exact opposite.
Speaker 1: The Bible says that real forgiveness, jenuine forgiveness is unconditional.
Speaker 1: It is not something you earn. It is not something
Speaker 1: you deserve. It is not something you buy or bargain for.
Speaker 1: It is not something that you get as part of
Speaker 1: a bargain if you promise to never do it again.
Speaker 1: It is unconditioned. When you tell a person I will
Speaker 1: forgive you. If that's not forgiveness, you're bargaining. You're not forgiving,
Speaker 1: you're bargaining. Because genuine forgiveness is unconditional. It's offered even
Speaker 1: if it's not asked for. When Jesus hung on the
Speaker 1: cross and he said he prayed Father, forgive them, for
Speaker 1: they know not what they do, at that point, nobody
Speaker 1: had asked for the forgiveness. Certainly nobody deserved it. Nobody
Speaker 1: had bargained or bartered for it. It was an unconditional
Speaker 1: offer of pardon, Father, forgive them, for they know not
Speaker 1: what they do. Genuine forgiveness is unconditional. Number two, it
Speaker 1: isn't minimizing the seriousness of the offense. Real forgiveness is
Speaker 1: not minimizing the seriousness of the offense. In other words,
Speaker 1: it's not saying, well, you know, it's no big deal,
Speaker 1: it really didn't hurt don't worry about it. It didn't
Speaker 1: hurt me that bad. Because the truth is, if it's
Speaker 1: worth forgiving, it did hurt you, It did cause pain,
Speaker 1: and you don't need to minimize it because that's not
Speaker 1: a part of forgiveness. Forgiveness is saying yes, it did hurt, Yes,
Speaker 1: it did cause pain in my life, but I'm gonna
Speaker 1: let you go. I'm not gonna hold it against you.
Speaker 1: Yesterday in the paper there was a story of a
Speaker 1: man who killed both his father, his mother, and his brother. Now,
Speaker 1: if I were to go to that man and I say,
Speaker 1: I'd proclaim you forgiven. It's no big deal. It's not
Speaker 1: a big issue. It wasn't such a bad thing, and
Speaker 1: I minimize it. That is not forgiveness. That's insanity. It
Speaker 1: was a big deal, and so forgiving is not test
Speaker 1: saying oh, it didn't really hurt when it did, or
Speaker 1: oh it's no big deal when it was a big deal.
Speaker 1: Now you need to understand there's a difference between being
Speaker 1: wronged and being wounded. Wounds are unin intentional. Wrongs are intentional.
Speaker 1: You're wounded all the time by people accidentally. Do people
Speaker 1: say things that hurt you that they didn't mean to say?
Speaker 3: Sure? Do people do things that hurt you that they
Speaker 3: didn't mean to do. Sure? Those do not require forgiveness.
Speaker 1: What they require is acceptance recognizing that we live in
Speaker 1: a fallen world, imperfect environment. People going to hurt you
Speaker 1: many times unintentionally. Forgiveness needs to be reserved for the
Speaker 1: big stuff for the serious things, For the things that
Speaker 1: are intentionally hurtful. People mean you harm, That's what you
Speaker 1: reserve forgiveness for. You see, for instance, let's say you
Speaker 1: don't like the way I dress, and and you know,
Speaker 1: maybe you know, the way I dress offends your fashion sensibilities.
Speaker 1: I don't need your forgiveness, I need your acceptance. On
Speaker 1: the other hand, if someone hurts you in intentionally you've
Speaker 1: been seriously wrong, that's what you need to forgive. Now,
Speaker 1: whenever you minimize a wrong and you say, oh, it's
Speaker 1: no big deal, you cheapen forgiveness.
Speaker 3: Reserve forgiveness for the serious things.
Speaker 1: Number three, Forgiveness is not resuming a relationship without change.
Speaker 1: Forgiveness is not resuming a relationship without change. What I'm
Speaker 1: saying here is that forgiveness is not the same thing
Speaker 1: as reconciliation. They're two different issues. Forgiveness is not the
Speaker 1: same thing as rebuilding a restoring relationship.
Speaker 3: Look up here.
Speaker 1: Forgiveness is instant, but trust has to be rebuilt over time.
Speaker 1: Does that make sense? And there's a big difference between
Speaker 1: forgiving a person and trusting a person. Forgiveness simply takes
Speaker 1: care of the damage. It is letting the person off
Speaker 1: the hook, but it does not guarantee that the future
Speaker 1: relationship is going to be right. Those are other It
Speaker 1: takes more than forgiveness for reconciliation, it takes three other things.
Speaker 3: You might write these down.
Speaker 1: If you want to have a restored relationship with some
Speaker 1: first comes forgiveness. That's your part if you've been hurt,
Speaker 1: But on their part, it takes three other things. It
Speaker 1: takes repentance, demonstrating genuine repentance. Number two, it takes restitution.
Speaker 1: They need to make restitution where possible and when possible.
Speaker 1: And number three, it takes rebuilding trust. And rebuilding trust
Speaker 1: takes time now again, in a relationship that's been harmed
Speaker 1: or damaged, if you've been hurt, forgiveness is the part
Speaker 1: you do, but they have to show some other things
Speaker 1: to show that repentance and restoration has taken place. For instance,
Speaker 1: if you have been in a relationship where you were
Speaker 1: married to an alcoholic and abusive spouse and they really
Speaker 1: hurt you repeatedly, over and over, and that person comes
Speaker 1: home and says, I'm.
Speaker 3: Sorry, Will you forgive me?
Speaker 1: You say yes, I forgive you, because God commands you
Speaker 1: to forgive forgiveness is instant.
Speaker 3: But I say, now, will you let me back in
Speaker 3: the house?
Speaker 1: You say no, that's a different issue.
Speaker 3: We need to have some progress here. First.
Speaker 1: You need to get some counseling. You need to sign
Speaker 1: up for Celebrate Recovery. You need to develop a track
Speaker 1: record that shows there's some genuine change. Because while forgiveness
Speaker 1: is based on grace, trust is earned. It's a big difference.
Speaker 1: So that makes sense. If somebody offends you over and
Speaker 1: over and over and over and repeatedly in the same
Speaker 1: way continues.
Speaker 3: To hurt you, you are called by God to.
Speaker 1: Repeatedly forgive them over and over and over and over.
Speaker 1: But you are not obligated to instantly trust them and
Speaker 1: act as if everything's fine and they can come home
Speaker 1: and just keep on. Things need to be keeping, you know,
Speaker 1: going on as they have been in the past. It
Speaker 1: isn't resuming a relationship without change. Number four, Real forgiveness isn't.
Speaker 1: It is not forgetting what happened. See, some of you
Speaker 1: have a hard time with this. You've been have a
Speaker 1: hard time forgiving because you think I can never forget it,
Speaker 1: and if I forgive them, I'll have to start the
Speaker 1: relationship again. No, that's not true. Forgiveness is not forgetting
Speaker 1: what happened. Now, I know you've heard this cliche because
Speaker 1: it's very popular in America, and that is forgive and forget.
Speaker 1: That's so sweet, that's so nice. Forgive and forget, forgive
Speaker 1: and forget. There's only one problem with that, folks.
Speaker 3: You can't do it. Yea, it doesn't work.
Speaker 1: In fact, it's impossible for you to forget everything that happened.
Speaker 1: In fact, the more painful something is, the less likely
Speaker 1: you're going to forget it. In fact, think about the
Speaker 1: logic of it. It is impossible to try to forget something.
Speaker 1: Have you forgotten it? Oh, I'm trying. I'm trying to
Speaker 1: forget it. I'm trying, trying, trying. The whole time you're trying,
Speaker 1: what are you focusing on? What you can't forget? You
Speaker 1: cannot forget something by trying to forget it. It doesn't
Speaker 1: work that way. The only way you forget something is
Speaker 1: by replacing it with something else. Now, scientists have proven
Speaker 1: that your brain is like a giant warehouse filled with
Speaker 1: thousands and thousands of file cabinets, and you never really
Speaker 1: forget anything. And the more important an event is in
Speaker 1: your life, the more likely you to remember it. Now,
Speaker 1: you may block some things out, and trauma may cause
Speaker 1: you to erase some recall of events, but they're there,
Speaker 1: and as surgeons we're able to take a probe and
Speaker 1: open up your brain and stimulate certain parts of your brain.
Speaker 1: They can bring back the color, the memories, the smells,
Speaker 1: and everything.
Speaker 3: That you had.
Speaker 1: In that instance, you don't really forget anything.
Speaker 3: It's there.
Speaker 1: Some of you think that that's the ultimate and Christian maturity.
Speaker 1: When am I going to get to the point that
Speaker 1: I'm so grown up in Christ that I forget the
Speaker 1: painful things in my life? When am I going to
Speaker 1: be so mature that I forget the things I feel
Speaker 1: guilty over and the things that other people have done
Speaker 1: to me? Well, the truth is you may never forget them.
Speaker 3: You may never forget those things.
Speaker 1: But there's something better than forgetting, they said, What's better
Speaker 1: than forgetting remembering but not feeling the pain, remembering but
Speaker 1: seeing how God worked in it anyway, Remembering and seeing
Speaker 1: how God brought good out of bad, how you grew
Speaker 1: in character, how it made you sensitive to the hurts
Speaker 1: and needs of other people, how it changed the direction
Speaker 1: at a crucial point in your life, how things that
Speaker 1: you you have today would have not happened if it
Speaker 1: hadn't been for that event. There's something far better than forgetting.
Speaker 1: It's remembering and realizing the sovereign grace of God is working,
Speaker 1: as in Romans eight twenty eight says all things.
Speaker 3: Together for good.
Speaker 1: That's even better because when I forget something, I don't
Speaker 1: thank God or praise God. But when I remember something
Speaker 1: and I remember what God has done in spite of that,
Speaker 1: then I really thank God and I praise God. So
Speaker 1: forgiveness is not forgetting because you probably never will forget it.
Speaker 1: Then number five, forgiveness isn't my right. You know, we
Speaker 1: talk so much about my rights today. I have my rights.
Speaker 1: Forgiveness isn't my right when I wasn't the one who
Speaker 1: was hurt. Now, this is the exact opposite of what
Speaker 1: culture teaches, because everything in culture today says, just run
Speaker 1: around forgiven everybody. As I said, because we're afraid somebody
Speaker 1: might somewhere feel guilt, So let's get out rid of
Speaker 1: the guilt as quickly as possible by just offering a
Speaker 1: blanket forgiveness. And we offer forgiveness for things we didn't
Speaker 1: do to people we don't even know.
Speaker 3: Only a victim.
Speaker 1: Only the victim can pronounce forgiveness to the person who
Speaker 1: has offended them. If you weren't hurt, it's not your
Speaker 1: place to proclaim the forgiveness. For instance, do you remember
Speaker 1: the story of the fourteen year old boy who walked
Speaker 1: into a high school prayer meeting in Paducah, Kentucky and
Speaker 1: killed three teenage girls, shot them dead the next morning
Speaker 1: on that campus, the girls had not been buried, their
Speaker 1: bodies weren't even cold yet, and some students had put
Speaker 1: up signs around the campus telling the killer, we forgive
Speaker 1: you Mike. Now, I know those kids meant well, and
Speaker 1: I know those kids probably thought they were doing the
Speaker 1: Christian thing, but it wasn't their right to forgive that
Speaker 1: man who had been offended the most. How do you
Speaker 1: think the parents felt about that? They hadn't even worked
Speaker 1: through their grief yet. Sure they were going to come
Speaker 1: to forgiveness, but they hadn't even worked.
Speaker 3: Through their own grief yet. How about the.
Speaker 1: Younger brothers and sisters of those three teenage girls who
Speaker 1: were killed. It wasn't their place to pardon somebody because
Speaker 1: they weren't the one who had been sinned against. Recently,
Speaker 1: in Washington, d CE, a leader held up a picture
Speaker 1: Timothy McVeigh and said, I have forgiven this man, and
Speaker 1: you need to too. The only problem was he didn't
Speaker 1: have the right to do that because Timothy McVey had
Speaker 1: not offended him. It was the parents and the relatives
Speaker 1: of the people who were killed in the Oklahoma bomb
Speaker 1: explosion that have the place to offer forgiveness to that offender.
Speaker 1: If I were to take all all the war criminals
Speaker 1: of World War two, all the Nazis, and line them
Speaker 1: out and say, oh, by the way, Hitler aikman, all
Speaker 1: you guys, you're all forgiven. I forgive you all. Is
Speaker 1: that short circuiting anything. It's not my place to forgive
Speaker 1: those people. It was the people who had relatives killed
Speaker 1: in the Holocaust. If you had a daughter who was kidnapped,
Speaker 1: raped and killed, and I went before you even had
Speaker 1: time to grieve about it, and when the person said, oh,
Speaker 1: by the way, you're all forgiven, somebody has short circuited
Speaker 1: a process. You see, if anybody could just forgive anybody,
Speaker 1: there's no reason for jails, folks, because somebody's going to say, oh,
Speaker 1: you're all forgiven. So you don't need to serve any time.
Speaker 1: There's a big difference. Forgiveness is not my right when
Speaker 1: I wasn't the one hurt. See, many people don't understand
Speaker 1: that forgiveness does not remove the consequences of sin. When
Speaker 1: Carla fay Tucker, who had killed people with an axe,
Speaker 1: gave her life to Christ in prison and asked Jesus
Speaker 1: Christ to forgive her, I believe she was truly born again,
Speaker 1: and she even asked the people to forgive her who
Speaker 1: she had hurt through those murders. But that did not
Speaker 1: let her out of prison. There were still consequences. When
Speaker 1: a woman takes drugs all of her life and then
Speaker 1: she gets pregnant and she has a baby, and that
Speaker 1: baby is addicted to crack cocaine. The mother may say,
Speaker 1: dear Jesus, would you please forgive me for my sins?
Speaker 3: And she is instantly forgiven, but the baby's still a
Speaker 3: crack addict.
Speaker 1: Or the person who goes out and says, I'm going
Speaker 1: to live life anyway, I want to go to bed
Speaker 1: with anybody, want to live a totally promiscuous life. And
Speaker 1: then they come and they find Christ and they say,
Speaker 1: Jesus Christ would you please forgive me and cleanse me
Speaker 1: of all my immorality instantly. They are forgiven instantly, but
Speaker 1: they still might carry a sexually transmitted disease, or they
Speaker 1: still might die of aides. A person who leaves his
Speaker 1: wife and children or her husband and children and has
Speaker 1: an affair and breaks up a marriage, and then later
Speaker 1: comes and says, oh God, please forgive me. I know
Speaker 1: that was stupid, it was selfish. I shouldn't have done it.
Speaker 1: It was wrong. Please forgive me. They are instantly forgiven
Speaker 1: by Jesus Christ, but that does not remove the scars
Speaker 1: that come from breaking up a home, the scars on
Speaker 1: the children, the scars on both spouses, and all the others.
Speaker 1: There are consequences, you see. Real forgiveness is not some
Speaker 1: cheap term that you just throw out and instantly everybody
Speaker 1: feels better. It is reserved for serious sins and is
Speaker 1: reserved for the person who of whom they were committed against.
Speaker 1: Now that's not real forgiveness. What is real forgiveness? Well,
Speaker 1: the Bible says, real forgiveness is four things. Number one, First,
Speaker 1: real forgiveness starts with remembering, remembering how much I've been forgiven,
Speaker 1: remembering how much I have already been forgiven, how much
Speaker 1: grace I've already received from Christ.
Speaker 3: Ephesians four thirty two. Read this verse with me.
Speaker 1: Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other,
Speaker 1: just as in Christ. God forgave you and circle the
Speaker 1: phrase in Christ. Because you're not forgiven because you earned it.
Speaker 1: You're not forgiven because you deserve it. You're not forgiven
Speaker 1: because you've promised to never sin again. Thank God, that's
Speaker 1: not the requirement. But you're forgiven because you put your
Speaker 1: faith in Christ. Now this is the starting point for
Speaker 1: genuine forgiveness. You must feel grateful for how you've been forgiven.
Speaker 1: You see, some of you have a hard time forgiving
Speaker 1: other people, and the reason why is because you don't
Speaker 1: feel forgiven yourself. And if you don't feel forgiven, you
Speaker 1: don't want to forgive anybody else. You don't want them
Speaker 1: to feel that, that's for sure, because if you're hard
Speaker 1: on yourself, you're going to be hard on others. But
Speaker 1: the more grace you receive from God, the more gracious
Speaker 1: you're going to be to others. The more forgiven you
Speaker 1: feel by God, the more forgiving you're going to tend.
Speaker 3: To be toward others. Jesus said this, He pointed it out.
Speaker 1: One day a street walker came to Jesus and in
Speaker 1: front of a bunch of other leaders, she took a
Speaker 1: very expensive alabaster box of perfume and she broke it
Speaker 1: and she washed Jesus' feet with this very expensive perfume,
Speaker 1: his dirty feet that you know, they wore sandals those days.
Speaker 1: And the religious leaders were incensed by this. They said, first,
Speaker 1: look who's doing this. The kind of woman, this woman
Speaker 1: of ill repute. Look who's doing this. And number two,
Speaker 1: they said, she could have taken that box, sold the
Speaker 1: perfume for money and given them money to the poor
Speaker 1: and be a whole lot better. And Jesus rebuked the
Speaker 1: religious leaders. He said, lighten up. Basically, he said, she
Speaker 1: has been forgiven much and so she's giving the most love.
Speaker 1: And he said she'll be remembered from this day forward
Speaker 1: because of her action. It was an act of worship,
Speaker 1: because she felt so graced by Christ. She was being gracious,
Speaker 1: she was being giving herself. It starts with remembering how
Speaker 1: much I've been forgiven, and all of us have.
Speaker 3: Been forgiven a lot.
Speaker 2: Hey, thanks so much for being with us today. And
Speaker 2: listening to Pastor Rick's Daily Hope. I hope that you
Speaker 2: were just as blessed as I was. From today's broadcast,
Speaker 2: here's Pastor Rick and his wife Kay to tell you
Speaker 2: about today's off.
Speaker 1: Today on Daily Hope, we're talking about happiness.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 1: I know we all have times when we think, what
Speaker 1: have I got to be happy about? And you may
Speaker 1: be looking at your life right now and you see
Speaker 1: nothing but bad. The truth is, most people tend to
Speaker 1: see life as a series of ups and downs. You're
Speaker 1: either on top of things and everything looks great, or
Speaker 1: you're down and things are looking really bad. But I
Speaker 1: find that life is really more like a set of
Speaker 1: train tracks, so that you get the good and the
Speaker 1: bad at the same time. They run parallel to each other,
Speaker 1: and even though something bad may be happening in your life,
Speaker 1: you can always find something good to be thankful about.
Speaker 1: The point is this, you can't wait until things are
Speaker 1: perfect to find happiness because they're never going to be perfect.
Speaker 1: That's never going to happen. Instead, you have to choose joy.
Speaker 1: You have to choose happiness. You know, my wife Kay
Speaker 1: has been making a conscious decision to choose joy every
Speaker 1: single day and it's made a big difference in her
Speaker 1: life and in our marriage. In fact, she's written a
Speaker 1: great book. It's called Choose Joy. I want you to
Speaker 1: hear from Kay.
Speaker 4: Finding joy is a challenge for me. I'm not naturally
Speaker 4: an upbeat person. I'm more of a melancholy When I
Speaker 4: talk about joy, I'm not doing so from the perspective
Speaker 4: of a generally peppy person who never has a bad day.
Speaker 4: In fact, it was my own inability to live with
Speaker 4: joy that led me to explore why my experiences didn't
Speaker 4: line up with scripture. My problem was my definition of joy.
Speaker 4: I thought joy meant feeling good all the time. That's impossible,
Speaker 4: even for those who are naturally upbeat and optimistic. It's impossible.
Speaker 4: We have to start somewhere more realistic and close to Scripture.
Speaker 4: So here's the definition for joy that I've come up
Speaker 4: with after studying the Bible. Joy is the settled assurance
Speaker 4: that God is in control of all the details of
Speaker 4: my life, the quiet confidence that ultimately everything is going
Speaker 4: to be all right, and the determined choice to praise
Speaker 4: God in every situation. You'll find nothing in that definition
Speaker 4: about happy feelings, because, as we all know, happiness is
Speaker 4: fleeting and temporary. The Bible is really a book about joy.
Speaker 4: There are more than five hundred references to joy, gladness, merriment, rejoicing, delighting,
Speaker 4: and laughing in the NIV translation of the Bible. You'd
Speaker 4: think there would be ten times as many negative references
Speaker 4: to sadness, mourning, tears, etc. But there are only one
Speaker 4: hundred and fifty eight such references. That tells us that
Speaker 4: God's Word is a book of joy.
Speaker 3: Thanks Kay.
Speaker 1: I want you to know that I personally benefited from
Speaker 1: reading Kay's book, Choose Joy. It's made a difference in
Speaker 1: my life, and I know it'll make a difference in
Speaker 1: your life too. That's why I want to send it
Speaker 1: to you as you send a gift to support the
Speaker 1: ministry of Daily Hope. You know we can't continue broadcasting
Speaker 1: these messages without your support. We're totally listeners supported.
Speaker 2: Be sure to request your copy of Choose Joy today
Speaker 2: when you give a gift to help Daily Hope share
Speaker 2: the love of Jesus with a hurting world. Just go
Speaker 2: to Pastorrick dot com to get your copy of this
Speaker 2: great resource. That's Pastorick dot com. Or you can just
Speaker 2: text the word hope to seven zero three oh nine. Again,
Speaker 2: that's the word hope to seven oh three oh nine.
Speaker 2: Be sure to join us next time as we look
Speaker 2: into God's word for our daily hope. This program is
Speaker 2: sponsored by Pastor Rick's Daily Hope and your generous financial support.