Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, this is Pastor Rick's Daily Hope, the Bible
Speaker 1: Teaching Ministry of Rick Warren, and today we're launching a
Speaker 1: powerful series called the Jesus Model. In these lessons, Rick's
Speaker 1: gonna walk you step by step through the process of
Speaker 1: true Biblical discipleship. He's going to give you practical tools
Speaker 1: to grow spiritually, experience God's peace, live with greater purpose,
Speaker 1: and become more like Jesus in every area of your life.
Speaker 1: And now here's part one of a message called helping
Speaker 1: Others like Jesus.
Speaker 2: If you'll take out your message notes, I'm starting a
Speaker 2: new series today that I'm calling the Jesus Model. And
Speaker 2: in the last series that we did, we talked about
Speaker 2: how God puts you on this planet to do five
Speaker 2: things he wants you to practice on earth what you're
Speaker 2: gonna do forever in eternity. One of those things that
Speaker 2: God wants you to do is learn how to serve
Speaker 2: Him by serving other people, and that's called ministry. Now,
Speaker 2: in the five things that God wants you to do
Speaker 2: here on Earth, and we're going to look at ministry today,
Speaker 2: he didn't just tell.
Speaker 3: Us what to do.
Speaker 2: Jesus gave us a model and he said, I'm going
Speaker 2: to send you a personal coach called the Holy Spirit
Speaker 2: who will live inside of you.
Speaker 3: So I'm not just telling you what to do. I'm
Speaker 3: going to model it for you, and I'm going to
Speaker 3: do it through you.
Speaker 2: Now, the background of the text that we're looking at
Speaker 2: today is that Jesus Christ was obviously was born at
Speaker 2: Christmas time and at thirty years of age he began
Speaker 2: his public ministry. Now he did that by being baptized.
Speaker 2: That's how he started. Now, he had already as a child,
Speaker 2: been dedicated or confirmed in the temple. When he was
Speaker 2: just a baby, he was taken to the temple by
Speaker 2: his parents and dedicated and confirmed. We do baby dedications
Speaker 2: here at saddleback. How many of you have been confirmed
Speaker 2: or dedicated? Can I see your hand? Many of you were,
Speaker 2: and that's a good thing. But then when Jesus became
Speaker 2: an adult at thirty years of age, he was publicly baptized.
Speaker 2: Now why did he do that, Well, he wanted to
Speaker 2: set a model for us. And he's saying, it's no
Speaker 2: longer my parents' faith. When I was a baby, that
Speaker 2: was their faith. Now as an adult, this is my faith.
Speaker 2: That's why we baptize adults here at Saddleback Church. Even
Speaker 2: if you've been confirmed or dedicated as a child, it's
Speaker 2: because now it's your public statement saying I am a
Speaker 2: follower of Jesus Christ. So Jesus modeled baptism. Then he
Speaker 2: went out into the desert. He was tempted for forty days,
Speaker 2: and then he came back and he went to an
Speaker 2: area for about a year called the area of Galilee.
Speaker 2: Now Galilee is a part of Israel that's about the
Speaker 2: size of Orange County, and at that time it had
Speaker 2: the population of Orange County. According to Josephus the historian,
Speaker 2: there were about three million people lived in Galilee during
Speaker 2: Jesus day, so it was a very populated area like
Speaker 2: Orange County. And for about a year, Jesus goes around healing,
Speaker 2: doing miracles, teaching, and he's doing his ministry for about
Speaker 2: a year. And after about a year in Galilee, he
Speaker 2: goes to his hometown Nazareth.
Speaker 3: And this is a big event.
Speaker 2: It's like local boy makes good and he's coming home
Speaker 2: to his hometown.
Speaker 3: Everybody's heard about this guy.
Speaker 2: He's been to Jerusalem, he's cleansed the temple, he's done
Speaker 2: miracles and everybody knows this is Jesus, and he's coming
Speaker 2: back home to his hometown, and he's going to go
Speaker 2: to his own synagogue, his own church.
Speaker 3: And that's where we pick up the story. In Luke
Speaker 3: chapter four.
Speaker 2: It says Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of
Speaker 2: the spirit, and the news about him spread through the
Speaker 2: whole countryside, and he taught in their synagogues and everybody
Speaker 2: praised him. He was immensely popular at this point in
Speaker 2: his ministry. And he went to Nazareth, where he had
Speaker 2: been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went
Speaker 2: into the synagogue. As was his custom. Jesus went to
Speaker 2: church every week. Now, folks, if there's anybody who didn't
Speaker 2: need to go to church, it was Jesus. But Jesus
Speaker 2: made a custom of going to worship every week. And
Speaker 2: you need to go to worship every week.
Speaker 3: I know a lot.
Speaker 2: I'll be like, well, you know, if I go on
Speaker 2: Mother's Day or once a month or whatever, that's enough. No,
Speaker 2: the Bible tells us that God wants you to have
Speaker 2: connection with him on the first day of every week.
Speaker 3: So he said, the first part of each week begins
Speaker 3: to you.
Speaker 2: Belongs to you, Lord, I start the first day of
Speaker 2: every week with you, and Jesus went there and he
Speaker 2: has he stands up to read the scriptures, and you know,
Speaker 2: he's the guest speaker that week, and the scroll of
Speaker 2: the prophet Isaiah, Isaiah's a book in the Old Testament,
Speaker 2: was handed to him unrolling it. You know, in those
Speaker 2: days there weren't books. There were no such things as
Speaker 2: turning books of pages. Everything was written on scrolls. So
Speaker 2: he had to unroll the and he specifically finds a
Speaker 2: passage in Isaiah. It's actually chapter sixty, verse one and two,
Speaker 2: where is a prophecy saying the Messiah, the savior of
Speaker 2: the world, is coming one day. It had been written
Speaker 2: hundreds and hundreds of years earlier. And Jesus unrolls the
Speaker 2: scroll to that specific spot and to his hometown crowd,
Speaker 2: he reads this out of the old part of the Bible.
Speaker 2: The spirit of the Lord is on me, and he
Speaker 2: has anointed me to preach good news to the poor.
Speaker 2: He has sent me to heal the broken hearted, to
Speaker 2: proclaim freedom for the prisoner, to recover the side of
Speaker 2: the blind, to release the oppressed, and proclaim the year
Speaker 2: of the Lord's favor. Now he says, the Messiah is
Speaker 2: coming to do five things. And he says, then he
Speaker 2: rolled up the scroll and gave it back to the.
Speaker 3: Attendant, and he sat down.
Speaker 2: Now why did he sat down, Because in those days
Speaker 2: the teachers sat down and everybody in worship stood while
Speaker 2: he taught. I think we should go back to this tradition.
Speaker 2: I think it's a very good idea. However, if I
Speaker 2: sat when I taught and you stood, my sermons would
Speaker 2: be even longer.
Speaker 3: So it's probably a.
Speaker 2: Good idea that I stand so that eventually I get tired.
Speaker 3: Which, by the way, you know why I preach so long.
Speaker 2: It's because what I do is every week I get
Speaker 2: up and I put a seerts in my mouth, and
Speaker 2: I put it in the corner of my mouth, and
Speaker 2: when that melts away, then I figure it's time to quit,
Speaker 2: and I sit down there. Last week, what happened is
Speaker 2: I thought I put a seartch in my mouth. It
Speaker 2: was a button. So I just kept on going. You know,
Speaker 2: what can I say? Now, Jesus rolls up the scroll,
Speaker 2: he sits down, and it says the eyes.
Speaker 3: Of everyone are fastened on him.
Speaker 2: I mean, this is a moment and he begins teaching
Speaker 2: them by saying to them, today this scripture is fulfilled
Speaker 2: in your hearing. Now, it's hard for us to understand
Speaker 2: the high drama of this moment because it's two thousand
Speaker 2: years ago in Jesus' hometown. But Jesus gets up and
Speaker 2: he reads the most famous popular passage about the coming
Speaker 2: of the Savior of the world, God's son, and he
Speaker 2: finishes it, and he sits down in front of everybody
Speaker 2: in his hometown and says, and folks, you're looking at.
Speaker 3: Him, I'm it. You can imagine the shock. Oh yeah,
Speaker 3: I know.
Speaker 2: Jesus is doing all these miracles, and he's a great teacher,
Speaker 2: and he's a great leader, and he's actually healing people.
Speaker 2: But this is the guy I grew up with. We
Speaker 2: played in the streets. It's Mary and Joseph's kid. We
Speaker 2: all went to school together. And now, at age thirty one,
Speaker 2: he's coming back after a year of ministry to his
Speaker 2: hometown and says, and folks, you know the part about
Speaker 2: the Savior of the world, the Messiah's coming. I'm it.
Speaker 2: It sent shockwaves to everybody. Now, as I said, Jesus
Speaker 2: was actually quoting reading Isaiah chapter sixty. Some of the
Speaker 2: manuscripts leave out a phrase, but Jesus actually adds in
Speaker 2: a phrase from Isaiah fifty eight. But the point I
Speaker 2: want to point out is this, he'd already been doing
Speaker 2: this for a year. What we like to do is
Speaker 2: we stand up and we make an announcement of what
Speaker 2: we're going to do, and then we go do it.
Speaker 3: Jesus did the exact opposite.
Speaker 2: He went out and did it for a year and
Speaker 2: came back and said, by the way, this is why
Speaker 2: I'm doing it. You've heard of the phrase practice what
Speaker 2: you preach, Well, Jesus did the exact opposite. He preached
Speaker 2: what he was already practicing. He was already doing these
Speaker 2: five things where he says, I came to preach the
Speaker 2: good news the poor, heal the broken hearted, proclaim freedom,
Speaker 2: to the prisoner's recovery of sight, to the blind release.
Speaker 2: He said, I'm already doing these things.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 2: What I want to do this weekend, as we start
Speaker 2: this series on the Jesus model, is I want us
Speaker 2: to look at first who Jesus came to help, and
Speaker 2: then I want us to look at how he came
Speaker 2: to help them, what he came to do In other words,
Speaker 2: we're going to look at the groups he came for,
Speaker 2: and we're going to look at the goals of his ministry.
Speaker 2: We're going to look at the target that he had
Speaker 2: for his ministry, and we're going to look at the
Speaker 2: tactics he used. Why because you'll see in just a
Speaker 2: minute everything Jesus did when he's here on earth. He says,
Speaker 2: I want you to do. I want you to do
Speaker 2: it with the hurting people in your life.
Speaker 3: In your life, I want you to help them.
Speaker 2: So first, let's look at the focus of a christ
Speaker 2: like ministry. Let's look at who Jesus came to help.
Speaker 2: And he's very clear. He said I came to Earth
Speaker 2: for five different types of people. Later on, he says,
Speaker 2: a doctor doesn't come to help the healthy. A doctor
Speaker 2: comes to help the sick. And he says there's six
Speaker 2: kinds of people, six general categories of people who are hurting.
Speaker 2: That I came to help the poor, the broken hearted,
Speaker 2: the prisoners, the blind, and the oppressed. Now let's look
Speaker 2: at them, and I want to give you a modern
Speaker 2: day term for each of these groups. First, Jesus said,
Speaker 2: I came for the poor to preach good news to
Speaker 2: the poor, and these are who I call the havenots.
Speaker 2: You might write that down, the havenots of life. And
Speaker 2: there are times in your life that you don't have
Speaker 2: what you need. You need more and more money, you
Speaker 2: need more energy, you need more time, you need more health,
Speaker 2: you need more connections. There are times in your life
Speaker 2: that you are lacking. Jesus says, I came to help
Speaker 2: the poor. Now, there are actually three different types of poverty.
Speaker 2: You might write these down. First is material poverty. Material
Speaker 2: parties when you're out of money, and of course that
Speaker 2: is a major problem in our world.
Speaker 3: Today. Half the world is very poor.
Speaker 2: You may not realize this, but of the six billion
Speaker 2: people in the world today, half of the world, over
Speaker 2: three billion people live on less than two dollars a day.
Speaker 2: I'd like to see you try that. I'd like to
Speaker 2: see you try to live on two dollars a day.
Speaker 2: The poorest of the poor in America are filthy rich
Speaker 2: compared to the rest of the world. Most of the
Speaker 2: world lives on less than two dollars a day.
Speaker 3: The world is a poor world.
Speaker 2: In fact, over one billion people in the world live
Speaker 2: on less than one dollar day.
Speaker 3: That's extreme poverty.
Speaker 2: And we're working sadleback churches working in countries through the
Speaker 2: Peace Plan like Rwanda, where the average income is sixty.
Speaker 3: Eight cents a day. Now, think about this.
Speaker 2: They grow coffee in Rwanda and they sell it to Starbucks. Now,
Speaker 2: the average coffee farmer in Rwanda doesn't make enough in
Speaker 2: one day to buy a cup of coffee. There's something
Speaker 2: wrong with that. That's called injustice inequity. So there is
Speaker 2: physical poverty in world, and Jesus cares about the poor,
Speaker 2: and we care about the poor. But there's other kinds
Speaker 2: of poverty to do. Second, there's moral poverty. And moral
Speaker 2: poverty is when you have a lack of integrity. It's
Speaker 2: when you have a lack of the knowledge of right
Speaker 2: and wrong. It's when you have lost your moral conscience.
Speaker 2: You don't have any desire to do the good thing,
Speaker 2: the right thing. You just want to do what's easy
Speaker 2: for you, what's best for you. And there are many
Speaker 2: people who have moral poverty. They have no morals at all,
Speaker 2: They don't know the difference between right and wrong. And
Speaker 2: the third kind of poverty is spiritual poverty. And spiritual
Speaker 2: poverty is when you don't know all that God planned
Speaker 2: for your life. Now, while half the world is materially poor,
Speaker 2: most of the world is spiritually poor. They don't know
Speaker 2: the good news. They don't know that they are not
Speaker 2: an accident, that God made them for a purpose, that
Speaker 2: they were made to last forever. They don't know that
Speaker 2: Jesus Christ came to die for their sins so that
Speaker 2: they could go to heaven. They don't know that through
Speaker 2: Christ can have their past forgiven, a purpose for living,
Speaker 2: and a home in heaven.
Speaker 3: Most people don't know that they are.
Speaker 2: Infinitely loved by God and that He has a plan
Speaker 2: and direction for every area of their lives. That's spiritual poverty.
Speaker 2: Jesus said, I came for the have nots. You know,
Speaker 2: Mother Teresa was once asked what's the greatest poverty. She said,
Speaker 2: it's not physical poverty, it's spiritual poverty. It's the poverty
Speaker 2: of being unloved. It's the poverty of loneliness. And he
Speaker 2: says that kind of love has to start at home.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 2: The second group Jesus said he came for is the
Speaker 2: broken hearted. He said, I came to heal the broken hearted,
Speaker 2: and I call these people the let down. We've all
Speaker 2: been let down in life. We've all had our broken hearts.
Speaker 2: This phrase a broken heart, Do you know where it
Speaker 2: came from? It came from the Bible. When people say, oh,
Speaker 2: I broke his heart, that's actually a Bible phrase. It's
Speaker 2: thousands of years old. It's in Psalms sixty nine, verse twenty,
Speaker 2: where David says this, indults have broken my heart. That's
Speaker 2: the first use of the idea broken heart. It comes
Speaker 2: from the Bible. When anybody talks about it, I had
Speaker 2: a broken art. It's from the Bible, and it's an
Speaker 2: idea of having Do you know that there's actually a
Speaker 2: broken heart syndrome. You can look this up in any
Speaker 2: medical textbook broken art syndrome. Doctors say that when people
Speaker 2: go through a traumatic event that your brain releases chemicals
Speaker 2: to deal with that event. But part of those chemicals
Speaker 2: actually weaken the tissue of the heart. So that's why
Speaker 2: it's not good for you to go through constant traumatic
Speaker 2: event after traumatic event africament. It actually does weaken your heart.
Speaker 2: It's called broken heart syndrome. Now, what causes broken hearts,
Speaker 2: well a lot of different things, but let me just
Speaker 2: give you three things. You might write these down. First
Speaker 2: is disappointment. You can have a broken heart. You can
Speaker 2: be broken by disappointment when things don't turn out the
Speaker 2: way you planned, and you're going to have many disappointments
Speaker 2: in life. Second, you can be broken by rejection. Now
Speaker 2: that's one that hurts more than almost anything. When you
Speaker 2: feel rejected by somebody who loved you or you thought
Speaker 2: loved you, that just breaks your heart. Disappointment, rejection. A
Speaker 2: third thing is resentment. Resentment can break your heart when
Speaker 2: you hold on to the way people have hurt you.
Speaker 2: It's like taken fire in your chest and it's going
Speaker 2: to burn you up. It's going to eat you alive.
Speaker 2: Resentment is worse than cancer. It's a poison. And God says, no, no, no,
Speaker 2: don't take resentment in your heart because it's it will
Speaker 2: break up your heart. These are the let down, let
Speaker 2: down by rejection, by resentment, by disappointment. Jesus said, I
Speaker 2: came for people who are broken hearted. In fact, the
Speaker 2: Bible says God is close to the broken hearted. The
Speaker 2: third group that Jesus came for is the imprisoned. He said,
Speaker 2: I came to proclaim freedom for the prisoners, and I
Speaker 2: call this group of people the locked up. Locked up
Speaker 2: have not let downs, and the locked up and the
Speaker 2: locked up are the people who are shut out are
Speaker 2: locked up in life.
Speaker 3: They are imprisoned in some way.
Speaker 2: Now, Jesus actually does care about the prisoners in physical prisons,
Speaker 2: and the Bible tells us that as believers, we are
Speaker 2: to visit the prisons. We are to pray for people
Speaker 2: in prison. We have a prison ministry here at saddle
Speaker 2: Back Church. It's why our Celebrate Recovery is actually an
Speaker 2: official program in seventeen state prison systems that was developed
Speaker 2: here at saddle Back Church. Why, because we care about prisoners.
Speaker 2: Jesus said, we're to care about them. Did you know
Speaker 2: that in America two and a half million Americans are
Speaker 2: behind bars? Two and a half million Americans are behind
Speaker 2: bars today, and millions more around the world. But there's
Speaker 2: a lot of other kinds of being in prison too.
Speaker 2: The Bible tells about the kinds of prison that we
Speaker 2: put ourselves in. In fact, let me give you three or
Speaker 2: four things that cause people to get imprisoned personally.
Speaker 3: One of them is addictions.
Speaker 2: Addictions and compulsions imprison us. When people say I feel trapped,
Speaker 2: when they use that word I feel trapped, they're talking
Speaker 2: about being imprisoned Jesus, I want to give them release.
Speaker 2: So I want to give them freedom. And a lot
Speaker 2: of people are trapped by an addiction. And you can
Speaker 2: be addicted to a substance. You can be addicted to
Speaker 2: a person, you can be addicted to an event, you
Speaker 2: can be addicted to pornography, you can be addicted to
Speaker 2: a circumstance. There are a relationship, there's all kinds of compulsions,
Speaker 2: things you'd like to change, but you can't. Those imprison
Speaker 2: your life. Another thing that imprisons you are secrets. When
Speaker 2: you have family secrets that you don't feel, you can tell.
Speaker 2: When you have personal secrets that you don't feel you
Speaker 2: can share. Those lock you up in a prison and
Speaker 2: you hold it inside you. And that's why the Bible
Speaker 2: tells us in James that we're to confess. It's not
Speaker 2: just a God. We're to confess to each other. Yeah,
Speaker 2: God says, don't just confess to God. Now, you don't
Speaker 2: have to confess to everybody. But find one person that
Speaker 2: you trust and that's good to get. That's why we
Speaker 2: do small groups is to build that trust relationship. So
Speaker 2: you'll have one person in your life you can say
Speaker 2: I just got to get this off my chest because
Speaker 2: you weren't meant to hold it inside. And the Bible
Speaker 2: teaches over and over revealing your feeling is the beginning
Speaker 2: of healing. It's the way to freedom. When people out
Speaker 2: on the patio tell me, pastor Rick, I've never told
Speaker 2: this to anybody I know, they're getting ready to experience freedom.
Speaker 2: They're getting ready to walk out of a self imposed prison,
Speaker 2: prisoned by imprisoned by addictions, imprisoned by secrets. Another thing
Speaker 2: is ignorance, lack of education. When a person doesn't have
Speaker 2: access to the education they need, it puts them in
Speaker 2: a prison. Now, you don't realize that's because we live
Speaker 2: in one of the most educated areas in the world.
Speaker 2: Half of the world cannot read or write. Let me
Speaker 2: say that again, half of the world cannot read or write.
Speaker 2: How are they going to make it successfully in the
Speaker 2: twenty first century.
Speaker 3: They're not. They're stuck in poverty.
Speaker 2: And even if we wired the world for global wireless internet,
Speaker 2: if you can't read or write, you don't have any
Speaker 2: access and you are stuck in a prison of ignorance.
Speaker 2: That's why the Bible talks about the importance of education
Speaker 2: and that Jesus was a teacher, and we believe in education,
Speaker 2: and almost every school, the first school in almost every
Speaker 2: country of the world were started by Christian missionaries, along
Speaker 2: with the first hospital in almost every country the world.
Speaker 2: Why because our faith is a preaching, teaching, and healing faith.
Speaker 3: And so education. Lack of education imprisoned us.
Speaker 2: But the number one thing that imprisons people today, and
Speaker 2: it's imprisoned you, is fear.
Speaker 3: Fear.
Speaker 2: Our fears put us in prisons that keep us from
Speaker 2: becoming all God wants us to be. There are all
Speaker 2: kinds of potentials that you have that you've never done
Speaker 2: because you're afraid. And the bigger your fear gets, the
Speaker 2: more afraid you become, and the more you back away
Speaker 2: from it, the bigger it gets.
Speaker 3: And fears grow in your life.
Speaker 2: They don't shrink unless you use the biblical strategy for
Speaker 2: getting rid of them. Jesus said, I care about these people,
Speaker 2: the people in prison, those of you who are in prisoned
Speaker 2: by your fears, or by your secrets, or by your addictions.
Speaker 2: Jesus says, I care about you number four, the fourth
Speaker 2: kind of people. Jesus came forwards. He said, I came
Speaker 2: for the blind. I came to recover the sight of
Speaker 2: the blind. And I call these people the shutout, the
Speaker 2: shutout because when you're blind, you're shut out of life.
Speaker 2: You're always running into walls. You don't get to experience
Speaker 2: things that other people experience. You don't get to see
Speaker 2: things that other people see. Now right now in the world,
Speaker 2: there are fifty million people, over fifty million people in
Speaker 2: the world who are physically blind right now, and God
Speaker 2: cares about those people. But there's more than just physical blindness.
Speaker 2: There are many types of blindness. The first is physical,
Speaker 2: and you might write that one down, and it's important
Speaker 2: for us to care about people who are blind. Jesus
Speaker 2: cared about people who had lost their sight. And there's
Speaker 2: many types of blindness. There's night blindness, some of you
Speaker 2: have that. There's color blindness, some of you have that.
Speaker 2: There's motion blindness. There are many kinds of blindness physically,
Speaker 2: but there's also other kinds of blindness you've never realized.
Speaker 2: There is relational blindness. What is relational blindness. Relational blindness
Speaker 2: is when you don't see how you're messing up the relationship.
Speaker 2: Relational blindness is when you don't see your self defeating
Speaker 2: behavior and why every time you get in a relationship,
Speaker 2: it ends that's relational blindness. And you go from relationship
Speaker 2: to relationship to relationship to relationship, and they all keep crumbling,
Speaker 2: and you keep saying, what's the problem, And the answer
Speaker 2: is you are what's the common denominator and all those
Speaker 2: failed relationships you.
Speaker 3: But you don't see it.
Speaker 2: You just don't get it. Now, you see, women are
Speaker 2: wired more relationally.
Speaker 3: They get it.
Speaker 2: They instinctively get relationships in a way that guys don't.
Speaker 2: Men are wired for achievement. Men are wired for action.
Speaker 2: Men are wired for accomplishment. We get something done. Women
Speaker 2: are primarily first and foremost wired for relationships. And so
Speaker 2: when it comes to relationships, guys, as a general rule,
Speaker 2: we're clueless. Would any woman like to say, amen, there
Speaker 2: you go? Okay, I rest my case. So guys, as
Speaker 2: husbands and as dads, we're often clueless. We don't get
Speaker 2: how what we say and do or don't say and
Speaker 2: don't do messes.
Speaker 3: Up the relationship. We are relationally blind. Here's the good
Speaker 3: news Jesus that I came for you.
Speaker 1: What a special message from Pastor Rick. And now let's
Speaker 1: hear how lives are changing through daily hope here's Rick
Speaker 1: with a letter from one of our listeners.
Speaker 2: Hi, everybody today, I want to read part of a
Speaker 2: letter that I received from June, who is a prisoner
Speaker 2: that was given a second chance by God. He wrote this,
Speaker 2: I'm a prisoner here in the National Penitentiary serving my sentence.
Speaker 2: I came to know the Lord inside myself thirteen years ago,
Speaker 2: and now I'm serving the Lord as an inmate. Pastor Rick,
Speaker 2: I always use your daily hope, preaching and devotionals in
Speaker 2: sharing the words of God to my fellow prisoners, and
Speaker 2: I see people come to the Lord in many many ways.
Speaker 2: You know, before I was in prison and I came
Speaker 2: to know the Lord, I was a high ranking police
Speaker 2: officer and I was about to commit suicide because of
Speaker 2: the numerous charges filed against me. But when God saved
Speaker 2: me physically and spiritually, my journey in prison became the
Speaker 2: most wonderful vessel used by God to manifest his love
Speaker 2: to me. He never leaves me, nor forsakes me, and
Speaker 2: may his name always be glorified. Thank you, Pastor Rick,
Speaker 2: You're an inspiration and encouragement to all of us. Well, June,
Speaker 2: it's amazing to know your story and to hear that
Speaker 2: you're using the Daily Hope messages to teach your fellow
Speaker 2: inmates about Jesus Christ. That is fantastic. I couldn't be
Speaker 2: more happy.
Speaker 3: They need to hear that God gives second chances. They
Speaker 3: need to.
Speaker 2: Hear that He still has a plan and purpose for
Speaker 2: their lives even though they're in prison. Your story is
Speaker 2: a great reminder that any one of us can use
Speaker 2: what we learn through Daily Hope podcast devotionals and we
Speaker 2: can take these things and teach others about God's grace
Speaker 2: and forgiveness and unconditional love. Keep it up, my friend,
Speaker 2: God bless you.
Speaker 1: You know you can share the good news of Jesus
Speaker 1: by sharing Daily Hope. Just go to pastorick dot com,
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