How Much You Matter to God — Part 1

♪ ♪ Hello, and thanks for joining us today on Pastor Rick's Daily Hope. This is the Bible teaching ministry of Rick Warren. And today, we are continuing in a series called "The Miracle of Mercy." Rick will show us how God's mercy can lift your guilt, heal your wounds, and transform the way you live. Okay, here's part one of a message called "How Much You Matter to God." Now, one of the purposes of the "The Miracle of Mercy" series is to help you better understand what God is really like. Most people have poor misconceptions of God. They don't understand fully, deeply, the mercy of God that God always acts in mercy toward us. Every good thing in your life is because of the mercy of God. You wouldn't be alive if it weren't for the mercy of God. The talents, the gifts, the abilities you have are gifts of the mercy of God. The fact that all of the good things, the relationships that happen in your life, the fact that you're going to go to heaven one day is only due to the mercy of God. Without that, we would have nothing. Now, the Bible says in Titus chapter 3, if you pull out your message notes, all the verses we're going to look at this weekend or on your notes. Titus chapter 3 verse 5 says this, "Jesus saved us not because of the good things that we did, but because of his mercy." His mercy. He washed away our sins and he gave us new life through the Holy Spirit. Now, God is such a God of mercy. He came to earth in human form as a form of Jesus Christ. He came in human form to show us his mercy. He came on a mission of mercy and that mission of mercy was to save us. In fact, Jesus says it like this in Luke chapter 19 verse 10. "I have come to seek and save those who are lost." Now, this is the ultimate expression of mercy. Jesus said, "The whole reason I came to earth, why we have Christmas, why we have Easter, why we have everything that exists, is I came to seek and save those who are lost." The ultimate expression of mercy, mercy seeks. Mercy takes initiative. Mercy makes the first step. Mercy saves. And by the way, this is the reason Saddleback Church exists. The whole reason we have church is because of this verse. We exist to seek and to save those who are lost. That's the whole purpose of Saddleback Church. Now, I want you to circle the word "save" and the word "lost." "Saved" and "lost." In God's eyes, there are only two kinds of people. There are only two distinctions that really matter. There are saved people and there are lost people. Every one of us are in one of those categories where you have saved or where it lost. And ultimately, no other human distinction matters. Gender doesn't matter. It doesn't matter whether you're female or male. Race doesn't matter. It doesn't matter what your culture is, what your language is, what your background is. It doesn't matter what your religion is. Your wealth doesn't matter in terms in God's view. Your education doesn't matter. God doesn't distinguish people by their IQs, by their abilities, by their looks, by their talent or anything else. God says there are two kinds of people in the world. There are people who are saved and there are people who are lost who have not yet been saved by God. Now, maybe you're thinking, "Well, I'm not in the save, so I must be in the lost." Don't consider that to be a put down. It's not. In fact, it's a compliment. Both of these phrases, "saved and lost," imply somebody loves you. Both of these phrases, "saved and lost," imply you have enormous value. Both of these phrases, "saved and lost," are actually compliments. They're saying, "You matter to God." And he knows whether you're in this condition or in this condition, you're valuable, you're worth seeking, you're worth saving, you're worth finding. They're expressions of love. I want you to write this down on your outline. Lostness implies value. If I'm spiritually lost, it doesn't mean I'm not valuable. No, you're incredibly valuable to God. So valuable that Jesus Christ came to earth to seek and to save you. You see, invaluable things are misplaced, but valuable things are lost. In other words, nobody loses a toothpick. You may misplace a toothpick. You may misplace a paperclip. You may misplace a Kleenex, but you don't lose a Kleenex because it's not that valuable. And so you don't go seeking and saving the Kleenex because it's not valuable enough. Let me give you an example. This is a paper-made flair pen. I think it costs 19 cents. It's about the cheapest pen you can get. I have used this type of pen for over 35 years. I have signed hundreds of thousands of books with this blue pen. People try to give me monk blanx and all these other things. I wouldn't use them. Why? I'd lose them. These I can lose 100 a day and it doesn't matter. And so if I'm traveling internationally, we always take a stack of about 50 of these flair pens because I can lose two or three in an hour. But because they're so cheap, it doesn't matter to me. I don't even consider them lost. That's my donation to whoever I left it behind too. And so while I could have a much more expensive pen, this is Rick Warren's pen of choice. Now somebody should pay me a product promotion for that. I bought it. You should try it too. But it's cheap. And so I don't lose these. I just misplaced them. Now, this is my wedding ring. If I lost this, it would be a real loss because it represents over 40 years of commitment to the same woman. And she gave it to me. And I love her. And if I lost this, it would not, I wouldn't misplace my wedding ring. I would lose it. You only lose stuff that's extremely valuable. When my son, my youngest son died, I didn't misplace my son. I lost him. Because my son was priceless to me. And it was a major loss in my life. Something invaluable, you misplace. Something priceless or invaluable. Can't put a price tag on it. You lose that. You know, this year, all of the airlines in America together will permanently lose, they do this every year, over 300,000 pieces of luggage. Happens every year. I'm not talking about the ones you lose and then fine. I'm talking about they permanently lose 300,000 pieces of luggage a year. Now, most of those are filled with worthless stuff, dirty clothes. But some of them are filled with stuff that's priceless. In fact, when a masterpiece and art is lost, price actually goes up. So when we talk about whether you're saved or whether you're lost spiritually, both of them imply enormous value. It's not a matter of, is one more important or one more value than that. They're not. They're just both incredibly valuable. Now, what I want to do this weekend, as we look at the mercy of God, is ask three questions. What do I lose when I am spiritually lost? What do I actually lose? I mean, you've heard people talk about well, I'm saved or I'm lost or whatever. What is that? Now, many of you, you say, I know the Lord. You need to know what I'm about to teach you because you don't need to know how to explain it to somebody else. What do you actually lose when you're spiritually lost? What are you going to talk about that? And then second, what does God's mercy do when I am lost? How does God respond to that? And then third question, and when I ask is, how can I experience God's mercy? How do I experience God's mercy? Now, fortunately, all of the answers to those three questions are in the same chapter in the Bible. It's Luke chapter 15. And in Luke chapter 15, Jesus tells three stories. The story of a lost sheep, the story of the lost coin, and the story of the lost son. And in these three stories, he tells us the answers to these questions. And actually, this passage is often called by Bible scholars, the lost and found chapter of the Bible. Because the word lost and the word found together are used ten times in one chapter. So Luke 15 is called the what chapter? Lost and found chapter of the Bible. Because it's a story of the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the lost son. Three different stories all saying the same thing. You matter to God. Now, in these stories, the shepherd and the woman and the father all represent God. And in these stories, the sheep, and the sun representing you and me. So let me just tell you the three stories real quick. First is the story of the lost sheep. And Jesus says, "There's a guy, a shepherd, who has a hundred sheep. And every night he brings them back to the sheep pen, the sheep fold, to lock them up for the night so that they're safe from wolves and predatory animals. And he counts them every night. And as they're coming back in, 98, 99, and then there's no 100. And he realizes that one is missing. And he counts them because they, just like we say at church, we count people because people count. Every life matters. Every number represents a name, and every name has a story, and every story is somebody that Jesus Christ died for. And so the story of the good shepherd here is he leaves the 99 saved sheep in the pen to go out and search for the one that's lost. And as long as there's one lost, he's going to keep reaching out. He then says, "Well, hey, I got 99 saved sheep. Forget the lost one. No, they all matter. They all matter. As long as Saddleback Church has one person who doesn't know Christ, they all matter. We got to keep reaching out to people." So he goes off and he searches all night and he finds the one lost sheep. And he brings them back and puts them in the fold. He's so happy he throws a party. And everybody comes to his party. Then there's the second story. And the story is the story of the lost coin. And Jesus says, "There's this woman who has ten valuable coins." And I don't know if they're laying on a table or whatever, but somehow one of them gets lost. And she loses it. And she can't find it. Now she didn't say, "Well, you know, I got nine coins. They're all valuable. I'm not going to worry about this one lost coin." No, she turns the house upside down. And she's frantically searching. And she's tearing the furniture apart and looking all over. She does not give up until she finds the one lost coin. And then she's happy about it. And she throws a party and invites all of her neighbors and friends to celebrate that she's found her lost coin. Then there's the third story that Jesus tells is the story of the lost son. Sometimes this story is called the prodigal son. And the story goes like this. There's a wealthy man who has two sons. And one of the sons, the younger son, is kind of rebellious. And comes to him, one day, and says, "Dad, this is really boring living here at home. I'm leaving. I'm splitting. I want you to give my half of the family inheritance to me now." I'm not going to wait till you die. Give it to me now. So the father gives the younger son half of his entire wealth. And the son splits, he leaves, and he moves to Vegas. And our sons that's dripping downtown Jerusalem. And there he, it says, he wasted his substance in riotous living. In other words, wine, women, and song, special emphasis on women. And he's partying, hearty, and he's having a fun time, and he's having a lot of blasts. He's got a lot of friends as long as he's got plenty of money. But eventually he runs out of money. And when he runs out of money, he runs out of friends. And all of a sudden, he ends up on the skids. He can't get a job anywhere. He ends up feeding slop to pigs and living in the pigstie, in the pigpen. This is not a good thing for a kosher Jew, okay? To be living and eating or with a pig. And so he's there. In, laying there in the pigstie, in the slop, he has a moment of clarity. He comes to his senses and goes, what in the world am I doing? He goes, I'm thinking about home. He said, the servants who work for my dad are better treated than this. I know what I do. I'm going to go home and say to my dad, dad, I'm not worthy to be your son anymore. I blew half the family inheritance. I have a big mistake. I have sinned. Just make me one of your hired servants. And I'll just serve you because your hired servants live better than I'm living out on my own in rebellion. And the loving father instead of says, oh, are you kidding me? He grabs him in a big hug. He kisses him. He hugs him. He welcomes him to home. He says, bring the best robe. Put it on him. He says, bring the sigthit rain, which is like the credit card. Find the best head of beef and we're going to have a barbecue tonight. And he throws a party. He says, my son has been lost and now he's found. Now, did you notice any common denominator between the three stories? What is it? There was a party. Exactly. I was actually going to call this sermon, come to the party. Because God wants to throw a party for you in His mercy. So let's look at God's mercy and what it has to do with being lost or saved. Now, to be lost in God's use means to be spiritually disconnected from God. If I'm not connected in a daily relationship, in a vital connection with God, I don't have a relationship with God. I am spiritually lost. So what happens when I am lost? What actually do I lose? Well, these three stories that Jesus told in Luke 15, the lost son, the lost coin, the lost sheep, give us five things we lose. You might write these down. So you can explain them to other people. What actually, what do I lose if I'm lost? Number one, I lose my direction. I lose my direction. And we see this in the story of the lost sheep. Now, no sheep intends to get lost. It just wanders off. It's natural for people, I mean, for sheep to get lost on a warm spring day. You know, sheep, they're not intentionally trying to get lost. They just go, "That looks a little better grass over there." I'll wander over there and munch around a little bit. That even looks a little better over there. And you wand over there and taste a little bit of that. And, "Hey, I think I see some water down there." And you wander over there and pretty soon the sheep is lost. He didn't intend to get lost. It's just naturally wanders. It is human nature. In us, the same way as with sheep, humans do this too. You know, as a kid, I often wandered off. In fact, my parents would have heart attacks for all the times I wandered off on vacations and things like that. And I wasn't being rebellious. I wasn't being, quote, "synchalite." Just was wandering off. And, you know, we'd got camped and go, "Hey, there goes the butterfly." And I start following the butterfly. And then, "Well, that's kind of interesting. I think I'd like to climb that and to climb that." And he said, "Where's Rick?" I don't know. Where is he? And I would just by nature wander off. And that happens to us, too. The Bible says in Isaiah 53 verse 6, "All of us have straight away like lost sheep. We've left God's path to follow our own paths, our own ways." And we always get lost when we follow our own ways. If you are following your plan for your life right now rather than God's plan, you're lost. And if you're following your plan, you'll lose your direction. What I've discovered, and I've talked to countless numbers of people, most people are drifting through life. That's why I wrote Purpose Driven Life. They don't have any purpose. They don't have any direction. They don't have a vision. They're not clear in their destination. They don't know where they're going. I couldn't tell you how many hundreds of people have told me over time the phrase, "You know, Rick, I have no idea where I'm going with my life." That's called drifting. You lose your direction. And we do this naturally as human beings, just as sheep do it naturally as sheep. We lack direction, we lack purpose, we lack meaning. And a lot of times, that means we're going slow. You can be going very fast in not knowing the direction. It's like that famous World War II pilot who radioed into control. And the home base said, "Where are you?" And he said, "I don't know where I'm at, but I'm making record time." And we do this a lot in life. We think that speed is direction. Now, you can have a lot of speed in your life and absolutely have no idea where you're headed. We wander off. We lose our direction. Number two, the second thing we lose is we lose our protection. We lose God's protection in our life. And we find this in the story of the sheep, the lost sheep. Sheep are very vulnerable. They're pretty defenseless animals. They don't have claws. They don't have sharp teeth. They don't have fangs. They certainly can't run fast like gazelles or other animals that can get ahead of the predators. If you're a sheep, you're pretty vulnerable unless you have a shepherd. If you've got a shepherd who can beat off the wolves or scare away the bears or in some nations, actually lions or tigers or other animals, if you're a sheep, you're kind of up for grabs. If you don't have a shepherd, they're very vulnerable and a sheep that wanders off has no protection from the shepherd. So they're going to get hurt. They're going to get hurt bad. And God says this is true of us. In Zachariah 10 verse 2, "My people are wandering like lost sheep without a shepherd." to protect them and to guide them. Now, you know the most famous chapter in the Bible is Psalm 23 that goes like this. The Lord is my shepherd, exactly. And Jesus was called the good shepherd. We're the sheep, he's the shepherd. But if you're not following the shepherd, you're on your own. And you're defenseless in life. And you're gonna get eaten up. You're gonna get eaten up. You lose your direction and you lose your protection if you're not following the shepherd. Which, by the way, is why you get stressed out. It's why you worry. It's why you have fear, you have anxiety. Because you're trying to work this thing all out on your own. You weren't meant to. You know how vulnerable you are in this world. How close you are to not making it financially. How close you are to not making it in your health. You know how vulnerable. How, you know, one phone call can turn your world upside down. And when you are spiritually lost and you're not connected to your shepherd, if you're a sheep, you lose your direction, you wander and you lose your protection whoever God, God is not protecting you if you're out here going your way instead of God's way. God will protect you if you go his way. He's not gonna protect you if you go your way. Now you're on your own. You're just you're wandering off. One of God's great promises, Romans 8.28 here on the screen. We know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to His purpose. Now, we've talked about this for many times. It does just say everything is good in life. It's not. There's a lot of bad, there's a lot of evil, there's a lot of harm, there's a lot of suffering in the world. It doesn't say it's all good. It says God causes even the bad stuff to work for good. Is this a promise for everybody? No, it's a promise for those who love God. If you're not following the shepherd, this isn't working in your life. All things are not working for good in your life if you're ignoring God. All things are working for bad. You're on your own. You're on your own. But when I place myself as a sheep under the shepherd's care, now I get direction and now I get protection and even the bad stuff that comes in my life God says, I can use that. I can make it work for good. But it's a promise for those who are under God's protection. I don't know about you, but I am encouraged after that message. And let's keep the encouragement going with a letter from one of our listeners. Here's Rick. Have you ever taken a step of faith with no idea what's next? Well, with the help of daily hope, Nicole did just that. She wrote this note to me. Hello, Pastor Rick. A close friend of mine suggested I listen to daily hope four years ago. And while I had faith and I loved the Lord, I was lost. But daily hope rescued me. My relationship with Jesus grew in ways and I never knew possible. I was soon baptized and over the next four years, I grew and boldness and in faith in the Lord. And I even left a high-powered and high-salary position to follow a different purpose-driven path with the Lord's guidance. It's been a literal step forward in faith without knowing the next steps. Certainly not something I was capable of years ago and already God is showing me His goodness. You know, as my husband explores his own relationship with Jesus, again, your ministry is literally a God's sin. Your ability to teach the good news in ways that are easy to understand and apply it is just amazing. We also follow your suggestion to find a good local church. So thanks for all you do for believers and those who are seeking Christ around the world. Rick, your love and appreciated and no doubt a vessel of God's grace and mercy, sign Nicole. Well, Nicole, I'm so glad that you've grown in your relationship with Jesus and you've taken the important step of getting baptized. What an important step this is. Finding a church home, really listening to the Lord and living a purpose-driven life. All of that happens when you take time to listen to God's word. I love how your friend shared daily hope with you and now you shared it with your husband. You know, any of you can do this. Anybody can do this. You can share daily hope with your friends and with your relatives and with people you don't even know and then watch how God brings life to others through His word. You know, I share Pastor Rick's daily hope all the time and whether it's a friend or someone you meet in a restaurant, everyone needs hope and encouragement from the Bible every day. So tell the people you know and love about daily hope. Hey, be sure to join us next time when we look into God's word for our daily hope. This program is sponsored by Pastor Rick's daily hope and your generous financial support.