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Let us pray. Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort, who comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God. 2 Corinthians 1, 3-4 Heavenly Father, I bless your holy name. You are the only one worthy of praise and adoration.
You are the Father of your only begotten Son, my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. In your great mercy, you sent him into this world to redeem me from my sins and grant me eternal life through his shed blood on the cross. You are the Father of all mercies, filled with compassion and ready to forgive the sincere believer who turns to you.
Your nature is to show mercy and give me comfort through whatever trial or tribulation I face. As I receive your comfort and experience your faithfulness in my affliction, I am able to comfort others in the same affliction. Having received the victory over my circumstances, I now have the anointing to encourage others and bring them through to their victory by your grace. No one can speak to an alcoholic like a recovered alcoholic.
No one can speak to a broken heart like someone who knows the pain and experience of that grief. Everything that I overcome becomes part of my testimony of your goodness that I can share with others to encourage and comfort them as you comforted me. That which the enemy means for evil, you turn it for my good and the good of others. In Jesus' name, amen. Thank you for listening to today's daily prayer.
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Welcome. Thanks for joining Pastor Rick Warren. To hear Pastor Rick's free daily Bible teaching program, download free sermon notes, or sign up for his free daily devotional, visit PastorRick.com. Now, let's join Pastor Rick. Since mental illness took Matthew's life, one of the passages of the Bible that has encouraged me the most is 2 Corinthians chapter 1. I want to begin with it today. It's there on your outline.
verses 3 to 11 praise be to the god and father of our lord jesus christ the father of all compassion and the god of all comfort who comforts us in our troubles so that we can comfort others with the same comfort that we've received from god in other words we go through problems god comforts us and then we pass it on for just as the sufferings
Christ flow over into our lives so also through Christ our comfort overflows if we're distressed it's for your salvation and if we're comforted it's for your comfort our hope now I want you to notice this sentence our hope for you is firm because we know we're gonna come back to that our hope is firm because we know
Our hope for you is firm because we know that just as you have shared in our sufferings, so also you will share in our comfort. Now we don't want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about the hardships that we have suffered. We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure. This is Paul talking here. Far beyond our ability to endure. So that we despaired even of life itself. In other words...
I'm so depressed, I'm ready to kick the bucket. I'm ready to throw in the towel. I'm ready to give up and die. That's depression. We despaired even of life itself. Indeed, in our hearts, we felt the sentence of death. But, but, but this happened so that we might not rely on ourselves, but on God who raises the dead. And he has delivered us.
"and we've set our hope on him that he will continue "to deliver us as you help us, "as you help us by your prayers. "Then," Paul says, "many will give thanks to God "for the gracious favor granted to us "in answer to your many prayers." I love that last sentence. "Then many will give thanks to God "for the gracious favor granted to us "in answer to your many prayers."
Now let's go back to the text. Look at that on your outline, and I want you to circle three phrases. I put them in caps. Our hope is firm because we know. Would you circle those? Our hope is firm because we know. What I want to say is that what you know is what gets you through in life. You
is what gets you through. If you don't know the right things, when the rogue winds of life come and the tsunamis of life come, you're gonna fall over, you're gonna cave, you're gonna crumble. And when the great tragedies and the losses of life, which are inevitable, come into your life, if you don't know the right truths, you're not gonna stand spiritually strong. What you know is what gets you through.
Probably the question I've been asked more than any other question is, how is your family getting through this? And the answer is, it's because of what we know. Because our lives are not built on the shifting sands of popularity and popular culture, which changes every month. But our lives are built on rock solid bedrock truth of the Bible, so that no matter what hits us, we have a solid foundation.
We know some unchanging truths. Today I want to just mention three of those truths. If ever you needed to take notes, it's this week. Now I don't like to say this as your pastor because I love you, but you're going to go through tough times. And you too will experience major losses in life. There is no growth without change. There is no change without loss. There is no loss without pain. And there is no pain without grief. You're going to go through losses in life.
And you need to know these things that we're going to talk about this morning, and you need to remember them to make it through. How do you get through what you're going through? Let's get right into it. Number one, the first thing we know is this. We know that life doesn't make sense. We know that. Life doesn't make sense, but we know we can have peace because we know God is with us and he loves us.
Life doesn't make sense, but we can still have peace because we know God is with us and God loves us. Now you have noticed, I'm sure, that life is often confusing. There are a lot more questions than answers and there are a lot of unanswered questions. And the truth is, we simply don't know why things happen the way they do and we're not gonna know. But we're always asking the question, why? Why is this happening? Why is this happening now? Why is this happening to me?
Why, why, why? Why did my husband walk out on me? Why did my wife die of cancer? Why did I lose my job? Why didn't I get that promotion? Why was my baby born with mental illness? And we're not gonna know on this side of eternity the answer to those why questions. You're just not gonna know. Life does not make sense when you just look at it. Bad people prosper, good people suffer, and all kinds of different things happen. You know, in my grieving life,
I'm not just grieving, but I'm observing my own grief because I'm a teacher. And as I looked at what I was going through, I could see six discernible stages of reaction to loss. You're gonna write these down 'cause you're gonna go through them and you can go through them all at once and you can go back and forth, but here are the stages, what I call the six stages of loss. Now the first one is shock.
Shock and that your world is just thrown upside down you lose your job. You're in shock a Loved one dies you're in shock Matt the shock over Matthew's suicide Lasted not days it lasted at least a month in my life at least a month and I was in shock for a month But then you move to stage two which I call sorrow you move from shock to sorrow and now you begin to grieve now sorrow is a godly emotion and
Shock is a purely human emotion. God is never shocked because God knows everything. So God never goes, wow, I didn't see that one coming. So God is never shocked. That's a human emotion. But sorrow is a godly emotion. The Bible says God grieves. The only reason you're able to grieve is because you're made in the image of God. The Bible says Jesus wept. The Bible says Jesus was a man acquainted with sorrows. He understood sorrow. Grieving is a good thing. Grieving is the way we get through the transitions of life.
Then you move from shock to sorrow and the third stage is struggle. Now in struggle is where you ask the why questions. Why? Why? Why me? Why now? Why this? Why did this happen? Now, you're not gonna get the answers to the whys, but it's still okay to ask them. Even Jesus asked why. On the cross, Jesus cries out, "My God, my God, why?" Even Jesus asked the why question.
Because we don't always know what's going on in that moment. So it's okay to ask why, but the test of your faith is what do you do when you don't get the answer? Because you're not gonna get it. The fourth phrase is if you want to get out of the struggle into peace, you've got to go to stage four, which I call surrender. And in surrender, it's where you just stop asking and start submitting and start surrendering and start accepting.
Surrender is the only path to peace. It is the only path to peace. And you just say, you know what? I'm gonna give it up. I'm gonna give it up. Then you come to stage five. This is a big Bible word, but it's the word sanctification. Sanctification is when God starts bringing good
out of bad, when God starts making changes in you, when your personality, when your character starts being transformed like the metamorphosis of a caterpillar into a butterfly, sanctification is when God makes you more godly. Now, you're never going to be God. You're never going to be a God, not even a little God. People say, you know, New Age movement says you're a God. Oh, really? If you're a God, why don't you solve all the world's problems? You can't even solve your own. You're not a God. You're not even a mini-me God. God.
But you can become godly, where you become more like God in love, joy, peace, patience, gentleness, goodness, faithfulness, all those qualities, the fruit of the Spirit. And then once you get into the sanctification where God is working on you, then you come to stage six, which is service. And it's this. God wants to take your greatest pain and turn it into your life message. He wants to use your mess effectively.
for a message. He wants to use your test for a testimony. He wants to take the thing that you're most embarrassed about, that you're most ashamed of, that you most regret hadn't happened, and he wants to use it for good in the lives of others. Who can better help someone, parents of a Down syndrome child, than parents who had a Down syndrome child?
Who could better help somebody struggling with an addiction than somebody who's struggled with an addiction? The very thing you want to least talk about is the very thing God wants to use most in your life to help other people. Your ministry comes out of your pain. Now, in the next six weeks, we're going to look at each of these stages individually, in detail. But what I want you to get today is this one concept. No matter what stage you're in, you're not in it by yourself.
you're not alone god is with you and god loves you and that's why we can have peace even when life doesn't make sense because god is with me and god loves me you're not going to go through any of these stages on your own there are over 6 000 promises in the bible let me just show you a few of them the first one is isaiah chapter 43 verse 2. god says this when you go through deep waters i will be with you when you pass through rivers of difficulty you will not drown
When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned up. It will not consume you. Somebody asked Kay about two weeks after Matthew died, "How are you doing?" She said, "We're devastated but not destroyed." It will not consume you. It will not consume. You know, for 27 years, I prayed every day that God would heal the mental illness of my son because he lived a very tortured, painful life.
His life was not a happy life. It was a painful life. And yet that prayer was never answered. And it didn't make sense. We went to the best doctors in the nation. We had the best medications. We had the best therapies. We had prayer. We had healing. We had thousands, tens of thousands of people praying. And just, it didn't make sense.
We had an incredibly strong family, deeply loving, supportive, full of faith, strong family. It just didn't make sense. And I remember after Matthew died, writing in my journal, I would rather walk with God with none of my questions answered than to walk through life without him and know all the answers. Why? Because when in pain, explanations don't help. They don't help.
You see, whenever you have a major loss, your tendency is to immediately look for a cause, a reason, or an explanation. You go, why? I gotta figure this out. Why did she leave me? Why did I lose my job? Why did I get cancer? Why, why, why? And you're looking for an explanation. Friends, explanations don't help. You don't need an explanation. You need God. You need the comfort of God. You need the presence of God.
If Kay were to drop dead tomorrow, and I knew the reason, it wouldn't lessen the pain any bit. So stop looking for an explanation. Stop looking for the why. It's not going to make you feel any better. You don't need an explanation. You need God. You need his presence. Now, one day you're going to understand why everything happens, but right now your brain isn't big enough, and neither is mine.
God has not promised to give you an explanation for why everything happens in the world. But he has promised you're not going to go through anything on your own. Look at this next verse. Hebrews 13, 5. I, this is God talking, I will never leave you and I will never abandon you. He says this over and over and over again from Genesis to the end of the Bible, all scriptures. God says, I will never abandon you. Now you may have been abandoned in life.
by a spouse or a parent. Maybe you've been rejected, but God's never gonna abandon you. God is never gonna reject you. You see, when we're going through intense pain like the pain I've been in, we are tempted to think that God has forgotten us. It is impossible for God to forget you. He created you as an object of his love. You were made to be loved by God. In fact, here's what the Bible says. Isaiah 49, verse 15 says,
God says this, can a mother forget the baby at her breast or a child that she has born? The answer is obviously no. No woman could not be nursing a baby and forget the baby at the same time. Obviously not. He said, even if that were possible, I will never forget you. Look, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands. Now look up here. God says, I have engraved you
on the palms of my hands, so I can't forget you. A lot of people get tattoos to remember somebody they love. God has a tattoo of you. I have engraved you on the palms of my hands. Where did he get that tattoo? On the cross. With nails pierced hands, outstretched arms, he said, "This is how much I love you. "I love you this much. "I love you so much it hurts. "I love you so much I'd rather die than live without you. "I love you so much, this is how much."
Sacrifice. In heaven, no one's gonna have any scars except Jesus. And he's gonna have the hands, the feet, the side, the head. Why? Because he wants to always remember, this is how much I love you. It is impossible for God to forget how much he loves you. And so we know that no matter how we don't understand what's going on in our lives,
We do know this, I don't have the solutions, I don't have the answers, I don't have the reasons, I don't have the explanations, but I do have the presence of God and I do have his love in my life. And when life doesn't make sense, you need to hold on to the promises. You know what occurred to me the day Matthew died? God knows what it's like to lose a son. I've had many people ask me as pastors, "Pastor Rick, where was God when my son died?" Same place he was when his son died.
Weeping, grieving. You know what the Bible says? That God weeps. You know what the Bible says? God has stored up every tear you've ever cried. You don't even know that. But God does. He knows more about you than you do. As I said, Matthew lived a very tortured life. And part of the problem was he was incredibly bright. A lot of people who are mentally ill don't know they're mentally ill. Matthew did. And growing up, he said, why can't I be normal? Because he was so smart.
He knew what wasn't right. He felt odd and he felt on the outskirts. He felt like he didn't fit in. He felt like nobody understood him. He just, why can't I be normal? And he had a tender heart, but he had a tortured mind. And he struggled all through life with the unanswered questions about his illness because it didn't make sense. But I want to tell you this, one second into heaven, all of Matthew's questions were answered.
And all of a sudden he understood it all. Life doesn't make sense, but we can still have peace 'cause we know God loves us and he's with us. There's a second thing you need to know and you need to remember. Everything on earth is broken. Everything on earth is broken, but we can still have joy because we know God is good and he's got a greater plan. Everything on earth is broken. Now, the fact is since sin and evil entered the world,
It messed up everything. And nothing on this planet is perfect. Everything on the planet is broken. Nothing works perfectly. The weather does not work perfectly. We have tsunamis and we have earthquakes and we have fires and floods and all kinds of natural disasters. God didn't want that. He created a garden of paradise, a garden of Eden. Sin broke the planet. It broke the weather. It broke the climate.
The economy doesn't work perfectly. None of your plans work perfectly. Have you noticed that? Not one of your plans works perfectly. Your body doesn't work perfectly. Anybody agree with that one? Yeah, yeah. No relationship works perfectly. Anybody wanna give a testimony? No matter how much you love, you still have this. No brain works perfectly. We all have broken brains.
And we have thoughts that we can't control and compulsions and desires and attractions and fears and depressions and worries and rage and you know, you name it. Everything is broken in this world.
Isaiah 24 says this. By the way, if you ever want to read a perfect description of modern culture, you need to go study in detail Isaiah 24. Because Isaiah 24 explains all of the problems in our culture today. People locking their doors for fear of crooks and why the cities are in chaos. It's an amazingly accurate passage. Let me just show you a couple verses. Verse 5 and verse 19.
The earth suffers, everything's broken. The earth suffers for the sins of its people, for they have twisted the instructions of God, violated his laws, and broken his covenant. Therefore, the earth has broken down and has utterly collapsed. Everything is lost, we're all lost spiritually. Everything's abandoned and confused. We have confusion about everything.
confusion about the economy, confusion... There's confusion in every area. About money, about sex, about life, about time. There's confusion everywhere. Now why is there brokenness and suffering in the world? Because of sin and evil. Why is there sin and evil in the world? Because God allows you and me a free choice. We can choose to not love Him, we can choose to go our own way.
You say, well, why doesn't God eliminate all the sin on the earth? Well, God could easily eliminate all the sin on the earth. Get rid of you and me. And we've been hurting each other for thousands and thousands of years. You get enough sin in habitual lives of people. It affects the environment. It affects your DNA, your genetics. It affects everything. Everything is broken. Well, if everything is broken, how can we have joy?
Because we know God is good and because we know he has a better purpose and a greater plan. Romans 8:28, one of the greatest promises in the Bible says this, but we know, circle that, we know. We know, this is the second thing you need to know. We know that in all things, not some things, not the good things, we know that in all things, God works for the good of those who love him.
"and have been called according to his purpose." Now this is a great promise, but I want you to notice it's not a promise for everybody. He works for the good of those who love him and have been called according to his purpose. If you love God, everything that happens in your life, God is using it. He's gonna work it for good, even the bad. Anybody can bring good out of good. God specializes in bringing good out of bad.
Now, if you don't love God, all things are not working for good in your life. In fact, all things are working for bad in your life because you're going against your creator. Your arms are too short to box with God. You're going to lose that one. Now, this is one of the most misunderstood, misinterpreted, and misused verses in the Bible. Notice what it doesn't say. It doesn't say everything that happens is good.
No, it says all things God works for the good. Doesn't say it's all good. Doesn't say everything happens. There's a lot of bad stuff in the world. There's a lot of evil in the world. Racism is bad. Rape is bad. Bigotry is bad. Terrorism is bad. Cancer and leukemia, that's bad. God is not the author of evil.
It doesn't say that everything that happens is good. There's a lot of bad stuff. He doesn't even say everything that happens is God's will. Now that's nonsense. Friends, a lot of people confuse heaven and earth. This is not heaven. In heaven, everything is perfect. Why? Because God's will is done perfectly, so everything is perfect. In heaven, it's all perfect because God's will is always done perfectly.
on earth, everything is broken because God's will is rarely done. Rarely done. That's why Jesus said, "We are to pray thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven." Because in heaven, it's done perfectly and instantly, and on earth, it's done rarely or never. Not everything that happens on this planet is God's will. I mean, when some people, I've been at funerals, and people say, "Well, it must have been God's will."
Or they'll say, you know, God must have needed Matthew more than you. There's a word for that, nonsense. Just nonsense. God needed that baby more than me, so he took him home early. Are you kidding me? God doesn't need anything. So don't blame God for that. Death is the result of sin and evil. It entered the world because of that. God is not the author of it. Matthew's life was robbed by mental illness.
It was robbed by mental illness. And you need to understand that you have an enemy on this planet. His name is Satan. Satan is not your friend. He's not your friend. In fact, the Bible says he came to kill and destroy. He wants to destroy your life. Why? Because he hates God. Satan cannot hurt God. God cannot be hurt like that. So what happens? He tries to hurt God's children, to hurt God. If you can't get to me, the quickest way to hurt me is hurt my kids.
Satan wants to destroy your life. He wants to mess up your life. He wants to keep you away from God because that makes God grieve. God grieves when you don't love him the way he loves you, when you don't know him the way he knows you. So God is not the author. You know, when Matthew died, Satan thought he'd won, but he had lost big time. Why? Because he couldn't torture Matthew anymore.
His entire life, he went through mental torture. But now he's out of reach of that torture. Now in heaven, there's no more pain, there's no more sorrow, there's no more, he's at peace. What's he doing today? He's in heaven in the grandstands cheering me on right now. On the day that Matthew died, we were suspecting because we hadn't heard from him all day, he hadn't texted all day, that our greatest fear had probably happened. The day I prayed would never happen, the day I feared might.
that he would take his life. We went over to his house and we couldn't get into his house because we didn't have a key to his house. His car was there and he wasn't answering the door and we were worried that our deepest, greatest fear had happened. And as we stood there in the driveway waiting for police to come to break in and to see what inevitably was true, Kay and I stood there in the car
driveway, hugging each other, sobbing. Our hearts were breaking into a million pieces. And as we stood there trembling and sobbing out loud, Kay reached up and grabbed her necklace, which had two words on it. And she showed it to me. It was the words of a book that she wrote. The title of a book she wrote, Choose Joy. And I thought, are you kidding me?
How in the world do you choose joy in the deepest grief? How do you choose joy in the worst pain? How do you choose joy when your greatest fear is being realized? Well, I'll let Kay tell you that. Would you welcome her? Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Saddleback. I've missed you.
As Rick said, I was wearing a necklace that says, choose joy. After I wrote that several years ago, and I wrote the book because I've struggled with low levels of depression my whole life. And yet here's a verse like Romans 5, 3 to 5 on your outline that says, we can have joy even in our troubles because we know that these troubles produce endurance. And endurance produces character. And character produces hope.
And this hope will not disappoint us because God has poured his love to fill our hearts. I began to look for some jewelry that I could wear on a daily basis to remind me that I could choose joy, that there could be joy even in troubles. The day that Matthew passed away, as Rick said, I in particular had a terrible sense of foreboding. And I had very good reasons to believe that that might be that he had taken his life. But we had to wait hours before it could be confirmed.
And so when I got up that morning, I deliberately went to my jewelry box and with my hands shaking and my heart pounding and my stomach heaving, I picked this necklace out of the jewelry box. I wasn't really thinking very clearly, but I knew that by putting it on in some way, I was fighting back against the nightmare that I was pretty sure that was going to unfold that day.
And as Rick said, as we stood at Matthew's house together waiting for the police to confirm this terrible news, I don't know why, but in a moment I looked down and saw it and then I raised it to him in a very tiny, feeble attempt to affirm what I knew to be the truth. Even as he said our hearts were shattering.
How could I do that? How could I even wear the necklace that day? How could I lift it to him in a gesture of belief in God, a belief that joy could be chosen even in our darkest moments? How could I do that? And how could he, through his tears, receive it and not push me away and not tell me I was crazy and to stop it and to just stop doing that? It's because of what we know.
Because we know that joy is still present. We know it because God is good. And because we have spent the last 50 years of our lives putting our spiritual roots down deep into the rich soil of God's grace, his mercy, his faithfulness, and his goodness. And because of that, because of those roots that have gone deep into the soil of who God is, getting to know him,
When troubles have come our way, we have been able to produce endurance. It has been produced in hopefully character. And from that character, hope and joy. Verse 5 of Romans 3 again, look at that. Excuse me, Romans 5, verse 5 says, "'And this hope will not disappoint us, because God has poured his love to fill our hearts.'"
I was learning a lot about joy in the last few years. And so I could say somehow, yes, God, I trust you and I'm going to have joy even in this very dark day. But hope, I want to talk to you a little bit about hope because I would be lying to you, completely lying to you if I said that hope didn't disappoint me. In fact, I was crushed by hope that didn't come true. But that takes us to point three.
Which is the next thing that you and I need to know. Life is a battle. But we can have hope. Because we know that there's more to the story. There's more to the story. When Matthew's mental illness, his borderline personality disorder, and...
excuse me, major depression disorder. When it began to get worse about five years ago, I found myself frantic, trying to find a treatment, to find medication, to find a physician, to find a psychiatrist, to find a hospital, to find anything that would make a difference in his worsening condition. A lot of sleepless nights, a lot of agonizing moments of darkness as we watched helplessly
As our son just spiraled slowly, slowly down, each member of our family tried to bend ourselves into pretzels in some way to care for him, to make a difference. And eventually I realized that I needed a stronger spiritual approach to the situation because it was a long haul. Matthew wasn't getting any better. And my own emotional and physical and spiritual resources were being taxed to the limit.
And so I enlisted a group of confidential friends and family who would commit to pray for Matthew and for us. And I began to send them very specific prayer requests week after week. And these incredible people would pray for him and for us. And they would send back encouraging notes. They would send back verses of scripture that would give us hope to hold on to the belief that God was going to heal Matthew's mind.
And then a year ago, this drumbeat of mental illness just began to beat harder and faster and harder and faster. And every day was a guessing game of whether this would be his last day on earth. And I found myself really losing hope that God was going to heal Matthew's mind.
And a dear friend gave me this box. It looks like alabaster or marble. I don't know, maybe it's plastic, but it looks good. And in the middle of this box is the word hope. And I began to take those scriptures that others had sent to me, those verses that had been so enormously comforting, that held my faith strong. And I wrote them on cards and I put them inside this box. And it became part of a daily ritual of my time with God, as I would spend time every morning
I would pick up this box and I would open it and I would read verse after verse that inspired and built my faith and my hope. Verses like the verses in Psalm 116 and Psalm 18 where it says that the cords of the grave have encompassed me and I'm held down tightly. And then it would go a few other verses and it would say, but God, you have restored
removed the tears from my eyes and kept my feet from stumbling so that I can live in the land of the living again. And verses out of Isaiah that no weapon formed against me shall prosper. And verses where Jesus would say greater is he that is in you that he that is in the world. All these verses.
that talked about faith and hope and God's healing. And one particular verse that I loved where it talked about my belief that I would see Matthew again with his arms raised in praise as he stood in the congregation. Those verses became lifelines to me of what God was going to do. I went out on the audacious faith limb.
believing that God was going to heal Matthew. In fact, even the morning that Matthew passed away, very early in the morning, I opened this box, even with a sense of dread, and read through those verses. I even created a playlist of songs on my iPhone, probably 50 or 60 songs of holy,
of hope and faith and courage, verses, songs that talked about, that affirmed my faith in God and my hope in what he was gonna do. They were songs about healing and songs about restoration and songs about God, you have the victory. And I would play them over and over in my car and in the sleepless nights and when I would go to bed at night and as I was doing housework at work, I was listening to those songs over and over and over again and they built my life.
And they built my hope. I called it Kay's Pix Pix. And then I even did something that was kind of crazy. But in this journey of believing and having hope of what God was going to do in Matthew's life, I even put out what we call a fleece. And if you're not familiar with that, let me just tell you quickly, it comes right out of scripture in Judges chapter 6.
Gideon is told by God that God is going to use him to defeat the Midianites. And Gideon is basically like, you've got to be kidding me. I am not a mighty man of faith. You can't possibly mean that you're going to use me. And God says, yes, I am. And Gideon says, well, you've got to prove it to me.
And so Gideon takes a piece of wool fleece and he lays it out before God. And he says, in the morning, God, if this is really you talking to me and you're really telling me this is what you want me to do, then God, I pray that in the morning, everything around this fleece will be completely dry, but the fleece will be wet. So in the next morning, when Gideon got up, sure enough, the ground all around that piece of wool was dry, but the fleece was wet so much so that he could twist it and bring water out of it.
But Gideon wasn't convinced. I might be a little convinced, but he wasn't. He's like, now God, don't get mad at me. This is really what he says. Now God, don't get mad at me, but could we do it again, only this time reverse it? Just so that I make sure it's really you talking to me. So this time, instead of it being the fleece that's wet, I want everything around the fleece to be wet and the fleece to be dry. And if that happens, then God, I'll know it's you talking to me.
So God very graciously did that and the next morning when Gideon got up, everything around the fleece was wet but the fleece itself was dry. And Gideon then believed that God wanted to use him and God did. He used him to defeat the Midianites.
So, you know, I decided I was just going to keep going on this faith journey. And so I asked God for that. I had a very specific request. And I said, God, I don't need this for my faith because I'm going to trust you no matter what. Whether you answer this specific prayer, this funny little fleece thing that I'm doing, whether you answer that the way I want to or not, God, I am yours. But it would do so much for this mother's heart of mine if you would just be
prove to me that you're going to heal Matthew's mind here. And without telling you all of what I did, within a very short space of time, exactly what I had prayed for happened. But then being a little Baptist girl who doesn't do fleeces, okay, that's so far outside my comfort zone, but I didn't know whether it was really true. And so I came back and I told my son Josh, okay, so this is what happened, but I don't know if it's true and I don't know if I should believe it. Was it really a fleece? I don't know, maybe we should do it again. And he just goes, mom.
This is the way faith works. You either believe it or you don't. So are you going to believe it or not, mom? Don't you love it when your kids school you in faith? And so I believed. And I believed that God had even given me an answer in such a supernatural way that he was going to heal Matthew's mind. And then April 5th came and Matthew died.
And with his death, my hopes for a healed mind here on earth died too. My playlist of songs seemed pointless. My fleece was just a piece of wool after all. My hoax seemed to mock me.
It sat next to my chair where I have my morning time with God, and for a month I didn't even open it. I tried not to even look at it because my hope had been severely disappointed. I felt bruised by hope. So what do you do? What do we do when hope doesn't turn out the way we're expecting it to? What do we do when we've gone out on those audacious limbs of faith?
And things and life and situations don't turn out the way we were so convinced they were going to. Well, you've got a couple options. One of them, you can curse God. You can give up on God. You can say God is a fake and a phony and he's a tease. Or you can give God an out.
and you can take the blame on yourself. Well, it was my faith that wasn't strong enough. If I'd been a better Christian, if I'd been a better mother, if I'd been a better whatever, if I'd had more faith, then Matthew would still be alive. And you take the blame on yourself and give God an out. Over these nearly four months, I have decided that neither of those responses is adequate or helpful. What I know about God is
prevents me from concluding that he is a fake and a phony and a tease. And what I know about myself prevents me from concluding that it was my fault, that I wasn't good enough, that I wasn't strong enough, that I didn't have enough faith, that somehow my love failed him, that somehow it was my fault that Matthew died, that I could somehow maybe have kept him from hitting that mental illness brick wall.
So what am I left with if I'm not going to blame God and I'm not going to blame myself? Where do we go with these dashed hopes? Well, what I'm left with is mystery. Big, fat mystery. And what I've done is I've put all that I know of God, all that I don't know of God, and I've put it, if you will, in a little pan on the saucer, on the burner of my mind.
Not on the back burner, because I think of this every day, but I don't know. As Rick said, I don't know the answer to the contents of that little pan sitting on the stove of my mind. But I'm content to leave it there, because I know that the day that I meet God face to face, every single one of those mysteries will be solved.
2 Corinthians 4, 8, 9, and 14 says we often suffer, but we're never crushed. Even when we don't know what to do, we never give up. In times of trouble, God is with us. And when we are knocked down, we get up again because we know God raised the Lord back to life.
And just as he raised Jesus, he will also raise us back to life and bring us into his presence together. So I'm rebuilding hope. You can't live without hope. I'm in the process of rebuilding hope. I'm rebuilding my playlist. It's now called Kay's Picks 2.
And it has a whole bunch of different songs. There's songs about the future because I know this isn't the end of the story. I know that Matthew's story isn't at the end. My story isn't at the end. God is still writing it. And because of that, I'm willing to try hope again. And so I have a new set of songs. There aren't quite as many, but there's one that I love. It's called "Not for a Moment" by Meredith Andrews. And some of the lyrics go, "Not for a moment."
Have you forsaken us? Not for a moment have you abandoned us. And my hope is that not for a second did God abandon my beautiful boy. For a second. And not for a second has God abandoned or forsaken us. I'm rebuilding my hope box. I took out the verses that I had prayed for several years, not because those verses are not true. They are God's word and they are true.
but they don't apply to my life right now. And I've begun to put other verses in here that give me hope for the future, for this unfinished story that God is writing. 1 Corinthians 15, 43 is one of the incredible verses. It comforts me and builds my hope. It says our bodies are buried in brokenness. They will be raised in glory. They are buried in weakness, but they will be raised in strength.
And when I leave the cemetery where I visit, often it helps me mourn to be there and grieve and access God's comfort. And when I leave, I say, I whisper it, Matthew, your body was buried in brokenness. That is true. But you, your body will be raised in glory. You were buried in weakness, but you will be raised in strength.
Hope may not look the way I thought it would, but hope is alive in me because of what I know.
And maybe today you're in that place where we were for so long. You have your own figurative hope box, and if you don't, please build one. Put the scriptures that God uses to encourage you to believe him with the situations where you're believing for healed minds here, where you're believing him for healed bodies here, where you are believing him for healed situations and marriages and things beyond your control, but you are believing. You are going, I encourage you, I urge you to go out
on that audacious faith limb and believe God. God is still the Red Sea God. He hasn't changed. He still parts the waters and allows us to walk across on dry land. He still heals. He still redeems and restores and revitalizes the ruins of our lives. That is God and I beg you to have hope. So there's hope
Box number one. For those of you, you are still dealing with a situation that needs God's incredible touch. And then you may be like us and your hopes didn't turn out the way that you thought that they would. And some of the things or someone, something in your life has died and you're tempted to walk away from hope. Rebuild your hope.
Don't be afraid to have hope again. Don't be afraid to trust again. God is good. God is not finished writing the story. Please believe with all that you have that what has been broken can be restored. It is not the end of our story. Good job, babe. You know, one of the most suspenseful TV shows that was ever on was 24. Everybody remember that?
I mean, Jack Bauer could solve three world problems in every single episode. I wanted to be Jack Bauer. But I have to admit that I never even watched the show until it went off the air and went into DVD because I hate watching commercials. But then I bought the entire, I think it was like six or seven more, seven years of series or five years, whatever it was. And I
I remember Kay and I were watching the first year of 24. And we're sitting on the couch and Jack is getting into one of his predictable really bad messes like five seconds to save the whole world. And I started to get a little tense and I started like, is Jack gonna make it?
I mean, you know, is this it? I mean, is this the end for our hero? Is Jack gonna make it? And a little voice said in my ear, "Relax, Rick, there's five more seasons. "Your tension goes down "when you know the end of the story. "You're reading a mystery novel and you're scared to death, "but if you know the end, you know it's gonna work out." This is why believers grieve so very, very differently than the rest of the world.
We grieve with hope because we know the end of the story. Now, we grieve, Christians, believers, people who know Jesus, grieve just like everybody else in that we sorrow when we lose loved ones. I told you, I've cried every single day since my son died. But I'm not grieving for him. I'm grieving for me. I miss him.
I'm not grieving for him. He's in a far better place. No more sorrow, no more torture, no more problems in his life. He's where we're meant to be forever. We're not made to stay on this earth forever. We're made to be in heaven forever. You were made to last forever. God has long range plans for you. And so when we grieve, we grieve for ourselves, but we grieve with hope.
Because we know the end of the story. Now let me tell you, I know the difference that makes. Because as a pastor, I've done the funeral of people who didn't have any hope. And I have looked into the faces and into the eyes of people who don't have a relationship with Christ, who don't have the hope of heaven, who don't know what we know, what we've learned. And the fear and the panic is
And the hopelessness in the eyes of people who don't have that hope is crushing. It's just crushing. I have seen it in their faces and it is not something you want. But we grieve with hope. Now to live with hope in a life of pain, and by the way, I'm sorry to say this to you, you're gonna have pain the rest of your life.
But in that pain, you can have hope. How? You're gonna have to get a bigger perspective. You're gonna have to have a longer view. You're gonna have to refocus your attention. You're gonna have to stop thinking about just here and now, and you're gonna have to start living in light of eternity.
This is not all there is. And if you just look at today and what's happening right now, you're gonna be hopeless. But if you can see in light of eternity, you realize that this life is preparation for the next. You get it the most, 100 years on this planet, but you get trillions and trillions of years in eternity. This is simply the get ready stage for the real show. Here's what the Bible says. There on your outline, 2 Corinthians 4:18.
So we don't focus on the troubles we see right now. Instead, we look forward to what we don't see yet. For the troubles we see now are temporary. Thank God they're only temporary. I mean, even if I had a problem my entire life, it's only temporary, 'cause it's not gonna last an eternity. For the problems, the troubles we see now are only temporary, but the joys to come will last forever.
You know, a lot of people when they have a loved one die, they have a celebration of their life at a funeral and they remember all the happy times. That's a good thing. In fact, I would encourage you to do that. Remember all the happy times of your loved ones. But that's not my comfort. It is not my comfort. Because Matthew's life was not a happy life. In many ways it was a tragic life. He was tortured. He had a tender heart, but he had a tortured mind.
Matthew had an ability to walk into a room at a party and instantly know who was in the most pain. And he would make a beeline for that person and spend the entire evening with them comforting, consoling, and encouraging. He would have made an incredible counselor. He had a very, very tender heart, but he had a tortured mind. And so as a father, my comfort doesn't come from thinking about the happy moments of Matthew's life. There were some, but not that many.
My comfort comes not from thinking about happy moments on earth, but holy moments in heaven he's having now. And that is a comfort to me. You see friends, the biggest epidemic in our society, in our world today, is hopelessness. It's an epidemic for Persians. It's the biggest problem on the planet. The biggest problem on the planet is not poverty. We're trying to do something about that with the peace plan.
The biggest problem on the planet is not disease. We're trying to do something about that with the peace plan. The biggest problem on the planet is not illiteracy or ignorance and lack of education. We're trying to do something about that. The biggest problem on our planet is hopelessness. People are living and dying without any hope. And we are in a battle for hopelessness, against hopelessness.
Now when something happens and you have a major loss in your life, you tend to think, this is the end of the world. No, it's not the end of the world. It's an end of the moment. And in your life, you're going to have many ends of the moment. It's not the end of the world. I don't know what you're going through, and I don't care how, well I do care, but I don't know how important...
I don't, I don't, I don't, it doesn't matter how deep you think your problem is right now, the one you're going through right now, it isn't the end of the world. Why? Because when the real end of the world comes, Jesus shows up. Then you know it's the end of the world. The one day Jesus is going to settle the score, even the odds, pay off the debts, and heal the hurts. And the Bible says what it's going to be like in heaven when it's all over here on earth.
The last chapter in the last book of the Bible, Revelation 21:4 says this, "Then God," this is in the future, "Then God will wipe away every tear from their eyes," this is in heaven, "wipe away every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death, no more death, and there will be no more mourning, and there will be no more crying, and there will be no more pain."
for the old order of things will pass away. I'm looking forward to that day. But we're not there yet. And what do we do now? In this little parentheses between the sweet by and by and the nasty now and now. Where everything is broken and the life doesn't make sense and it's an incredible battle. What do we do during this middle time? We live in peace even when life doesn't make sense because we know
that God is with us and God loves us and he'll never stop loving us and he'll never forget us. And we live with joy even when everything on this planet is broken because we know that God is good and God has a good plan and God has a plan that is greater than the problem you're going through. His purpose is greater than your problem. And we live with hope, why?
We live with hope even when we know life's a battle and everything's hard and there's a lot of conflict. But we live with hope because we know there's more to the story than just here and now. Now in closing, to those of you who haven't yet stepped across the line spiritually, you know about God but you don't know him personally. You've heard about Jesus but you don't know him personally. You don't have a friendship with him. You can begin tonight by just praying the prayer. We're gonna pray together in a minute.
He said, "Well, you know, Jesus wouldn't want me." Oh really? I recently wrote down who Jesus came for. Jesus came for the chewed up and the pushed around, the cracked up and the put down, the crossed off and the ripped off, the crying out and the run down. Jesus came for the dropped out and the run over, the edged out and the shrugged off, the shut in, the flamed out, the shut out, the smashed up. Jesus came for the have-nots and the squeezed outs and the held back and the stacked against.
Jesus came for the hungover and the strung out and the knocked down and the kicked around and the torn up and thrown away, the left out, loaded down, turned off and used up. Jesus came for the looked over, the lorded over, the walked over and the washed out, for the led astray, the laid off, the leaned on, the let down. He came for the messed up, the mixed up, the passed over, the picked on, the piled on, the pinned down. Jesus came for the wiped out and the written off.
Jesus came for Matthew. Jesus came for me. Jesus came for you. God has never made a person he doesn't love. God has never made a person he doesn't have a purpose for. God has never made a person that he doesn't want to know him. And Satan's gonna do everything he can to keep you from establishing that relationship because he hates you. Many of you, and I mean many of you, are struggling with your thoughts about
and actually your thoughts torture you. And you don't tell anybody about it, but it bothers you. And your thoughts torture you with depression, or your thoughts torture you with anxiety, or your thoughts torture you with self-loathing or shame. Some of you are tortured with blame and resentment, and some of you are tortured with fear and worry, and some of you are tortured with compulsions and attractions and addictions.
And some of you are tortured with anger, and some of you just feel out of place. I'm the odd person out. I don't fit. I'm not in the in crowd. I'm just on the edge. I just feel like the square in a round world. And you have these thoughts and you can't get them out of your mind, and you can't make your mind mind. Let me just say this to you, somebody who loves you. You're not going crazy, but you do need help with your thought life. Second thing I want to say to you is this. You're not alone.
With 3,000 people in this room here tonight, if this is average, on average in America, 600 of you are struggling with some kind of mental illness. 600. 60 million Americans struggle with some kind of mental illness. 400 million worldwide. That would be larger than the United States if it were a nation. And I want to just say this. You may have a chemical imbalance in your body that messes with your mind, but your chemistry is not your character.
and your illness is not your identity. And God's grace doesn't just cover our genetics, our genes and genetics. It covers our guilt and everything else. And God's mercy doesn't just cover the things we do wrong, it covers our DNA. And it is not a sin to be sick. And there's no shame in taking meds. There's no shame in seeing a psychiatrist. If my back is broken, I go to a back doctor.
If my heart doesn't work right, I go to a heart doctor. If my kidney stops working, I go to a kidney doctor. If my brain isn't functioning right, I go to a brain doctor. There's no shame in that. Why is it that any other organ in your body cannot work and there's no stigma attached to it? If my spleen stops working, there's no shame. If my pancreas stops working,
If I have diabetes, there's no shame, there's no stigma on that. But if my brain stops working, why am I supposed to keep quiet and not talk about it and be ashamed of it? That's just wrong. 10 years ago, God called Kay and then called me and then called many of you at Saddleback to remove the stigma of HIV and AIDS. It's not a sin to be sick.
And now 10 years later, God is calling us as a church to remove the stigma of mental illness. Now, everything we have done and will do in this church is motivated by love, by love for God and by love for the people that he created. Everything we do is to say this to the world, you matter to God and there is hope. And we are in this battle against hopelessness. And I just need to know one thing,
Are you with me? As if I had to ask. Let's bow for prayer. Dear God, I look out on these people that I love so much and I thank you for their love for you, their love for each other, their love for people who are hurting. And I pray that this series will help us be prepared to stand on the solid rock of truth so that we're not blown away when the tough times come into our lives. I pray it will prepare them to not just stand firm, but to help others.
Now you pray. In your mind say, dear God, I want to know you better. Just say that. Dear God, I want to know you better. I want to become a man or woman of faith. I want to fulfill the purpose that you made me for. Dear God, help me to remember that I'm never really alone, that you are always with me. You're always thinking about me and that you will always love me and you will never abandon me. Help me to build my life on those truths.
Help me to remember that you are a good God, that you have a good plan for my life, and that plan is to give me a future and a hope. And God, even when life is a battle and when everything is broken, help me to remember that this is not the end of the story, that we win in the end, that ultimately there will be no more tears, no more sorrow, no more mourning, no more crying, no more death.
Say this in your heart, Jesus Christ, as much as I know how, I give you every area of my life. I open up myself to you. Make yourself real to me. I want to learn to love you more. I want to learn to trust you. And I pray this in your name. Amen. We hope you've been encouraged by this message. To hear Pastor Rick's free daily Bible teaching program, download free sermon notes, or sign up for his free daily devotional, just visit pastorrick.com.
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