This is Pastor Rick Warren’s Daily Hope. If you’re new, we’re so glad you found us. And if you’re a daily, daily hoper, welcome back.
Today, we’re going to continue with our series called 40 Days of Prayer. Such a great series because Rick is going to help you cultivate a powerful prayer life so you can experience breakthroughs. Breakthroughs in your relationships, breakthroughs in finances, health, and really every area of your life.
So don’t miss a day of this life-changing series. Okay, so let’s jump right in. Here’s Pastor Rick with part two of a message called Who Do You Think You’re Talking To?
Now, not only does God forgive your sins, when you come and ask that God, I know you’re a good God, you’re a merciful God, I ask you to show me mercy, ask you to forgive my sin. Not only does he forgive us, he welcomes you back. Now, this is a big deal.
He does not reject you when you sin, he receives you back. This is the exact opposite of what people do. When you hurt somebody, when you sin against them, do they want to receive you back?
Absolutely not. They want to be standoff, they want to be distant, they want to push you away, they want to reject you, not receive you. And yet God says, even when you sin, because I am a good God, I will receive you, I will not reject you.
Unlike, God is unlike people in this. Now, I’m a pastor, and I’ve been a pastor a long time, and I’ve talked to tens of thousands of people, so I know your little secret. I know you’re, somebody said, I’m leaving right now.
And I’m gonna put it on the screen here in just a minute. No, I’m a good pastor. What I know about every one of you is one of your deepest fears is the fear of rejection.
And you do almost anything in your life to avoid it. You don’t want to be rejected by anybody. You want everybody to like you and love you, and you don’t want anybody to think you’re a doofus.
So they say, I’m not gonna get out on that dance field, on that dance hall at that wedding. I can’t dance. Because some of you will look at it and they go, look how stupid she looks.
And you do as much of your life you’ve planned in order to avoid rejection. I don’t do these certain things. I don’t go to these certain places.
I only have these certain friends. I limit my life because I don’t want to be rejected. It is a deep, deep fear that you have.
The fear of somebody finding out what you’re really like. Years ago there was a book called Why Am I Afraid to Tell You Who I Am? And the answer is because if I tell you what I’m really like and you don’t like it, I’m up a creek without a paddle because I’m all I’ve got.
So we spend most of our lives wearing masks, pretending to be people, we’re not. Because if you really let people see what you really are, you’re afraid they would reject you. It’s one of your deepest fears.
But because God, listen, is good and always good and never bad, God will never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, reject you. Even when you sin against him, and you hurt him, and you don’t do what he’s told you to do. You can come back, he will receive you, not reject you.
Just come back to him humbly. Look at this next verse, Psalm 27, verses 10 to 13. Even if my father and mother abandon me, some of you have been rejected by your parents, you’re no longer my son, get out of my life, I don’t want to see you again, you’ve hurt me too much, or whatever.
Even if my father and mother abandon me, the Lord will hold me close. You hear the tenderness in that verse? Everybody wants to be held close.
God will hold you close. Everybody will hold you close. David says, my enemies are waiting for me to fail.
They want me to fall. And they know I’m a sinner, they know I’m imperfect. My enemies are waiting, so they can just say, da da da da da da, I say, you did it.
Yet he says, even if my mother and father abandon me, my enemies are against me, yet I will remain confident. Why? Look at the rest of the verse.
I remain confident that I’ll see the goodness of the Lord while I’m living here in the world. You messed up, you screwed up, you made a big mistake. God is the God of the second chance.
Why? He is a good, good father. He’s good and gracious.
Now, because God is always good, and God is always gracious, when we pray, we can be always bold, and always confident. We don’t have to come slinking into God with our tail between our legs, and kind of, you know, mousy, because we know, we just come and say, God, you knew I blew it, but you are a good father. It’s who you are.
And this is who I am. But it’s who you are that matters. God is good and gracious, always, so we can be bold and confident, always, in prayer.
You don’t have to slink around and say, I wonder if I should pray this or not. Pray anything you want to pray about, and God will hear it. Hebrews chapter four, in the Bible, verse 15 and 16, the Bible says, Jesus, talking about Jesus, understands our weaknesses.
In fact, God knows your weaknesses better than you do. He even knows the weaknesses you have that you don’t even know are weak. Jesus understands our weaknesses and our temptations, for he faced all of the same temptations that we do here on earth, yet he did not sin, because he was perfect.
So, let us come boldly with confidence. circle that, boldly with confidence. Let us come boldly with confidence to the throne of our gracious, our good God.
He’s talking about prayer. And there we will receive his mercy, and we will find the grace to help us when we need it. All right?
So, how do I know God is good? Because everything he does in the world is good. God’s plan for my life will always be good.
He’s not going to steer me in the wrong direction. I will steer myself in the wrong direction, but he won’t. And God always gives me what I need, not what I deserve.
So when I need forgiveness, he doesn’t give me judgment, because of what Jesus did on the cross. Now, here’s the third one. third factor for God’s goodness.
Because God is always good, this almost sounds like heresy, but it’s right out of the scripture. God puts my good above his own good. Because God is always, always good.
He puts my good even above his own good. Friends, this is the heart of the gospel. This is the good news.
That the king sacrifices himself for the peasants. The reason I know that the Bible is true rather than a fairy tale, because in the fairy tales, everybody dies for the king. Protect the king at all costs.
Protect the queen at all costs. Protect the princess at all costs. And all the peons and the peasants and the slaves and the soldiers, everybody’s dying to protect the king.
There’s only one story in the world where the king dies for the people. It’s called the gospel.
This is what makes our faith different from every other storyline in the world. God says, you sinned, you deserve punishment, you deserve to go to hell, but I’m a good God, and I love you. But I’m also holy and just, and somebody’s gotta pay for your sins.
So here’s the deal, I’ll do it. I’ll pay for your sins. I will come to earth as the Son of God, Jesus Christ, and I will die for your sins.
You’re not dying for mine. I’m dying for yours. God doesn’t have any sins.
This is the gospel. This is the king sacrifices himself for the peasants. This is the ultimate expression of love.
The shepherd dies for the sheep. Look at this next verse. Jesus says, John 10, I am the good, there’s that word, I’m the good shepherd.
I know my own sheep, and they know me, and I will sacrifice my life for the sheep. Really? That’s unbelievable.
That’s almost too good to be true. I can stumble over that. You’re gonna die for me, the shepherd.
If any of you had a flock sheep, would you die for your sheep? Absolutely not. No shepherd in history has died for his sheep.
There’s a sheep. But God, the creator of the universe, is a good God. He dies for you.
The shepherd dies for the sheep. I’m the good shepherd. Look up here on the screen.
John 15, 13. The greatest love you can have is to give your life for others. So when you look at the cross, whether you’re wearing one around your neck, or you see it on a hospital, or you see it in the cemeteries, or you see it wherever, red cross, whenever you see a cross, you just remember that is the symbol of God’s goodness.
It is the greatest symbol of the goodness of God. It is a picture. The perfect one dies for the imperfect one.
Nobody has ever offered to pay for your sins except God. Nobody ever will offer to pay for your sins except God. When Jesus is dying on the cross, he didn’t die from the Romans.
He died loving the first degree. It was love. I love you this much.
I’m willing to die for you. Why? Because I am the good God, and all that is good in the universe comes from me.
And all that is bad in the universe comes from when you reject my goodness and do what you want to do. Here’s the mind-blowing thing. Not only did Jesus die to pay for your sins, that’s good enough right there, but he has another thing he does.
In that, there is a great exchange. He imputes his goodness. He puts his goodness inside you.
He takes all the bad out and puts all the good in, in God’s eyes. It’s like blood transfusion. This is a great exchange.
Look at this next verse in the Bible, 2 Corinthians chapter 5. God took the sinless Christ, he never did anything wrong, and poured into him all our sins. Jesus takes the guilt from every rape, every murder, every gossip, every lie, every molestation, every evil, every tax evasion, everything done wrong ever in history.
God took the sinless Christ and poured into him all our sins, all the sins of the world. Then, here’s the unbelievable part, in exchange, he poured God’s goodness into us. Are you kidding me?
When God looks at you, he does not see your sin. He sees God’s goodness. He sees the goodness of Christ.
He takes all the bad out. He puts all the good in. This is the great exchange.
Does anybody remember the name Monty Hall? That was a TV show, Let’s Make a Deal, behind door number one, door number two, door number three. You pick, let’s make a deal.
In the eternal, let’s make a deal. There are three, eternal. Open up, door number one.
You have sinned, you need to pay for it, go to hell. That’s door number one. Door number two.
You have sinned, you’re going to try to pay for your sins by doing some good things. You can’t be good enough. Doesn’t work.
Door number three, door is open. Jesus Christ says, here’s the deal. I’ll take all of your guilt, all of your sin, and I’m going to give you all of my goodness.
That’s a deal. What a deal. Notice the next verse, Romans 4 25.
Jesus died for our sins and rose again, that’s Easter, to make us right with God, and then here’s the phrase, filling us with God’s goodness. In God’s eyes, God does not see any sin in your life. The one you did today, the one you’re going to do tomorrow.
He doesn’t see it. He sees all the goodness of Christ poured into you. If you were to die tonight, and you were to go to heaven and you say, now God, about that sin yesterday, you go, what sin?
What are you talking about? Because it’s all been wiped out. It’s all been washed away.
It’s all been paid for. It’s all been taken by Christ. You say, what sin?
What are you talking about? All he sees is the goodness of Christ in you. That is the good news.
That is amazing. Now, what in the world does what I’ve just talked about for the last five minutes have to do with prayer? It has everything to do with prayer.
If you don’t understand what I just said, you’ll never understand prayer. This is amazing. What God did for you at the cross makes prayer possible.
Look at the next verse, Romans chapter eight in the Bible, verse 32. Since God did not spare even his own son, but gave Christ up for us all, he sent his son to die for the sins that you committed and I committed, since God didn’t spare even his own son, but gave Christ up for us all, won’t he now also give us everything else we need? Do you see the logic of this verse?
That when Jesus Christ died for you on the cross, he solved your biggest problem. Any other problem you have in your life is small potatoes. If Jesus Christ and God loved you enough, in their own goodness, in God’s goodness to die for you, don’t you think he loves you enough to help you with your bills and your health and your relationship?
Everything else in your life is small potatoes. There is nothing you can’t bring to God in prayer. If he loved you enough to die for you, he loves you enough to answer your prayer.
All right, now the fourth truth. Because God is always a good God, this is the hard one. You’re not gonna like this one.
I said God is good, so he always has a good plan for your life, and God is good because he always gives you what you need, not what you deserve. God is good because he puts my good ahead of his own. But here’s number four, because God is always good, he does not say yes to every request.
There’s nothing in the Bible that says that everything you ask for, you’re gonna get, no matter how self-centered or off base or whatever it is. God does not say yes to every prayer request that I make. We talked about this last week.
No loving parent would ever give a child everything they ask for. You’re not a vending machine. God is not your genie.
He’s not your magic wand. He’s not your vending machine. Vending machine will give you stuff that’s not good for you.
God would never give you something that’s not good for you. But what about the stuff that I think is good for me? And he says no to.
Last week, I told you that God always answers every single prayer. Not always the way you want. But you always get an answer.
Remember, I told you facetiously last week that there are four ways God answered. Yes, no, wait, and you gotta be kidding me. Let me give you another way to look at this.
I want you to write these words down. God answers every single prayer one of four ways. When the request is not right, God says no.
God has said no to a lot of your prayer requests. And parents say no to their kids for a hundred good reasons. And God doesn’t owe you an explanation for every time he says no to something you ask for.
You’ll know it when you get to heaven, but you’re not gonna know all the reasons God said no. But no is an answer. So you didn’t answer me.
Yes, I did. I said no. That’s an answer.
No. So God says no when the request is not right. When the timing is not right, God says, this is a good request, but not yet.
God says slow. Write down that word, slow. No, slow.
Slow means I intend to give this to you, but not yet. The timing is not right. There’s a big difference between a delay and a denial.
No and not yet are not the same thing. Now, if you don’t understand that, it means you’re immature, because kids don’t understand the difference between no and not yet. If a parent says to a kid, not yet, they think it means no, and they have a fit.
Maturity is when you learn the difference between no and not yet. A delay is not a denial. So sometimes God says no, but sometimes God says, yeah, I’m gonna give this to you, but not yet.
Slow. It’s gonna be a while. It might even be years.
You don’t know. No, slow. God knows.
Sometimes the request is right, and it’s an okay timing, but you’re not right. And God wants to do something in your life before he gives it to you. You’re not ready to handle the answer, because often his answer is a bigger one than you wanna get.
And when God wants to give you something he’s waiting on you, he says, grow. That’s an answer. Sometimes God says, yeah, I’m gonna give this to you.
That’s a good request, that’s fine. But you’re not ready to handle. It’s like giving a little kid travel luggage to carry into the airport.
They can’t carry it, it’s too heavy. And so sometimes God’s answer is, yeah, I’m gonna give it to you, but grow first. And once you grow up spiritually in that area, I fully intend to give this to you.
Now when the request is right, it’s not some self-centered thing, and the timing’s right, and you’re right, then God says go. That’s the fourth one, all systems go. Green light, I’m gonna give it to you right now.
All four of those are legitimate answers. Many times God will say no, many times he’ll say slow, many times he’ll say grow, and many times he’ll say go. This is it, I’m gonna give it to you right now.
But each of those are answers to God. Luke chapter 11, Jesus says this, verse 11 to 13. Your fathers, you fathers, if your children ask for fish to eat, would you give them a snake instead?
Or if they ask for an egg, would you give them a scorpion? This is obviously humor by exaggeration. Of course not.
So if you as sinful people know how to give good gifts to your own children, how much more will your heavenly father, who is a good, good father, give the Holy spirit to those who ask him? The point God is saying here is God is never going to give you anything that will be hurtful or bad for you. But he says if you, being an imperfect parent, know how to give good gifts to your kids, and you do know how to do that, certainly God, who is the perfect and good, always good, heavenly father, knows how to give good gifts to you, but he’ll never give you anything that’s not good for you.
I am so grateful for that message by Rick, and I hope you are too. And now here’s Rick to tell you how you can partner with Daily Hope to take the Word of God to the world.
Friends, we believe that God wants everybody to be saved. And in 2 Peter chapter 2 verse 9, the Bible says, God doesn’t want anyone to be lost. That means you’ll never meet a single person in your life who God doesn’t love, and who God doesn’t want to be saved.
Now, if God wants every person saved, then we should too. And that’s why I started Daily Hope. You know, there are literally billions of people who’ve never heard the name of Jesus.
And we can only reach them if we work together. And that’s why I’m asking for your help. Would you be my partner in helping getting God’s Word out to the world, to the people who have no Bible, no believers, and no body of Christ?
You know, there’s nothing more important that we can do together than to help other people see God as he really is, and to help them understand the depth of God’s love and grace for them. It’s your faithful support to this broadcast, Daily Hope, that helps us tell more and more people about the transforming power of Jesus Christ. Friends, if you’ll make a monthly investment as a partner in hope, together we can broadcast this life-transforming message of the gospel through radio and through podcasts and online, literally around the world.
We need your support.
It’s easy to become a partner in hope with convenient automated monthly giving. You just go to pastorrick.com or text the word HOPE to 70309. And when you do, we’ll send you a special welcome gift to say thanks.
Again, that’s pastorrick.com or text the word HOPE to 70309. And we can’t tell you how much we appreciate your support. Thank you.
We hope you’ll join us next time as 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.
