Pastor Rick Warren invites you to explore a pivotal aspect of Christian teaching through an in-depth exploration of Jesus’ seven last words. In this installment of the series, Pastor Rick focuses on ‘The Word of Forgiveness,’ using biblical insights to address how we often mishandle guilt and the freedom that comes with accepting forgiveness. The conversation traverses through familiar terrains of human behavior, explaining how guilt can manifest in burying our past, blaming others, or self-punishment. Learn effective, biblically-rooted techniques for overcoming these burdens, emphasizing confession and taking responsibility as the first steps toward healing. Pastor Rick shares personal
Thanks for joining us here today on Pastor Rick’s Daily Hope, the audio broadcast ministry of Pastor Rick Warren. Today we kick off the series called The Seven Greatest Words of Love. There are seven words in particular that Jesus spoke during his final hours on the cross that hold the keys for finding fulfillment in your life, relationships, and even your career. Right now, here’s Pastor Rick with part one of a message called The Word of Forgiveness.
SPEAKER 02 :
Let me ask you this. How many of you have gone on a trip on an airplane? Let me see your hands. I don’t ever think those are any fun because they’re always crowded and cramped to me. A little bit more fun. Has anybody ever gone on a plane trip? Excuse me, a train trip. A train trip, sorry. Sounds assimilated. Plane trip, train trip. Yeah, okay. That’s more fun. Have you ever gone on a car trip? Yeah, I think those are a lot of fun, car trips. Anybody ever gone on a guilt trip? Yeah, that’s what we wanna look at this weekend. God says guilt is not something he wants you to carry in your life. Guilt creates all kinds of fears in our life. The fear that I’ll be found out. The fear that somebody is going to reject me if they find out what I’ve done. The fear that somebody will retaliate for what I’ve done. The fear that God is going to judge me. Guilt creates enormous fear in your life and God does not want you to walk around being guilty. God He doesn’t want you to have guilt in your life. And he doesn’t want you to have it because it creates all kinds of negative emotions and problems. And Jesus came to die to pay for your guilt. Now this weekend, we’re beginning a series on looking at the cross in detail. When Jesus was crucified on the cross, he made seven public statements. They’re called, very famously called, the seven last words of Christ. They’re not actually the last words of Christ because Jesus resurrected and then spent 40 days talking to people after that. We have the records of all of that. And so he said a lot more after he came back from the dead. But these are called the seven last words of Christ. And every one of them explains a benefit to your life of why Jesus died on the cross. Now most of the people in the world know that Jesus died on a cross. Fewer people know that he died for our sins. But even less know all of the benefits of what Jesus paid for on the cross. Now if you call yourself a Christian, you of all people really ought to know what Jesus actually paid for on the cross besides simply paying for your sins. That’s a big one. But there’s even more to that. If I asked you to make a list of 10 of the benefits that you get to experience in life and in eternity because Jesus died on the cross for you? Could you give me instantly a list of 10? Well, if you can’t, you need to be here every week in this series. We’re gonna look at what I call the seven greatest words of love. The seven greatest words of love. And we’re gonna begin with the word of forgiveness. Now let me set this up. In Luke chapter 23, and we’re gonna look at this scripture this weekend and the implications of it. We have Jesus, the story of Jesus, right before he goes to the cross. This is like he’s carrying the cross up the hill to be crucified. And in Luke 23, verses 27 to 37, Let me read this to you. Great crowds trailed behind him, he’s carrying the cross, including many grief-stricken women. But Jesus turned and said to them, daughters of Jerusalem, don’t weep for me, but weep for yourselves. Now, two others, both criminals, were led out to be executed with him, with Jesus. There are gonna be thieves crucified on either side. Finally, they came to a place called the skull. That’s what the word Golgotha means. I’ve been to this mountain, it’s in Jerusalem, and it actually, when you look at it, it looks like a human skull. And the Mount of Golgotha is in the center of Jerusalem, and it looks like a skull. So they came to this place, it wasn’t in the center at that time, it was outside of the city, All of those there, and the three were crucified there. Jesus on the center cross, and the two criminals on either other side. Now Jesus said, here’s the first thing Jesus says from the cross. Father, forgive them. Father, forgive them. For they do not know what they are doing. That’s the very first thing Jesus said after being crucified on the cross. Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they’re doing. And the soldiers gambled for his clothes by throwing dice. The crowd watched and the leaders laughed and scoffed. He saved others, they said. Let him save himself if he’s really God’s chosen one, the Messiah. And the soldiers mocked him too by offering him a drink of sour wine. And they called out to him, if you are the king of the Jews. Save yourself. Now the first word that Jesus gives from the cross is what I call the word of forgiveness. Father forgive them for they don’t know what they are doing. What I want to do today is look at what we normally do with our guilt. what God wants us to do with our guilt, and how to be free from our guilt. If you’re carrying any guilt, there is no reason you should walk out of here or any of our campuses after this service. This is the time to let it go and to get it dealt with. The word of forgiveness. What we usually do with our guilt, what Jesus wants me to do with my guilt, and then what Jesus does with my guilt. Now what do we usually do with our guilt? Three things, write these down. Number one, the first thing we often do is bury it. We try to bury our, at least we try. Have you ever heard the statement, well, you gotta bury your past? You know what the problem is? It doesn’t work. Why? Because it won’t stay buried. It’s like a zombie. It keeps coming back to life. And that past and that thing you so badly would like to forget, it doesn’t go buried and stay buried. No, it keeps coming back up in your dreams, in your thoughts, in your memories. It can resurrect itself at the most inappropriate time. It’s like that horror movie, Resurrected of the Living Dead. It comes back to haunt you. You cannot bury your past. You can deal with it, but you can’t bury it. Psalm 32, David says this in verses three to five. When I refused to confess my sin, I was weak and miserable. When I refused to confess my sin, I groaned all day long. He said, I was taking it out on myself. My strength evaporated like water in the summer heat. This is a good description of the way you feel when you feel guilty or ashamed. Finally, I confessed all my sins to you. I stopped trying to hide them. And you forgave me. And all my guilt now is gone. Now, everybody here has a favorite way of trying to bury the past. Some people try to do it by minimizing it. Well, it’s no big deal. It wasn’t that big a deal. And you try to minimize it in your mind. Well, if it was no big deal, why do you feel so bad about it? Why does it still keep bugging you? Why can’t you forget it after all this time? Some people minimize, some people rationalize. And they say things like, well, you know, a lot of other people have done this. Oh, that’s really gonna make you feel not guilty. Rationalize is to tell rational lies to yourself. Every time you rationalize, you are tearing rational lies to yourself. You’re trying to convince yourself with your mind what’s right and your heart you know is wrong. It doesn’t work. When you argue with yourself, emotions are gonna win. Rationalizing doesn’t work. What other people do is irrelevant to whether you feel good about yourself or not. So some people minimize, some people rationalize, some people compromise. And what they do on that is they feel guilty. Well, simple, just lower your standards. Well, still, you say, it’s not a sin anymore. It doesn’t bother me anymore. I used to think it was bad, but I don’t think it’s bad anymore. I actually was in a Chinese restaurant one time in San Francisco, and I broke open a fortune cookie, and it said, commit a sin twice, and it won’t feel like a sin. I’m going… What kind of pervert wrote that one? Commit a sin twice, then it won’t feel like, yeah, well, that’s true. It’s called a hardened conscience. You do something long enough, you stop feeling bad about it. Yeah, but it doesn’t make it. I would tell you, it’s true, the 15th murder is easier than the first. Still murder. Still murder, but the 15th murder guy doesn’t bother him anymore. Proverbs 28, 13 says this. You will never succeed in life if you try to hide your sins. Circle that star, that, put it on your mirror. Why? Because it’ll eventually catch up with you. By the way, talking about catching up, thanks to the internet, everything you do now is permanent, global, and searchable. And it’s never going away. Because it’s on the internet. So we bury it. That doesn’t work. What else do we try to do? A second way we try to deal with guilt is we blame others. We blame others. We want to shift the blame to other people. This is a tactic, honestly, as old as creation. In the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve sinned. Adam took it like a man. He blamed his wife. They both ate of the forbidden fruit. And when God comes to Adam and says, what did you do? Adam says this in Genesis 3, 12. Yes, Adam admitted, I did. I did what you said not to do. I disobeyed you. Yes, Adam admitted, but it was the woman you gave me who brought me some fruit and I ate it. Notice he’s not even just blaming Eve, he’s blaming God. God, if you hadn’t created my wife, then I would have never sinned. You and me, we’re okay. It’s her. And actually, it’s you because you created her and gave her to me. And by the way, I didn’t have any choice. Eve’s the only woman in the world for me. So I had to marry her. All right? You know, in the Hebrew, it says the first time Adam saw Eve, perfect environment, perfect bodies, and no clothes. And he sees this woman for the first time in paradise. And in the translation scripture it says, thou art bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh. That’s the worst translation of Hebrew I’ve ever heard. Actually in Hebrew, what Adam said was, hey, hey, hey. All right? That’s literally what it means. Not, thou art bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh. So, guys, if you’re in a really romantic mood, don’t say to your wife, honey, you’re the bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh. Yeah, well, that just doesn’t cut it. Okay, now… The reason we use blame is to balance our guilt. You see, in your mind, there is this scale between guilt over things that you’ve done wrong and blame that other people have done wrong to you. And the way you try to balance this scale, when this gets out of balance, it’s called depression. When you’re overbalanced this way, it’s depression. When you’re overbalanced this way, it’s depression. So what you try to do, when you feel really guilty in a relationship, is you wanna blame the other person because you put rocks on their side and it kinda pulls it up. Well you did this, yeah but you did this. But you did this, yeah but you did this. You did this, yeah but you did this. And that’s the way we try to deal with guilt. It doesn’t work, but we often either bury it or we blame. Now you’ve heard me say a thousand times you spell blame, be lame. Every time you blame, you are being lame. You’re passing the buck, you’re trying to put, sometimes we even try to blame God. Look at this verse, Proverbs 19, verse three. People’s own foolishness ruin their lives, but in their minds, they blame who? The Lord, they blame the Lord. Well, if God hadn’t done, if God had given me a different family, a different job, no, no, you make your own choices. So we bury it, we blame, and then the third thing we do, write this down, we beat ourselves up. This is a common thing too. A lot of people do when they’re guilty. We just beat ourselves up and we pile it on. We self-administer punishment. We subconsciously try to pay for our mistakes. I mean, just think about this. Can a guilty conscience make you sick? Oh yeah. One study I read said that over 50% of the people in the hospital could go home tomorrow if they knew how to get rid of either resentment or guilt. Resentment, what other people have done to me, or guilt, what I’ve done to other people. And if they could just deal with those two twin misery buddies, they could leave the hospital. Yes, guilt can make you sick. David said, I was miserable. I felt terrible. The strength evaporated out of my life. See, a lot of times people are sick and they think, well, maybe I’m not eating the right thing. Well, you may not be. Maybe you need to correct what you eat. But also, you need to check out not just what you eat, but what’s eating you. Because what’s eating you can make you fatigued, can make you stressed out, can make you have no energy. Can guilt cause depression? Sure, it’s a form of atonement. I’ve done wrong, so I’ll just make myself depressed. Can guilt sabotage success? Absolutely, listen to this. Many people, you’ve probably done this, have sabotaged their own success because they thought I don’t really deserve this. I’ve met very famous people who at the height of their fame did something really stupid and sabotaged their success, why? Because they never felt like they deserved the success, why? Because they felt guilty and they didn’t know how to get rid of their guilt. Psalm 38, verse four and six, David says, my guilt has overwhelmed me. Like a load, it weighs me down. Because I was foolish, I did something dumb, I’m bent over and I’m bowed down and I’m sad all day long. That’s called depression, I’m sad all day long. He says, my guilt overwhelmed me. You know the problem with punishing yourself, and some of you have been doing this? You did something wrong a long time ago and you knew it was wrong. But you’re still punishing yourself over it. You know the problem with punishing yourself? You don’t know when enough’s enough. You don’t know when to stop the punishment. And so you just keep it on and on and on. Some of you are still beating yourself up over stuff that happened years ago, five years ago, 10 years ago, as a child. And you’re still beating yourself up. That’s not smart. That’s not wise. Now, those are the ways we typically deal with guilt. Bury it, blame, and beat ourselves up. That’s not what God wants you to do. What does Jesus want you to do with guilt? He wants you to do two or three things. Write these down. Number one, the Bible’s very clear and very specific about how to get off a guilt trip. Now, the steps are simple, but they’re not easy. Number one, admit it. That’s the first thing. I just have to admit it. I’ve got to get out of denial. We talk a lot about this in Celebrate Recovery. Getting out of denial is like the first step. I’ve got to admit it. I don’t bury it. I don’t deny it. I don’t ignore it. I just own up to it. I blew it. I did wrong. Sometimes when we run from guilt, we try to run from it by keeping busy. We keep ourselves so busy, overworking. You know what? You can even do that with ministry. A lot of people who are actively involved in ministry are doing it for the wrong reason. They’re running from their guilt. That’s not a good reason to serve God. It’s not a reason to serve others. And they’re trying to atone for it in their background. I did these things wrong, now I’m gonna make up for it. And so a lot of times we try to deal with the guilt by moving quickly, literally moving. Some people will move away. I blew it in a certain area, so I’m going to move away from that area. I’m going to travel. But you know the problem with that? Wherever you go, you take yourself. So you could move to Tahiti and you’re going to take your guilt with you. And when you finally slow down, and a lot of workaholism is motivated by guilt. When you finally slow down and you put your head on the pillow at night and you be quiet, all that guilt rushes in and you don’t like that feeling so you get up and you start working again. That doesn’t work. I just need to admit it. Look at some verses from the Bible. Proverbs 20 verse 27. The Lord gave us a mind and he gave us a conscience. We cannot hide from ourselves. Circle, we cannot hide. We cannot hide from ourselves. That’s why guilt is so devastating in your life. You can hide it from others. You can hide it from others, but you cannot hide it from yourself. Look at this verse up here on the screen. First John 1.8 says this. If we claim to be without sin, we’re just deceiving ourselves. We’re deceiving ourselves. We’re lying to ourselves. We’re doing that rationalizing again. We claim to be without sin. We just deceive ourselves. We don’t deceive God. We don’t deceive other people. They know we’re sinners. We’re just deceiving ourselves. And the truth is not in us. So I’ve got to start with just admitting it. I want you to write this down on your outline. To stop defeating myself, I must stop deceiving myself. If you don’t get anything else, get this. To stop defeating myself, I must stop deceiving myself. What are you pretending is not a problem in your life? Oh, it’s just, it’s not a habit. It’s not an addiction. It’s not a problem. I can handle it. What are you pretending isn’t a problem in your life? If I wanna stop defeating myself, I’ve got to stop deceiving myself. Once a year, I sit down, at least once a year, and I do what I call a personal moral inventory. It’s one of the steps we do in recovery. And I just sit down, I say, okay, God, give me a list of everything between me and you, and give me a list between me and everybody else. What’s the stuff that’s the sticking point? What’s the sin, the failure, the mistake, the problem, the difficulty? What’s the bad habit? What’s the wrong attitude? And I just sit still, and I’ll just make a list. And sometimes that list is quite long. And this is the power of confessing to God. As I start by admitting it, you make a personal moral inventory. Say, God, what’s the things in my life that are blocking fellowship with you? Why don’t I feel so joyful anymore? Why don’t I feel so enthusiastic anymore? Why don’t I feel close to you anymore? And then what’s the stuff between me and my wife or me and my kids? What’s the stuff between me and the people I work with? And you admit it. You gotta write it down. Lamentations 3.40 says, let us examine our ways and test them. So here’s what I would highly recommend you do this week. This is a good time to do it. Just get alone with God, get a blank sheet of paper, maybe a little yellow pad, and a pencil or a pen, and just say, ask God to bring to mind anything in your life that needs to be confessed. And then just write it down. Now nobody’s gonna see this list. Right now, you’re just gonna write it all down, you’re unconsciously guilty about. And you make a list of all the faults that come to mind, you take your time, you say, why do I need to write it down? Why can’t I just think about it? Can’t I just think about it? No, you can’t. Something about writing it down on paper makes it specific. Francis Bacon said, reading makes a broad man, writing makes a specific man. Thoughts disentangle themselves when they pass through the lips and the fingertips. When you can say it and you can write it, then you’ve really thought about it. But if you just think about it in your mind, it’s not serious. So write it. It forces you to be specific. Now, once you admit it, you’re ready for the second step. And it’s this. Accept responsibility. That’s the second step. Means I’m not gonna blame anybody else. They may be 99% at fault and I’m 1% at fault. All I’m gonna deal with is my 1% right now. I’m not dealing with your problem, your sin, your hang-up. I’m dealing with me. I accept responsibility. And again, I don’t rationalize it, say, well, it happened so long ago, and I don’t blame others. It was mostly their fault. I don’t minimize it. I don’t make excuses. You know, one day… King David had a moral failure in his life. And he looked out of his palace and he sees a beautiful, gorgeous, nude woman bathing on her roof. Is that where you ought to be bathing? On your roof? Knowing that the palace can look down on you? Well, okay, no, obviously. And when David saw her, as you know, it eventually led to adultery and murder. And she got pregnant with David’s child and David murdered, or had her husband murdered And when David writes out his moral inventory, it’s called Psalm 51, if you ever want to read it. Psalm 51 is David’s moral inventory and confession of sin after his adultery with Bathsheba. In that, he doesn’t blame Bathsheba for 1% even. He takes it all on himself. Fine. Did Bathsheba have to say yes to David? No, she did not. But David doesn’t blame her for the affair. He just takes it on himself. And in Psalm 51, verse three, he says this. I recognize my faults and I am conscious of my sins. Now, what is the best way to ensure that you have accepted responsibility for the dumb things you’ve done in your life? What’s the best way to do that? It’s gonna shock you. I told you it’s simple, but it’s not easy. The best way to accept responsibility is to tell one other person. Oh no, you gotta be kidding me. My deepest, darkest, dirtiest secret, yeah. Now you don’t go tell a gossip. And you certainly don’t tweet about it. Okay, that’s not what you, you find somebody who’s gonna be a friend who’s gonna love you unconditionally. That’s what a friend does. A friend walks in when everybody else walks out. A friend is somebody who can listen to your worst sin and will still love you. And everybody needs one person in their life like that. And admit your fault to another person. In fact, God says this is an essential key to letting go of guilt. Let me stop right here. Many of you have confessed your sins to God and you still feel guilty because you haven’t done this step. You have confessed your sin to God over and over and over and over and over, and you still feel guilty. But you’ve never told one other person. Here’s what God says, James 5, 16. Admit your faults to one another, doesn’t say to God, to one another, and pray for each other so that you may be healed. Circle the word healed. Now let me explain this. If you want to be forgiven for the stuff you’ve done wrong, All you need to do is tell God. But if you want to be healed of the negative emotions, you need to tell one other person. Say it again. If all you do is want to be forgiven, you just need to tell God. But you’ll still be haunted by your own emotions. If you wanna be set free, you need to tell one other person. Write it down and tell one other person. Jesus says, or the Bible says, confess your faults one to another, pray for each other, that you may be healed. How many times have I said this? Revealing your feeling is the beginning of healing. Revealing your feeling is the beginning of healing. You say, I don’t wanna do that. Then you wanna carry the guilt the rest of your life. Fine. And you can take it out on you. If you don’t talk it out, you’re gonna take it out on your body. And when you swallow your negative emotions, your stomach keeps score. People say, oh, my aching back. Oh, my aching neck. Oh, my aching stomach. Wonder where that’s at. Well, maybe it’s because what’s eating you. God says, admit your faults to each other that you may be healed. Now, why do I need to drag one other person into this? I’ll tell you why. And get this, it’s simple to say, but it’s profound in its meaning. The root of all our problems are relational. You say, no, this is between me and God. No, it wasn’t. The root of all our problems are relational. You are reacting still to relationships in your life that you didn’t like. Today, you’re still reacting to relationships you didn’t like. And those relationships may have been a long, long time ago, but they’re still pushing you in a direction that you don’t wanna go. And as your pastor who loves you and cares for you, I’m telling you, that the root of your problem is relational. And we’re all dishonest with each other and we play games and we wear masks and we pretend. Write this down, here’s another one to write down. We’ve talked about this before. I’m only as sick as my secrets. I’m only as sick as my secrets. Secrets make us sicker. And we hold them on. The way we get healed, revealing your feeling is the beginning of healing, the more you hide it, the more you hurt. The more you hide it, the more you hurt. And because we are not honest with each other, we’re not only not honest with God, we’re not honest with each other. We’re dishonest. We play games. We wear masks. We pretend we have it all together. It isolates us from each other. It causes fear, prevents intimacy, creates insecurity. If they really knew me, they’d reject me. Everybody needs at least one person in their life they can be totally honest with. It’s God’s way of freeing us. That’s why you need a small group. You’re most likely to find that person in a small group. So, I admit it, I accept responsibility, and there are only three steps to getting rid of guilt. Here’s the third one, ask for forgiveness. Ask for forgiveness. There are so many promises in the Bible about forgiveness if you’ll take these three steps. First John 1.9 is the most famous one. If we admit, if we freely admit that we have sinned, we find God utterly reliable. Notice it doesn’t say, if we freely admit we’ve sinned, we find God utterly punishing. Utterly mad, utterly angry. It doesn’t say that. It says when we admit to God we’ve sinned, that makes God happy, not sad. A lot of people think, well, I admit to God, God’s gonna be mad at me, as if he doesn’t already know. No, he knows, he just wants you to admit that you know and you recognize, that was wrong, but I did. Please put the verse back up there again. If we freely admit that we have sinned, we find God utterly reliable, he forgives your sins, and he makes us thoroughly clean from all that is evil. So, I ask for forgiveness.
SPEAKER 01 :
Hey, thanks for listening to Pastor Rick’s Daily Hope. Pastor Rick has created a beautifully illustrated book called Journey with Jesus. And this book is stunning. It’s filled with beautiful photographs, colored mosaics that depict the sacrificial journey Jesus made to save us. Here’s Pastor Rick to tell you more.
SPEAKER 02 :
Every year, Christians from all over the world remember the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ by traveling to Jerusalem where they walk the path that Jesus took on the way to the cross. That path is called the Via Dolorosa, which literally means the way of suffering. Now, since you may not be able to ever travel to Jerusalem, I want to suggest a way for you to celebrate and reflect on and pray about what Jesus did for you on the cross. So I’ve created a brand new one-of-a-kind resource that will take you through the 15 stops that the Bible tells us Jesus took on the road to Calvary and his death on the cross. Now we’re calling this resource Journey with Jesus. Journey with Jesus is a deluxe hardcover gift edition book that’s illustrated with really beautiful photos, high-quality glossy photos of mosaic tile artwork that reflect each of the stops that Jesus made on his journey to the cross. You’re not ever going to forget this gift. It’s a great gift book to keep and to study over and over again. and it’d make a great gift for your family and your friends too.
SPEAKER 01 :
Just go to PastorRick.com to get your copy of this great resource. That’s PastorRick.com or just text the word HOPE to 70309. Again, that’s the word HOPE to 70309. And really, thank you so much for your support. It means so much to us because your gift to Daily Hope helps us share the hope of Christ with people all around the world. We hope you’ll 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.
