A New Beginning presents a timely book from Pastor Greg Laurie called God's Answer to Fear, Anxiety, and Worry. God can help you in your times of anxiety and fear. There are specific passages that can bring comfort and perspective to you and trust me, everything that I am talking about has been tested in my life in real time. So I hope you'll order your own copy of God's Answer to Fear, Anxiety, and Worry.
Yours for a gift of any amount at Harvest.org. 85% of the stuff you worry about will never happen to you. Today I want to talk about the other 15%. When that thing that you feared actually does happen to you. When you hear the worst news imaginable and you wonder if you can survive it. The Bible says God has not given us a spirit of fear but of power and love and of a sound mind. Pastor Greg Laurie helps us put that hope to work. You do not have to be hopeless no matter what you're facing. It's a statistical certainty that someone listening to A New Beginning today has just received the toughest news of their life. A diagnosis, a court order, an eviction, a pink slip, a phone call. It's so often a phone call.
What do you do when you don't know what to do? Today Pastor Greg Laurie reassures you that God knows, God sees, and God cares. And God has power bigger than this crisis. And He can make a way when there seems to be no way. Why don't we grab our Bibles and turn to John chapter 11.
And the title of my message is Hope for Hurting Hearts. It's a day like any other day. You get out of bed. You get dressed. You have breakfast. Cup of coffee.
Check your emails maybe. Hopefully you will read your Bible before that. And then it happens. That phone call out of the blue from a police officer or a friend delivering bad news or a note on your counter from your spouse saying they want out of the marriage. A new pain in your body you had never noticed before.
A call from your doctor saying he is concerned about a test that was just done on you and he wants to do some more tests. Crisis. It hits fast. It hits hard. And it takes no prisoners. Pain is knocked on your front door. It is moved in without your permission.
And it refuses to leave. And this crisis that you have experienced can alter the course of your life dramatically. In fact you wouldn't even wish it on your worst enemy. But yet it is happening to you. For Job his whole world came crashing down on him in one day. For Joseph it was a betrayal by his brothers that changed the course of his life.
For Jesus it was the religious leaders and one of his own friends who actually betrayed him. And for you it might be something else. You feel like you are in an unexpected overpowering storm and your little ship is starting to capsize. And you are even beginning to lose hope. And then said quote man can live 40 days without food, three days without water, but not even minutes without hope.
We all need hope in our life. And that day happened to me on July 24, 2008 when we heard the news no parent wants to hear that our son Christopher had left this world and had gone on to the next one. And he was now in heaven.
He was killed in an automobile accident. To see an event like that is devastating. It is an understatement. It is life altering. I felt like all the air was sucked out of the room. I was in an immediate state of shock. I collapsed to the ground.
I thought if I could die from hearing something I literally could physically die from that information that was given to me and somehow I survived it. And so as I was dealing with this new reality that I did not want to face I had people who had gone through it say you should keep a journal. Well I have never really had a journal. When I think of journal I think of something a little kid has maybe with a little lock on it or something. A journal. And so I started opening up Word documents and just kind of typing my thoughts the way I was feeling each day. And then they began to sort of take shape. And I read some other books on sudden loss.
And I thought I want to share this with other people. So it turned into a little book that became known as Hope for Hurting Hearts. Now over the years I have written 70 books. I didn't say anyone has read them. I just said I have written them. Ok. And this is probably the most important book I have ever written for this simple reason.
I have heard so many stories from people who have told me how it helped them in an hour of crisis. And I wrote it from the valley. It is a dispatch from the valley of the shadow of death. It is not theoretical. It is real. Because it is close to when it happened.
In real time. And basically the book talks about what happens when pain or hardship comes. And in my case it was the loss of my son. And then the hope that I found from Scripture. The hope that I found from my relationship with God. The hope that has sustained me all these years and continues to sustain me as other hardships come my way.
And this hope is here for all of us right here right now. You do not have to be hopeless no matter what you are facing at this particular moment. You know we have a generation that has been dubbed the hopeless generation. That is generation Z born from 1995 to 2008. The hopeless generation is also the most depressed generation. In fact this generation for them anti-depressants are the best selling pharmaceuticals. And they also have the highest suicide rate.
Well listen. I have hope for the hopeless generation. I have hope for the millennials. I have hope for the baby boomers. I have hope for the greatest generation. It is the hope of a relationship with God through Jesus Christ.
And I want to share that hope. The Bible describes hope as an anchor. Hebrews 6 19 says we have this hope as an anchor for the soul firm and secure.
And we need this hope. Because I will tell you when you are going through hardship the thing that helps you are not pious platitudes. The thing that will help you is the Word of God. Psalm 38 15 the psalmist says, In you O Lord I hope you will hear O Lord my God.
Psalm 130 verse 5. I am counting on the Lord. I have put my hope in His Word. That is where we are going to find the hope.
From God and from His Word. I just finished a three part series as you know called God's answer to fear, anxiety, and worry. And one of the points I made was 85 percent of the stuff you worry about will never happen to you. Ok. So why stress out over that stuff.
Today I want to talk about the other 15 percent. When that thing that you feared actually does happen to you. When the worst case scenario takes place. When you hear the worst news imaginable and you wonder if you can survive it. The answer is yes.
Yes you can. For me at first it wasn't getting through the day. It was getting through the next five minutes. I felt like I had the weight of the world on me. I felt almost a physical weight on my chest.
And I will tell you what helped me was reading Scripture. See living in grief and grieving is a little bit like wiping out on a wave. How many of you have ever been out on the surf and been thrown over the falls of a wave.
Raise your hand up. Some of you what you don't go in the ocean. It seems to happen to everyone eventually. But I can think of times where I have been out there and you know when a big set is coming in. And by big set I mean a bunch of waves. And the one after the one coming is even bigger. And they get bigger and bigger. Your inclination is to turn around and paddle toward shore as fast as possible.
And that is a bad decision. Because then you are going to get hit in the impact zone. What you need to do is paddle out toward the waves. Try to go under them before they break. Keep going.
Keep going. If you get to Catalina you have gone too far. But I can think of times where I have gone over the falls as they say. And so you are in like this washing machine of white water and you can actually lose direction. And more than one person has gone down when they should go up. So if you have a boogie board or some kind of a flotation device with you it is probably attached to your leg.
So here is what you do. If you are caught in white water. This is a tip for summer.
You might thank me later. If you are caught in white water and you have a boogie board or something grab your leash and pull on it. Go in the direction of the leash. It will always take you to the surface.
Ok. So here is how it works for us. When we are dealing with grief we don't know which way is up.
We are losing perspective. The Bible is the leash you need. You grab the Word of God and you pull on it. And it takes you to Jesus. You get your head above water. You take a big gulp of air and you go, uh oh, eight more waves coming.
And now you have got to go under them and under them. But the point is the Word of God is what helps us in those times of need. Pastor Greg Laurie will have the second half of his message in just a moment. We are encouraged when we hear from families who have been impacted by the Harvest Crusades and Harvest Ministries. In July I traveled from San Francisco to hear Pastor Greg's message at Harvest 2024 in Anaheim, California. It was there that I rededicated my life to the Lord. The following week I heard that Harvest was doing baptisms at Pirate's Cove in Southern California. And so I surprised my nine year old daughter who had wanted to be baptized by driving back down so she could be baptized there.
I have never heard a louder, I love you dad. All I can say is that it has been one of the most memorable events in my life as a dad. A huge thank you to all at Harvest Ministries.
What a great story of this father and daughter. If you have a story to share, would you contact us and let us know? Email Pastor Greg. Send it to Greg at Harvest.org.
That's Greg at Harvest.org. Well today Pastor Greg is offering full strength encouragement for those times when the bottom drops out of our lives. Let's look together now at God's Word. Well here before us in John 11 is a story of a loved one dying. It is a story of severe grief that accompanies the death of someone you love. It is also a story of how Jesus reacts in such situations. And it tells us how God can actually be glorified through difficult circumstances. But it is also a hopeful message. So we will remember that no matter what we are going through, God is going to be with you. He will give you the strength you need in your hour of need. Not necessarily before. Never after.
But He will give you what you need when you need it. This is a story of Mary, Martha, and Lazarus. Now these people were personal friends of Jesus Christ. They had cell phones in those days. They would have had His number.
They would have had a text thread constantly going. Jesus liked to hang out at their house. They lived in Bethany. And He would go to their home in Bethany when He would be going into Jerusalem. Whenever He went into Jerusalem there was conflict. There was drama.
There were things going on. So He would go hang out with His friends first. And by the way Martha was a killer cook. And I am sure He loved her food. As did His twelve buddies.
He took with Him everywhere He went. So He would just show up and Martha would whip Him up a feast. And Jesus liked to spend time in their home. And it could be accurately said that Mary, her sister Martha, and their brother Lazarus were personal friends of Jesus Christ.
I think that is an important thing to note. And so as our story picks up hardship has come their way. Sickness has invaded their home. John 11. Now a certain man was sick. Lazarus of Bethany. The town of Mary and her sister Martha. It was then Mary who anointed the Lord with fragrant oil and wiped His feet with her hair whose brother Lazarus was sick.
Therefore the sister sent to Him saying, Lord behold He whom you love is sick. Stop there. So what do we learn from this? Here is point number one. Life is filled with pain, sorrow, and the death of loved ones. Is that not the most depressing point ever?
Seriously. But it is true unfortunately. Life is filled with pain and sorrow and the death of loved ones. Now you don't know this so much when you are young. But as you get older you start seeing loved ones pass. It usually starts with your grandparents. Then your parents.
All very significant stages of life. But then it might be an unexpected loved one dying like a spouse or a child. And that affects you in a dramatic way. So these things do happen. You don't know when it is going to happen. But it reminds you of your own mortality. This is just a reality of life.
Point number two. Despite the hardships of life we must remember that God loves us. Despite the hardships of life we must remember that God loves us. You know shortly after my son went to be with the Lord Pastor Chuck came to visit me. Chuck Smith.
We sat on the steps of my home in front. And Chuck looked at me and said, Greg never trade what you know for what you don't know. Never trade what you know for what you don't know. Because when crisis hits your mind is filled with whys.
Why is this happening to me? Why? Why? Why? It is not fair. Other people don't suffer like this.
Why? That is what I don't know. Don't trade what I know for what I don't know. Ok. What do I know? I know that God loves me.
Right? Do you know that? I know that God is in control of my life. I know that when a believer dies they go to heaven. Therefore I know that the moment my son left this world he entered the next one and he is there in the presence of God. I know that I will see him again.
As David said, when his child died he cannot come to me but I will go to him. So you can spend all of your time asking the why question. The what you don't know stuff. But go to what you do know. And replace what you don't know with thoughts about what you do know. God loves you. Now this is very interesting because Lazarus is sick and they just sent a message to Jesus saying basically, Lord your buddy is sick.
Let's paraphrase. Your friend Lazarus is sick. They didn't tell him what to do. They just said he is sick.
They figured well he will take care of it. I think they were assuming Jesus would heal him and he could do that. He healed many people. He never touched any two people the same way though.
Have you ever noticed that? Sometimes he would speak to a person and they would be healed. Another time someone would touch the hem of his garment and they would be healed. Another time he would just speak the Word and the person would be healed. And on one occasion a guy who was blind had Jesus spit on the ground. Wipe his spit in the dirt and put it in the guy's eye.
Here is mud in your eye buddy. Now that was a weird way to see someone healed. Can you imagine coming for prayer?
Pastor would you pray for me? Sure. Hold on. No. I am sorry.
That is gross. That is what he did. So he could heal people. He didn't even need to be there. They probably thought he would just say the Word and Lazarus would pop out of bed and Martha would whip up a great meal and everything could be wonderful again.
Yes he loved them. But then here is an interesting little twist on the story. They say, Lord the one that you love is sick. Verse 3.
And then he basically delays his arrival. Look at verse 4. When Jesus heard that he was sick he said, The sickness is not to death, but for the glory of God.
That the Son of God may be glorified through it. Now look at this. Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. Therefore, therefore, when he heard that he was sick he stayed two more days in the place where he was. Huh? What?
When he heard he was sick because he loved him he stayed two more days in the place where he was. Now that doesn't make any sense at all to us. And in the same way when hardship hits we are saying, Lord where were you? Why aren't you doing something?
Why aren't you engaged here? Don't you even care? Well I don't know that I can answer why Jesus delayed his arrival. But here is one little thought. Jesus knew ultimately that Lazarus was going to die. And so by the time he arrives in Bethany Lazarus has been dead a number of days. But where did Lazarus go when he died?
Does anyone know the answer? He went to heaven. The Old Testament version of heaven if you will. Known as Abraham's bosom.
A place of comfort and bliss. So hey Lazarus was good. Maybe Jesus thought, I am going to let the guy enjoy it for a little while. He will be back here soon enough. And he won't be happy when I bring him back either. And then there was a plot afoot to kill Lazarus because the religious leaders were angry.
He got resurrected by Jesus so they wanted to kill him. Man that is miserable isn't it? So maybe you just wanted him to enjoy it a little bit longer. You know. Have a little fun.
Like when the kids are in the pool and it is time to go. And you say, let's go. Oh let us say ok. You can have five more minutes.
All right. Jesus is thinking, let them have a little enjoyment up there. Life is going to get hard enough for him soon. But now here is Jesus waiting because he has a purpose in mind. You know one of my favorite hope verses is Jeremiah 29.11. Where God says, I know the thoughts that I think toward you says the Lord. Thoughts of peace and not of evil to give you a future and a hope. That phrase a future could be translated an expected end. Or as another translation puts it a ground of hope or things hoped for. Basically God is saying there is going to be an outcome and ultimately it will be good.
Some of you are saying, hold on now Greg. What possible future can I have with my loved one who has died? Here is the answer. If they died with faith in Jesus Christ they are not just a part of your past. They are also a part of your future.
Because to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. We will be reunited with loved ones again. And God will tie up the loose ends.
And somehow somehow he is going to make this up to you on the other side. You know we see the small picture. God sees the big picture. We see the temporal. He sees the eternal.
And he has bigger plans afoot than what you are thinking about right now that will all be made clear to you in that final day. So in the meantime you are going to have to just have hope. You say, well Greg actually what is hope?
Well one person defined it this way in this acronym H-O-P-E. Holding on with patient expectation. Hope is just holding on. Holding on knowing that God is ultimately going to accomplish his purposes through it. Pastor Greg Laurie pointing out where to find hope in a time of true hopelessness.
Good encouragement today here on A New Beginning. And Pastor Greg has more to come in this message. He mentioned his helpful book Hope for Hurting Hearts. So many have found encouragement in this resource. We have heard from scores of people. You can find out more about the book in our Harvest store at harvest.org.
Look for the tab right up at the front that says store. Well Pastor Greg you mentioned that we will see our departed loved ones again. If they were believers and if we are believers.
That's right. What if someone is realizing they have never taken that step of coming to the Lord and beginning a relationship with him. What I would say is he's only a prayer away. Which means if you will call upon the name of the Lord right now through prayer. He will hear your prayer and answer your prayer. Listen if you want Jesus Christ to come into your life. If you want him to forgive you of your sin.
If you want to know that you go to heaven when you die. Just pray this prayer right now after me. Just pray Lord Jesus I know that I'm a sinner. But I know that you're the Savior who died on the cross for my sin.
And rose again from the dead. I turn from my sin now and I choose to follow you. From this moment forward as my Savior and Lord.
As my God and my friend. In Jesus name I pray. Amen. Amen. And listen if you have just prayed that prayer along with Pastor Greg.
And meant those words sincerely. We want to welcome you into God's family. And we want to help you get started in your new faith. Pastor Greg wants to send you his New Believers Bible free of charge.
Along with some other helpful resources. Just let us know you prayed with Pastor Greg and that you want the New Believers Bible. When you call 1-800-821-3300.
We can take your call anytime at 1-800-821-3300. Or go online to harvest.org and click the words, Know God. And then let us say a word of thanks to those who support us financially. Those who make it possible for us to bring you these studies each day. We're definitely a listener supported ministry. It's the generosity of listeners that help us be here with these programs. So if you've partnered with us, thank you. And if you have yet to partner with us, I hope you'll get in touch today.
And let us know that you're standing with us. Even a small investment would help. It's actually an investment in changing lives. Thank you for partnering with us. You can donate securely online at harvest.org. Or write a new beginning, Box 4000, Riverside, CA 92514. Or call us at 1-800-821-3300. Again, that's 1-800-821-3300.
Join us for Harvest at Home at harvest.org or on Harvest Plus. Well, Pastor Greg has more good reassurance next time from this very personal message called Hope for Hurting Hearts. Join us here on A New Beginning with pastor and Bible teacher, Greg Laurie. This is the day, the day when life begins.
