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Hey, everyone. Welcome to Pastor Rick's Daily Hope. Well, today we are kicking off an encouraging series called Life's Healing Choices. Now, in these lessons, Rick Warren will guide us through a deep biblical exploration of how to overcome the hurts, hangups and habits that hold us back. So get ready for some practical insights and powerful truths that can lead us to lasting change and freedom in your life. Here's Rick with part one of a message called the Reality Choice.

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You know, when my kids were little, I used to take them to a place called Chuck E. Cheese. I hate Chuck E. Cheese. It is evil incarnate. In fact, I used to try to sneak in my own pizza and Kay would catch me, no, you can't bring food in here. And fortunately, I have lost that painful memory. Except one thing. I remember a game in Chuck E. Cheese called Whack a Mole. Does anybody remember this game, Whack a Mole? Now, in Whack a Mole, these moles pop up out of holes and you take a hammer and you slam it back down. And as soon as you slam them down, what happens? Another one comes up. That's right. And then you slam that one down and two come up. You slam that down, three come up and it goes on and on and on. And the thing about that game, and this is why it's evil, is you can't win it. No matter how many you slam down, they keep coming back up and pretty soon you just give up and you walk away. Now, friends, whack a mole is a metaphor for your life. Just about the time you got one problem whacked down, what happens? Another problem pops up and you whack that one down and two more come up and you whack that one down and three more come up. And that is life. Whack a mole. Thank you for coming. Have a great week. This is also true of persistent sins. Not just problems, but persistent sins and temptations. Just about the time you think you've got victory over that weakness in your life, it pops back up again. Have you noticed this? And you know, it just keeps popping back up. Now you can go read self help books and they will teach you how to whack faster. But that's not what God's word does. God's word teaches us how to end the game with sin and how to unplug it so that the power isn't getting into it anymore. And those moles don't just keep popping back up. I want to take a little survey here. Time for confession. Have you ever stayed up late when you knew you needed sleep. All right. And have you ever stayed up late and then slept in church? No. Have you ever eaten or drunk extra calories that you knew you shouldn't have? The rest of you are lying. Have you ever made commitments that you couldn't possibly keep? Have you ever felt you ought to exercise but you didn't? You are not raising your hand. Come on, you know that. All right, all right. Have you ever known that you should be kind and unselfish, but instead you were unkind and selfish? Yeah. Have you ever tried to take control of your life, a circumstance or another person and discovered that you couldn't? Welcome to the human race and you came to the right church. Even Paul struggled with these kinds of struggles. Notice there in your outline, Paul says this. The Apostle Paul, the greatest Christian next to Jesus. He says, I don't understand what I do, for what I want to do, I don't do. But what I hate to do, I end up doing. He says, I know that nothing good lives in my sinful nature. Nothing good is in that sinful nature. I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. Now I've read a lot of commentators on this verse who try to explain this away and say Paul is talking about his pre Christian days before he became a believer, before he was saved, before he was born again, before he had Christ and the Holy Spirit in his life. This is the way he acted. But that's not at all the truth. The fact is Paul is writing this in the middle of Romans and all of these verbs are in the present indicative which says I'm doing it now. I'm struggling right now as I write this very verse. And he was struggling with it. So let's take a little inventory there on your outline. I'd like for you to circle which of these things keep popping up in your life. Which of these keep popping up? Stress. Circle. Circle all of them. The ones that apply. Fears, overwork, attractions that I shouldn't have to another person or something else. Addictions, regrets. Diet, yo yo diet. Worry, bad habits. Anger. Does that keep popping up in your life? Dishonesty, does that keep popping up in your life? Need to control, finances you have, can't pay your bills. Relationships, painful memories keep popping up. Perfectionism, resentment, compulsive thoughts. Now if you have circled any of those things, you are in the right church. Cause this is the place for people who want to grow. If you're perfect, please go find another church, but don't join it. Cause then it Won't be perfect the moment you join it. Some of you are a little slow this morning on that. But now, what is the cause of all these problems? It is the same root cause. Every problem in your life has the same problem, root cause. Write this down. It's playing God. Playing God. When I act like I'm God and I'm gonna make my choices instead of doing what God tells me to do, I'm gonna have these problems in my life. Now, our oldest temptation is the temptation to play God. You know, it's all the way back to the Garden of Eden, when Adam was tempted to eat the fruit, that God said, this is the one choice I'm giving you. Don't eat this. And Satan comes and says, if you eat this, you'll be a God. You see, Satan never tempts you to be like himself. He never says, eat this and be like me. Cause nobody wants to be like the devil. He says, eat this and you'll be your own God. See, there's a whole philosophy built around it today. It's called the New Age movement, which says, you're a God, you're divine. God is you, and you are God. No, you're not a God. The New Age is just the oldest lie ever told. You're not a God. If you were a God, you could solve all your problems. But you're not, and you never will be. So it's our oldest temptation. It comes from Satan. It's caused by our pride. Ezekiel points this out when he says to the King of Tyre, there in your outline, in the pride of your heart, you say, I am a God. But you are just a man and not a God. Though you think you are as wise as a God. When do you think you're as wise as a God? When God tells you to do something, you don't do it. Well, I know God says, do this, but I'm gonna do it anyway. And I know God says, don't do that, but I'm gonna do it anyway. Cause I know what will make me happy more than God does. I know God says, no sex outside of marriage, but I'm gonna do what I wanna do. I know God says tithe, but I'm gonna do what I wanna do. I know God says, every time God tells you to do something and you don't do it, guess what? You are playing God. You're saying I actually know what will make me happy more than God does. And that is the source of all your problems. It is the root. The Bible says here on the screen. Proverbs 29, 23. Pride ruins people. Have you ever realized what is the common denominator in all your bad relationships? Think about this. The common denominator in every one of your bad relationships is you. That's kind of obvious. Everything else is different about it. But you are the common denominator. You are your own worst enemy. You cause yourself the most problem. And today, as Tom and I help you look at this, you're going to understand that this is the problem we have to deal with first. Now, what is the cure? The cure is what we're gonna look at for the next eight weeks. And over the next eight weeks, we're going to look at the eight Beatitudes of Jesus, which are the first eight statements in the first most famous sermon Jesus ever gave. It's called the Sermon on the Mount. And Jesus starts the Sermon on the Mount by saying, I'm gonna tell you eight ways to be blessed. You'll be blessed if you do this. You'll be blessed if you do this. You'll be blessed if you do this. You'll be blessed if you do this. Eight statements, we call them the Beatitudes. And he starts off by saying, I wanna tell you how to live a blessed life. Now, what in the world is a blessing? Most of you wouldn't know a blessing if it hit you in the face. Well, the word blessing or blessed literally is the word in Greek, makarios. Makarios is the poetic form of the verb makar, which means in Greek, happy. That's all it means. To be blessed means to be. That's all it means. To be blessed means to be supremely happy. It's the poetic form of being happy. And so Jesus, in his most famous Sermon on the Mount, starts off by saying, I'm gonna tell you eight ways to be happy. Sounds like a felt need sermon to me. But he says, the way you think you're gonna be happy is not at all the way the world tells you. And if there was anything more important than this, Jesus would have done it and dealt with it. Now, the first Beatitude is the first healing choice for getting rid of your habits and your hurts and your hangups that mess up your life. So I want us to read this together. Matthew 5. 3. Let's read it aloud. The first Beatitude. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven. Now, we've talked a lot about the kingdom this year, so we're not gonna go into that, but he's saying, blessed are the poor in spirit. For theirs is the kingdom of heaven. He's saying, nobody gets into heaven pridefully. It's all by grace, not of works, lest any man should boast. What does it mean to be poor in spirit? That's what I want us to look at today. What does it mean, blessed are the poor in spirit? Well, first circle the phrase in spirit. Cause he's not talking about physical poverty. There is no blessing in being poor physically. He's not talking about physical poverty. He's talking about spiritual poverty. Recognizing my sinfulness, recognizing my helplessness, recognizing my hopelessness. I love that God's word translation of this verse says, blessed are those who recognize that they are spiritually helpless. That's what he's talking about, spiritually helpless. Now, in Celebrate Recovery, we have the first statement which perfectly describes what it means to be poor in spirit. So I wrote it there in your outline. It means, I admit I need help. That I'm powerless to control my tendency to do the wrong thing and my life is unmanageable. That is what it means to be poor in spirit. And God says if you develop that attitude that I admit that I'm powerless, that I need help, that I can't control and manage everything in my life, but I need God's help, He says, then you will be blessed. It's the first step on the step to being blessed. So today let's look at how do I develop that attitude. You see, it's not being physically poor. It's spiritually poor. They don't call them be attitudes for nothing. This is the first attitude you need to be. You need to be poor in spirit. How do I develop the spirit of being poor in spirit? The Bible teaches us three ways. Number one. First, to be poor in spirit. I must humbly admit I need help. I humbly admit that I need help. I've gotta face the truth about me. I've gotta stop living in denial. And that's why we call this the reality choice. Now, Jesus said, the truth will what set you free. And so I have to face the truth about me. But the truth about the truth is we don't like the truth. You can't handle the truth. You don't like the truth about you. You know what? You love the truth about everybody else. You love it about everybody else, but you hate the truth about you. You can't handle it. And we avoid it and we fake it. And the problem is it's painful and we'd rather live phony lives. And it feels a whole lot safer to not handle the truth about me because the truth sets me free. But first it makes me miserable when I realize what needs changing in my life. So I humbly admit that I need help. That's being honest. Now the good news is that your habits and your hurts and your hangups can be healed. The bad news is it takes humility. It takes humility. You've gotta humble yourself and swallow your pride. Now, James says this on your verse there. God resists the proud and gives grace. To who? The humble. What is grace? Grace is the power you need to change. Let me be real honest with you. In the next eight weeks, you're gonna see some radical change in your life if you'll do what we do in these campaigns. But it's not gonna happen by willpower. Willpower doesn't work. How many diets have you started? How many exercise programs have you started? Willpower does not work. Cause you get tired. What you need is the grace of God. And grace is the power you need to change. How do you get grace? God opposes the proud, but he gives grace to who? The humble. So if I want God's power to change, I've gotta be humble. What does that mean? Well, let me get real specific. There are some facts that you need to admit about you. Would you write these down? These are things you need to admit about you if God's gonna bless your life. Number one. The first thing you need to admit is this. I am broken. Just write it down there. I am broken. Why? We live in a broken world. And in a fallen world. Nothing works perfectly. The weather doesn't work perfectly. The economy doesn't work perfectly. Our relationships don't work perfectly. Our marriages don't work perfectly. Everything is broken. Have you noticed? Your body doesn't work perfectly. Even your DNA is broken. God never intended for there to be deformities in the world. Physical deformities, emotional deformities, mental deformities. But that we live in a broken world and everything is broken. And you can't expect two broken people to get married and have a perfect marriage. It ain't gonna happen. It's gonna be broken too. Because you can only work with what you've got. The Bible says this on the screen. Romans 8, 20. Creation is confused. It's frustrated, it's growing, it's confused. And everybody's confused today. I don't know what I'm supposed to be, what I'm supposed to do. We have confused attitudes, confused addictions, confused about everything in life. And our identities even. Are Confused. Why? Cause we are in a broken world. Now, you've been broken by nature, and you've been broken by nurture. You've been broken by sins you've done, and you've been broken by sins done to you. You've been broken by choices, and you have been broken by circumstances, so it really doesn't matter. But the fact is, we're all in the same boat. Nobody is perfect. I'm broken. And that takes humility to admit that. Number two, you need to admit this. My secrets make me sick. My secrets make me sick. David says in Psalm 32, when he held in his secret sins, he said, when I refused to confess my sins, I was weak and miserable, and I groaned all day long. My strength evaporated like water in the summer heat. Finally, I confessed my sins to you, and I stopped trying to hide them all, and you forgave me. And all my guilt is, he said, you know, when I held in all the secrets, I got sick. It's not so much what you eat, it's what's eating you. And if you're tired all the time and you're frustrated all the time and you've got all these problems, guess what? You need to look. What am I holding inside? What am I hiding? My secrets make me sick. And when I get them out, when I'm honest and I'm open and I'm humble, I get a whole lot better. You see, friends, hiding never works. Listen very closely to me. When you hide a sin, it increases. It gets worse in your life, not better. Cause I don't want anybody to know this. And it becomes a compulsion, and you gotta do it again and again and again. The more you hide it, the more it increases. When you hide a fear, it intensifies, and the fear gets worse and worse and worse and worse. And when you hide a hurt, a memory, it imprints it on your mind, and it gets stronger and stronger and stronger in your mind. Hiding a hurt, a sin, a fear, never works. It only intensifies it in your life. So let me ask you a very important question. What are you pretending isn't a problem, and you're trying to fake it till you make it, but you're gonna break it. I'm a poet and I don't know it, but my feet show it. Cause they're Longfellers. How many times have you heard that, Kay? Too many times. Okay. Here's another thing you need to write down to be honest about. I must admit it, to defeat it. Would you write that down? I Must admit it to defeat it. I can't work on the sins in my life till I admit the sins in my life. I can't work on the hang ups in my life till I admit the hangups in my life. I can't work on the fears in my life until I admit the fears in my life. I must admit it to Defeat it. Proverbs 28:13. Look at this verse here on the screen. You will never succeed in life. You want to be a success in life. Well, look at this. You will never succeed in life. If you try to hide your sins, God says that you're gonna be fighting against God. You will never succeed in life. If you try to hide your sins, confess them, give them up, and God will show you mercy. I can't defeat it until I admit it. You see, we waste an enormous amount of energy hiding our hurts, our faults, our hangups. And all that energy you use to pretend you're somebody that you're not, and to hide your weaknesses and your faults from other people, it drains your life. And it's why you're tired all the time. And if you didn't have to hide anything, you were open and authentic, you'd have a whole lot more energy for the good stuff. I am broken. My secrets keep me sick. I can't defeat it until I admit it. Number four. Here's another thing you need to be honest about. It's my pride and fear that keep me stuck. It's my pride and my fear that keep me stuck. Now this problem is as old as man. Genesis chapter three. Adam in the garden of Eden right after he sins. He says, I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid. What's the first fear? The fear of exposure. That somebody's gonna find out what I'm really like on the inside. I was afraid cause I was naked. That's the way we feel vulnerable, naked. So I hid. And people have been hiding and hurling ever since. We hide our own sins and we hurl at everybody else's. You go over to Matthew 25 and the story of the parable of the talents. And the guy who had the one talent. He says, I was afraid, so I hid my talent. A lot of you are doing that and it is pride. I don't want anybody to know my weaknesses. And it's fear. I'm scared to death of my weaknesses that keep us from getting well, from getting healthy, from getting whole, from growing, from getting unstuck. Some of you are old enough to remember that in the 1970s there was a very popular book called I'm okay, you're okay. Does anybody remember that book? I'm okay, you're okay. Yeah. Now there's a word for that. It's a theological term. When you cross a crocodile and an abalone, it's a croco baloney. I am not okay, and you're not okay. The truth is, I'm not okay. You're not okay, but that's okay because God will make me okay. That's what Jesus came to do. If I'm okay, you're okay. Imagine Jesus on the cross, arms outstretched, bleeding to death, saying, if you're okay, why am I up here? If you're okay, why am I dying on the cross for you? You're not okay. I'm not okay. But that's okay because God's grace makes us okay. What's not okay is your refusal to admit that you're not okay. That we need each other and we need God's grace.