In God's Garden of Grace Even Broken Trees Bear Fruit. And We Are All Broken.

Rick Warren’s son succumbed to depression and took his own life. Rick was surprised to get letters from people his son had led to Christ. In God’s grace, even broken people bear fruit for God. 

00:00 Matthew Warren’s Tortured Life

2:41 We’re all Broken

3:47 Jesus Will Never Reject You

4:17 Your Faith In Jesus makes you holy Before God

5:00 Peter and Paul were Broken People Just Like You and I

8:02 When You are Weak, Then You Are Strong

8:58 Your Greatest Ministry Will Come Out of Your Greatest Pain

9:43 Activation

Jesus will Never Reject You

Matthew 12:20 says of Jesus, “A bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out…” You may be spiritually, physically or morally bruised, your light for God sputtering, smoldering, about to go out, but Jesus will not reject you.  He will bless you and bring you to Him.

Your faith in Jesus justifies you (makes you holy, righteous) before God.

Romans 3:20, 28 NIV

 Therefore no one will be declared righteous in God’s sight by the works of the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of our sin.

For we maintain that a person is justified by faith apart from the works of the law. 

Ephesians 3:8-9 NIV

For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9not by works, so that no one can boast.

Justification is the exchange of our sins for Jesus’ righteousness when we believed in Jesus. 

We are all broken people.

Did Jesus reject Peter and throw him on the scrapheap of humanity when Peter denied Christ 3 times in one night? No! In fact, Jesus restored him. And on the day of Pentecost, when power from heaven fell on Christians for service to God, who spoke and won to Christ 3,000 souls that day? Peter!! (See John 18, 21, and Acts 2)

Did Jesus disqualify Paul who had imprisioned and killed Christians as he zealously tried to protect the Jewish religion? No! Jesus went after him. He wanted Paul’s brilliant intellect and his religious zeal to be used to establish Christianity, not destroy it. A murderer and persecutor of the Church established churches throughout Asia. And God gave Paul the privilege of writing 2/3 of the New Testament – the most read, most influential book in the history of the world. 

What God did for them, he has done for you. By faith in Jesus, you are made righteous before God. 

When I am weak, then I am strong.

God will use your weaknesses to strengthen others. In our weakest times, God reveals His strength. He becomes strong in and through us, even as our strength fails.  See 2 Corinthians 12:10 NIV

Your Greatest Ministry Will Come Out of Your Greatest Pain

Rick Warren concludes, “Your greatest ministry will come out of your deepest pain. I say that from experience. There's not a week go by that somebody famous calls me with either a mental illness issue or a suicide issue, and I'm talking about from the highest of the highest people, personalities in politics and in celebrity. And Kay and I did not ask for this ministry of ministering to families with mental illness and ministering to families struggling with suicide of a family member. I didn't want that ministry, but it's one that God gave us, and I'm not going to waste the pain.

You're going to go through pain in life; just don't waste it. If you're going to go through pain, you might as well use it to help somebody else out.”

See Rick Warren's interview with Matt Crouch of TBN where he discusses this in detail: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCUbog65dP4