Pastor Rick's Daily Hope

Guest (Male): Hello, and thanks for joining us today on Pastor Rick’s Daily Hope. This is the Bible teaching ministry of Rick Warren, and today, we are continuing in a series called The Miracle of Mercy. Rick will show us how God’s mercy can lift your guilt, heal your wounds, and transform the way you live. So, let’s get started with part one of a message called, God Can Use Anybody.

Pastor Rick Warren: The greatest joy in life—nothing compares to the thrill of this—is the thrill of being used by God for a purpose greater than yourself. Nothing else comes close. If you’ve never actually had this feeling, the feeling that you were being used by God and in that moment you knew it, and you were being used for the purpose that God created you, I feel sad for you because you’re missing out on literally nothing else that compares to this feeling.

When you have this feeling, when you know that I’m in the moment and I’m being used by God for a purpose bigger than me, you just go, "This is it. This is why I’m alive. I get it now. I understand. This is my place in life. This is my identity. This is my niche. I know why I’m here. I know why I was made."

You see, you were made for far more than just living for yourself. Oh no, if you just live for yourself, you’re going to live a very frustrated life, a very unfulfilled life, and eventually, a very bored life because you’re not a big enough cause to live for. You need something bigger than yourself that pulls you out of yourself, that makes you bigger than yourself, greater than yourself.

If you think that the purpose of life is to get an education, then get a job, then make money, then retire, and then die—no, no, no. You were made for far more than that. Your life is far more significant than your career. Far more significant. Oh no, you were made for something of eternal consequences. And God wants to use you. You were shaped to serve God.

So today, as we continue in The Miracle of Mercy series, I want us to look at the idea that God can use anybody. Anybody, because of His mercy. And let’s start with the book of Romans, chapter six, verse 13. The Bible says this: "Give yourselves completely to God—every part of you—because you have been brought from death to life." We talked about that at Easter last week. "And now you want to be used by God for good and for His righteous purposes."

Now, the problem is this: a lot of people secretly fear that God could never use them. They think, "Oh yeah, God could use her, God could use that guy, God could bless that person, but God’s not going to do that with me." And they either feel disqualified or they feel unqualified.

They feel disqualified because, "I know my past. I know the mistakes I’ve made. I know the sins I’ve committed. I know all the stuff that didn’t work right in my life. And so, there’s no way God’s going to use me. God can use a lot of other people, but I’m disqualified because of some poor decisions I made in my past." You’re dead wrong on that.

And some people don’t feel disqualified, but they feel unqualified. "I don’t have her talents. I don’t got that guy’s gifts. I don’t have that ability. I don’t have that education, that background. I don’t have that, whatever, opportunity. And so, I’m either disqualified or I’m unqualified to be used by God." Now, we only have to look at the life of the Apostle Paul—Paul, Saint Paul—to blow up both of those myths. They’re just not true. They’re lies. God wants to use you in ways you have not even imagined.

Now, when you go through history, nobody has ever been used more by God in all of history than this guy named Paul. He personally, almost single-handedly, spread Christianity all over the Roman Empire. He was an amazing guy, planted churches everywhere. He wrote about half of the New Testament part of the Bible. He is an amazing man, and it would be very difficult to argue that anybody has ever been used more by God than this guy named Paul. And yet, Paul had an amazing past that wasn’t very good.

And in 2nd Corinthians, chapter four—now this book is called Corinthians because he’s writing to a church in a Greek city called Corinth. If he were writing to us, it’d be called 2nd Californians. But this is called Corinthians because he’s writing to people who live in the city of Corinth, Greece. And in 2nd Corinthians chapter four, he gives us the five secrets of being used by God. And if you want God to bless you, you want God’s power in your life, you want to see God—I want to know that my life stands for something, that it matters, that I’m fulfilling the purpose I was created for—I want my life to count. I don’t want to just be a spot on the planet and then, poof, I die and that’s it. Then you need to understand these five secrets.

Let’s get right into it, and we’ll just go through the passage verse by verse. Now, the first principle, if you’re writing this down, it’s in verse one. Here’s what you write down: never forget it’s all because of God’s mercy. Never forget it’s all because of God’s mercy.

Last week I gave you a definition of mercy. Mercy is undeserved forgiveness and unearned kindness. Undeserved forgiveness and unearned kindness. When somebody forgives you and you don’t deserve it, that’s mercy. When somebody shows you a kindness and you can’t pay them back, that’s mercy. God treats you with mercy every second of your life.

And the first thing you need to remember is that everything God does in you, He does by mercy. Everything God does for you, He does by mercy. Everything God does with you and by you, He does by mercy. Everything God does through you to make a contribution in the world, He does by mercy. It’s all because of His mercy. We haven’t earned it, we haven’t deserved it, it’s just His mercy. And you never get over this, and you never forget it.

In verse one, Paul says this: "God in His mercy has given us this ministry and this work to do." Ministry is a work to do, work to do is ministry. "That’s why we do not become discouraged and we never give up." Now, don’t get all wigged out by this word, "ministry." Some of you think that’s a churchy word and ministry is what ministers do. No, no. Ministry just means any time you use your talents that God gave you to help somebody else. When you use your talent to help somebody else, that’s ministry.

It’s not something you do in church, it’s something you do in the world. Everybody has a ministry. Every person is a minister. God wants every person to be a minister. Not everybody’s a pastor, that’s a different thing, but everybody is a minister. The word ministry and the word service are the same word. So, if you’re an accountant and you’re good at accounting and you help people with accounting, accounting is your ministry. You could be a truck driver, and truck driving could be your ministry. You could be a salesman, and selling a product that actually helps people, then that’s a ministry. You could be an attorney and have a ministry. You could be a school teacher, a childcare worker—anything that you do when you use the talents and the gifts and abilities God has given you to help other people, that’s your ministry.

So your job can be your ministry if you’re doing it because you love God. And he says, "God in His mercy has given us this work to do, given us this ministry." Now, you were created to make a contribution with your life. You weren’t made to just take up space. You weren’t made to just live for yourself. You think God created you to live for you? No, no, no. He created you for something much, much bigger, and you are shaped to serve God, and it’s all because of His mercy.

Now, there’s a couple of benefits of understanding this. When you understand that God shows you mercy every moment of your life and that He loves you unconditionally, and there’s nothing you can do that can make God stop loving you, and even when you blow it, He’s still going to show you mercy, it does a couple of things.

First, when I understand mercy, I don’t have to prove my worth. That relieves workaholism. If you overwork, if you work too much and you work, work, work, you’re trying to prove your worth through your work. And you think, "If I’m successful at work, then I’m worth more. I’m worth a lot. I’m worthwhile." Your worth has nothing to do with your work. It’s the fact that you’re a child of God. It’s the fact that God made you and loved you and sent Jesus to die for you. That shows your worth, not your work.

Your value has nothing to do with your valuables. You can have a lot or a little—it has nothing to do with how valuable you are. And so, when I understand mercy, it takes me off the performance trap. I don’t have to prove that I’m worthwhile to anybody because God loves me unconditionally, and if you don’t love me, that’s your problem. And I don’t need your approval to be happy because God loves me and God is showing me mercy. I don’t have to prove my worth.

The other thing it happens when I understand mercy is I don’t have to wallow in my mistakes. Now we all make mistakes, we all sin, we all blow it. We’ve all made dumb, dumb, dumb decisions in the past, but you don’t have to wallow in it because of God’s mercy. You go, "I know God is showing me mercy. Yes, it was wrong, it was dumb, it was stupid. I’m sorry, I repent, I want to turn away from it, but I’m not going to be—I’m not going to dwell on it. It’s not going to hold me back. I’m not going to be stuck in the past because God is showing me mercy." And I never forget that God is showing me mercy.

Now I know what some of you are thinking. You say, "But Rick, you don’t know my past. You don’t know the things that I’ve done that I’m ashamed of." It doesn’t matter. It really doesn’t matter. Now Paul, who was, as I said, the most used person by God in history, had a terrible past. And he’s brutally honest about it. Do you know what Paul was before he became a preacher, before he became a pastor, a church planter? He was an anti-Christian terrorist. And he went from village to village killing Christians. He was a murderer. The exact opposite of what you would expect being somebody that God could use.

And let me just show you, up here on the screen, Paul wrote a letter to a guy named Timothy, who was a young man who was a pastor in Ephesus, and he writes a letter to him, Timothy, and he says: "I thank Christ Jesus because He trusted me and He gave me—it’s a gift—He gave me this work of serving Him." And God’s given you a gift of serving Him. He said, "In the past, I spoke against Christ. I even persecuted Him. In fact," he said, "I did all kinds of things to hurt Him, but God showed me mercy." Your past does not preclude your future. Your past is past, it’s over. Okay, you’ve messed up, fine. Doesn’t matter what you’ve done. God says, "I want to use you today because of My mercy."

Look on your outline, Galatians chapter one, Paul says this: "You know what I was like before I followed Christ. How violently I persecuted Christians. I did my best to get rid of them." He killed people. But he said, "Then something happened, for it pleased God in His kindness—that’s mercy—in His kindness to choose me and call me." Now circle the word choose and call because God has chosen and called you. In His kindness, God chose me and called me before I was born. What undeserved mercy.

Paul says this: "When God made me, before He even made me, He decided what He wanted me to do with my life. He knew how He was going to use me. And He even already knew all the stupid things I was going to do, He knew all the people I murdered. He knew all already in advance all the sins I was going to commit that I haven’t even done yet. He already knows all those things. But in His mercy, it doesn’t disqualify you from serving Him." That’s called mercy. And God says, "I’m going to use you in spite of the fact that you are broken."

God has never, ever, ever used a perfect person because there aren’t any, except Jesus Christ. If God only used perfect people, what would get done in the world? Nothing. Not a zip, nothing, because there are no perfect people in the world. God only uses flawed people. God only uses marred people. God only uses broken people, weak people, sinful people, people who don’t have it all together. Everything that gets done that’s good in the world is done by less than perfect people. That’s because the mercy of God.

So you never forget that God wants to save you, He created you, He loves you, and He wants to use you, all because of His mercy. I went through the Bible this week and I made a list of famous people that God used in spite of what you might consider to be a weakness. Abraham. Abraham was really, really old. He was like 90 years old when God started using him, and nothing really kicked in until he was like 100. Okay, so some of you think, "Well, I’ve wasted a lot of time." Well, not as much as Abraham did, okay? Abraham.

Jacob was a chronic liar, and God used him, and he ran away from every difficult situation. Joseph was abused. Gideon was poor, he was the poorest kid in his family. Samson was a reckless codependent. God used him. Rahab was a prostitute, and yet Rahab shows up in God’s Hall of Fame in Hebrews chapter 11 as a great woman of faith. He used her in spite of her mistakes. Jonah was fearful and reluctant. Elijah was suicidal. Naomi, used by God, was an elderly widow. Jeremiah had chronic depression, and God used him. He was called the weeping prophet because he cried all the time. Really.

David had an affair and then had his mistress's husband killed. That would, I would think, disqualify you. But David wrote the book of Psalms, and God used him in a great way. John the Baptist was eccentric, to say the least, if you know anything about him. Peter was impulsive and had serious anger management problems. You got a problem with your temper? Doesn’t matter, God wants to use you. Martha worried a lot. You’re a worrywart? God wants to use you. The Samaritan woman had several failed marriages. God used her. Zacchaeus had been an unethical scam artist. God used him. Thomas had doubts. Timothy was timid. And Moses, David, and Paul were all guilty of murder in their past. So what’s your excuse? Why can you not be used by God?

I want you to write this down on the screen here: every saint has a past and every sinner has a future. Every saint—that guy you think, "Man, he’s a good guy. He’s a godly man. That woman, she’s a saint"—every saint has a past. They’ve messed up, they’ve flawed, they’ve fumbled the ball, they’ve screwed up all in the past. Every saint has a past and every sinner has a future. That’s because of the mercy of God. Doesn’t matter how bad you’ve messed up, God says, "I want to use you for good and I want you to feel Me using you in your life."

In Ephesians chapter two, verse 10, the Bible says this: "It is God Himself who has made us. He made us what we are, and He’s given us new lives from Christ Jesus. And long ago, this is before you were born, long ago He planned that we should spend these lives in watching television." No, we should spend these lives in what? Helping others. That’s your work to do. That’s your ministry. When you go, "I’m going to use the talent, the ability, the background I’ve got to help somebody else," that’s what God planned for you to do. And when you look at what you’re good at, that’s what you’re supposed to do. Alright, so that’s the starting point. Never forget it’s all because of God’s mercy.

Here’s the second key to being used by God: be real. You must be real. Write this down: you’ve got to be authentic, you’ve got to be genuine, you have to be yourself. You can’t be somebody you’re not. God did not create you to be somebody else. So many of us start off originals and we end up as being carbon copies, and we start trying to be like other people. God wants to use you as you. He doesn’t want you to be somebody else. When you get to heaven one day, God isn’t going to say, "Hey, why weren’t you more like Moses? Why weren’t you more like your sister, or your mom, or your brother, or your dad?" God’s not going to compare you to anybody else. He made you to be you, and if you don’t be you, who’s going to be you?

A lot of people think in order for God to use me, I’ve got to be somebody different than I am. No, you’re dead wrong. In fact, God made you to be you and that’s all He wants you to be. And so you’ve got to be real. You can’t wear a mask. God does not use fakes. God does not use phonies. God does not use posers. God does not use pretenders. God does not use people who wear a mask and act one way over here and another way over here. He just wants you to be real. He wants you to be authentic. He wants you to be yourself. God made you to be you.

Now, this is a problem because so many people are trying to be somebody they’re not. And they’re trying to be somebody they’re not either because they think somebody else wants them to be that way, and they’re living for the approval of others, or they actually think God wants them to be that way and they think, "Well, God would really love me more if I would act like this." No, God’s love is not based on how you act. That’s mercy. He loves you no matter what you do, good or bad. But a lot of people are living for the expectations of other people, they’re living for the approval of other people, and you’ve just got to be real.

Now, if you try to be somebody that you’re not, thinking that’s going to please God or your boyfriend or anybody else for that matter, three things are going to happen in your life. First, you’re always going to be under stress if you try to be somebody you’re not. You’re always going to be under stress the rest of your life. Second, you’re going to have the fear of being exposed. What if people find out what I’m really like? And then third, you’re going to end up manipulating people because you’re afraid of being who God really made you to be.

Now, this is in verse two. We’re going through this chapter together. And the second key Paul says in order to be used by God is you’ve got to be real. You’ve got to be yourself. Verse two he says this: "We don’t try to trick anyone." In other words, we’re not manipulators. We’re not phonies or fakes. We’re not trying to manipulate others. "We don’t try to trick anyone, and we don’t twist the Word of God. Instead, we teach the truth plainly, showing everyone who we really are." Circle the word really. "Who we really are." God wants you to show people who you really are. "Then they can know in their hearts what kind of people we are in God’s sight." He’s saying you’ve got to be real.

Paul goes, "I’ve got nothing to hide. I’m completely transparent. What you see is what you get." Now let me say it again: you don’t have to be perfect for God to use you in a great way, but you do have to be authentic. You have to be authentic, and you’ve got to be real, and what you see is what you get. You’re looking at a very flawed man. If you don’t believe it, ask my staff, ask my family, ask my neighbors, ask me. If you’ve been around here any length of time, you probably know my weaknesses because I talk about them all the time because I want you to know that I know what they are.

I’m more aware of my weaknesses than anybody else, and so I talk about them because I just want you to know that God uses weak people. I actually think imperfections in a pastor are a good thing because then you go, "Well, good night. If God uses that guy, maybe He could use me. If God uses somebody who’s got as many problems and messes up, then maybe God could use me too."

You see, people don’t actually grow from your strengths; they grow from your weaknesses. If you go out and only try to show your strengths to the world and you go, "Here’s all my strengths," people go, "Well, goody for you." And when you share your strengths, it doesn’t make other people feel close to you. It makes them jealous, mad, envious, or angry, and go, "Who do you think you are?" On the other hand, when you get up and you talk about, "Here’s where I blew it, here’s where I made a mistake, this is my weakness, here’s the real deal," then that actually causes people to draw closer to you and it makes intimacy much better in a relationship when you reveal your weaknesses, not your strengths. A lot of people are in marriages that are terrible because people are trying to hide their weaknesses even from their spouse. That doesn’t work.

So you’ve got to be real. Now let me give you the upside of this. This is a little secret that I’ve learned because I stopped trying to fake it decades ago, and what you see is what you get. And if you don’t like that, well, sorry. But when you live authentically, when you live real, when you’re not trying to fake it, it gets better every year. Your life gets better every year when you’re real, when you’re honest, when you’re the real deal. When you fake it, when you wear a mask, when you pretend, it gets worse every year. You get more stressed out. And the more you hide, and the more you pretend, and the more you wear a mask, and the more you’re not in touch with who you really are, the worse it actually gets.

Now, do you know the number one barrier that keeps you from being used by God, to feeling His power and His presence in your life and God using you? The number one reason is your fear of being real. Because you think, "If I really be who I am, what if people don’t like me? Why am I afraid to tell you who I am? Because if I tell you who I really am, you may not like me and I’m all I’ve got, and I’m up a creek without a paddle." And that’s no good. And so we live behind walls and we fake it 'til we make it, and we wear these masks, and we live with lives of insecurity.

Now, the antidote to your insecurity, all those secret fears and all those things where you don’t want to show people who you really are, the antidote is to get God’s spirit of mercy in you. And when you get God’s spirit of mercy in you and you realize, "God loves me unconditionally, God is never going to stop loving me, God’s mercy is going to be with me no matter whether I do it right or do it wrong, how many mistakes I make, He’s not going to get tired of forgiving me," when you realize that God truly loves you unconditionally, then you realize you’re a child of God. And that liberates you to be who God made you to be.

In Romans chapter eight, verse 15, Paul says it like this: "The spirit we received, this is the spirit of God, the spirit of mercy—the spirit of mercy that we received does not make us slaves again to fear. It makes us children of God." Now that verse says that there’s two ways you can live in life: you can live either under the bondage of a spirit of fear, or you can live free as a child of God under the mercy of God. And you can make the decision. You can say, "I’m going to be stuck and I’m going to be enslaved by fear, and I’m not going to let people see what I’m really like," or I’m going to live as a child of God because of His mercy, and I know He’s going to love me no matter what.

Guest (Male): Did you know that the number one attribute of God in scripture is His mercy? It is. And He wants to be merciful to you. Jesus said, "Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy." Matthew 5:7. Now you can dive deeper into our current study with Pastor Rick’s Miracle of Mercy study kit. Through his six-session video and workbook study, he’ll show you the five marks of mercy. You’ll discover how mercy forgives the fallen, helps the hurting, is patient with difficult people, is kind to its enemies, and cares for the lost. And as you grow in mercy, you’ll experience the blessing God promises to the merciful.

The Miracle of Mercy six-session video study kit is perfect for both personal and small group study time. So please, be sure to request your copy today when you give a gift to help Daily Hope share the certain hope of Jesus with people everywhere. That’s our way of saying thanks. Just go to pastorrick.com to get your copy of this great resource. That’s pastorrick.com, or you can just text the word "Hope" to 70309. Again, that’s the word "Hope" to 70309. Be sure to 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.