Pastor Rick's Daily Hope

Guest (Male): Hey everyone, we'd like to welcome you to Pastor Rick's Daily Hope with Rick Warren. And today, we're continuing in a series called this is us. You know, in this world, there's so many people that feel disconnected and uncertain. So, Rick is sharing biblical truths that will help you find your place in God's family, grow your faith, and live with greater purpose and hope. And right now, here's the final part of a message called what on earth am I here for?

Pastor Rick Warren: All right, number four, fourth purpose. God shaped me to serve him. You weren't just put on this earth to take up space, use resources, breathe, use water, retire and die. No, no, no. You were put here to make a difference. You were put here to make a contribution. You were put here to make an impact with your life. God planned for you to do certain things with your life to make the world a better place. God shaped me to serve him. Say, how can I serve God? God's invisible. We serve God by serving others. One day, you'll serve God directly in heaven, but here on earth, the only way you can serve God is by serving others.

God puts you on this planet to make a contribution, and he has uniquely shaped you, uniquely shaped you for the service or the ministry that he has. Now, here's what the Bible says. Psalm 138 verse 13. You shaped me first inside and then out. God wired your personality before he wired your body. You shaped me first inside, then out. You formed me in my mother's womb. You were a prescription baby. God prescribed you before you were born, and he shaped you. We have a whole class on this. It's called the shape class, discovering my ministry in life, where my niche is, where my impact is, where my contribution is going to be on this planet.

And we talk about your shape, s h a p e, your spiritual gifts, your heart, your abilities, your personality, and your experiences. God wired you all these things. And in your experiences, God uses educational experiences, and he uses family experiences, good and bad, and he uses um a personal experiences. He uses spiritual experiences, educational experiences, but the thing he uses most is painful experiences. And as I said, God never wants to waste a hurt in your life. God doesn't have to cause hurt in your life. There's plenty of hurt in the world. It's broken. But God will use the hurt in your life for good.

You're going to hurt in life. The only question is you're going to use it for good or not. Everybody hurts in life, whether you're Christian or non-Christian or anything else. Everybody hurts in life. The question is you're going to use it for good or not. Are you going to let it build your character and make you more like Christ? Ephesians 2:10, the Bible says this. God made us what we are, and in Christ Jesus, God made us to do good works. You were created to do good works while you're alive on this earth, which he planned in advance for us to live our lives doing.

These good works is another word for these good works. It's called your ministry or your service. And this is the fourth purpose of your life, worship, fellowship, discipleship, ministry. Your ministry, not everybody's a pastor, but everybody has a ministry. It's the way you serve God by serving others. It's the way you make your contribution to the world. It's the way you leave the world a better place. It's the way you use Anytime you use your talents to help other people, that's called ministry. All right? The Bible says in 1 Peter 4:10, God has given each of you some special abilities.

Be sure to use them to help each other. It doesn't say be sure to use them to make a lot of money. Be sure to use them to help each other, passing on to others God's many kinds of blessings. You see, there's a misunderstanding that most people have about heaven. And I've joked about this with you before that, you know, if you think heaven is what they show on TV or in the movies, it's no wonder you don't want to go there. Cuz heaven looks like the most boring kind of place. It it it first thing everything's white.

How boring. We live in a world of color. Why would God make his perfect place only one color? God who created sunrises and sunsets. In heaven, the the humanistic idea of heaven is it's all white. Everything is white. There's no color. Uh you got fog up to your knees. Okay? You're walking around in fog, so you can never tie your shoe cuz you can't see your shoe. You're in a white robe. You got angel's wings. And and and you're playing a harp. And as I've said many times, to me, that would be hell. Okay? That would be hell.

I can't even imagine spending eternity doing that. No, no, no. The God who created the surf and the God who created Cinnabon and the God and the God who created sex and the God who created mountain peaks and beauty and and all the variety of colored fish in the sea, believe me, heaven is not going to be boring. This is an imperfect place. It's broken, and it's still beautiful. Just imagine what heaven's going to be like. We can't even imagine because the dimensions of it our brains are too small like an ant trying to understand the internet.

You can't You don't have the capacity. There are other dimensions you don't even know about. And I don't either. Just like an ant can't understand a human being. If you could understand all there is about God, you'd be God. But the fourth purpose of life, write this down. The fourth purpose of life is to serve God by serving others. It's to serve God by serving others. That's called ministry. The Bible says this, Psalm 116 verse 12. What can I give back to God for the blessings he's poured out on me? I'm not That verse isn't simply about tithing.

That verse is about your life. What can I give back to God for the blessings he's poured out on me? All right, you were planned for God's pleasure. You were formed for God family. You were created to become like Christ. You were shaped to serve God by serving others. There's one other purpose, and the fifth one is this. Write it down. God made me for a mission. God made me for a mission. First, God puts you on earth to know him, then to learn some things, then to become some things, and then to do some things.

God has some things for you to do with your life, and that doing part is called your mission. Last couple of verses on our outline. John 17:18, Jesus said, in the same way that the Father gave me a mission in the world, I give you a mission in the world. Acts 20 verse 24, Paul says this. I consider that my life will be wasted unless I use it to complete my mission. My mission and finish the assignment that the Lord Jesus has given to me. What was his assignment? To tell everyone the good news about God's grace.

I want you to write this down. The fifth purpose of my life is to pass on the good news. The fifth purpose of my life, somebody passed it on to you. Who are you passing it on to? The fifth purpose of your life is once you know the purposes of life, you need to pass them on to others. Once you know Christ's forgiveness, you need to pass it on to others. The fifth purpose of life is to pass on the good news. The Bible calls that witnessing or evangelism. The Greek word evangelism literally means share good news.

You When you think of evangelism, you think of some loud preacher on TV. No, no, no, no. Evangelism is a good word. It just means share good news in Greek. That's what evangel means actually in Greek. Witness. God doesn't want you to be his attorney. God doesn't want you to be his lawyer. You don't have to convince people. Your job is to just be a witness. What's a witness? This is what I saw. This is what happened to me. A witness is an authority on one thing, themselves. Nobody can be a witness for you. Only you can be a witness for what God has done in your life.

I can't. I can't be Your God hasn't called you to be an attorney for him. He's called you to be a witness, which means this is what I saw. This is what happened to me. This is how bad things were in my life, and this is how they got better. This is what Christ has done in my life, in my family, in my job, in my health, in my finances. That's called witnessing. And the Bible says that the fourth or the fifth purpose of life is that God made you for that mission. Look at these verses on the screen.

2 Timothy 2:2. The things, Paul says, that you've learned from me, I now want you to pass on. Circle that, pass on. That's the witness part. I want you to pass on to other reliable people so that they can pass it on to even more people. Somebody passed on the good news to you. Did it end with you? Are you a dead end? Is anybody going to be in heaven because of you? Are you just going to accept the good news and not share it with anybody else? That's criminal. Somebody for generations now, the good news has been passed on from generation to generation.

Is it going to end with you? Have you told anybody the good news about what Christ can do? That's part of your mission. Somebody passed it on to you. It's your responsibility. 2 Corinthians chapter 5 and the Bible says this, verse 18 to 20. Through Christ, God has made peace between us and himself. That's what Jesus did by dying for our sins. And he gave us the work, this is our mission, of telling everyone about the peace that we can have with him. So, we have been sent to speak for Christ. That's your mission. Let me show you one more verse on the screen.

Proverbs 11 verse 30. God's people are like trees that bear life-giving fruit. That what's That's what God wants to see in your life, life-giving fruit. God's people, godly people, good people are like trees that bear life-giving fruit. They show their wisdom by saving souls. He who wins souls is wise, the Bible says. In other words, how do you prove you're a wise person? You bring another people to Jesus. They prove their wisdom by winning souls. God's people have life-giving fruit. What is the fruit of a tomato plant? Other tomatoes. What's the fruit of a potato?

Other potatoes. What's the fruit of a berry vine? Other berries. What's the fruit of an apple tree? Other apples. What's the fruit of a Christian? Other Christians. How do you know when you are spiritually mature? A little girl and a little boy aren't considered mature until they go through puberty and they have the ability to reproduce. The ability to reproduce is the mark of physical maturity. The ability to reproduce spiritually is the mark of spiritual maturity. You may have been a Christian for 30 years. If nobody's come to Christ through you, if you haven't had any baby Christians, then you you haven't reproduced.

It is the mark of maturity, the ability to reproduce. Is anybody going to be in heaven because of you? Our model for everything we do is the Bible. It's this book. We don't make this stuff up. We get it out of God's word. And this month, we're looking at why we have church. Why do we have church? The purpose of the church is the same as the five purposes for your life. God has five purposes for your life, worship, fellowship, discipleship, ministry, and witness, or know Christ, love Christ, grow in Christ, love his family, serve Christ, share Christ.

And what's the purpose of the church? Help you do the five things for your life. That's a purpose-driven church helping you live a purpose-driven life. The purpose of the church is simply to help you do what God puts you on earth to do, nothing more and nothing less. Now, this isn't something we just made up. This is what they did in the Bible. Let me show you the very first church. We'll end with this. On the screen, Acts chapter 2 verse 41 to 47. This is the very first church in Jerusalem. Those who believed Why don't you circle these words when I ask you to circle?

Circle the word believe. First, you got to believe. Then those who believed were baptized. Circle the word baptized. Then you got to be baptized and added to the church. Circle the word added. So, you got to be believe, then you baptized, then you join the church. They joined You could circle that with other believers and committed You could circle the word committed themselves to the apostles' teaching. That's what's apostles' teaching. It's the Bible. And to fellowship. There's another purpose. So, we got discipleship, we got fellowship. They shared everything with each other. That's ministry. They worship together.

That's worship regularly in the temple. And they met in groups and homes. That's fellowship. And every day, the Lord added to their number. That 's evangelism. That 's witness. Those who are being saved. So, the five purposes been doing been doing have been done by the church for 2,000 years. This is not something new. It's not something saddle back invented. We just came up with the term purpose-driven. But the church has always been a church for worship, fellowship, discipleship, ministry, and outreach. Let me pray for you. Let's bow our heads. Father, I look at on these people that I love so much, and I thank you.

First, we thank you for life itself. We wouldn't even be alive if it weren't for you. You thought us up. You allowed us to live here in this time in this place. You allowed us to be here in this service at this church. And Lord, we're asking you to bless. I'm asking you to bless every person in the sound of my voice this next week and then this next year. May maybe a new year of new growth, new vision, new dreams, new open doors. May the rest of our lives be the best of our lives.

And I pray pray for the health and the the finances and the relationships and the job opportunities uh and and the conflicts and all of the different problems that our church family members are facing. And I pray that you give them relief and give them blessing. And I pray that this next month will be the beginning of our greatest year together. And I pray this blessing in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Guest (Male): Hey, thanks so much for being with us today and listening to Pastor Rick's Daily Hope. I hope that you were just as blessed as I was from today's broadcast. Right now, here's Pastor Rick with a special message.

Pastor Rick Warren: You know, when I started Saddleback Church over 40 years ago, just a handful of people in our living room, uh I also began writing a simple devotional just for the people in our church to help them start each day with hope and with truth and with peace uh that comes from Jesus Christ. Well, you know, that little devotional grew and grew and grew, and today, Daily Hope is one of the largest email devotions in the whole world. And each day, people all around the globe are reconnecting with God's promises and finding fresh strength in his word to face whatever comes their way.

And here's the best part. It's absolutely free. Okay? We don't have any charge for this. Every day, you'll get a quick devotional read and a podcast uh that you can listen to on the go. Now, you know, in a world that's more distracted and uncertain than ever, I want to help you start your day centered on what never changes. And what never changes is a God's love, his unconditional love for you and his promises to you. You know, if you'll just spend just a few minutes a day in the morning with the Lord, uh it can bring so much more clarity, more purpose, more peace to everything that happens in your day.

Particularly psychologists have said that what you do with the first five minutes of your day uh pretty much sets the tone. So, friend, you were never meant to go through life alone. I want to personally invite you to just sign up for the Daily Hope devotional. Do it today. I think it's going to bring fresh uh encouragement to your walk in God.

Guest (Male): If you'd like to sign up for the Daily Devotional, it's easy. Just go to pastorricks.com. That's pastorricks.com. 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.