Rick Warren - God Can Use Anybody—Part Two

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. And

now here's part two of a message called God can

Use anybody.

Now here's the third key, the third secret of being

used by God the rest of your life, no matter

what's happened in your past. Here it is number three.

Remember it's not about me. Remember it's not about me. Now,

every time you forget that, you're gonna either get bitter

from problems or you're gonna get prideful from blessings in

your life. And when you forget that it's not about you,

you take everything personally. In verse five, Paul gives this

third key. He says, this our message is not about ourselves.

It's about Jesus Christ. It's about Jesus Christ as the Lord.

We are merely.

Your servants for Jesus's sake. He uses this phrase for

jesus sake twice in this chapter. He says, it's not

about us. It's all about Jesus. Does anybody remember the

first sentence of the purpose driven.

Life, It's not about you. It's not about you.

That is the most counter culture statement you could possibly

make in today's society. It's not about you. It's the

exact opposite of everything you're taught, because everything else in

our society says it's all about you. Every advertisement appeals

to your self centeredness, it appeals to your narcissism. Every

single message you get every day goes.

It's all about you. We do it all for you.

Have it your way, You deserve the break today, Today

you get the best your number one. It's all about you.

You need to think of what's best for me. I

need to think of what's best for me, and on

and on every a thousand times a day. Our society

says it's all about you. It's very hard to live

an unselfish life in today's culture because our entire culture,

in our entire economy, is built on the fact that

everybody says, no, it's all about you. It's not. You

are not the center of the universe. God is the

center of the universe. And when you live a self

centered life, as I said, you become frustrated, you become unfulfilled,

and eventually you become bored. You know, when I wrote

that sentence and purpose Liven Life, first sentence of the book,

it's not about you. Honestly, I had no idea that

I was going to be tested on that sense every

day for the rest of my life. I sometimes thirty

forty times a day I have to say that sentence

to myself, It's not about you. And when I get

a great opportunity to do something, it's not about you.

And when I face a big, big problem, it's not

about you. And when I'm criticized fairly or unfairly, it's

not about you. And when I'm praised and somebody says

something nice, it's not about you. And when somebody gets angry,

I go, it's not about you. And when somebody's upset

because their needs not being met, it's not about you.

I sometimes have to say that twenty thirty forty times

a day to myself, it's not about me. In fact,

sometimes I wish I hadn't written that sentence because I

didn't want to be tested on it every day for

the rest of my life. That God's gonna say Okay, Rick,

you wrote it, you're gonna live it? Are you going

to live it? It's not about you, It's all about God.

Now.

Learning to follow Christ and learning to let Jesus Christ

use you in an amazing way is all about motivation.

God is far more interested in why you do what

you do than what you actually do. There might be

one hundred things you could do with your life that

God say, fine, that's great. I made you, I shaped you.

Any one of those would be fine with me. There

might be one hundred different things God would say that

would be fine for you to do with your life.

What he is interested in is why you do it.

God is not interested in your methodology as much as

he is interested in your motivation. You can have the

right methodology and you do everything right and you're very

successful in life, but if you've got the wrong motive,

it doesn't count with God. On the other hand, you

could really mess up and you do it all wrong,

and you have so many failures and you have so

many mistakes you have, but you got the right motive.

God goes, that's good enough.

Why is always more important than what, And when you

figure out why you do what you do in life,

God will show you how. It's always about motivation, and

you've got to remember it's not about me. So I

have to continue to ask why am I doing this.

I see this happening all the time in people who

become believers, that become followers of Christ, and then they

want to get involved in like a ministry of Saddleback Church.

We have every week over twenty five thousand people volunteer

their time for free in one of five hundred and

fifty ministries in the community. We don't do ministry in

the church. We do it out in the community helping

other people. And over twenty five thousand people every week

volunteer their time in this church. And I noticed that

when they first start serving as a brand new believer,

you're doing it with the right motivation. You're aut of

gratitude to God. But nobody's telling you to do this, nobody.

You're not fearful, you're not pressured. It's just I want

to give back God has saved me.

I want to do something with my life.

I want my life to count and I just ingratitude.

I want to serve God. But I see slowly, over time,

sometimes people who are doing a particular work or service

or ministry. All of a sudden, the motivation starts changing,

and all of a sudden, I do it for the

wrong reasons. I like the approval I get, I like

the applause I get.

It makes me.

Feel important, and all of a sudden, I'm doing it

for me. And a lot of times what happens is

people who start off as servants end up as celebrities.

I see this happen in pastors all the time. You know,

I coach pastors. Success is actually not really good for

pastors because it can mess with your mind, particularly if

you have a lot of success early in your life

in your ministry and your church. And I see guys

who started off genuinely loving God in serving Christ in

their church, and they turn from servants into celebrities, and

they're not realizing it's not about them. It's not about them.

They're doing it for Jesus' sake. Now, Paul is crystal

clear twice in this passage. Jes says, I do what

I do for Jesus. I do it for Jesus Ac

not for me. And he says we're just servants for

Jesus ake. Now down in verse seven, he continues this,

and he says, you know, we're just like clay jars.

We're just like jars of clay in which this treasure

is stored. God puts his power, God puts his love,

God puts his mercy inside you. You're just the jar

of clay. He puts his treasure in you. He says,

the real power comes from God and not from us.

So he says, you know, our frail bodies are like

clay jars.

And some of us have big jars.

Okay, what happens if you drop a clay prop pot?

It breaks, and we're all crackpots. We're all crackpots. We're

all broken, we're all flawed. Nobody is flawless, nobody is blameless,

and we're all a little cracked. And that's okay because

when it is through the cracks that the light can

shine out and the glory of God shines out. See

a lot of people think that God wants to use

your strengths. Well he does, but he actually uses your

weaknesses even more than your strengths. Because, as as I

just said, when when you go out and say, hey,

let me tell you what I'm good at, I could

tell you all the things I'm good at all the

awards I've won, all the opportunities I've had.

You go well, goody for you. That doesn't make us

feel close.

And when people you share your strength, people they resent you,

they're jealous of you, they're envious of you, and they

just they blow you off. The guy's full of pride,

she's full of pride whatever. On the other end, when

you share your weaknesses and you share the problems you're

going through, and you share how God shines through your weakness,

people go wow. It draws them close, It pulls them

into intimacy. This is why a lot of marriages aren't close.

They don't share their weaknesses with It hasn't ever.

Got to that stage.

God has always used flawed instruments. Every person God has

ever used was flawed, except Jesus Christ.

Because obviously he was the son of God.

I'd have to admit, looking back over my life, that

I've gone through four stages in dealing with my own weaknesses.

When I was a young man, I actually just denied

my weaknesses. I was so afraid of my own weaknesses

I wouldn't even admit him to myself, much less anybody else.

And sadly, you can find people who are thirty, forty

fifty years old who can't admit their weaknesses, and they

never I apologize for anything, and they won't admit when

they're wrong, and they can't admit their weakness. And anytime

you find somebody who can't admit a weakness, you know this,

they're extremely insecure. The more secure you are in God's mercy,

the more secure you are in God's love, the more

open and honest you will be about your weaknesses. The

more insecure when you don't feel God's mercy and you

don't feel God's love, the more you're going to deny

your weaknesses. And I did that as a young man.

I denied my weaknesses. I wouldn't even admit it to myself. Later,

they just got so big I couldn't deny them anymore,

and so I moved to phase two, in which I

just hid them.

I knew them, I knew.

My weaknesses, but I didn't want anybody else to see them.

So I hid my weaknesses. And that always makes more stress,

and it can give you fear and panic and all

kinds of things when you're hiding your weaknesses. Then I

finally moved, and this was decades ago where I actually

accepted my weaknesses and I said, okay, this is part

of the package. You are a bundle of both strengths

and weaknesses, and so am I. You have some great

strengths in your life, but you also have some major weaknesses.

They do not cancel out each other. Both are true.

I have some great strengths in my life, but I

also have some great weaknesses in my life. And God

gives us these both so that we don't get too

prideful and think we don't need God and think we

don't need other people. But I finally accepted them, and

then a couple decades ago, I actually started glorying, glorying

in my weakness and goes, hey, look at my weaknesses.

God is using me. I am a trophy of God's mercy.

I am a trophy of God's grace. I don't deserve

to be the pastor sadle Back church. I don't deserve.

I didn't deserve to write purpose driven life. I don't

deserve all these places. I've been invited to speak all

around the world and meet with famous people. They like

none of that.

It's all.

It's just God's mercy in spite of my weaknesses. And

when you do that, then God can use you and

you realize it's not about you. You see, Humility is

not denying your strengths. Humility is being honest about your weaknesses.

God only uses humble people. God does not use prideful people.

But pride is not going out and saying, well, I'm

just not good at this when you really are. No,

that's fake pride, that's false pride. That's actually, you know,

a false humility, that's actually pride. A false humility says

I'm not really good at this when you really are

and you know you are good at it's okay to say, hey,

I'm good at this. There's some things in your life

you're good at, and it's okay to admit it. I'm

good at this, but it's the mercy of God that

made me good at this. I was just I didn't

ask for my talents, it's just what God gave me.

So thank God, I'm good at this. But then at

the same time, you go, but I'm not good at

this or this or this. That's true not putting yourself down.

It's humility is not thinking less of yourself. It's thinking

of yourself less and all of a sudden, the focus

is not on you. You focus on everybody else. I've

told you this for you walk into party and if

the first thing you're thinking is what does everybody think

about me?

That's pride.

When you walk into a room, the same room and

you go, what do these people need that I might

be able to give them? Who's in pain here that

I might be able to help, that's humility. You're not

thinking less yourself, You're thinking of yourself less, and so

you admit that it's not about me. Here's number four

and this is a really big one. And if you

get this, God will use you and bless you in

ways you cannot possibly imagine. Paul talks about this in

the next passage, and it is this, use my pain

to help others. This is a secret of being used

by God. Use my pain to help others. If you

do this, God will bless you in ways you cannot

possibly imagine. Use the things you're ashamed of, Use the

things that have hurt you the most, Use the things

that have been problems in your life in order to

help other people going through those same things.

Use my pain to help others.

Now, Paul went through enormous pain in his life, which

was why Paul could be used by God in enormous ways.

Look up here on the screen.

Later in the same book Second Corinthians, he says this,

He's given his testimony about pain. He says, I've worked

much harder. I've been in prison more frequently. I've been

flogged more severely, and been exposed to death again and

again in my ministry. In other words, the work that

God has me doing. He says, five times I've received

thirty nine lashes. Now, think about how many scars were

on on the back of Paul. Five times thirty nine.

That's how many stripes, how many scars he out on

his back? Five times I received thirty nine lashes. Three

times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned.

And it's not the kind of stone you're thinking of.

He says. Three times I.

Was shipwrecked out in the Mediterranean a sea, not once,

not to watch. Three times I was shipwrecked, he said.

I spent a night in the day in the open

cy one day just holding on the driftwood after one

of those shipwrecks, before I floated ashore at Cyprus. And

he says I've worked much harder. I've been in prison

more frequently. I spent a night in the day in

the open sea. And I've been constantly on the move,

he said. I'm never able to settle down. I'm always

on the move because I'm trying to help other people.

He said, I've been in danger from rivers. I've been

in danger from bandits from my own countrymen from Gentiles.

I've been in dangers in the city, in the country,

at sea. I've been in danger from false brothers, people

who betrayed me and cheated me.

He said.

I've often gone without sleep. I've known hunger, and I've

all known thirst, and I've often gone without food. I've

been cold, I've been naked. I took my clothes away.

Besides everything else, I faced the daily pressure of my

concern for all the churches. And tell me again your problem,

and you think you got problems. Paul was used in

an enormous way because he had enormous pain, and he

used it for good and God. Now, if we were

to bring Paul here on the stage today and say, Paul, why.

Did you put up with all that?

Why did you go through all those beatings and all

those whippings, and allow yourself to be thrown into prison

so many times and robbed? And why did you travel

by foot all over you know, the Roman Empire? And

why did you put up with shipwrecks and go without

food and go without water?

And and why.

Did you put up with going without sleep and without

comfort and without safety? And why did you never give up?

And he would say the same thing, I'm using my

pain to help others. I want to bring people to

Jesus Christ. I'm using my pain to help others. Here's

his response, verse eight and nine. He says, we often suffer,

but we're never crushed. And even when we don't know

what to do, we never give up. In times of trouble,

God is with us. And when we're knocked down, we

get up again. Now you're going to go through pain

in your life, you may as well use it for good.

Don't waste your pain. You're going to have pain in

your life, use it to help others. In next verse,

verse fifteen, he says this, now, all of these sufferings

that He's gone through, all of these sufferings of ours,

are for your benefit. This is called redempt suffering. It's

suffering for the benefit of other people. In life, there

are three kinds of suffering. Three kinds of suffering. The

first is the kind of suffering that we bring on ourselves.

We do this all the time. You know, eat the

wrong food, you don't exercise, your body is going to

suffer from it. We bring a lot of problems, a

lot of suffering we cause because of our poor decisions,

words we say, things we do, responses we make, and

relationships and bad decisions, and so a lot of suffering

we just bring on ourselves from our own poor judgment.

That's one kind of suffering. God can even use that though,

to help other people. Second kind of suffering is innocent

suffering through no fault of yours. You're hurt by somebody else.

You may have been molested, you may have been raped,

I'm sorry. You may have been abandoned, you may have

been rejected, and many people, all of us, have been

have suffered innocently at the hands of other people. You

may have been scammed, you may have been ripped off,

you have been cheated on, somebody who was unfaithful to you,

And we're all hurt by the sins of other people.

And that's innocent suffering. God can use that too for good.

But the highest form of suffering is redemptive suffering, where

you choose to put up with pain and problems in

order to help other people, in order to bless others.

When Jesus was hanging on the cross, he was doing

redemptive suffering. He was redeeming the world. He was paying

the redemption for your sins. He wasn't dying for his sins,

he was dying for your sins. That's redemptive suffering, suffering

on the benefit of others. Now, God can use all

three of them for good, even the ones you bring

on yourself. He can use it all for good if

you'll give it to him and say, God, I want

you to use my pain to bring.

Benefit to others.

He says, all of these sufferings are for your benefit.

That's why I put up with all this. And he says,

in the more of you who are one to Christ,

he said, the more there are to thank Him for

his great mercy, and the more God gets glory. Now

you know, Kay and I have tried to do this

with our lives. We've tried to use our pain to

help other people. We're not going to waste our pain.

Many of you know that our marriage was a wreck

in the early years and we could have been in

divorce court early on in our marriage and we did

not get along. But we went and got counseling, and

then we said, we're going to use our pain.

To save other people's marriage.

And so we talked openly about our problems and our

less than perfect marriage and how God used that to

help others. Kay's had cancer twice. I had a father

in law with cancer, had a father with cancer. Kay

had cancer, had a child who had cancer. And we've

used that for good. And you know, even having a

son who is mentally ill who took his life. We said,

we're not gonna waste our pain. We're gonna even use that.

And all this last week Kay was on a road

trip back on the East Coast speaking at universities and

things on mental health because we're not gonna waste our pain,

We're gonna use it for good and God. And Paul says,

I keep going because I know it's helping others and

I know it's bringing people to Christ. Now, why does

Saddleback Church keep growing? I mean, how big does Saddleback Church.

Need to get?

Couldn't we have like just stopped to say ten thousand people.

That's enough.

Ten last weekend for Easter, fifty four thousand people came

to a saddleback campus.

Fifty four thousand, right.

More important than that, one thousand, eight hundred and sixty

four people gave their lives to Jesus Christ. Okay, eight

hundred and sixty more people. Now, that took ten thousands

of hours of volunteer time, people who did all kinds

of volunteer work at every campus in order for that

to happen.

Why do we do it?

We do it for Jesus' sake, and we do it

because people need the Lord. We do it for the

benefit of others. We're not doing this for our benefit.

We don't grow for our benefit. We don't need a

bigger church. We grow it because people need the Lord.

God has never made a person he doesn't love that

he doesn't want in heaven.

Now.

In verse sixteen and seventeen, Paul says this, this is

why we never give up, even though it's tough. He says,

though our bodies are dying, and literally in the Greek

there says they're decaying, they're wasting away. Though our bodies

are dying. Our spirits are being renewed every day. For

our present troubles are quite small and won't last very long.

Yet they produce for us an immeasurable great glory that

will last forever. Now, he says, you know, let's just

be obvious. Your physical physique is not getting better. It's

the king. Have you looked in the mirror lately? You know,

bifocals and baldness and bulges, Okay, wrinkles, aches, pains. Many

of you now have furniture problems. Your chest has dropped

into your drawers. Okay, okay, I'm talking to the men.

The man.

Okay, let me clarify this. Okay, yeah, I.

Don't want to.

I don't get any trouble with all the ladies here.

I'm talking to the men. Okay, your chest has dropped

in your drawers.

All right.

You can't stop the aging process, no matter how many

botox things you go to, but you can stay fresh

on the inside spiritually, Paul says, though our bodies are

they're dying, they're waste in a way, our spirits are.

Being renewed every day.

The Bible tells us that Moses in his old age

was just as full of them and vigor and energy

and love and commitment and closest to the Lord as

he was as a young man.

You can't keep.

Your body from aging, but you can keep your spirit

from aging, he says. Where they're being renewed every day

by the mercy of God.

What a great message from Pastor Rick today. There's something

I always take away from his message. Here's Rick to

tell you how you can help support this ministry.

Jesus told his disciples that they should live their lives

according to five specific purposes. He said, You've got to

love God with all your heart. That's worship, and love

your neighbors yourself. That's ministry. That's called the Great Commandment.

And then Jesus said, go make disciples. That's evangelism. Baptize

them into the Family of God. That's fellowship, a sign

of fellowship. And then he said, teach them obey everything

I've taught you. That's discipleship. And we call that the

Great Commission. We believe it daily. Hope that a great

commitment to the Great Commandment and the Great Commission will

produce a great Christian, a great church, a great company,

a great community. You know, I started daily Hope so

I could spread the good news about Jesus, not just

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and truth and the power that we need to follow

him every day is available to every single one. You

know as well as I do, that the Word of

God changes lives. It's a live it's active, and it

breathes new life and new love into all of our lives.

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