Pastor Rick - Why God Created You? - You Are Not Here by Accident

Now, if you want to know the purpose of your life,

you got to start with God. You can't find it

on TV, you can't find it. In the movies, you

can't find it. You know, reading a book, you can't

find it. A lot of people say, well, the way

you need to find your purpose is look within, like

trust the force, Luke, look within. That doesn't work. I

tried that a lot of times. Look within also has

a bunch of confusion. You can't tell you what your

purpose is because you didn't make you. Does that make sense?

Only your creator can tell you what your purpose is.

You can't tell yourself because you weren't alive when whoever

thought you up thought you up. If I were to

hold up in a just in any kind of invention

that you had never seen, and I held up and

I said, tell me what this is? What's the purpose

of this invention? You wouldn't have the slightest idea. And

the only way you would know the purpose of an

invention you've never seen is either a talk to the inventor,

the creator who made it and they can tell you

what it does, or b read the owner's manual. The

same is true for your life. The only way you're

ever going to know your purpose for your life. Why

you're here on this planet. What on earth you're here

for is a talk to your creator, God who made you,

and b read the Owner's Manual. Now, the Bible says this,

look there on your outline. Ephesians chapter one from the

Bible says, it is in Christ that we find out

who we are and what we're living for, part of

the overall purpose that He God is working out in

everything and everyone. The next verse, Colossians chapter one, verse

sixteen says this, everything, absolutely everything, got started in Christ

and finds its purpose in him. You were made by God,

You were made for God. Until you understand that your

life is never gonna make sense. You're gonna go through

life wonder what on earth am I here for? You

gotta start with God. Now. The Bible says that you

were made to last forever. One day your heart is

gonna stop. That's gonna be the end of your body,

but it's not gonna be the end of you. That's

gonna be the end of your time on earth, but

it's not gonna be the end of you. God has

long range plans for your life. And I'm not exaggerating

because he wants you to live forever and ever and

ever and ever and ever and ever and ever, so

you're gonna actually spend more time on the other side

of death than you do on this time side. Now,

have you ever thought about this? If God wants to

take me to heaven, why doesn't he just take me

there instantly? Why didn't just make me and start with

me in heaven? Why does God put you on this

planet for eighty years? Really? Why does he do that? Well?

The Bible says you're not ready for heaven. There are

some things you need to learn, and God says, this

life follow me. This life is preparation for the next.

If you want to know why you're on this planet,

it is to get ready for the next life. This

life is preparation for the next. This is the preschool.

This is the warm up act. This is the get

ready stage. This is the kindergarten. This is the dress

rehearsal before the real show begins. This is the first

lap around track before the real race begins. This is

the warm up act, getting ready for eternity, because that's

the real show that's gonna go on forever and ever

and ever. Now, in heaven, you're going to do a

number of things. And the Bible tells us what's gonna

happen in heaven, and what God wants you to do

here on earth is practice what you're gonna do in

heaven forever. So when you get to heaven, you know

what to do. Now I'm gonna explain to you this

evening exactly what God wants you to practice while you're

here on earth. This may be the most important message

you've ever heard in your life, because I can't think

of anything more fundamental than why am I here on

earth and what am I supposed to do with my life.

If I only had one sermon to preach, it would

be this message to teach you why God made you

and what you're supposed to do with your life. God

wants you to practice five things on this planet. We

call them our purposes, the reasons for living. We often

use the word callings. There are five callings, but there

are five things God wants you to do with your

life here on earth for five reasons. He made you

for five reasons. Now I want you to write these down.

Number one, the first purpose of your life is this

God planned me. God planned me for his pleasure. God

planned me for his pleasure. God created you just to

love you. That's the whole idea. The Bible says that

God is love. I've told you this many times. It

doesn't say God has love. It says God is love.

It is the essence of his nature, It is his character.

It is who God is. God is love. And if

God wasn't a God of love, you would not be

able to love anybody else because you're made in God's image.

The only reason you're able to love is because God

said I'm going to make men and women in my

own image. And if God was not a God of love,

there would be no love in the universe. That would

be no love between human beings. Now, the Bible says

that God made you simply to love you. God made

you to love you. He didn't need you. God is

totally satisfied in himself. Father's not holy spirit, but he

wanted you. That shows how valuable you are. Now let

me show you some verses about how God planned you

for his pleasure. He planned you, He created you just

so he could love you. Revelation four, verse eleven. You

God created everything, and it is for your pleasure. Circle

that for your pleasure that they exist and they were created.

Everything was created because God gets enjoyment out of it.

He wanted to love it. God loves every rock, every plant,

every animal, every star, and every human being Psalm one,

verse four. The Lord takes pleasure in his people. God

gets pleasure in watching you be you because He made

you you. And when you do something that's so typical

of you, he goes, that's my girl, that's my boy,

that's what I made them to do. Here's what the

Bible says, Ephesians, chapter one, verse four. Long before he

God laid down the Earth's foundation and other words I

mean is long before God created the universe, God had

us in mind. Whoo. God had us in mind, and

he settled on us as the focus of his life.

Love circle the word focus. His focus of his love

is us, and the reason why is because He has

given us the capacity to love him back. This is

what makes you different from animals. Animals can't pray, animals

can't talk to God. Animals can't worship because they're not

made in God's image. God gave you the freedom of

choice and the freedom to respond. You can learn to

love and love him back. God knows everything about you.

You know almost nothing about God. God loves you. In

spite of everything knows about you. God wants you to

learn to know him and love him back. And the

Bible calls this worship. And it's the first purpose of

your life. That God planned me for his pleasure and

he wants me to learn to love him back. Here's

what he says in the Book of Hoseiah in the Bible,

chapter six, verse six. God says, I don't want your sacrifices.

I want your love. This is God talking to you.

I don't want your offerings. I want you to know me. Now,

circle the word love and circle the word no. Because

that is the first purpose of your life, to know

God and to love God. The most important thing you

can know in life is that God loves you, and

the most important thing you can do in life is

love him back. So, as I've said to you many times,

you ought to get up in the morning and say God,

I want to know you and love you more. I

have done this every single morning of my life for decades.

If at the end of the day I know God

a little bit better and love him a little bit more,

I didn't waste that day. On the other hand, doesn't

matter how many things you accomplished, how many things you achieve,

how famous you become, how much money you make. If

at the end of each day you don't know God

a little bit better and love Him a little bit more,

you just wasted that day. Because God did not create

you and put you on earth just to mark things

off your to do list. He put you here for

the very first purpose, and there are five purposes of

your life to know Him and love Him. Write this down.

The first purpose of my life is to know and

love God. Bam. That's it. It's pretty simple. Love God

with all your heart. You got to get to know

Him before you can love him. And that's the most

important thing in life. It's what you were put here

to do, to know God. One Timothy chapter six the

Bible says this, some people have missed the most important

thing in life. They don't know God. They don't know God. Now,

how do you know when you don't know God? How

do you know when you're disconnected from God? How do

you know when in that moment you're not knowing and

loving God. God has given us a warning sign and

that goes off like a bright yellow light in your

life every time you get disconnected from God, and that

warning sign is this worry. Are any of you familiar

with this term worry? Yeah? Yeah, Well, anytime when you worry,

you're acting like God doesn't exist. You're acting like, if

it's to be, it's up to me. No, it's not

up to you, It's up to God. The Bible says

in Matthew six point thirty two, people who don't know

God are always worrying. I was planned for God's pleasure.

So the first purpose of life is to get to

know and love God. I missed that. I just wasted

my life. Number two. Write this down. Not only did

God plan me for his pleasure? Number two, God formed

me for his family. God formed me for his family.

God wanted a family, and you were created to be

a part of it. The whole reason the universe exists.

You want to know why the universe exists. God wanted

a family, He wanted children. Now I didn't need us,

but he wanted us. He wanted to show his love

to something, so he created us as objects of his love.

And he created an entire universe to create this galaxy,

to create this planet. So it's on an access. Do

you know the one degree this way we'd burn up.

In one degree this way, we'd freeze up. It's just

the perfect angle that would sustain life at this point

from the sun, just so he could create the human race,

just so he could create you, just so he could

love you.

Pastor Rick has put together a special resource called Daily

Inspiration for the Purpose Driven Life to help you reflect

on the key Bible verses found in his best selling book,

The Purpose Driven Life. As you dive deeper into these verses,

you'll experience the transforming power of God's word. This beautiful

hardcover gift book features gold detailing the cover and has

three hundred eleven pages filled with scripture and also includes

reflection pages so you can record the life changing truths.

God reveals to you.

This book is a wonderful spiritual growth tool and it

makes a perfect gift for your friends and family. When

you give a gift to help daily Hope share the

Gospel with people around the world, will send you a

copy of Daily Inspiration for the Purpose Driven Life to

say thanks.

God thought you up before he thought up the universe.

The Bible says this very clearly that you were the

focus of his love. Ephesians, chapter one, verse five. God's

unchanging plan, it never has changed, has always been to

adopt us into his own family. Whoa, whoa, whoa. By

bringing this to himself through Jesus Christ, this gave him

God great pleasure. God wanted a family and wanted you

to be a part of it. God never meant for

you to go through life alone. Whether you marry or

not is irrelevant. Whether you are your family stays together

splits up, is irrelevant. At this point, God wanted you

in his family. And the first thing he told Adam

is it's not good for men to be alone. You're

made to be in a spiritual family that he created

to take care of you, so you're not lonely in life.

And by the way, I said this before, your spiritual

family is going to outlast your physical family. No physical

family lasts. People grow up, they move off, they get married,

they start their own family. People divorce, people die, people separate.

No physical family lasts forever. But your spiritual family is

going to last forever and ever and ever. In fact,

it's the only thing on planet Earth that is going

to last for and ever, your spiritual family. First Peter

chapter one, says this verse three, God has given us

the privilege of being born again, so that we are

now members of God's family, God's own family circle. That

word members. Being a part of God's family is not automatic.

It's a choice. Now, listen to me very closely on this.

Are you telling me that everybody is not a child

of God? That's exactly what I'm telling you. You got

to choose to be in God's family. You got to

let him adopt you. Everybody is created by God. Everybody

is loved by God. God has never made a person

he didn't love. God has never made a person he

did not want in his family. But he gives you

the choice, and he's not going to force you in

a lot of people choose to opt out. They are

not children of God because they choose to opt out.

And God's not going to force you into an adoption.

You got to want to be adopted into his family. Now,

what is God's family? One Timothy chapter three says that

family is the church. The family is the Church of

the Living God, the support and foundation of the truth.

Now notice God says the church is a family. It's

God's family, and we are children of God, which makes

us brothers and sisters in the family of Gods. And

God's purpose for your life is not just to know

him and love him, but to belong to his family.

He doesn't want you just to believe. He wants you

to belong, to be connected. A Christian without a church

family is an orphan. Now it says that that family

is a church, the support and foundation of the Truth circle.

Support and foundation. When you don't have the support and

foundation of God's family, You're not gonna make it through

the tough times of life. You need support and you

need a foundation. And the Bible says that is the church,

God's family. You cannot fulfill God's purposes for your life

by yourself. Sorry you can't. You can try, but you

will fail. You cannot fulfill the purpose God made you

for by yourself. We're better together. And the Bible says

in One Peter two seventeen, love your spiritual family. Now,

what's he wants you to do? He wants you to

practice here. He wants you to learn how to love

God and how to learn love other people here on earth.

So when you get to heaven, you're not a dufus.

You know exactly what to do. So write this down.

The second purpose of my life. What on earth am

I here for? Is to learn to love others. And

the place you learn to love others is in God's family.

The church is the laboratory for learning how to love.

God wants us to learn to love real people, with

all of their quirks and their false and their flaws

and their social you know, mess ups and things like that.

God wants you to learn real love, real people, not

ideal people. You know, all love people in heaven. Yeah,

in heaven. To dwell above with those we love, that

will be a glory. But to dwell below with those

we know, that's another story. God says, no, No, this

is why you're here, not in heaven. First, I want

you to learn real love where it's difficult, where you

have to learn that love is a choice. Romans twelve,

verse five says this, we belong to each other, and

each of us needs all the others. You will not

make it in your purposes in life without being a

part of a spiritual family. Number three, write this down.

God created me to become like Christ. That's the third

purpose in life. God created me to become like Christ.

Once you understand this, life's going to make a whole

lot more sense because God wants you to grow up

spiritually and the model of perfection is Jesus. Jesus is

the only perfect human being whoever lived, because he was

God come to earth in human form. He lived a

perfect life. He showed us exactly what it meant to

be fully human. So God wants you to learn to

think like Jesus, to act like Jesus, to respond like Jesus,

to talk like Jesus, to value like Jesus. This is

the third purpose in your life. Once you're born into

the family, God wants you to grow up in the family,

and the model for growth is Jesus Christ. Now, God

is far more interested. Don't miss this. God is far

more interested in who you are than what you do.

We're always worried about what does God want you to God?

What job should I have? Where should I go to work,

where should I go to school? What should I do?

And we're always worried about what we should do. God

is much more interested not in what you do, but

in what you become. And the reason why is you're

not taking your career to heaven. You're not taking your

car to heaven. You're not taking your cash to heaven,

how much money you're making. You're not taking your china

to heaven. You're taking your character. The only thing that's

going to heaven after your eighty years or so here

on earth is you. You're not taking any of your accomplishments.

You're not taking any of your achievements. You're not taking

any of your acquisitions. You're not taking any of your things.

You've piled up stockpilbum, money, materialism, stuff like that. None

of that's going to heaven. The only thing that's going

to heaven is the person you became, the man you became,

the woman you became. The only thing you're taking to

heaven is your character. And God puts you on this

pl to develop your character, to grow up spiritually, and

to become like Jesus Christ, because that's what he's interested in.

He's not interested in what you do. He's interested in

who you are. Now, let me show you a couple

verses Romans, Chapter eight, verse twenty nine. From the very beginning,

God decided that those who came to him, and all

along he knew was He decided that those who came

to him should become like his son, Colossians one fifteen.

We look at the sun Jesus and see God's original

purpose in everything created. Now, this is not Plan B.

It's been God's plan from the very beginning. Even before

Adam sinned, God created Adam and said, let's make man

in our image. From the very beginning, God has been

wanting to make us like himself. Now, do not understand me.

God doesn't want you to become a god. You're never

going to become a god. Never never, never never never

never never never never never. You're never going to be

a god. Now, there's a whole movement out there called

the New Age movement says you're a god, You're a goddess.

God is within you, You're the God. You're the master

of your univer You're not a god. You're not even

a mini me God. If you're a god, why don't

you solve all your problems? You're not a god and

you never will be. You can't solve the problems of

the world, you can't solve your own problems. You're not

a god. And that New Age is actually Satan told

us to Eve in the garden of mean It's the

first lie. He said, eat this fruit and you'll be God.

It's not new age, it's old lie. In fact, it's

the oldest lie that you're a God. That is the

oldest lie in the universe. You're never going to be

a God. But God says, I don't want you to

be a god. I want you to become godly. That

means have tell the truth like I tell the truth.

Be faithful like I'm faithful, Love like I love, Be

patient and forgiving like I'm patient and forgiving. God says,

I want you to be godly. I want you to

become like me in character, in wisdom, in in in

your values, and in who you are. Now when things

happen you, the normal question you ask is the word why.

Why is this happening? Why is this happening to me?

Why is this happening now? And the answer to all

the why questions of life is this to make you

like Jesus, To make you like Jesus. If God's going

to make you like Jesus, He's going to take you

through everything Jesus went through, and Jesus wasn't spared from difficulty.

Was there are times when Jesus was lonely, Yes, time

when he was misunderstood Yes, were the times when Jesus

was disappointed by people? Yes, were the times when who's

tempted to be discouraged and give up? Yes? Were there

times when who's just tempted? Yes? And if God let

his own son go through all that, don't you think

he's gonna let you go through it too? Yes? Why?

Because He's more interested in your character than your comfort.

This is not the comfort side of life. The comfort's

gonna come in eternity. Comfort's gonna come in heaven. This

is the classroom side of life where you were to learn.

In some things you only learn through difficulty. The Bible

says in Philippians, chapter two, verse five. In your lives

you must think and act like Christ Jesus. This is

the third purpose for your life. You must learn to

think and act like Christ Jesus. So if I'm supposed

to think and act like Christ Jesus, what is Jesus like? Well,

I've told you this before that the perfect picture of

Jesus in the Bible is Galatians five, twenty two and

twenty three. It's often called the Fruit of the Spirit,

and it lists nine qualities. It says in Galatians the

fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, faithfulness,

self control. Nine qualities. What is that? That's a perfect

picture of Jesus. God wants you to love like Jesus,

to be at peace like Jesus, to be patient like Jesus.

God wants you to be faithful like Jesus. God wants

you to have self control like Jesus had self control.

Now here's the question. How does God teach us the

fruit of the spirit. How does God make us like Jesus? Like?

For instance, if God wants to make turn me into

a great loving person, a real lover, what am I doing.

I'm just gonna walking down the street one day and

all said, I'm zapped with love and I love everybody

and just call me buddy love. You know, no, no,

it doesn't happen that way. There's no pill you can

take that's gonna make you patient for the rest of

your life or loving for the rest of your life,

are faithful for the rest of your life. There's no seminar,

there's no book, there's no experience that that's gonna zap you,

and all of a sudden you're like Jesus and you

never have a problem you're never tempted again. It's a

lifelong process becoming like Jesus. That process is called discipleship. Worship,

Fellowship discipleship are the first three purposes of life. Know

and love God, learn to love others, and grow up

like Christ.

Pastor Rick has put together a special resource called Daily

Inspiration for the Purpose Driven Life to help you reflect

on the key Bible verses found in his best selling book,

The Purpose Driven Life. As you dive deeper into these verses,

you'll experience the transforming power of God's world. This beautiful

hardcover gift book features gold detailing on the cover and

has three hundred eleven pages filled with scripture and also

includes reflection pages so you can record the life changing

truths God.

Reveals to you.

This book is a wonderful spiritual growth tool and it

makes a perfect gift for your friends and family. When

you give a gift to help Daily Hope share the

Gospel with people around the world, will send you a

copy of Daily Inspiration for the Purpose Driven Life to

say thanks.