Rick Warren - Don't Let Anyone Steal Your Identity—Part Three

Hello, everybody, Welcome to Pastor Rick's Daily Hope. This is

the Bible teaching ministry of Rick Warren. Hey, we're so

glad you're here with us today. We are continuing in

a series called Talking about Stuff That Matters Now. In

this series, Rick looks into the scriptures and he's unpacking

what it means to live in community, have real conversation

about what matters most, and face discouragement with courage and faith.

It's honest, hopeful, So stay tuned. You won't want to

miss a second. Now, let's jump in for the final

part of a message called don't let Anyone Steal your identity.

Now, let me share something with you you've probably never

thought of before. You have one thing that nobody else

in the entire world has. You have an advantage over

everybody else that nobody else has. If you're a woman,

you have this advantage over every other woman in the world,

and if you're man, you have this advantage over every

other man in the world. You know what it is.

They can't be you. They can't be you. Only you

can be you. And God made you to be you,

not them, so they will never be you. So, whether

it's a group of teenage girls standing in a circle

in junior high and they're all trying to be like

each other, which is impossible. They never will. You need

to go and say, you know what, none of you

girls can ever be like me. You don't need to

say that, but just think it. Think, go well, it's

nice knowing you. They If anybody else tries to be you,

you know what happens. They fail. They will fail if

they try to be you. I can't be you, you

can't be me. But only you can be you, and

only I can be me. Only you can be who

God made you to be.

So relax now.

This ought to give you an enormous confidence in life,

but the fact is, you're not very confident most of

your life. A lot of times in life you're just

flat out and secure. You don't tell people that. I mean,

you act like you're confident, But the truth is a

lot of times, most of the time in life, you're

feeling pretty insecure about you, and there's some stuff about

you don't even like about you. Why are we lacking

in confidence?

Two reasons? The Bible says two reasons.

Number one, you're trying to be somebody that God didn't

shape you to be, and that's going to be incredibly scary,

because you can't be anybody else, You can only be you.

That's scary. Tewod Corinthians, Chapter three, verse five and six.

As this the capacity we have comes from God.

You know he wired it in this It is he.

It is he who made us capable of serving the

New Covenant.

What you need to.

Start doing is discover your own capacity. It's called your shape, shape,

spiritual gifts, heart abilities, personality experiences. The other reason why

we're often lack confidence is not just that we don't

know what we're shaped to do, but the other reason

is we depend on our own power instead of depending

on God's. And that's a sure guarantee for failure yourself.

Even though God has put this capacity in you, he

hasn't made you to be able to do it all

on your own. God never meant for you to go

through life on your own power. God meant for you

to be dependent on Him to be plugged in. A

blender is wired to blend things, but it's worthless unless

it's plugged into the power. A vacuum cleaner is made

to vacuum, but it's worthless unless it's plugged into power.

God has put capabilities in your life, but it's worthless.

They're worthless unless you're plug into the power God's spirit

in your life. So you're depending on yourself further on God.

And you think, and when you depend on yourself, that's

when you get insecure. And somebody asks you to do

something and you go, well, I couldn't do that. There's

no way I could do that. There's not a chance,

there's not a snowballs chance in hell I could possibly

do that. I can't do that. And you know what,

You're right, that's why you need God. The capacity is there,

but it needs to be plugged into the power. You

have unused capacity in your life, but you're not plugged

into the power.

You're not in Christ, so you don't have the power.

It's like a blender's sitting there that's never plugged in.

It's useless, can't fulfill his purpose. And so you have

to be plugged into the power. And that leads us

to one of the most famous verses in the Bible,

this next verse Philippians, chapter four, verse thirteen. We've read

it so many times I put it in a new

translation that amplified says this. I have strength for all things,

not just some things, for all things in Christ. There's

that phrase, not on my own power. I have strength

for all things in Christ, who empowers me. I'm ready

for anything, and I'm equal to do anything through Him

who infuses inner strength into me. I am self sufficient

in Christ's sufficiency. Friends, That is the secret to a

happy life right there. I am self sufficient in Christ's sufficiency.

If you'd asked.

Me when I was a kid, would I ever imagine

doing what I'm doing?

No, you know.

I was on three continents this summer. I met with

the President of Guatemala, met with the President of Costa Rica,

spoke to the Congress of Costa Rica, did conferences. Not

in a million years when I was in junior high

high school, what I have ever imagined that's going to

be me. But I am self sufficient in Christ's sufficiency,

and he gives me. The capacity was there, but I

had to get plugged into the power.

You have something to offer to this world. Why? Three reasons?

Number One, God wired you, Your heavenly Father wired you

with the capacity. Kay talked about it. You're made in

the image of God. Amago de Amago's the word for image.

Day is the word for God in Latin. You have

the image of God in you. You're wired and there's

nobody like you. Nobody's shaped like you in the whole world. Second,

you're in Christ and he gives you strength. And third,

God's spirit empowers you to do what nobody else can do.

So stop comparing yourself.

Now there's a fourth thing, a fourth pillar of your

self identity. Write this down. The fourth one is kay

is going to talk about it that in Christ. I

am totally forgiven.

The Bible says in Romans eighth, verse one, there is

now therefore no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

I want you to say, read that verse with me.

It is a powerful verse when you begin to believe it.

Read it with me. There is now with enthusiasm. Sorry,

don't read it through the like you're reading the phone

book with enthusiasm. Okay, there is now no condemnation for

those who are in Christ Jesus. That is one of

the most liberating, the most freeing verse in the entire Bible,

as far as I'm concerned. It says that there is

no condemnation hanging over the head of anyone who is

in Christ Jesus. Anyone who has come to Jesus Christ

as their savior in their Lord doesn't have to live

waiting for that other shoe to drop. That someday God

is going to think up something that you didn't know

that you were going to be held responsible for, and

it's gonna happen. You don't have to spend those sleepless

nights of anxiety going over and over in your head.

What if God ever, you know, what if God ever

finds out I did this or I said that, or

what if this? You don't have to live with that

kind of guilt and recrimination and anxiety and regret, because

when you come to Christ, there is now no longer

any condemnation. Spiritually, we are totally forgiven. Let me just

tell you quickly two ways that we can know that

to be true. First, it is in God's nature to forgive.

It's who God is. It's who he is. In Isaiah

forty three twenty five, God says, I'm the God who

forgives your sins, and I do this because of who

I am. I will not hold your sins against you.

That is a powerful thing to grab onto. God says,

I'm a forgiver. There's this misconception that God in the

Old Testament he's judgmental, he's harsh, he's angry, he doesn't

have a whole lot to say about mercy and forgiveness

and kindness. And then somehow between the Old Testament and

the New Testament, Jesus shows up and Jesus is now

the good and kind guy. And it's like bad cop,

good cap And you know, Jesus is all about mercy

and forgiveness and God and the Old Testament he's a

bad guy. You don't want to make him mad. And

the truth is that the same God, God does not change.

God has always been a God of mercy, always been

a God of compassion, always been a God of kindness.

And if you're not really sure about that, I really

challenge you go back look at the Old Testament. Do

it yourself. You don't have to be a Bible scholar.

Just start reading through the Old Testament looking for places

where God says, I have loved you with an everlasting love.

I will forgive your sins. This one in Isaiah, I'm

the God who forgives your sins. So that you can

be convinced that God is a forgiver. The second way

that we can know that we're totally forgiven in Christ

is Ephesians. To excuse me, Ephesians one says in Christ underline,

that we are set free by the blood of His death,

and so we have forgiveness of sins. How rich is

God's grace which he has given to us so fully

and freely. Again, because of what Jesus did for us

on the cross, because of what God said to us

through jesus death on the croust, we have forgiveness of sins.

God's grace. And how is it given to us? The

Bible says it is given to us fully and freely,

fully and freely. The apostle Paul says in that verse

that Jesus' blood, as we've already said, so highly valued

to God, provided for us forgiveness, and now God gives

he just like slathers us with his grace and his mercy.

The problem is that even if you are willing to

believe that about God and about that's the way He

feels about you, we get stuck in trying to apply

that same grace and mercy to other people. You know,

It's like the grace and mercy Spigott gets clogged in us,

and when it's us, we want God to just man

pour out that full grace and that free forgiveness for

everything we've done wrong and everything that is sinful about us.

We want God's mercy and grace in droves. But when

it comes to me forgiving you, that is a different story.

And I am not usually as interested in you receiving

grace and mercy as I am myself receiving grace and mercy.

Anybody else identify with that. That's just kind of the

way we are that, even though God has graced us

fully and freely, we are not as eager to do

that for each other. The Bible says that's wrong. Look

at Ephesians four thirty two. God says, be kind and

compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ,

God forgave you. When our son Josh was in high school,

he came to me one day crying, very remorseful, and

he said, Mom, I need to tell you. I need

to I need to tell you something that I've done.

And I kind of took a deep breath because I

really had no idea what I was about to hear.

Josh is a good kid, was a good kid, But

I still didn't know he's weeping. Why is he weeping?

What is he about to confess to me? And he said,

I just need to tell you that I used the

credit card that you and dad had had given me

for emergencies. I bought a few things that I didn't

really have your permission to buy. I've taken my friends

out to lunch a few times, and and I just

want you to know. I'm I'm really sorry. And I'm

thinking to myself, Yeah, but you know, the credit card

bill's coming up here, and you're you're gonna confess ahead

of time rather than to find out through the through

the credit card bill. But I was just really angry

because Josh had broken our trust. You know, we had

given him this card and good faith in case there

were emergencies, and here he had abused our trust. He'd

lied to us, based stolen from us. And I was

so angry at him, and I really had all kinds

of things that I wanted to say about, you know,

how deep my hurt was, and how he was grounded

for the next three years of high school. And I mean,

I just had all these really angry upset thoughts that

I wanted to say, And at the exact moment that

I was getting ready to blast him in my anger,

God reminded me of this verse. I was like, oh, man,

don't you hate it when God does that because you

got out of this righteous anger going and then he

brings the word to you and you're like ah, And

it was like, Okay, I had a moment. Thank God,

he helped me realize that as a parent, I had

a moment, and I could either reveal to my son

something about the nature of God in the way that

I forgave him, or I could just be a human

parent who was justifiably upset, and I could distort the

image of God. I could rail on my son. I

could discipline him in anger, I could punish him. I

could say all these things about how he had let

us down. Or I could remember that I have already

been forgiven a million times more than what my son

had done in that moment, God has already forgiven me,

and that I had an opportunity to say I forgive you.

I am angry, I'm hurt, and there will be.

Consequences, but I just want you to know that I

do forgive you and so instead of railing on him

and spewing all kinds of stuff, I had a moment

to channel the way.

God would do something. God meets our sin, and often

there are consequences for our sin. We don't get off

scott free in the sense of sometimes there aren't consequences.

But I had the opportunity to offer him grace fully

and freely. But here's the truth, you guys about forgiving

fully and freely. As parents, as teachers, as educators, as coaches,

we have so many opportunities to make sure that we

don't distort the image of God. Sometimes good kids make

stupid decisions. Sometimes good kids make bad decisions, and we

can either jump on them with both feet and take

them to the ground and you know, threaten them with

everything that could possibly ever happen and take away everything forever,

and we can distort the way that God has forgiven us,

or we have the opportunity to fully offer grace and

mercy as we build their identity. Rick is going to

come and finish this message.

Okay, let me wrap this up.

Everybody in life, at different times has felt the pain

of rejection. There's nobody goes through life without feeling some

kind of rejection by different people, different groups, at different times.

My studies have shown that the earlier you were rejected

you felt that the younger you were when you first

felt major rejection, the greater the impact that has on

your life. So if you were a young child and

you felt abandoned, or you felt rejected, or you felt unloved,

that's a real problem you're having to struggle with.

And if you were told as.

A kid you don't really matter in so many words,

or your failure or you'll never be up to my expectation,

that's a hard thing to move over. In many ways,

it was like a curse on your life. How do

you reverse a curse? How do you reverse a curse?

The truth will set you free. Everybody's heard that phrase,

but they don't know the full verse. It's a quote

from Jesus, and the full quote is this, if you

continue in my word the Bible, if you continue in

my word, then you'll be my disciple, you'll be my followers,

and then you'll know the truth, and the truth will

set you free. That's the full quote. The truth isn't

out there on TV. The truth is in this book.

And if you know the truth, then the truth will

set you free. What is the truth about you? You're accepted,

you're loved, you're forgiven, you're chosen, you're priceless, you have

something to contribute to the world, and when you mess up,

you're forgiven. That's the truth. That's the truth. Now, there's

another research that I read years ago that the way

you tend to feel about yourself, your identity, your self esteem,

your self worth is largely determined by what you think

the most important person in your life thinks about you.

Let me say it again, the way you feel about yourself,

your self esteem, your self worth is largely determined, with

you realize it or not, by what you think the

most important person in your.

Life thinks about you.

So, friends, I highly recommend you make Jesus Christ the

most important person in your life.

Does that make sense?

Because he says, you're chosen, you're forgiven, you're accepted, you're loved,

you're valuable, you're priceless, you got something to offer, and

when you mess up.

You're forgiven. This is who you really are.

So make Jesus Christ the most important person in your life.

You're chosen by God, You're loved by God. You're accepted

by God. You have a contribution to make in your life.

Your value and your worth are priceless, and you're forgiven.

That is your true identity. When you settle your true identity,

become almost impervious to peer pressure because you know who

you are and you know what you're supposed to do

with your life. You know, when I was in school

from sixth grade through my freshman year in college, I

was president of something every year I was growing up.

I was class president of my class every single year,

except when I in junior high and high school was

student body president of the whole school. You might say

I was popular, and as a result of being popular,

I was invited to all the parties from sixth grade

through college. And yet, somehow, by the grace of God,

I made it through all those years without ever taking

any drugs, without ever smoking a cigarette, without ever even

tasting alcohol, without having sex with some girl. Why because

I knew who I was in Christ and I wasn't

about to.

Throw that away.

Somehow, God got a hold of my brain at an

early age, and my parents built into me what my

true identity was, and I was impervious to the pressure,

even though I was invited all those parties. You need

this in your life. You need to pass it on

to the next generation. This is your true identity.

You are not.

What your parents say you are. You're not what your

peers say you are. You're not what your partner says

you are. You're not what the world says you are.

You are not what the media says you are. You

are not what social media says you are. You are

not what boys who criticized you in school say you are.

You are not what you tell yourself when you are self,

care yourself, and you are not what Satan tells you are.

You are what God says you are, and the truth

will set you free. Now as your friend, as your

pastor who genuinely loves you, have I told you lately

that I love you? The big question comes down to this,

who are in the world you going to believe? Are

you gonna believe what the world says about you? That

unless you look a certain way, unless you talk a

certain way, unless you do certain things, unless you cave

in to certain moral issues, unless you believe certain things,

you don't matter. You're worthless. Are you gonna believe what

God says about you? Some of those two. One of

those opinions isn't going to matter in eternity for trillions

and trillions of years.

I'll say it again.

It is liberating the day you realize that you don't

need other people's approval to be happy. By the way,

did you know what Jesus said? Is the way you

express your identity publicly for the first time, the way

you come out with your new identity.

It's called baptism. If you haven't been baptist, what are

you Baptist? What are you waiting on?

Baptism says I've died to the old me, and I'm

beginning a brand new me. Last first on your outline.

Tewod Corinthians, chapter five from the Bible, verse seventeen. When

anyone is in Christ, it's a whole new world. The

old things are gone, including all the guilt and the

shame and condemnation. The old thing's gone. Suddenly everything is new.

He said, Man, I'd like that. I'd like a whole

new world. I'd like it's like starting over. It's like

getting a fresh started. It's like being born again. Oh,

I kind of like that term.

Does not turn over a new leaf. It's good.

Whole new life. God says, would you like a mulligan

on your life? Would you like to start over? Fresh start? Okay,

it all starts where in Christ? He said, Well, I'm

not so sure, Rick, I'm in Christ. Well I can

help you settle that one right now. That's real simple.

You're not waiting on God. He's waiting on you. That's power.

Heads.

Thank you God, our Father. Thank you Father, that you

can heal broken hearts, and you can heal bitter memories,

and you can heal damaged self esteem. And I thank

you Lord that the patterns in our minds can be

erased and reversed. And I thank you that you turn

nobody's into somebody's.

And Jesus.

Asking you to help my friends here, help these dear

people to begin to see themselves through your eyes of love.

Now you pray in your mind, just say this in

your mind. God hears you say.

Dear God.

Just say, Dear God, I want to be in Christ.

Help me to see myself the way you see me.

Just tell him that. Thank you Jesus for dying for me.

I don't understand it all, but I want to be

in Christ and I want to start living my new identity.

In Christ, help me to care more about what you

say about me and what other people say or think

about me. May the truth set me free for the

rest of my life. I want to be a God pleaser,

not a people pleaser. Now the head still bowed, I'm

going to ask everybody here to repeat these truths allowed

with me.

They're the things we just talked about.

But I want you to say I'm aloud so that

your own mind hears them. And just with your head bowed,

everybody say this aloud. Because I am in Christ. I've

been chosen by God. I am completely loved by God,

and I am completely accepted by God. And in Christ,

my value and worth are priceless. And in Christ I

have something unique to offer to the world. And in

Christ I have been completely forgiven.

Amen.

Wow, some powerful words from Pastor Rick. And now this

really is one of my favorite parts of the broadcast.

Letters from our listeners. Here's Rick.

I love getting letters from you. Let me share a

little bit longer when it's from Sarah and her four

year old son. She said, Pastor Rick, my husband and

I are involved in a church plant in Salem, Massachusetts,

and I make an effort every day to listen to

other pastors preach by a podcast. But I began listening

to your Daily Hope podcast and I stumbled across Christians

in the workplace and that small group study that you

did that has been a great study and quite relevant

to us. Thank you for making your materials available beyond

Saddleback Church, Pastor Rick. As a result of my regular

listening to your podcast, my son now frequently asked to

listen to the sermons. He's four and a half years old,

and one morning, on our way to church, he asked

me to put on a sermon. I love this kid,

he said. I had a Pastor Craig podcast in the queue,

but began to listen, but my son kept asking to

listen to a sermon by you, and I kept telling

this was a sermon. Then he said, no, I want

to listen to Pastor Rick Warren. That's funny. Well, when

your four year old son Sam asked to listen to

Rick Warren, you listened to Rick Warren. So I asked Sam,

why like to listen to you? He said, I like

what Pastor Rick says, and he said he says, if

you don't swing from one bar to another, you're just

gonna hang there. Well, I was shocked that he had

picked up that truth. That was just one of the

recent Daily Hope messages where you talked about faith and

you were referring to where trapeze artists have to let

go of one bar before they reach on to the second,

and all of that. Just to say thank you for

the work you do, for the messages you teach, and

it goes noticed even by the youngest of human beings,

my four year old son best Sarah, Well, what can

I say, Sarah, this is just such a great story.

Thank you, and thank your four year old son Sam

for listening, and thank you for your ministry at Salem, Massachusetts.

May God bless your church and may all of you

join me next time as we continue to look at

God's word for our daily hope.

Thanks so much, Rick, And if you'd like to let

Rick know how much this broadcast has meant to you,

how it's blessed you, please send him an email at

Rick at pastorick dot com. That's Rick at pastorick dot com.

Rick looks so forward to reading those emails. Be sure

to join us next time as we look into God's

word for our daily hope. This program is sponsored by

Daily Hope Ministries and your generous financial support.