Rick Warren - Why God Made You—Part Three

Hello everyone, and welcome to Pastor Rick's Daily Hope, the

Bible teaching ministry of Rick Warren. Now, as we wrap

up this powerful New year series, we're coming back to

one of life's most important truths, that you matter to

God and He created you for a purpose. And today

is the final message in rick series, Live Your Calling?

What on Earth am I here for? If You've ever

longed for direction, clarity, or a deeper sense of meaning,

this message will remind you that God's plan for your

life is bigger and better than you think. So let's

join Rick for his final teaching in the series called

Why God Made You Now.

God says I've shaped you to serve me. And then

the last thing he says, I give you experiences sahape.

Every experience in your life shapes you, the good ones

and the bad ones.

And God you uses family experiences you had growing.

Up, even bad ones and painful ones. He uses them

for good. He uses family experiences, He uses vocational experiences,

the job you've had, educational experiences, the stuff you learned

in school and outside of school. He spiritual experiences, personal experiences,

emotional experiences. But the number one thing God uses in

your life to shape you for serving him is painful experiences.

God whispers to us in our pleasure, but he shouts

to us on our pain. Pain is God's megaphone. Pain

is how God gets your attention. We don't change when

we see the light. We change when we feel the heat.

And God says, so, yes, I even use the painful experiences.

I don't plan them, I don't need. We're living a

broken planet. You're gonna have plenty of painful experiences caused

by other people and by yourself. But God says, I

can even use that to shape you to serve me.

Ephesians chapter two, verse ten says this God made us

what we are. He shaped us and in Christ Jesus,

God made us to watch TV all day. Well, that's

not what it says, play video games. No, it doesn't

say that God made us to what what? I can't

hear you? Would you circle that phrase? God made us

to do good works. This is the fourth purpose of

your life. God made you to do good works. Now,

the word for do good works in the Bible is

called ministry. You have a ministry on earth. Not everybody's

a pastor, but everybody has a ministry. Your ministry is

anytime you use your shape, that's your talent, your abilities,

all your personality to help other people in God's name.

That's called ministry. God wants you to practice on earth

what you're gonna do in heaven. Okay, now let's just review. Remember,

you're gonna love God in heaven. You're gonna worship in heaven,

so God wants you to practice here. You're gonna love

other people in heaven, in fellowship with God's family. So

God wants you to practice loving people in the good

family of God.

Here, real people.

You're gonna grow in heaven, so God wants you to grow,

learn to grow like Jesus here in heaven. You're gonna

serve God. What he wants you to do here practice

so again, when you get there, you already know how

to serve God. See a lot of people have this

false idea about heaven.

They think that you're.

Gonna sit around and do nothing in heaven. You're just

gonna sit around and do nothing boring. No, you're gonna

do steff in heaven. You're gonna serve God in heaven,

but you're gonna love to do it. In fact, let

me just say this, everything you've learned about Heaven in

movies is one hundred percent wrong. There has never been

a movie ever made that God Heaven right, none, zero,

not a zip. Every movie that has ever been made

of about Heaven is wrong.

Not one is right. How do I know that?

Because the Bible says nobody understands how cool Heaven is.

The Bible says it's so cool you can't even imagine it.

The Bible says it like this eye has not seen,

no eye has seen, no ear has heard, neither has

entered into the heart of man, the wonderful things that

God has prepared for those who love him. You can't

even imagine how cool Heaven's going to be because it's

like an ant trying to understand the Internet. You don't

have the brain capacity here on Earth. We're limited to

three dimensions, and we understand three dimensional thinking. What if

there's four dimensions five, six, seven, eight nine. What if

their dimensions you don't even know about because your brain

isn't big enough in a human body to understand that.

How do you explain that.

That's why in the Bible, when they try to explain

in Heaven that he uses metaphors like streets paved with gold.

They're not going to be paved with gold.

They were just.

Thinking of the biggest, most expensive way, the coolest thing

they could think of. When you go when you see

a movie about heaven, first, heaven is always white.

Everything in heaven is white? Are you kidding me?

The God had created rainbows, sunrises, sunsets, the colors of

all the clothes we're wearing, and the ability to see color.

He's gonna make heaven total white. Not a chance, Not

a chance. And then it's on clouds. Where did that

one come from? That's not in the Bible. And you

walk around like in fog up to your feet, so

you know what I'm talking about. So you can't even

see your feet. How do you tie your shoes in heaven?

You know? If the FOG's up to your knees, that's stupid.

And then then you wear a white robe, you have

white wings, and you play a harp.

That would be hell. I can't if that's heaven.

No thanks, I don't want to go, really, no thanks,

I'm not interested.

I like to beach a whole lot better. Now.

This world is broken, it's full of sin, and it's

still cool. There are some waterfalls and I mean unbelievable sights.

I've seen him around the world and the God who

made this and this is broken. Imagine the perfection. We

can't imagine what heaven is going to be like. But

you're not gonna sit around and do nothing in heaven.

You're gonna serve. So as I said, God wants you

to practice serving God, so you're not a dufus when

you get there, you know how to do it. Now,

he said, well, how in the world do I serve

a God who's invisible?

I can't see him.

Good point, You're gonna see God in heaven, but we

don't see him here. So how in the world do

I serve an invisible God?

How do I do that?

Well, the Bible says we serve God by serving others.

Here on earth. The way to serving God is by

serving other people. And Jesus said, if you've done it

to the least of these, you've done it to me.

And the Bible says, even if you give a cup

of cold water to somebody, and Jesus he says, that's

like you just did it to me. We serve God

by serving others. Jesus said, you can't say you love

God and hate your brother. The Bible says, if you say, well,

I don't want to serve other people, you aren't really

serving God. You cannot say I don't need these people,

I'm not going to help these people, and then say

I love God at the same time.

It's just not true. It's a lie, he says.

So God made us to serve God by serving other people.

Now notice this next verse one Peter four to ten.

It is talking about using your talents to make a

difference in the world, to make a contribution, to make

an impact.

This is your.

Ministry or your service in life. God has given each

of you, the Bible says, some special abilities to use

them to make a lot of money. No, to help

each other, passing on to others. God's many kinds of blessing.

God has given you your shape best hape to use

to benefit the world, to make it a better place,

and to practice serving God by serving others.

So write this down.

The fourth purpose of my life is to serve God

by serving others. And when you do what you're good at, mechanically, musically,

preparing a meal, whatever you're good at, whatever you love,

to do it, and you do it in Jesus' name

to help others. God says, you're practicing serving me. The

purpose is to serve God by serving others. One of

the most traumatic examples of serving God by serving others,

or serving what I call the undeserving, is the story

of Ashley Smith.

Some of you don't even remember.

This because you're too young when it happened, But in

two thousand and five, on March eleventh, two thousand and five,

there was a guy, a criminal in Atlanta named Brian

Nichols who was on trial. He'd been arrested and was

on trial for rape, and he was in an Atlanta

courthouse and somehow in the courthouse he grabbed the gun

of the deputy in the courthouse, shot the judge and

killed him in front of everybody, shot a court reporter

and killed him, shot the deputy, and then shot later

shot a federal agent, killed four people, and escaped, and

there was a massive manhunt all over Atlanta trying to

find Brian, and Brian Nichols was his name, and they

were searching.

It was world news.

I was in Africa working in an AIDS hospice when

I heard about Brian Nichols and how they We're doing

this massive manhunt trying to find this guy for days.

And one of the one of the ways he avoided

being found out is he took a young woman hostage.

He kidnapped her, took her to her house and tied

her up and put her in the bathtub. And her

name was Ashley Smith.

I know her.

And Ashley Smith thought I'm going to be raped and

I'm going to be killed and started this ordeal. Now,

it just so happened that Ashley had just started attending

a church in Atlanta that was using Saddleback's Celebrate Recovery program,

and she was she was a methadict and she had

started going to celebrate recovery in a church and somebody

had given her a copy of Purpose Driven Life, and

so she was reading it, was laying around the house,

and over the hours and hours and hours that she

was held captive by this Brian Nichols, she began to

talk to him and he saw the book and she said,

can I.

Read it to you?

And he said sure, and so she opened to the

chapter she was reading, which was chapter thirty four. Thinking

like a servant, You're shaped to serve God. Thinking like

a servant, and she began to read it, and he

asked her to read it aloud to him. And as

she read it, she made a decision in her mind,

i may lose my life, but I'm going to serve

this guy. I'm going to serve the undeserving. And as

it began to talk about it, he began to soften

in his approach. He untied her, he led her out

of the bathtub, and then she fixed him breakfast, made

him pancakes, and he commented on, you gave me real butter,

and then he kind of wanted to do something for her,

and so he hung her curtains. And this whole time

he's holding her captive, and he kept saying, read me more,

read me more of purpose driven life. And finally, in

reading this book to her, she convinced him to let

her go, and to let she called the police. They

came outside the house and he came out and turned

himself in without incident. Imagine you're a young Christian woman

Ashley's age. You get kidnapped by a guy who's just

murdered four people.

He ties you up in the bathtub.

You're more likely to be thinking about your fear rather

than serving this guy cooking in pancakes. But it was

in her servant heartedness serving the undeserving that she was

most like Jesus. She gained your own freedom and protected

her life. There's one more purpose that God has you

here on earth. For you were planned for God's pleasure,

so you to learn to love and know God. You

were formed for God's family to learn to love other

people in the family of God, in the Church family.

You're created to become like Christ, so you're to grow

up spiritually your shape to serve God. So you are

to serve God by serving others. There's one other thing

God wants you to do on earth. God made me

for a mission. God made me for a mission. God

puts you on earth first to know Him, then to

learn some things, then to become some things, then to

do some things. And the doing part is called your mission.

Jesus says in John seventeen, verse eighteen. In the same

way that the Father gave me a mission in the world,

I give them a mission in the world. God puts

you on this planet to make a unique contribution. It

is my job as your pastor to help you get

prepared for your ministry and your mission. In the world,

because one day you're going to stand before God and

he's going to say, what did you do with what

I gave you? You're going to answer to God one day

for what you did with your life.

What did you do with the talent, the ability?

Well, I made a lot of money, retired and died

wrong answer Acts twenty verse twenty four. Paul says this,

I consider my life to be wasted unless I use

it to complete my mission and finish the assignment that

the Lord Jesus has given to me to tell me

the good news about God's grace.

Now.

I don't have time to get into this, but the

bottom line is that God has a mission and a

message that he wants to explain through you to the world.

You have a unique life message and a unique life mission.

Proverbs nineteen twenty one says this, we can make all

kinds of plans, but only God's purposes will last forever.

Question what are you following right now? Your plan for

your life or God's plan for your life?

Huh?

You follow on God's plan or you following your plan?

You follow on your plan? How's that working for you?

If feel pretty fulfilled, pretty satisfied, feel like man, I'm

really My life is exactly what was supposed to be.

The Bible says, only God's purposes will last forever. You

know what the problem with most people is today. Their

dreams are too small. Their dreams are too small. The

biggest dream that most people have is I just want

to be happy. I just want to live the good life. Really,

and we define the good life in southern California as

looking good, feeling good, and having the goods. There's only

one problem with the good life. It isn't good enough.

It doesn't satisfy. There are thousands of people in southern

California who look good, feel good, and have the goods

and are miserable. I talk to them all the time,

because you were made for more. And at some point

you put your head down on a pillow at night

and you go, there's got to be more than this.

There's got to be more than the good life. And

the reason you think that is because there.

Is there is.

You were made for so much more than you're living

right now, so much more than you're living right now.

You were made for more than the good life. You

were made for the better life. The Bible says, this

second Corinthians five. Jesus included everyone in his death, so

everyone could be included in this life, a far better life.

There's that word, better life, not the good life. The

better life, a far better life than people ever lived

on their own. The good life isn't good enough. You

were made for more. You're made for the better life,

the step up of fulfilling God's purposes for your life.

You say, how do I get that? How do I

get to the better life? The Bible says this in

wrote Psalm thirty four to eight. Open your eyes, Open

your eyes and see how good God is, how much

He loves you. Blessed are you who run to I

like that word run, because here's the point. If all

of a sudden somebody told me that there was a

better life than I'm living.

Right now, I'm in. I'm in. I'm not gonna wait.

I don't think about it, I don't procrastinate, I don't delay.

I don't say one day I'll check it out that

there might possibly a better be a better life that

I'm mar right now. No, I'm gonna run if somebody

tells me there's a better way to live than I'm

living right now, I'm gonna run to it because I

decided a long time ago I'm not gonna waste my life.

You may waste your life, but I'm not gonna waste mine.

And if there's a better way to live, then I'm

gonna run to it. And how do you run to it?

Open your eyes and see how good God is. Now,

if I could only teach you one thing, if I

only had one message to preach in my entire life,

it would be this. When your eyes open your eyes,

open your eyes to the goodness of God, Receive the

love of God. No man will ever love you, no

woman will ever love you like your creator does well

Jesus Christ does. And to go entirely through your entire

life disconnected from your Creator, who loves you that much.

Makes no sense at all.

If somebody was willing to die for you, wouldn't you

want to know about it? If somebody loved you so

much they died for you, wouldn't you want to know them.

Somebody did die for you. His name is Jesus Christ,

and he died for you to pay for all the

things you've done wrong so you could live a life

of purpose formed for God's family, plan, for God's pleasure,

created to become like Christ's shape, to serve God made

for a mission, and might plead to you, as your pastors,

do not waste your life. Decide right now that for

the rest of your life, you're gonna give the best

of your life, not to your girlfriend, not to your boyfriend,

not to your job, not to something else.

But to God and his kingdom.

Because you weren't put here for all those other things.

You were put here for these purposes, and to ignore

them is an enormous waste of your life. There's no

accident that you were here this weekend. God knows that

you've been frustrated with your life. He knows your hurts,

he knows your sadnesses, he knows your fears. He knows

the turmoil that goes inside of you. He knows the

loneliness you feel when you put your head down on

the pillow at night. He knows the insecure that you

feel that you don't want to admit to anybody else.

He knows all of that. And you may have thought,

there's got to be a better way to live.

There is.

I just taught it to you. There is. I call

it a purpose driven life. I don't care what you

call it, Just do it.

Become what God made you to be, the man God

bade you to be, the woman God made you to be.

Matthew eleven. Jesus says, are you tired? Are you worn out?

Are you burned out on religion? Then come to me

for a real rest. He's not talking about religion. He

says a relationship. Come to me for a real rest,

and you'll recover your life, and you'll learn to live

freely and lightly. And who is this invitation available to

next Verse Acts ten thirty five. It makes no difference

who you are or where you're from. If you want

God and you're ready to do as he says, the

door is open. Doesn't matter who you are, where you

are from, what's your background, doesn't matter what you've done,

who you've done it with, or how long you've done

It makes no difference what your religious background is. You

may be Buddhist or Baptist, or Muslim or Mormon or

Methodist or Catholic or Christian or Jewish or Hindu. You

may be an atheist and agnostic. I don't care what background,

no background at all. It says, this offer is available

to you. And it says don't even matter. If you

have doubts, bring your doubts with you. Doubt your doubts

and believe your beliefs. At the bottom of your message notes,

I have written a prayer to start living the life

that God created you to live the life of purpose.

And here's what I want us to do. I want

us to read this aloud together. So here's what I'd

like to ask you to do. Bow your head right now,

but keep your eyes open, and I want you to

look at your notes and read it now. If you

don't have the notes in front of you, look up

here on the screen and read it. We're going to

preyate this prayer aloud together, so you can bow your

head and read it on the notes so you can

look up here on the screen.

Let's say it together.

Dear God, everything you created has a purpose, including me.

I don't want to miss my purpose or waste my

life or live it disconnected from you anymore. Instead, I

want to become what you design me to be. Starting today,

I want to follow your plan for my life, not

my plan. You made me for a relationship with you,

so I want to get to know you and love

you and trust you.

Thank you.

For sending Jesus to pay for my sin. Help me

to understand that. I humbly ask that you accept me

into your family forever. I want to grow more like

Jesus every day, and I want to use my life

on earth to serve You by serving others. Help me

to share this good news with others and to fulfill

my life mission. I invite you into every area of

my life.

Amen.

You know if you just prayed that prayer for the

very first time, or you just recommitted your life to

Jesus again today, would you let me know about it.

There's something real about sharing your commitment. So write me

Rick at pastor Rick dot com and say, Rick, I

prayed that prayer of commitment, I gave my life to

christ and I'll send you some material that will help

you on your journey with Jesus, and I'll also pray

for you. God bless you.

That was such an encouraging mesas from Pastor Rick. And

now to encourage us more, here's Rick with a letter

from one of our listeners.

Hello everybody, today, I want to share with you the

story of Christine who wrote to me. She says she

lost everything, but I want you to listen how God

is working in her life now. Christine wrote this to me,

Pastor Rick, Daily Hope has brought me out of some

truly dark times. Three and a half years ago, my

marriage of thirteen years ended. My husband was an atheist,

and I decided early on in our relationship that he

would be my number one priority, not God. And for

thirteen years I tolerated being lied to and cheated on

and told of, believing that God was stupid and foolish.

And then he ended it all and I was left

alone with nothing, no friends, no home, no family. And

as I was facing a new life on my own,

a coworker recommended that I listened to the Daily ho podcast,

and after a few weeks of listening, I got up

the nerve to return to church for the first time

in over thirteen years. It's been challenging starting my life

all over again, and I still encounter obstacles almost daily,

but I have also grown and I've healed a lot

over the last three years. Now, I continue to listen

to the Daily Hope podcast, and I just purchased your book,

A Purpose Driven Life. I've been going to church deadly

and I even sing now on our worship team. Had

it not been for Daily Hope, I don't know if

I would have ever returned to church or to God,

but I'm so glad that I did. Thank you Daily Hope. Well,

you know, thanks for writing Christine. Your story is a

great reminder that God can use any pain in our

lives to draw us closer to Him if we'll give

it to him, and then He can bring good even

out of all the bat if we will just trust him. Now,

notice that Christine found out about Daily Hope and the

podcast because a coworker shared it when she was facing

dark days. It was just a simple act by a friend,

simply forwarding a podcast that helped Christine start her journey

back to God, and it helped her reconnect with a

church family. What a simple step to make such a

major change in someone's life. Can you think of somebody

in pain right now that you could forward on the

Daily Hope podcast too. Can you think of somebody who's suffering,

somebody who is questioning, somebody who's in despair. Would you

do that for a friend? Would you share Daily Hope

with someone in your family or someone at work. I'd

like you to just pray and ask God say, God,

show me the people around me that you want to know.

You show me the people that I should share daily

Hope with. If you do that, I am certain God

will show you. He'll bring names and faces to mind.

Just try it. God bless you. You know.

If God is blessing you through Daily Hope, would you

share your story with me? Write me rickatpastorick dot 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