Rick Warren - You Are Called to Bless—Part One of One

Hello everybody, and welcome to Pastor Rick's Daily Hope. This

is the Bible teaching ministry of Rick Warren. Now today

we're continuing into the new year, and we're digging deeper

into one of life's biggest questions, does my life really matter?

In today's message, Rick's going to continue his powerful series

Live Your Calling? What on Earth Am I here For?

In it, you'll discover how living out God's purpose for

your life brings real meaning, direction, and joy no matter

where you're starting from. So let's join Rick right now

for a special message titled you are Called to bless.

Good morning everybody.

It's good to see if you'll take out your message

notes welcome to Live your Calling? What on Earth am

I here for? And we're looking at the five callings

of your life, the five purposes of your life, the

five reasons God created you, the five assignments that He

has for your life. The word calling has used more

than even the word purpose in the Bible, and we've

looked at these.

First four or three so far.

We looked at God's first calling on your life, is

your call to be loved.

God made you to love you.

The second calling, as you're called to belong, to belong

to his family, the body of Christ, the family of God.

Last week we looked at your third calling. You're called

to become. God wants you to grow up. He wants

you to mature. He wants you to become We want.

You to be.

This week, we're going to look at the fourth calling

on your life, and it is you are called to bless.

You're called to bless other people. Now, how do you

do that?

You bless other.

People when you serve them. It may be physical assistance,

it may be financial assistance. It may be emotional support.

It could be relational support, it could be practical support.

There are a thousand different ways that you can serve

the people around you.

And when you serve.

Others, the Bible says you actually bless them. Now, I

want you to write this down on your outline. The

fourth purpose of my life is God shaped me to

serve him. God shaped me to serve Him. I'm not

going to spend a lot of time on this because

we've covered this many many times at Saddleback. That God

has uniquely shaped you with five elements your spiritual gifts,

your heart, your abilities, your personality, your experiences. We've covered

this many times, that God wired you to be you,

and he shaped you to serve him. Phesians two ten

explains this. By the way, this is our memory verse

this week. So let's read it aloud with great enthusiasm.

All right, let's say it. Ephesians two ten. We are

God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works,

which God prepared in advance for.

Us to do.

Ephesians to ten. I want you to work on that

this week.

It says we.

Are God's work We talked about this a couple of

weeks ago. You are God's masterpiece. You are God's work

of art. You are unique. There's nobody like you in

the world, and you are created in Christ Jesus to

do good works. That good works is called your service.

It's called your ministry. It's called your blessing. It's the

way you help other people. You weren't made to just

take up space, breathe, live a self centered.

Life and die.

God put you here to make a contribution with your life,

and that is called your ministry, another word for blessing,

another word for services ministry. The word servant and the

word minister are the same word. In the Bible and

the word service and ministry are the same words. The

fact is we're all ministers. Now, we're not all pastors.

I'm a pastor. My job is to administer the ministers.

So if somebody ever asked you how many ministers does

our church have, you say thirty thousand, because everybody is

a minister. So I want you to write this down.

My life calling is to be a bi vocational minister

of Jesus. I'm gonna have to explain this to you.

My life calling is to be a bi vocational minister

of Jesus. Now, what does bivocational mean. Well, it's like

the word bifocal. You know, when you get glasses that

are bifocals. It means you can see two things at

the same time. You can see far away and you

can see up close. You can see both with clarity.

And when you are a bi vocational minister of Jesus,

it means that no matter what you do in life,

you do it for two reasons, not one. You are

a bi vocational minister. So whether you're a truck driver

or an attorney, or a janitor or a hospice worker

or a homemaker or a teacher, or a deal maker,

or a stockbroker, or an accountant or a farmer. It

doesn't matter what you are. If you're a Christian, you

were to do it for two reasons, to help others

and to honor God. To help others and to honor God.

To help and honor God. Everything I do in life.

If I'm a follower of Jesus is bivocational. I have

a job, but in that job, I do it to

help others and to honor God. To help others and

honor go on. I am a bivocational minister of Jesus Christ.

Look up here on the screen Glossom three seventeen. Whatever

you do, whatever you do, whether in word or deed,

do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus,

giving thanks to God the Father through Him. So it says,

whatever you do, it can be a ministry. It can

be a blessing. If you honor God and you help others.

In whatever you do, you do it in the name

of the Lord Jesus. I can take out the garbage

as a ministry, I can change a dirty diaper as

a ministry. I can clean the living room. I can

make a deal. I can help somebody across the street.

Everything in your life can become a ministry if you

do it to help others and honor God. And he says,

whatever you do, it becomes part of your ministry if

you have the right motivation. And I want you to

write this down. Menial tasks become meaningful tasks when I.

Do that, do it out of love for God.

Menial tasks become meaningful tasks if I do it out

of my love for Jesus for God. So everything in

your life becomes significant. Really, Let's say you're at a

meeting in your office at where you work, and all

of a sudden, the meeting's over and everybody gets up

to walk out, and they've left coffee cups and trash

and all kinds of thing, and you just decide, I'm going

to clean that up.

Everybody.

It's not my job, but I'm going to clean that

up to help people and honor God. And so while

they're all gone, you clean off the table and you

put it all in the trash. When they just walked

out expecting somebody else to do it, you have just

done a ministry and God will notice and God will reward.

You for it.

Now, the fact is the calling to salvation and the

calling to service are the same. So when you became

a believer, when you stepped across the line, you weren't

just called to be saved. You were called to serve.

You're saved to serve, to make a difference with your life.

And as I said, every member is a minister, and

everybody has a ministry. Galatians one, chapter, chapter one, verse

fifteen says, this God, in his grace chose me even

before I was born and called me to serve him.

Circle that last phrase, call me to serve him. This

is the fourth purpose of your life. This is the

fourth calling on your life. You are called to serve.

Your shape to serve. You're made for ministry. You're called

to bless What happens if I begin to use my

life in this fourth calling, When I begin to stop

thinking about me all the time and begin to start

thinking about other people in my life and begin to

think about not how can I be served, but how

can I serve others? Well, it brings four amazing benefits.

The first thing that happens you write write this down,

is that serving others unselfishly will create joy in my life.

It creates enormous, massive amounts of joy in my life.

Most people are looking for happiness in all the wrong places.

You don't find happiness and pleasure, power, possessions, position, prestige,

you know, all of these different things that we typically

look for popularity. Success doesn't bring satisfaction. Sex doesn't bring satisfaction.

Salary doesn't bring satisfaction, status doesn't bring satisfaction.

Those are all temporary.

For permanent, ongoing joy, it comes not through sex, status, salary.

It comes to service by giving my life away. God

wired us that when you give your life away, that's

when the joy flows into your heart. Why because he

wants you to be like him. Most people don't know

the two secrets of joy, but I'm gonna give them

to you right now here.

They are one number one.

The first secret of joy is get the focus off myself.

The more you focus on you, the more miserable you're

gonna be. It is not by accident that the word

miser and miserable come from the same root word. You've

got to shift your focus from inward focus it's all

about me, to outward focus.

It's all about God and serving others.

And when you do that, that is a counterculture move

because everything in our society says.

It's all about you.

Every advertisement says it's all about you. We do it

all for you, have it your way, you're number one,

you're the best. But when you begin to give your

life away, the more you give your life away, telp

others guess what, the more joy flows into your life.

Good example of this is the apostle Paul Philippians, Chapter two,

verse seventeen. He says, my life is being poured out

as a part of the sacrifice and service. There's those words,

as a part of the sacrifice and service I offer

to God for your faith. Yet he says, in spite

of this sacrifice and service, I am filled with joy,

and I share that joy with all of you. It

is a fact of life that the most helpful people

are the most happy people in life. If you want

to be happy, you got to be helpful. The more

helpful you are, the more happy you are, the more

self centered you are, the more.

Unhappy you're going to be in life. It's just the

way the universe works.

So joy floods into my soul when I begin to

give it away. God wired the universe that the more

unselfish you are, the more joy flows into your life.

The Bible says this in Philippians four. Always be full

of joy in the Lord. Say it again, Rejoice. Let

everyone see that you are unselfish and considerate in all

you do. Now notice how he pairs joy with being

unselfish and considerate. If you are inconsiderate and you are selfish,

you're not going to be joyful. But if you are

unselfish and you are considerate, you're going to be joyful.

I'll be real blunt with you. Look at this verse

up on the screen. Philippians one four says, forget about

yourself long enough to lend a helping hand. That should

have been our memory versus week. It's shorter, forget about

yourself long enough to lend a helping hand. If you

lack joy in your life, you're not happy right now.

Let me tell you start serving. Start finding a place

where you can volunteer to give part of your time

away and you get nothing in return, You're not paid

for it. You're just giving your life away. If there's

nothing in your life that you are doing, say on

a weekly basis, on which you're just doing it for

others benefit, not for your own. If there's nothing in

your life like that, you're living a pretty selfish life.

And God didn't put you on this planet just to

live for you. You got to give back, you got

to make a contribution, you got to be unselfish. That's

where the joy comes from. Number two. The other way

joy comes is when I use my gifts to help others.

Joy comes from getting the focus off myself. And joy

comes from using my gifts to help others. And when

you use the gifts that God gave you to help

other people, it feels good. I was reading an article

this week about the Oscar contenders for the Academy Awards

this year. One of the actors said, I was created,

I was made for this role.

And you know that feeling.

That's how you feel when you know I'm on what

God made me to do, what God wired me to do.

One Peter four to ten says this God has given

each of you some special abilities. Be sure to use

them to make a ton of money. Oh sorry, I

misread that. That's in the reviled substandard perversion translation. God

has given each of you some special abilities, be sure

to use them. To read it with me, help each other, Okay,

passing on to others. God's many kinds of blessing. We're

blessed to be a blessing. God blesses you so you

can bless other people. We're blessed to be a blessing.

And how do we bless others? We bless others by

using our skills, by using our time, our talents, whatever

we've got. When we use it to help other people

in service, you bless other people. Number two. Surviving others unselfishly.

Are serving others unselfishly will create not only joy in

my life, it will improve my relationships. And boy do

we need this one. Your relationships will get better the

more you learn how to serve, and that's something you

got to practice at will. It will improve my relationships.

Why because the root of every single relational problem in

your life is self centeredness. Now there are other issues

that come in, but at the root, it's selfishness. I

want what I want when I want it, and what

you want when you want it, and neither of us

are willing to budge and give in and change. And

I want it my way and you want it your way,

and that causes conflict. The verse verse that K and

I memorized when we were actually on our honeymoon was

Proverers thirteen ten. Only by pride cometh contention. In other words,

when you have an ego, you're going to have conflict.

Anytime you're having a conflict in your marriage, egos showing

up and you're not being a servant, you're being selfish.

But the more you practice, the more you learn to

get yourself out of yourself, get a bigger perspective, you

begin to serve unselfishly. It's going to change and improve

every single one of your relationships. Because you change, it

changes your relationships. You see, friends, Life is the lifelong task,

the lifelong school of learning how to be unselfish. Unfortunately,

some people never learn it. They go through all of

life living for themselves. The whole task of life. Why

God puts you here is to learn unselfishness. Why because

God is love and God wants you to learn to

be like him. So how do I learn to be unselfish?

Simple?

Copy Jesus, because he lived the most unselfish life ever.

Matthew ten twenty eight says this your attitude. Your attitude

must be like my own, Jesus says, for I did

not come to be served, but to serve. Now when

you take on the attitude of Jesus and you begin

to live your life not for the benefit of yourself,

but you begin to live your life for the benefit

of others, to help others and honor God.

Help others and honor God.

You accept you're a biblecational minister of God. Two incredible

benefits happen. One you become more like Jesus, and two

you're more loved respected, You're more popular. If you want

to have more friends, learn to be a servant. If

you want to learn to be more popular, learn to

be a servant. If you want people to love you

like you, to respect you, learn to be a servant.

Don't try to be interesting. Be interested. Be interested in others.

That's how you make it at a party. Be interested

in others. No think you're the greatest person in the world,

because everybody is.

Interested only in themselves.

And when finally somebody is interested in them, they think

you're the greatest conversationalist that ever lived. Here's what the

Bible says Romans fourteen eighteen. If you serve Christ in

this way, unselfishly serving, you will please God. Notice and

be respected by people. You want to be respected by people.

Learn to have a servant's heart. Here's the cool part

of all this.

The more I.

Bless other people, the more God blesses me. The more

I serve others, the more God honors me. The more

I bless other people, the more I minister to other people,

the more God ministers to me. Let me show you

some verses up here on the screen Proverbs eleven twenty five.

The one who blesses others is abundantly blessed, and those

who help others are helped. In other words, it's the

principle of sowing and reping. Whatever seed I sew, I'm

going to get back. But I don't get back a seed.

If I plan a seed, I don't get back one seed.

I get a whole tree of seeds. And so, if

you start blessing on other people, you get tons of

blessing back. You start helping other people, you get tons

of help back. You get more than you bargained for.

Blessing others gives me blessing. You know when people tell me,

you know, I'd really like to be involved in service.

But I'm just too busy.

I'm just I don't have any time to really be

involved in volunteering anywhere. I'm just too busy. Then you

just forfeited God's blessing on your business. I really feel

sad for you. You want God's blessing on your business. God

does not bless selfishness. You want God's blessing on your

business and on your work so badly. God's saying, are

you giving anything away? Are you thinking only about yourself?

Is it all about you? Are you think I put

you on earth just to live for you? No, the

more you give your life away, the more God blesses you.

Look at these verses Proverbs.

Seventeen eleven, you do yourself a favor when you're kind.

That interesting. You do yourself a favor when you're kind.

The Bible says in Proverbs twenty two nine, a generous

man will himself be blessed. So if I want God's

blessing on my life, I've got to be a blessing

on other people's life. And if I want better relationships,

I need to start serving. Number Three, Serving others unselfishly

will make my life meaningful. That's the third big surprise

that most people won't know. The Only way you find

meaning in life is to give your life away. God

wired the universe on this principle. Meaning does not come

from money. We think if I just get more money,

then my life will have more meaning.

No, it will not.

Money has many good uses. It can make life easier.

It can give you opportunities, it can open doors, it

could save you time. But money cannot give you meaning.

No amount of money will have give your life.

Meaning.

Meaning comes from ministry, from giving your life away. Jesus

said it like this, Mark eight thirty five. If you

try to keep your life for yourself, you will lose it.

But if you give up your life for my sake,

for the sake of the good News, you will find

true life. Circle those last two words, true life comes

from giving my life away. Now, knowing this, what should

be my attitude toward service? One Corinthens fifteen fifty eight

says this, always give yourselves fully to the work of

the Lord, because you know that your work in the

Lord is never wasted. Now, notice a couple words in

that verse. It says always give yourself fully. That word

fully parassio In Greek, it literally means not half hearted,

you just totally.

I'm all in, I'm jumping in. I'm going in the

deep in.

Give yourself fully to the work of the Lord, because

you know that your work in the Lord is never wasted.

That word wasted is kenos.

It means empty, It means useless, It means without purpose.

Everything you do for Christ has a purpose, and it

may seem insignificant, and maybe nobody else seems to know

about it, but it's important. The Bible says, even if

you give a cup of cold water in God's name,

in Jesus' name, that you get rewarded for that in eternity.

And that brings me to the fourth reason. What will

happen if I use my life to serve and bless others?

If I switch the focus from it's all about me,

to switch the focus on how many people can I serve?

How can I honor God? By helping others? Creates joy

in my life and improves my relationships. It makes my

life meaningful. And the fourth thing is it will leave

a legacy. It will leave a legacy. You will leave

a mark. Actually, you'll leave two legacies, one on earth

and one in eternity. The one on earth isn't gonna

last very long because after about three generations, everybody forgets you.

Given enough time, all your trophies are going to be trashed.

All the things you think are so cool. Right now,

two generations don't be even gonna care. You may get

your name on a building. Nobody's even gonna ask who

was that person?

So what?

But the rewards you get an eternity are going to

go on and on and on and on forever. But

when you begin to serve, what it does is it

gives you a reputation. The Bible says this Proverbs ten

verse seven. Good people will be remembered as a blessing.

Let me ask you, what are you going to be

remembered for? If you were to die tomorrow with people? Say, man,

that person was a real blessing.

They really live for other people.

They served, They were sharing, They were generous, they were kind,

They were always thinking of other people or would they

think only? They were pretty self centered. They only had

their goals. They only went after what they wanted. They

didn't really care about anybody else, didn't take care of

their wife or their kids or any and they just

lived their life, did what they wanted to do. What

do you want to be known for? Good people will

be remembered as a blessing. Now, the truth is, everybody

wants their life to count deep down inside of you.

You want your life to have significance. You want your

life to have meaning, You want your life to have purpose.

You want to do something great with your life. Everybody

wants that, and there's nothing wrong with that. To do

something great with your life, you ought to want to

do something great with your life. Here's how Jesus said

you become great, Matthew twenty twenty six. If you want

to be great, you must be the servant of all

the others. The more you serve, the greater you're going

to be. The more you serve, the more influence you'll have.

I call with the Mother Teresa syndrome. Mother Teresa went

to the poorest of the poor, the most outcast of

the outcast in Calcutta, India, to people who are on

the street and dying. Nobody has less influence than them.

And she began to take the dying into her home,

and she cared for them, and she began to serve

those that everybody was trampling over. And as she went

to the least influential people of life, God gave her

enormous influence around the world, so that she could walk

into the Congress and everybody would listen. She could walk

into the United Nations and everybody would listen. If you

want to be great, you learn to be the servant

of all. You know, for thirty years, I've been training

leaders around the world, you know, lots of different countries,

and I've discovered that when I hold a leadership seminar,

it's packed out. If I call it a service seminar,

nobody wants to come. In fact, even when we want

to be servants, we say, well, we want to be

a servant leader. Why not just leave the leader part off?

Just be a servant. If you want to be a great,

learn to be the servant of all. If you go

onto Amazon dot com, for every five hundred books on leadership,

you'll find one book on being a servant. We got

our values all upside down. The way you become great

is by giving your life away.

He said.

But nobody's gonna see my secret acts of service. God

will like if you clean up that table when everybody's

left the room, God will see that. And the Bible

says this in Hebrew six'. Ten god is fear he

will not forget the work you did and the love

you showed for him by helping his, people and he

will remember that you are still helping. Them in, Fact

jesus makes this promise In john twelve twenty. Six my

father will honor anyone who serves. Me the friends that,

honor right there is more important than winning The Nobel Priest.

Prize you're not gonna win The Congressional medal Of. Honor

you're not going to win The Nobel Priest, prize but

you can win that. Price my father will honor anyone

who serves. Me and if you want to leave a,

legacy then you need to start serving, unselfishly doing something

with your life that you don't get something back.

For you, know.

Monetarily you've heard me say before that the greatest use

of life is to invest it in that which. Outlasted

you got three choices with your. Life you can spend your,

life you can waste your, life you can invest your.

Life and the best use.

Of your life is to invest it in that which

will outlast. It there are only two things going to

last in the, world only, two The word Of god and.

People so if you build your life on the word

Of god and the. People then you are building your

life on the things that are going to.

Last that was such an encouraging message From Pastor. Rick

and now Here's rick to tell you about today's.

Offer one of the things That i've discovered is that

everybody eventually asks the questions of. Significance why AM i?

Here and what is my? Purpose what on earth AM

i here? For So i've updated The Purpose Driven life

BECAUSE i wanted to help people like you understand How

god created us for five eternal. Purposes The bible says

that long before we heard Of, christ he had his

eye on, us had his designs on us for glorious.

Living that it was part of his overall purpose that

he's working out in everything and. Everyone god has never

made a person that he doesn't have a purpose. For you,

know that simple message needs to be shared with the

whole new. GENERATION a young girl who was twelve years

old WHEN i Wrote Purpose Driven life is now twenty,

two and she needs to hear this essential message That

god has a, plan has a, purpose and has a

reason for everything that happens in our. Lives and WHAT

i did is after reading hundreds of thousands of comments

that have come into. Me over the past, Decade i've

added two new chapters that'll help you handle the two

most common problems and barriers to living a life of.

Purpose NOW i want you to have this newly revised

expanded copy Of Purpose Driven.

LIFE i think you'll.

Find it's a fresh reminder of things that you may

have forgotten when you first read. It or you might

want to give the book to somebody who has never

read it and is struggling to find their. Purpose so this,

Month i'm offering to you a hardback copy of the

updated expanded edition Of Purpose Driven. Life what On earth

AM i hear? For it's my gift to you for

your financial support of this.

Ministry just go To pastorick dot com to get your

copy of this great. Resource that's pastorick dot. Com or

you can text the word hope to seven oh three oh. Nine,

again that's the word hope to seven oh three to oh.

Nine and we thank you so much for your. Support

it helps let us share the hope Of christ with

people all around the. World 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