Rick Warren - You Are Called to Become—Part 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. Well settle in as Rick shares

part one of a message titled you are Called to Become.

Welcome to Week four of Live Your Calling? What on

Earth Am I here For? And we've looked at your

first calling in life, which is the calling to be loved.

God doesn't want you to do anything first of off,

in life. He wants you to just let Him do

something to you. Let God love you, and that's the

bedrock of everything that happens in your life. You must

learn to let God love you. You were created to

be loved, You are called to be loved. Last week,

we looked at the second of the callings in life,

which is you're called to belong You weren't made to

go through life all on your own. You weren't made

to go through life lonely. God made you to belong

to His family, which is the Church. It's the family

of God. And when you beloved and when you belong,

then you can move to the third calling, which is

you're called to become, to become. Now, these actually are

building blocks that build on top of each other. You

cannot become the woman God wants you to be. You

cannot become the man God wants you to be unless

you beloved and belong first. It is only in being

loved and belonging that we are able to do the

becoming in life. Now, it's really interesting. As little kids,

we often want to become things. Well, let me just

ask you. How many of you, when you were a

kid you wanted to be a fireman, a policeman, or

an astronaut?

Can I see your hands? Yeah, that's that's one of

the most.

How many of you wanted to be a nurse when

you're growing up?

All right?

How many of you wanted to be Barbie? Yeah?

Here's the more likely question.

How many of you did not become what you thought

you would become when you were eight years old. Yeah,

that's universal, pretty universal. But the Bible says God created

you not just to be loved and not just to belong.

But the third calling in life is you are called

to become. Now, what is a calling, we said, that's

the same thing as a purpose. God has five purposes

for your life. God has five reasons for creating you.

God has five assignments, five missions, five rationales for your life.

The callings of God are the purposes of God for

your life. The Bible uses the word calling at least

ten times more often than the word purpose when it

talks about your life. Now, one of the theme verses

for this series on living out your calling God's purposes

for your life is Romans eight twenty eight in the Bible.

And we've looked at this verse each week, and I

want us to go back to it because of its significance.

There on your outline if you pull out your message notes.

Romans eight eight twenty nine from the Bible says this,

we know that God causes everything to work for the

good together for the good of those who love God.

It's not all good, but God causes everything to work

together for the good of those who love God and

are called. There's that word according to his purpose. There's

that word for them. Calling and purpose go together. Your

calling in life is your purpose in life. For God

knew in his people in advance, before you were even born.

God knew you. He thought you up. You were his idea.

You're not an accident. For God knew his people in advance,

and he chose them to become like his son. That's

talking about Jesus. Why don't you circle that phrase, become

like his son. That's your third calling in life. Once

you get into God's family, God wants you to grow

up and become like your older brother, Jesus Christ. He

chose them to become like his son so that his

son Jesus would be the first born with many brothers

and sisters. All right, I want you to write this down.

My third calling in life is to become like Christ.

Now what does that mean? Well, you're not going to

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

You're not even going to be a little mini me God.

God is God and you're not. That's an antidote distress

when you realize that. But God wants you to become God.

In other words, he wants you to take on the

characteristics of his family, like father, like son. And the

Bible says that God is loving, and God is joyful,

and God is peaceful, and God is patient, and God

is kind. The Bible tells us that God is self control,

God is merciful. These are called the fruit of the Spirit.

They're perfect picture of Jesus. If you're going to become

like Jesus, it means to be filled with love, to

be filled with joy, to be filled with peace, to

be filled with patience, and all of those other qualities. Now,

five times in the Bible it compares becoming like Jesus

to running a race. It is the race of life.

Life is not a fifty yard dash. It's a marathon.

And you're running this race right now. And the goal

is to become the man God wants you to be.

The goal is to become the woman God wants you

to be. Is your third calling in life, to become

what God made you to become. And as I said,

the Bible calls this a race. And the Bible talks

about walking the Christian walk. It talks about running the race,

it talks about finishing the course. And so what I

want to do this weekend is take the five different

passages of the Bible that compare life to a race

and compare becoming who God wants you to be to

a race, and draw out from them eight principles. I

call this the marathon to maturity. This is how you

get to where God wants you to be in life.

God doesn't want you to stay the same. He doesn't

want you to be in spiritual diapers your entire life.

He wants you to grow up and what is full maturity?

Look at Jesus and you know that's what God wants

you to become.

Like, now, how do I do this? How do I

run the marathon to maturity?

Well, as I look at these five passages, I can

summarize them in eight statements.

You might write these down.

The first step in making it to the end of

life and finishing the course God asks for you is first,

I must simplify my life.

I must simplify my life.

I have to cut out and clean out and discard

all the junk that's holding me back from becoming the

person God wants me to become. You got to clean

out the clutter, You got to clean out your mind.

You got to clean out your schedule, You got to

clean up your relationships. You got to get rid of

unnecessary baggage. In other words, you don't run a marathon

in a parka. You don't wear nine layers of clothes.

If you've ever seen somebody running a marathon, they strip

down to the bear essentials, a pair of shorts, a

T shirt, and the lightest pair of.

Shoes you can find.

You don't want to be carrying extra baggage through your life. So, really,

if you're going to become the man God wants you

to be or the woman God wants you to be,

first thing you gotta.

Do is you gotta let go of some stuff.

You let you gotta eliminate the diversions, the distractions, the detours,

the dead ends, the time wasters. Hebrews chapter twelve is

one of the books of the Bible chapters that deals

with this metaphor of life is a race, so we're

gonna spend a.

Lot of time.

In Hebrews twelve, verse one says this let us strip

off anything that slows us down or holds us back.

Circle that word anything. That word in Greek is the

word ogkoss in. It actually means a weight means something bulky,

something a burden, something heavy that holds you back. Let

us strip off anything that slows us down or holds

us back, and especially those sins that wrap themselves so

tightly around our feet and trip us up.

We've all had that.

Let us run with patience the particular race that God

has set before us. Now circle the phrase the particular race.

God has a particular race for your life, and only

you can run it. Your mom can't run it, your

dad can't run it, your boyfriend can't run it. Somebody

else can't run your race, and by the way, you

can't run anybody else's. You have a particular race that

God wants you to run in life, and everybody else

has a race that God wants them to run. Here's

the problem. Everybody wants you to run their race. Everybody

has a plan for your life. Your parents wanted you

to run the race they wanted you to run. You

may be married to a husband or wife who want

you to run the race they want you to run.

You may have a boss who wants you to run

a race he or she wants you to run. But

you got to decide this Whose race? Am I going

to run in life. I can run my own race,

I can run a race that somebody else wants me

to run, or I can run the race that God

created me to run. You can't run all three. I

can't do god plan for my life and my plan

at the same time, and I can't do your plan

for my life and God's plan at the same time.

So the starting point, if you're gonna win in the

race of life, you got to decide which race you're

gonna run. The particular race that God has designed for you,

then that's the one you want to run. They say, God,

I'm gonna strip off everything, the sins that mess me up.

I do a moral inventory, and I get the junk

out of my life and the weights, the things that

hold me back, the habits and the hurts and the

hang ups that hold me back. I let go of

those things and I run the particular race, which means

you're gonna have to let go of some expectations too,

because you can't please everybody else and please God. You

got to decide did God put me on this earth

to please my parents, to please my girlfriend, to please

my teacher, to please my clique, my club, my fans,

my peers, my parents, my partners, or did God put

me on this earth to live for the plan that

he made me for? And so you have to kind

of say, I'm willing to not just let go of sins,

and I'm not just willing to let go of waits.

I'm willing to let go of what everybody else expects

me to do with my life. And when you're when

you're doing that, then you're saying God, I'm ready to

become the woman you made me to be. I'm ready

to become the man you made me to be. That's

the first step simplify my life. Step two is in

the next verse or the next part of that verse,

and it's this, don't get impatient or in a hurry.

This race is going to take your entire life. You're

not going to finish it in a week, a month,

or even next year. God's plan to make you the

person he wants you to be is a lifetime plan.

It's going to take your entire life, and you can't

run the race quickly. It's not a short fifty yard dash.

It's a marathon. So you don't get impatient. You know,

when I was grown up as a kid, I actually

was a long distance runner, and pretty quickly you learn.

Your coaches teach you that if you're gonna run ten

miles or fifteen miles, or if you're gonna run a marathon,

you have to pace yourself. You can't start out really

really fast, because if you do, you'll get winded, you

run out of steam, you run out of energy, you

get fatigued, you give up, and you don't finish. You

got to pace yourself. Now, when you become a Christian,

you start growing really fast. Just like babies in the

early months. They grow enormously fast. They'll double in size,

you know, their first year and they learn. But thank god,

you're not growing as fast as you did your first year,

aren't you glad? You'd look pretty funny. In fact, you'd

probably take up the whole row if you grew as

fast every year as you did your first year. Growth

slows down, but it's stable and it's secure, and over

a period of time, God says, I'm not in a

hurry to growing you to where I want you to grow.

God is in a hurry. Not in a hurry.

You are, but he's not. When God wants to make

a mushroom, he takes six hours. When God wants to

make an oak tree, he takes sixty years. Where do

you want to be a mushroom or an oak tree?

I want to be solid like an oak tree. I

want my life to be deeply rooted. I want it

to be strong, stable, secure, so that when the rogue

winds of life and the storms of life buffet me,

and when I get blown over by problems and pressures

and suffering and sorrow and scandal and loss and all

of the financial problems that you have in life, whatever

it is, it doesn't blow you over because you're as

solid as an oak tree. I can show you how

to become a man of God. I can teach you

how to become a woman of God. I cannot teach

you how to do it quickly. It's going to take

your entire life. You spell maturity, TI m e. Now

we get in a hurry, but God's not in a hurry.

So you need to just relax and realize that He's

not impatient with you. Champions know how to pace themselves.

Here's the second verse in Hebrews chapter twelve, verse one.

Notice that part it says, let us run like the

race of life. Let us run with patience. The peculiar

or particular race that God has set out before us

circle with patience. That's why you know each week, at

the end of every service, I always give you like

one or two baby steps to take, because if every

week you take one or two baby steps, at the

end of the year, you're much further down the road

than you thought you were going to be. And life

is not one big leap across the grand canyon. It's

a baby step, one step at a time. To quote

that great theologian from what about Bob, you know, take

baby steps. Take baby steps, okay, and when you take

a baby step every week, you're making progress. Don't get

impatient or in a hurry. Number three, the third key

to running the race of life God as for you

is I must spend time focusing on Jesus every day.

I must spend a little bit of time. I'm not

talking about an hour, two hours, three hours, ten hours.

I'm going to start with five minutes, ten minutes, fifteen minutes.

Spend some time focusing on Jesus every day. And that's

what the next verse said about this race in life. Now,

why do I need to spend some time focusing my

thoughts my mind on Jesus, because whatever you want to become,

you need to think about it. If you want to

become like Jesus, you need to think about it. And

if you want to be like somebody, you become like

whoever you spend the most time with. If you hang

out with people who have no ambition, you're going to

have no ambition. If you hang out with people who

are critical, you're going to become critical. Whoever you spend

the most time with is who you're going to become like.

It's like that old cliche.

You can't soar with the eagles if you're running with

the turkeys.

So maybe there's.

Some relationships you need to kind of, you know, not

spend so much time with those people because they're tearing

you down.

They're taking you down.

But if you spend time with Jesus five, ten, fifteen

minutes a day, then you become more and more like him.

Now we call this a quiet time. A quiet time

is I don't care when you do it. You just

the best time I think it is in the morning.

Get up and you go find your favorite chair and

you sit down in it and you spend some time

and you read the Bible for five minutes, and then

you talk to God about the stuff that's on your heart. God,

here's the stuff I'm worried about. Lord, here's the stuff

I'm concerned about. Here's my schedule today. I'm really stressed.

I need your help. And then you be quiet and

you let God talk to you, and you say, God,

is there anything you want to say to me?

And you be quiet.

The reason why God's never talked to you is you've

never been quiet long enough. You always got the radio on,

and you gotta just sit there and be quiet and God.

Sometimes God will put a thought in my mind, and

sometimes like everything's say okay, go along with your life

and you move on. God doesn't have to speak aloud

to me. He's the one who created radio ways and

television ways. He can put a thought immediately in my mind.

We call it inspiration. The devil gives your thought, that's temptation.

God gives your thought, that's inspiration. You get a thought

that's stupidity, just kidding. You got to spend some time

focusing on Jesus every day. Here's what the Bible says

Hebrews twelve, verse two. We do this, In other words,

run the race of life by keeping our eyes on Jesus.

That's focusing on Him every day, on whom our faith

depends from start. That's the beginning of your race and

life to finish the end of your race in life.

You cannot become like Jesus unless you spend time with Jesus. Now,

let me give you a little tip, because some of

you have had this habit in your life where you

would have what's called a quiet time and every day

you'd sit down for five minutes or ten minutes and

just kind of center yourself and you get quiet, You

read the Bible, you pray, and then you go on

with your life, maybe review your schedule for that day

and say, Lord, is there anything you need to change

in this? But you've stopped it, and then you started it,

and then you stopped it, and you started and said,

let me give you a little tip. Find a special

place that that's where you meet with God every day,

and make that your special place that when you go there,

I'm going to go spend fifteen minutes with God, just

being quiet, thinking, meditating, looking at God's word, praying.

I don't care.

Again, it might be a lazy boy chair in your

living room and you get a cup of coffee and

sit down and sit back and get comfortable. Or you

go out in your backyard if you're an outdoor person

and you look outside and hear the birds and sit

under a tree, or you know you might you might go.

You just need to go where you can be alone,

where you can pray aloud. I highly recommend you pray aloud,

because when I pray, when I close my eyes, I

go to sleep. So when I talk to God, I

don't close my eyes, and I don't just think close

my eyes and talk like this, I'd fall asleep. I

talk aloud to God. I like to have a conversation.

You should do that too. So you don't want to

be sitting in Starbucks now, God, let me tell you

about it. I wouldn't recommend Starbucks to being the place.

I talked to guy after last service. He said, my

favorite place for my quiet time is sitting on the toilet.

The excuse me, he said, the bathroom is the only

place that's quiet in my house. I got a lot

of little kids. Fine, okay, whatever floats your boat, you

find the spot that becomes special and sacred.

Did you know that this was Jesus' habit.

Jesus liked to go to a standard place where he

could talk to the Father, for God the Father. Notice

this verse up here on the screen. Luke twenty two

says this, Jesus went out as usual to the mount

of Olives to pray. And now notice as he went

out as usual, that means it was his abbot, it

was his custom he liked to go.

I've been to this garden on.

The Mount of Olizus, whereas there's a grove of olive trees.

He liked to go there, and that's where he would

have his quiet time. You need to choose a special

place where you meet God every day. Now here's the thing.

The more time you spend with God, the more you're

going to become like him. The more time you spend

reading the Bible and studying about Jesus, the more you're

going to learn his love, his patience, his peace, his

character in your life. The Bible tells us that Moses

spent so much time with God that one time he

was up on Mount Sinai when he's getting the Ten Commandments,

and he has spent months alone with God up on

this mountain, and when he came down. He spent so

much time with God. He literally, the Bible says, the

people said he glowed. He had a presence about him

that actually glowed. He'd been so much, spent so much

time with God, and for a while he wore a

veil to kind of high this glow. Now, the next

verse says this, we don't have to worry about that.

Tewod Corinthians III says, all of us have had that

veil removed.

You know, we don't have to wear a veil.

So that we can be mirrors that brightly reflect the

glory of the Lord. And as the spirit of the

Lord works within us, as God's spirit works within you,

day after day, we become there's that word third calling

we become more and more like Him and reflect His

glory even more. Now, once you circle a couple of things,

first circle the phrase.

More and more.

That means that in this race to maturity, to become

a woman of God, to become a man of God,

to become the person that God made you to be,

not what your parents wanted you to be, but what

God wants you be. It takes time. It's more and more.

In other words, it's sequential. It is systematic, it is daily,

it's one step at a time.

It's a process.

Becoming implies that it doesn't happen instantly. You see, all

of us, what we want is a quick fix in

our life. We want one thing that'll take away all

of our problems and all of our hang ups and

all of our fears instantly.

So we go around looking for.

That one book to read that'll change my life, that

one message to listen to on a CD that'll change

my life.

We want to take a pill.

Find the magic bullet, have an experience in boom. It's

just gonna instantly transfer me and all of a sudden.

I love everybody.

Nobody makes me impatient anymore. I'm just cool, copasetic and

I get. I'm just I'm like Jesus. It ain't gonna happen.

It doesn't happen that way. There is no there's instant

mashed potatoes. Okay, there's instant coffee. There is no instant

spiritual maturity. It just doesn't happen. It takes time, one

step at a time, and God, as I said, is

never in a hurry. So as I spend time focusing

on Jesus every day, it says we become more and

more like Him, and then it says we reflect his

glory circle. That word reflect. If you spend time with God,

you're going to start reflecting the qualities of God, his love,

his joy, his peace, his patience. This reflection is actually

has a biological basis in your brain. Scientists have discovered

that inside your brain you have what are called mirror neurons.

A lot of study being done on this right now,

mirror neurons. And what the mirror neurons do is they

allow you to feel what other people feel when you

look at them. It's why you're able to empathize and

sympathize with people. And so for instance, if I were

to yawn right now, half the church would start yawning.

In fact, me just saying the word yawn make some

of you want to yawn, and your mirror neurons are firing.

It's why when you go to a movie and you

see somebody in a scary situation, your body gets scared.

The mirror neurons are firing in your body. And when

you see somebody win a game and they're celebrating, you

feel that same joy. You didn't even play the game,

but you felt that because your mirror neurons are enjoying

the win that that guy just had. It allows you

identify and when somebody's sad, you feel sad. And if

you're watching a movie and somebody gets kissed, you feel that.

You feel good. You feel what it's like to feel loved,

to feel cherished, to feel embraced. Those are your mirror

neurons at work. When you spend time with God and

you focus on him, your mirror neurons begin to reflect

God's love, God's quality in your life. You tend to

see things the way He sees it, and you become

more and more like him.

That was such an encouraging message 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 Hope 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 deadily,

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 bad, 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 rickat pastorick 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