Rick Warren - Where Did We Come From — Part Three

You know, we really live in a world that's full

of competing beliefs and values and choices, and what you

believe shapes how you live and ultimately who you become.

But the good news is God hasn't left us to

figure it all out alone.

No.

In fact, today on Pastor Rick's Daily Hope, we're going

to continue our series Reframing Your Worldview, where Rick Warren

unpacks powerful truths from God's Word to help you see

life clearly and live it with confidence and purpose. And

now to close out this message, here's Rick with the

final part called where did We come from?

Because there is a God, and because that God loved you,

thought of you, created you, sent usen to die for you,

puts His spirit in you, and all these things. Your

life has sanctity. You're identity has dignity. Number three, Your

days have destiny. Your days have a destiny That means

God has a defined purpose for your days while you're

here on earth. Now, they're not very long, but they're

here for a certain time. And the Bible says this,

All the days planned for me were written in your book,

that's God's book, before I was one day old. Did

you know that did you know that God already knows

everything that's going to happen in your life. He's not

surprised by anything. He knows it all. Hey didn't make

you do those things. He gave you a free will

to do it. But he knows it. And they were

all in that book before you were one day old.

Your days have a destiny. Now let's just review again.

The Bible says you're going to get about eighty years

on this planet, maybe ninety. Very few people make it

to one hundred years old. Now that's pretty tiny, pretty

insignificant compared to the billions of years you're going to

spend on the other side of death in eternity. And

so the Bible says, this life is preparation for the next.

This is the get ready stage, the kindergarten, the preschool,

the first lap, the warm up, the dress. Rehearsal for

the real show begins. And God wants you to practice

here on this planet what you're going to do forever

the purposes in eternity. We've talked about this many times

in detail, and God says, I put you here for

a destiny. And the Bible says this in Ephesians two

ten for We are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus

to do good works, which notice God prepared in advance

before you were even born, for us to do. God

prepared it in advance before you were born. God decided

how he was going to work whire you up. He

gave you certain ambitions, certain desires, certain drives. He gave

you certain interests. You know your hobby shore. Do you

think you got those? You got them from God. God

gave you those interests. And there's some things you couldn't

care less about. God gave those interests to somebody else.

And God uniquely shaped you to play a role in history.

And only you can play your role. And if you

don't be you, nobody else is gonna be you. We

talked about a couple of weeks ago. God likes variety.

There's nobody like you in the entire world, and He

wired you up uniquely to play a certain role in

this thing called history. Now, this is very important. God

never compares you to anybody else. Never. One day, you're

going to stand on a judgment day before God when

we'll all be evaluated, And the Bible says there that

God is going to look at your own life He's

not going to compare you like, well, why weren't you

more like that person over there? Why aren't you more

like your brother or your sister, your mom or your

dad or whatever. No, God does not look at what

you do. He looks at what you do compared not

to others, but compared to your potential. And he knows

your potential better than anybody else. He knows your potential

better than you do. And he wants to know what

are you doing with what you've been given? The talents,

the ability, the freedom, the parents, America, all of the

things that you have, the health, the eyes, sight, whatever,

what are you doing with what you've been given? He's

comparing you to what you could be, to what He

intended you to be when you started going on his

plan or you start going on your own plan. And God,

the Bible says, pays attention to every detail of your life.

He has every hair on your head numbered. The Bible

tells us that, in fact, he knows when one of

them falls out. So how could God keep track of

all those details? If human beings can create craze supercomputers

that can handle gazillions of computations in a nanosecond we

did that. God is bigger than all of us. He

can certainly handle the details of the universe, and he

cares about There is no detail of your life that

God is not interested in, none, because he sees it

all and cares about it all. Now can we miss

God's purpose in our lives? Absolutely, people do it all

the time. In fact, you can go all through life

and miss God's purpose for your life by your own choices.

And you choose say God, I'm going to go after

money instead of your purpose, Well, you will miss it.

Or God, I'm going to go after being popular at school,

You'll miss it. Or God, I'm going to do what

makes me happy with my boyfriend. Then you're going to

miss it. When you say God, I want your purpose

for my life, you won't miss it. He'll get you

in line, believe me, because he wants it more than

you do. But you can miss God's purpose in your life.

In fact, the tragedy is most people go through life

not knowing God's purpose. Well, is everything that happens to you?

It does. Everything that happen to you is that God's will,

God's perfect will for your life. Absolutely not. No, A

lot of things happen to you. That aren't God's will,

his perfect will for your life. What God gave you

a will, and you can choose to go God's will,

or your own will, or the devil's will. And we

always often choose to do our own thing instead of God's.

If I went out here tonight and I got drunk

and fell in a pool and drowned, that wouldn't be

God's will. That'd be a stupid decision I made. That

would be my will. Don't blame God for your problems.

We have our own problems. And God says I have

a will for your life, but I'm not going to

force it on you. You can choose to believe in

me or not believe in me. You can choose to

be a part of my family or not be a

part of my family. You can choose to follow my

purpose for your life or not. You were made in

my image. I give you the choice. I want you

to choose to love me. And that's why we're to pray.

I will be done on earth as it is in heaven. God,

do your will in my life. It's done perfectly in heaven.

It's not done that way here. Now can God bring

good even out of the mistakes that we make in life. Well,

of course again he specializes in that, and that leads

us to the fourth benefit, the fourth implication. Because God

is God, my problems have intentionality. That means the problems

that you have have a purpose. Every problem in your

life has a purpose, every one of them. That means

there is meaning in the mess you're in right now now.

You can't see it. In fact, you rarely do. You

don't rarely see the meaning of the mess until you

get out of it and you look back and in hindsight,

hindsight's twenty twenty and you can see a whole lot better.

But there's meaning in the mess. God has a plan,

and God's purpose for your life is bigger than the

problems you're going through right now. Any of you remember

the TV show Guiver? Does anybody remember that show mcgiver?

Who is that guy? Richard Richard Dean Anderson. That was

a fun show to watch because this guy could make

something out of nothing. I mean, he could use anything

for his purpose. I mean it was fun just to

watch because you know, he'd take a lipstick canister and

a little carriage juice and some duct tape and make

a bomb. And whoa, that is cool. You know, he

just had this ability to take you know, a little

baling wire here and little you know, chewing gum and

a little acetone over here, and all of a sudden

he's got a rocket ship. And you know he could

just use anything ordinary things around him, good or bad,

for his own purposes. Let me tell you something. God

is better than mcguiver. Okay. He can take everything in

your life, the good stuff, the bad stuff, the nasty stuff,

the screwy stuff, the bizarre stuff, the hurtful stuff. He

can take any of it, and because he's God, he

can use it for good in your life. Now, God

doesn't cause the problems in your life, so stop blaming God.

God doesn't cause your problems. He doesn't have to. You

got plenty of problems on your own. Problems are cause

you cause a lot of your problems. They're caused by

other people. They're caused by the world. They're caused by

the environment, they're caused by DNA and genetics. They're caused

by the devil called God. Doesn't have to cause any

problems in your life. There are lots of causes, but

God allows them and God permits them for a good intention.

He has a good intention even when other people have

a bad intention. A great example of this is the

story of Joseph in the Bible. Over in the Book

of Genesis. Joseph was in a large family of He

had twelve brothers, and these brothers they were very jealous

of him. They were very, very jealous because he was

the father's favorite and they didn't like this guy, and

he was and so the brothers decided to throw him

into a pit and get rid of him. And then

some slave traders came by and they said, oh, let's

just sell him into slavery. So they sell their brother

into slavery, and the slave traders take Joseph to Egypt.

He's a Jew, he's from Israel. For the next forty

years of Joseph's life, everything goes wrong. Now he's doing

it right. He loves God, he's praying, he's doing the

right thing. He's trusting God. He has integrity. He gets

a job as the head of a master's household and

the wife of the master falls in love with him,

tries to seduce him, and he says, no, I can't

do that. I'm not gonna have sex with my master's wife,

so she accuses of him right falsely throws him into prison.

I mean everything, This is quite a story. You can

make a movie about this one. Everything goes wrong in

his life for forty years, and he's wondering, God, is

this really worth serving you? But he just kept on

having faith. Some of you are in that situation right now.

Everything's going wrong, and he just keep doing the right thing.

And God had him exactly where he wanted and at

the right time. Through a series of circumstances, Joseph is

raised up to power to become number two in the

nation of Egypt, second only to Pharaoh. And he's not

even Egyptian, he's Jewish. But he sees that there are

famines in the Middle East, and so he puts into

it a government stories strategy where they start storing up grain.

And then when a seven year famine comes in the

Middle East, Egypt has enough food and he saves the day.

And he's very famous, and all the other nations start

coming down to Egypt to get grained because they didn't

save anything. And lo and behold these brothers, many many

years later are coming to Egypt to get grain from

the man. They don't realize is their brother that they

sold into slavery. When they finally meet, the brothers realize

that their lives on the line, that Joseph could be

in incredibly angry and upset and retaliatory. And we're chopped liver,

we're dead meat. You know, we're goners. And Joseph said

something very amazing. It's a mark of maturity. Here's what

he said on the screen in Genesis fifty twenty, you

talking to his brothers intended to harm me, but God

intended it for good, to accomplish what is now being done,

the saving of many lives. He said, you meant to

hurt me, and it hurt, but God intended it for good.

There is an intentionality behind my problems. Now listen, there

have been people in your life who intended to hurt you,

and they did. They hurt you with words. They may

have hurt you with physical you know, hurt. They may

have hurt you by being drunk and doing things to you.

They may have hurt you sexually. I'm sorry they intended

to hurt you, but God intends to bring good out

of it if you will give it to him and

trust him. If you will say, here are the pieces

of my life. God, the good and the bad. I

give you the pieces. God can bring peace out of

those pieces. God is bigger than the problems you've been through,

and His purpose is greater than the problems you've been through.

And he says, I have the problems are in heaven intentionality.

I will bring good out of them if you'll trust me.

God is more interested in your character than he is

in your comfort. You're not taking comfort to heaven. When

you get there, it's going to be comfortable. That's when

you get all the comfort and eternity. Right now is

the character building time? And how does God build character

in your life? Well, first, he builds it through truth.

That's why we're doing this series on World You so

that you know the truth about life. And the more

you know the truth that sets you free. So he

builds character through truth. He builds it through time. It

takes time to grow spirits, it can't happen overnight. He

builds it through testing. And God will test your integrity,

do you keep your promises? And he'll test your generosity,

and he'll test your humility, and he'll test your faith

all to make you stronger. And then he uses trouble

to help you grow in your life. You know, people

are like tea bags. You don't know what's inside of

him till you drop them in hot water. The Bible

says this in Romans chapter eight, Famous promise. We know

that God causes everything to work together for the good

of those who love God and are called according to

His purpose for them. Not everything's good, a lot of

bad in the world, but it works together for everybody.

To know. This is a promise for those who love

God and are trying to go in his purpose. Now,

if you don't love God, you're not trying to follow

his purpose in life. Everything does not work to good

in your life. It works for bad. God owes you

nothing if you're doing your own thing. But for those

to say, I love you, I want to be with you,

I want to know you, I want to follow your ways.

God says, you know what, then I'll take all of

the things that happen to you, even the stuff you

cause yourself, and I'll use it for good in your life.

And here's the problem. Because we aren't God, we can't

see the whole picture, and we can't see when you're

in that problem. You just can't see how any good

could come out of that possibility. You just can't see it,

and so you have to trust him. You have to

trust God to know what he is, what he's doing.

You see, most of the stress in your life comes

when you forget that God is God and you're not.

And whenever you forget that and you try to be God,

it creates stress. That's why the Bible says, look up

here on the screen, Psalm one hundred, verse three. Remember

God is God. He may we didn't make him, So

we have to trust him in our problems. Because God

is God, your life has sanctity, your identity has dignity,

your days have destiny, your problems have intentionality, and best

of all, your future is eternity. It's not going to

end here on earth because there is a God and

you were made in his image. There's far more to

life than just here and now. Oh, this is just

a little sliver of what's to come. The Bible says

God made you to last forever. Your heart's going to

stop one day, your bodily functions are gonna shut down.

That's going to be the end of your body. It

will not be the end of you. You were made

in God's image, you have a spirit, and one day

that spirit will go on into eternity. And the Bible

says this in Psalm twenty three, the most famous sam

in the Bible. Surely goodness and love, Surely goodness and

mercy will follow me all the days of my life.

We can just stop right there. But then it adds this,

and I will dwell in the house of the Lord

forever forever. That's a long long time. And God wants

you to be a part of his forever family. That's

why you were created. That's why he created the universe

so he could have a forever family. The Bible says

this Phesians one. This is God's purpose. When the time

is ripe, he will gather us all together from wherever

we are in heaven and or on earth, to be

with him in Christ forever. God wants to draw his

family together. Now, He's not going to force you to

be a part of his family. You have to choose

to be a part of it. He's not going to

force you to love him, to know him, to trust

him to do his purpose, and to be a part

of his family. You can say I don't believe in God,

don't I want to trust Jesus, I don't want to

follow the Lord. I don't want his purpose. I want

to do what I want to. God says, fine, have

it your way. He gives you the choice to reject him,

but you must be willing to live with the consequences

for eternity. You know, all of creation is preparing for

the biggest event ever in history. It's going to be

a time when the history on Earth ends and eternity begins,

and God gathers all of his children together who have

become his children, chosen to be his children, and He's

going to have a giant party for them, and it's

going to last for eternity. The Bible says this next verse,

all creation is waiting eagerly for that future day when

God will reveal who his children really are. I'm going

to ask you the most important question you will ever

be asked in your life. Is your name going to

be on that list? Is your name going to be

on that invitation list? The party for God's children that's

going to last for eternity. You don't want to miss

that one. You want to make sure your name's on

the a list, because that one has eternal repercussions. You say,

how do I get on the list? It's your choice.

God has extended and open invitation. It's your choice. Here's

what he says, John one twelve up on the screen

to all who received him. That's received Jesus Christ into

your life. That gave them the right to become the

children of God. All they needed to do was trust

Him to save them. Friends, it's your choice. You can

live a life with God, or you can live a

life without God. It's your choice. God allows you to

do that. You're made in his image. You can live

a life with purpose, or you can live a life

without God's purpose. It's your choice. I told you last

week that I don't have enough faith to be an atheist.

I really don't. When I look at the world, when

I see everything created and I look around it at all,

I go, this is no accident. It takes far more

faith to believe that had just happened random chance accident,

like this watch just was a random chance accident. Yeah,

it just over a thousand years it became a watch,

or gazillion years it became. No, I don't believe that.

I believe design is an indication of a designer, and

you're blind to not see that I don't have enough

faith to not believe in God to be an atheist.

But not only that, I reject the logical implications of

rejecting God, which is a life with no sanctity, a

life with no dignity, a life with no destiny, a

life with no intentionality, and a life with no eternity.

That's not living, that's existing. What's bow our heads? Will

you pray this prayer in your mind? Say, Dear God,

thank you for creating the universe. Thank you for creating

this world. Thank you for thinking of me before you

created it all. I'm amazed that you would love me

that much. Thank you for wanting me to be a

part of your family forever. Jesus Christ, I thank you

for dying for me. I don't understand it all, but

I want to trust in you and invite you to

fill my life with your life and your spirit. I

ask you to make me a part of your family.

Thank you for making me for a purpose. Please forgive

all the things I've done wrong. Please restore my dignity,

give me a new identity, secure my destiny for eternity,

and help me to treat everybody with dignity and to

share this good news with those who don't know it yet.

I pray this in your name, Amen.

If you just prayed to receive Jesus congratulations, we would

love to send you some free materials to help you

along on your spiritual journey. Just email Rick at pastorick

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

Rick with today's offer.

You know, I've been a pastor for over three decades,

and I've been teaching the Word of God for over

four decades. And in all of that time, the number

one question I've been asked by people is this, how

can I change or why can't I change? I've talked

to literally thousands and thousands of people who want to

change but are just stuck and they can't figure out

how to get unstuck. You know, the truth is you

can't change on your own because willpower alone isn't enough

to make permanent changes. Sure, you can force yourself to

change for a month or two months, but pretty soon

you're going to go back to your old ways. Pulling

yourself up by your own bootstraps is not enough. Talking

yourself into a change by positive thinking is not enough.

The Bible says true transformational change only comes through the

power of God inside you. So let me ask you

a personal question. How do you want to be different

at the end of this year? What changes would you

like to make in your life? What goals would you

like to see accomplished in your life? Well, it is

going to happen on your own. You're going to need

God's power and I want you to understand how to

plug in to God's power. That's why I'm sending out

God's Power to Change your Life, a book that I've written.

When you give a financial gift to support Daily Hope

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Your Life. Thanks a lot for listening today, and thanks

thanks for helping support Daily Hope. We love you, We

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