Rick Warren - Daring to Commit—Part One

Hey everyone, it's Daily Hope with Pastor Rick Warren. So

we're continuing with this series called Daring Faith the Key

to Miracles. And in this series you're learning how to

have a bold, unshakable faith. And so far this series

is giving all of us powerful tools to share our faith,

a faith that gives you courage to impact the world

around you. Okay, here's Pastor Rick with part one of

a message called Daring to commit.

Your life is actually shaped by your commitments. We become

whatever we are committed to. If you don't commit yourself

to anything, you become nothing. In life, you're shaped by

your commitments. Great people are just ordinary people who've made

a great commitment to a cause greater than themselves. Nobody

is naturally great. You're not naturally great. I'm not naturetually great.

We're just normal ordinary people. People become great men or

great women of God when they commit themselves to something

greater than themselves. You need a cause bigger than you

to live for. If the only thing you're living for

is you, that's not a big enough reason to get

out of bed. Just call it in and stay in

bed tomorrow. Instead, you need something bigger than yourself.

To live for, which draws you out of.

Yourself, which makes you bigger than yourself, which brings out

greatness in your life. We become whatever we're committed to.

Now.

The problem is a lot of people are afraid of

making commitments, and we see that in our society day.

We have a lot of people who don't want to

commit to anything. There's no loyalty in our nation really

much anymore. And for a lot of people, it's kind

of like going down a buffet line, and the fear

of commitment comes from there might be something better a

little bit later on. And so you stand there in

front of the salad area, you know, at the first

of the you know, the buffet, and you go, well,

I really don't want to fill up my plate. There

might be something better. And then you get a little

bit further down in the you know, the the casse

roles or whatever, and you go, well, there might be

something better, and you get down the end of the

meet said, well, well there might you know, I'll wait

for the desserts to get down the in the desserts

don't look gathered because you haven't committed yet. You don't

have anything on your plate because you were afraid to commit.

You cannot live a life without making some kind of commitments.

You can buy a house without making a commitment. You

can buy a car without making a commitment. You can't

have a job without making a commitment, so you have

to make some commitment. You can't get married without making

a commitment. So commitments define our lives. And the key

is to make good ones, to make fewer bad commitments,

and to make more good commitments. Now the Bible says

this about commitment Romans chapter six. Top of your outline,

give yourself completely to God. That's a commitment, give yourself

completely to God, every part of you, for you've been

brought back to life, and you want to be tools

in the hands of God, used for his good purposes.

That's the highest commitment you can make in life, to

give yourself completely to God, to be used for the

purposes that He made you, that he created you. Romans twelve,

Verse one says pretty much something similar. Since God has

shown us great mercy, and he has offer your lives

as a living sacrifice, a circle the word offer and

circle the word sacrifice. Offer your lives as a living sacrifice.

Your offering must be only for God. And pleasing to Him,

which is the spiritual way for you to worship.

This is talking about your life. Offer your life.

As a sacrifice to God.

What I want to do this weekend is to talk to.

You about how your five deepest needs in your life

are met by five great commitments. You know that we

believe that there are five purposes for life. They're covered

in the Great Commandment and the Great Commission. In fact,

the matto the slogan the saddle backed Church for thirty

five years has been this, a great commitment to the

Great Commandment and the Great Commission will grow a great church.

That's the saddle slogan for thirty five years. A great

commitment to the Great Commandment and the Great Commission will

grow a great church. It's been copied by tens of

thousands of other churches. The Great Commandment and the Great

Commission are the two great statements of Jesus, where he says,

love God of all your heart, love your neighbors, yourself,

Go make disciples, baptizem and teach them to do everything

I've commanded you from those two passages, the Great Commandment

the Great Commission. There are five verbs, and there are

five things God wants us to do with our lives.

He wants us know him, to love him, to grow

in him, to serve him, and to share him with others.

We call this membership, maturity, ministry, mission, magnification. We call

it worship, discipleship, fellowship, ministry, evangelism. Doesn't really matter the

words you use. The fact is God has five purposes

for your life, but they're worthless unless you commit to

each of them. Now you've heard me teach on the

purposes of life many many times, but one of the

things I want to point out this.

Morning is that you cannot.

Fulfill God's purpose for your life by yourself. I'll say

it again, you cannot possibly, possibly at all. There's no

way you're going to do this, fulfill God's purpose for

your life by yourself. We were made for each other,

we were wired for community. We're made for relationships. The

Bible says it's not good for man to be alone.

Whether you marry or not, you need relationships in your life.

You need a spiritual family. And some things you can

only do with a you can only learn with others,

you can only be with others. And we're going to

talk about those five commitments this morning.

Now let's get right into it.

The first commitment is the one that causes your faith

to be strengthened. And unless you make this commitment, your

faith will not be strengthened on a regular basis for

the rest of your life. And here it is number one,

the first commitment. To strengthen my faith, I must unite

with others in worship. To strengthen my faith, I must

unite with others in worship. Now, worship is for God,

but it brings benefits to you. And I could give

you fifty benefits of worshiping God.

Let me just mention two.

It renews your faith and it restores your joy. It

renews your faith and restores your joy. When you come

to worship like this and you get together with other

people and you worship, it renews your faith and.

It restores your joy. Let me show you two verses.

Those who weigh on the Lord will renew their strength.

They will mount up with wings like eagles. They will

run and not be weary, they will walk and not faint.

How many times have you gotten up on a Sunday

morning or whatever and you said, I am so tired.

I really don't have any energy to go to.

Church, to go to worship, and that you went to

worship and afterwards you were more energized.

How many you would say that, Yeah.

Of course, because it renews your strength. You're not gonna

get your strength renewed watching golf on TV. That's just

gonna make you lazier and lazier. You get renewed, your

strength gets recharged. Sometimes I think of myself like the

coach on Rocky. You know, Rocky's out there in every episode,

I mean in every session in that fight, and he's

out there and he's, you know, pouring his heart out

and he's just getting beat to a pulp and the

bell rings. He goes, thank God, the bell rings, and

he comes back in the corner and the coach comes

over and says, you're doing a good job. Throw some

water on and pats them on the back, slaps him.

On the face.

Now get back out there. And sometimes I feel that's

what I'm doing on Sunday for you.

I'm going you're.

Doing a good job, Now get back out there. It's

Monday morning, tomorrow morning. Don't let them beat you up.

You're okay, you can make it. And so you come

in here and I kind of take spiritual jumper cables

and Buddha and I renew your strength.

Well, it's not me.

It's the Word of God, and it's music, and it's worship,

and that's what renews our strength. Look at this other verse.

Worship the Lord with gladness. Now it says come before him,

singing with joy in the in the in the Bible,

some one hundred says I was glad when they said,

unto me, let's go into the House of the Lord.

Not I was mad, Not I was sad. Like, oh, brother,

I'll let you know my bias. I think it ought

to be fun to go to church. That may be

showing to you. But the Bible says I was glad,

Not I was mad. Not I was sad, Not I

was bored, Not I was guilty. Now I felt like

I had to go out of duty. The thing I

love about Sadolebach church. Nobody comes out of duty. They're

here because they want to be here. I was glad

when they said to me, let's go into the House

of the Lord. Worship the Lord with gladness, come before

and with singing. Now here's the second life commitment. First

life commitment gives me spiritual strength. And that is my

commitment to be in worship regularly with other people that

energizes me, restores my strength, renews my joy. Number two

second commitment. This is the commitment that helps you discover

your identity. And this is the commitment that helps you

discover your purpose in life. It may shock you, but

this is how you discover it. I must connect with

others in fellowship. I must connect with others for fellowship.

We only learn who we are in relationship.

We only learn our true identity in community.

You'll never learn who you really are by yourself. You

only learn it in relationships. For instance, if you had

been born and you lived your entire life to adulthood

with no human contact, none at all, you wouldn't.

Have the slightest idea of who or what you were.

You wouldn't even know you were a human being.

You only know that because you're in relationship to other

human beings. You learn your identity by being in relationships.

If you had no human contact, you would know who

you are. Here's what the Bible says. The Bible says

that specifically we need to be connected to God's family.

We need to be connected in fellowship. We need connected

to the body of Christ. That's the phrase it's used

for the Church Romans twelve four and five. We are

like the various parts of the human body, and each

part gets its meaning circle the word means. That's where

you find your meaning in life. Each part gets its

meaning from Christ's body as a whole, not the other

way around. Each of us finds our meaning and our function.

That's your purpose in life as a part of his body.

But as a chopped off finger or a cut off toe.

We wouldn't amount too much, would we. Now this is

kind of obvious.

My ear only functions, only fulfills its purpose by being.

Connected to the body.

If my ear was cut off and it's laying on

the ground over there, what's the value of a cut

off ear.

None. It can't hear anything.

My nose if it got cut off and it's laying

over there on the ground, what's the purpose of a

cut off nose None? It has no purpose. It cannot

smell anything by itself. My eyes, if they're not in

my eye sockets attached to my body, what is the

purpose of my eye?

None?

It has no value. It has no purpose unless it's

connected to the body. The purpose that God made you

for can only be discovered connected to the body, the

Body of Christ. If you're not connected to the Church,

then you're not going to know the purpose. You're not

going to know your role. You're not going to know

your function, you're not going to know your value and

your meaning in life disconnected. If my hand is cut off,

it just withers and dies. It can't grasp anything. It

has no use at all. The hand is only useful

as it is connected to the body. Your value, your use,

your purpose, your identity comes in relationship to God's body,

to God's family, the Church.

It's all about relationship.

This, by the way, is why when you're in conflict

with somebody, your life sucks. Everything could be going good

in your life. You've got a lot of money, you

got a lot of health, you look good, you feel good,

all these things, and then all of a sudden, you

have a conflict with somebody and they criticize you, or

they betray you, or they reject you, and you have

conflict with that person. All of a sudden, no matter

what else is going on good in your life, your

life stinks because we don't like conflict, because we get

our identity, and we get our purpose, and we get

all of these things in our relationships. It's why conflict

is so miserable and so painful, and it's why God

wants we accept Christ into our lives, wants us to

become peacemakers, reconcilers, and people who, rather than create conflict

in the world.

We create harmony in the world.

The Bible calls it the ministry of reconciliation. And your job,

if you're a follower of Jesus Christ, is to make

relationships better, not make them worse. To create peace and

harmony and love, not conflict. Now, the Bible says this

Ephesians chapter two. Christ brought us together through his death

on the cross, and we brought us.

Who's he talking about.

He's talking about all the races, all the ethnic groups,

all of the people who are different from you, all

of the different languages.

He says.

Christ brought all of us together, every background, every nation,

every tribe. Threw his death on the cross. The cross

got us to embrace because at the ground is level,

at the foot of the cross, nobody's better than anybody else.

At the cross doesn't matter what color your skin is,

doesn't matter what language you speak. We're all equally loved

by God, equally valued by God, equally important to God,

have equal dignity before God. The Cross got us to embrace,

and that was the end of hostility. God invented the

church as a agent for reconciliation in the world. God

invented the church to be the one place where there's

no distinction between how you look, how much money you make,

who you are.

And that's true. In our church.

We got rich and we got poor, we got handsome

and ugly, we got smart people, uneducated people. We've got

every race, every space, every life. You know, I've told

you so many times. We speak sixty seven languages in

our church, and the A in saddleback stands for all

nation congregation because we want our church to look like

Heaven's gonna look when you get to heaven. Everybody isn't

gonna look like you. And if you don't like diversity here,

you're gonna hate Heaven, because in Heaven we're all gonna

be every The Bible says, every race, every language, every tribe,

every nation, every skin color, it's all we're all gonna be.

God invented that you look like you do because God

wanted you to look like you, and the person he

made sitting next to you, he wanted them to look

like them. When you reject your race or your background,

you're basically rejecting God. You're saying God, you didn't do

a good job. Because he made you. He wants you

to be you, and he doesn't want you to be

somebody else. So we are to build harmony with each other.

By the way that verse where it says Jesus brought

us all together.

Do you know the history behind us?

The Temple in Jerusalem was the most segregated building in

the world.

It was incredibly segree.

None of us, not one of us, would be able

to go into the Temple in Jerusalem because inside the

temple there was the Holy of Holies, there was the

inner court, and there was the outer court, and no

Jews were allowed, and no non Jews were allowed in

the temple. We would be called gentiles and we would

be on the outside. Whether we're from Africa or Asia,

or Latin America or Europe or we would all be

considered a gentiles, and so none of us would be

allowed to go in, even into the outer court. In fact,

do you know what the law said that if you,

as an Asian or an African or European, walked into

the and you weren't Jewish and you walked in the

outer court, they could.

Kill you the death.

Now you talk about segregation, that's the ultimate segregation.

Walk in here and you die.

The Bible says, Jesus came, he said, you've finished with that.

He said, no way.

When Christ died on the cross, not only was the

veil in the temple destroyed between God and man, but symbolically,

that outer court wall came down, and he said, now everybody.

He not only tore down the wall, he invented an

entire new organization. And it's the only organization on the

planet for everybody.

Is called the Church. Whether you're red, yellow.

Black and white, all are precious in his sight.

The Church is for everybody.

It's a whole radical concept, amazing grace for every race.

And that's that's the second thing here that if you

become a follower of Jesus, you have to commit to that.

You have to commit to that.

Look, here's what the Bible says tewod Corinthians five. Now

God has reconciled.

Us to himself.

That's salvation through Christ and what happens after I'm saved.

He's given us the ministry of reconciliation and the message

of reconciliation. Do you think either of those are needed

in the world today? Hello, have you been watching the

news this last week? If anybody needs reconciliation right now?

We have so many divisions in our nation right now,

between gender, between races, between economic status, and Christians ought

to be at the forefront saying hey, there's one place

where everybody's welcome, no matter where they are from.

It's the church.

We should be the place showing love, showing fellowship. You know,

this week I was watching on TV and I was

watching and I was kind of just shocked because Ben

Watson is a NFL player, a place for the New

Orleans Saints, and he got on one of these shows

and he started preaching and I had to tape.

But watch this.

Your message is getting out there, and it's a great message.

Yeah, it is.

And you know, honestly, we all have a problem, and

I've said it before, we all have a sin problem

as human beings, and it's something that we're born with

and we just see it manifest in different ways and

in this situation. It's racial, it's brutality, it's people breaking

a little awe, it's the smoke, but the underlying fire

is something that we all have to deal with and

that's our sin. And only through a relationship with Jesus

christis that we can really deal with these situations and

deal with our problem, and then we can move forward

and have reconciliation. Then we can move forward and create jobs.

Then we can move forward and have better relations between

the community and police officers. Then we can move forward

and truly love our brothers with the love of God

once we have that in our own hearts. And so

when I see things like this happen, I really hurt

because it is a heart change that needs to happen

in America.

Right now in order for us to be reconciled, you know.

And we should have taken your message after Ferguson. You know,

maybe if maybe, if a lot of the communities had,

you know, had taken your message to heart then a

little bit more and focused on some of the bigger

problems that we have.

You know.

Unfortunately, you know, so we have to we go through

these different episodes where now we watch Baltimore two nights

ago with burning US Senior Center. Senior Center was burned,

and you know, now tonight a very tense situation is

that you know, what's it going to take for all

us to sort of sit down and really work on

these problems.

Well, first of all, I think that that there is

great hope, and I've said, you know, the Gospel gives

us hope, it gives mankind hope. But I've seen people

join together. I've seen pastors in these communities. I've seen

different community leaders join hands. I've seen and heard myself

from people who are in the police force who aren't,

who don't have these same feelings, who aren't a part

of the brutality, who want those scenes to change. So well,

while it may seem when we're watching on TV and

we're away from it, that there's nothing happening, nothing positive happening,

I'm encouraged that there really are people out there who

are trying to make a change. And as soon as

we understand that we all have this susceptibility to do

these things, and we address our sin problem, I really

believe we'll be able to move forward as a country.

Ben was preaching on TV. Wow, I'm.

I'm gonna invite that guy to come to a sermon here.

He was so good, I mean NFL player, and he's

saying it's a sin problem. The hope is the Gospel.

We've got to give our lives to Christ. Until we're

reconciled to Christ, we can't be reconciled with each other.

He's saying all the right things. That's what's needed to

be said, and we have. This is the second commitment

in life. I'll not only worship God, I'll build fellowship

among other people because we need each other for fellowship,

and that's where we find our identity and our purpose.

The only way that we can win, all win is

by standing together.

What a great message today from Pastor Rick. There's something

I always can use in my own life after listening

to this show. All right, would you like to step

out of a life of ordinary existence and into a

life of extraordinary faith? Then please order the Daring Faith

DVD N study Kit by Pastor Rick Warren. Here's Rick

to tell you more.

How would you like to have a bold, unshakable faith

that gives you the courage to make the changes you've

always wanted to see in your life, your work, your family,

and in the world. That's not a dream. That's exactly

what God wants to do in your life. He wants

you to learn to live by daring faith. The Bible says,

according to your faith, it will be done under you. Now,

to help you develop that kind of faith, I put

together a Daring Faith Study Kit and it includes a

DVD and it includes a workbook. Now there's six session

in the Daring Faith Study Kit, and it'll teach you

these six things. How to build a life of faith,

how to expect the best from God, how to stretch

your imagination in order to see what God wants to

do in your life, to expand your vision, how to

have the courage to take the initiative with your faith,

how to face your fears with bold faith, and how

to believe and what to do while you're waiting on God.

You cannot afford to miss this series. It was one

of the most important series I've ever done at Saddleback Church.

And the Bible tells us in Ephesian three twelve, because

of our faith in Him, we dare to have boldness

and courage and confidence in coming to God with freedom

and without fear. I want you to have that boldness,

that courage, and that confidence when you come to God

in prayer, I want you to come to Him without

fear and come to Him in freedom. God will use

this Daring Faith Study Kit just like he used it

in the lives of ten thousands of other people. He'll

use it in your life if you'll trust Him in

all things.

So get this kit today.

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