Rick Warren - Why God Shaped You the Way He Did — Part Two

Hello, everybody, This is Pastor Rick's Daily Hope. Thank you

so much for joining us today, and if you're brand new,

welcome to the Daily Hope family. We hope you'll enjoy

the teachings of Pastor Rick Warren right here. I'm so

excited for all of you to learn about your shape.

It might not be the shape you're thinking of right now.

Rick loves to use acrostics and this one is shape

your shape, your spiritual gifts, heart abilities, personality and experiences.

And one of the reasons I love this series and

have shared it with so many friends is because Rick

talks about the way God wired you and why you

need not just know your shape, but how to use

it to do the things that God designed you to do.

All right, let's get right to it. Here's Rick with

part two of a message called Why God shaped you

the way He did.

Okay, so God made me unique. There's nobody else like me.

I've got I'm shaped and I'm going to discover it

over the next five or six weeks.

Why should I even care? Oh? You should care.

There are a lot of reasons your success or failure

in life, your satisfaction or dissatisfaction in life and a

lot of other things that depend upon it. But tonight

is this introduction. Let me give you this four things

real quickly. Why you have to care about your shape

Number one because my shape reveals God's purpose for me.

It reveals God's purpose for me. The way you find

out what God wants you to do with your life is.

To discover how He shaped you.

And the better you understand that, the more clear what

God wants you to do with your life will be.

In architecture, they have a phrase that goes like this

form follows function. All architects know this form follows function,

And what that means is, tell me what you want

the building to be used for, and then I'll tell

you how to form it. Tell me what the function

of it is, and then I'll tell you what to build.

To build it.

If you want the function to be a church, will

you build it one way. If you want it to

be a cafeteria, you build a building another way. If

you want it to be a school or a theater,

or a business or an office, then you build it

every way. Tell me what the function is, what you're

going to do in it, and then we will design

it to fit that function.

And that's how it works in architecture.

But with human beings it's the exact opposite. In human beings,

function follows form. Function follows form. In other words, figure

out how God shaped me, and then I'll know what

his purpose is for my life. Figure out how he

formed me, and then I'll know his will for the

rest of my life. If I figure out how He

wired me up, that will give me a pretty good

clue as to what he expects me to do, because

God would not give me gifts and heart and ability

and personality and experience in one area and then say, oh,

by the way, we're gonna ignore all that, and I

want you to do this over here that you hate

to do and you're bad act. If you're good at something,

it's a pretty good indication that's what God wants you

to do. We're gonna look at this in great detail

in the weeks ahead. But knowing how you're shaped gives

you the direction of your life. That's why it's so

important you need this series. God said this to Jeremiah

in chapter one.

Before I shaped you. There's that word again, Before I

shaped you in the womb. I knew all.

About you before you saw the light of day, I

had holy.

Plans for you. Would you circle that holy plans?

God had holy plans for you before you were even born,

before you came out of your before you saw the

light of day. God said, I'd already had all these

plans designed for you, he says to Jeremiah, a spokesman

to the nations. That's what I had in mind for you.

And did you know that God had something in mind

for you before you popped out of your mama?

He did.

God had something in mind for you. He already had

decided what he wanted you to do with your life.

Now here's the thing. God won't force you.

To do his plan. You can waste your life. You

can blow your life, you can use it on all

kinds of personal self centered all kinds of things, and

totally miss God's plan and purpose for your life. In fact,

most people do. And that's the tragedy. And that's why

they're so frustrated and why they're lonely, and why they

worry and why they feel depressed, because they're trying to

do their thing and be something that somebody else wants

them to be, rather than what God wanted them to

do and be what God I wanted them to be.

God says, before you.

Were even born, I had holy plans for you, and

he had stuff in mind. Number two not only because

it reveals God's purpose for you, because it equips me

to serve him. The Bible says this in Isaiah forty nine.

God formed me in my mother's womb to be his servant,

and he commissioned me. God has a mission for you

that he has commissioned you to do. God says, I

shaped you to serve me, and I made you for

a mission. I shaped you to serve me, and I

made you for a mission. And if there's a life

mission that God has for you that nobody else in

this planet can do, nobody else may even know about it.

But it's what God wants.

You to do with your life.

And maybe you've missed that mission, and maybe you've misserving God.

And I'm saying, okay, let's start today. Let's make the

rest of your life the best of your life. Let's

don't blow it for all of your life. Let's just say, Okay,

I messed up a few years, but now I'm going

to shape, find my shape, observe God. Then I'm going

to find my mission and do it and be what

God made me to be and do what He made

me to do. Now, God will never ask you to

do anything in life that he hasn't already given you

the ability to do. So you look at your abilities,

you go, I'm good at that. That's what God wants.

Me to do.

The third thing, because life is a test. Life is

a test. Now this is a big one. You need

to know your shape because this is preparation for eternity.

We talked about this so many times, that this life

is preparation for the next life in heaven where you're

going to spend trillions of years and on this side

you're only going to spend eighty or one hundred years.

And God says, this is a test. I'm testing to

see you what you do with what you've been given

on earth, and based on that, I will determine what

I give you to do in heaven for eternity. One day,

you're going to stand before God and he's going to ask.

You two questions.

Sometime within the next one hundred years, you're going to

stand before God, and when you stand before him, he's

going to give you the final exam. And my job

as your pastor, who loves you, is to help you

prepare for that exam. Fortunately, as God wants you to

pass it, and He's already told us the answers. Now,

the first question God's going to ask you is this,

what did you do with my son Jesus Christ. He's

not going to ask you were you Catholic or Baptist,

or Buddhist or Jewish or Muslim, or he's not going

to ask you what religion you are. He's going to say,

what did you do with my son Jesus Christ. I

send him to earth to be your savior, to die

on the cross for you.

Did you accept that.

Or did you just blow that off? Did you accept

what I sent him to do, to give forgiveness, to

give salvation, to give you a ticket to heaven. The

answer is I accepted Jesus as your son. I accepted

Jesus as my lord, as my savior. I accepted Jesus

and what he did for me. I accepted his forgiveness,

and I began to learn and trust him. That's the

question that gets you into heaven. All the works on

earth will do nothing in getting you into heaven. It's

just that first question, What did you do with my son.

The second question is not about salvation. It's about the

stewardship of life. And that's the question, what did you

do with what you were given? And that's the second

great question, and that's going to determine not whether you

get into heaven, but what you do after you get there.

And Jesus told the number of stories in which he

said that your rewards in heaven and your role in

heaven and your responsibility in heaven will be based on

what did you do with what you were given here?

What did you do with the talent I gave you?

What did you do with the freedom I gave you?

What did you do with the health that I gave you?

What did you do with the family that I gave you?

What did you do with the relationships? What did you

do with your network? What did you do with the

education you were given? What did you do with your

spiritual gift and your heart and your abilities? What did

you do with the personality I gave you? And what

did you do with the experiences I gave you? Did

you just use them on yourself or did you just

really learn to use it for my purposes? That is

the question that this series is to help design, to

help you prepare for.

And God says this.

He says, if you're faithful in what I gave you

here on earth, and I didn't give you a whole

lot here on earth.

I didn't give you a lot of money. I didn't

give you a lot of everything. You know.

I gave you a little bit, okay, And I gave

you talents. I didn't give you all the talent in

the world, but I gave you a little bit. And

I gave you some interest, and some abilities and some personality.

If you're faithful in what little I gave you here

on Earth, then I can trust you with greater roles,

greater responsibilities, and greater rewards in heaven. But if you're

not faithful in that little stuff, I can't trust you

in heaven. This life is a test. God teaches it

over and over and over in the Bible. Look at

this one verse up on the screen. Jesus says this.

From where he sits, God overlooks all of us on earth.

This isn't Jesus's psalms.

He has shaped each person in turn, and now he

watches everything we do. Now not this, It says, God

is watching everything you do. Do you remember that song,

bet Middler. He's just saying, from a distance, God is

watching us. Will you got it half right?

Yes?

God is watching, but he's not watching from a distance.

He's right here.

He's with you. If you're a believer, he's in you.

He's up close and personal.

He is intimately interested in every single detail of your life,

even how many hairs wash out of your head and

go into the shower drain each morning. God says, every

hair in your head is numbered, and he knows when

you've washed a few. Now, God is watching you here

on earth. What is he watching to see what you

do with your shape? And Jesus said this, look at

the screen again. Whoever can be trusted with very little

can also be trusted with much. And if you have

not been trustworthy in handling worldly wealth, in other words,

the stuff I give you here on the earth, who

will trust you with true riches, true spiritual riches that

go on forever and ever in eternity, He goes, If

you haven't handled what I gave you on.

Earth, what do you think I'm going to do with

you in heaven?

This is a test, and so it's very important that

you know your shape. The fourth reason is because it

shows God's glory. When you use your shape and you

do what God made you to do, it not only

feels good to you, it makes God smile.

You know.

Irenaeus was a great Christian leader in the first century.

He gave a very famous quote and he said this,

the glory of God is a human being fully alive.

He said, the glory of God is a human being,

fully alive. He says, you know what makes God smile

when he looks down and he sees the guy using

the talents that God gave and he goes, that's my boy.

I made him to be a salesman. I made him

to be an accountant. I made him to be a

WWF wrestler. I made him you know, I wired him

to be an athlete. I wired him to be an entrepreneur.

And he's doing what I made him to do. That's

my boy.

And he looks down and he says, look at that woman.

I made her to do this or this or this

or this or this or this, and she's doing it.

That makes me happy because I'm the creator and that's

what I wired her.

To do and to be, and she's doing it. And

it makes me smile.

You see, anytime something fulfills the purpose it was intended

to fulfill, it brings glory to God. How does a

pencil bring glory to God by being a pencil by

doing what it's intended?

Pencils are made for writing.

And when a pencil is used for the act that

was intended, then it brings glory to God. Now, if

you use a pencil to get ear racks out of

your ear, that is a misuse and abuse. That does

not bring glory to God. Okay uh, how does a

knife bring glory to God? A knife is to be used.

Its intended purpose is to cut. Now, when you take

a knife and you try to use it for something

else like screwing in a screw as a screwdriver, then

you are abusing that knife.

What am I saying?

Everything you have in your life is a total gift

from God, everything, and it can be either used or

it can be abused. Every gift of God can be

a used or misused and abused. Sex When sex is

used the way God intended between a husband and a wife,

that brings glory to God. God goes, They're doing what

I made him to do. But sex can also be

misused and abused, and it dishonors God. Money can be

used to bring honor to God when it's used wisely.

When money is misused or abused, it brings dishonor to God.

Time time can be used to honor God.

Or can be misused and abused, and we abuse our

time and waste it, and it doesn't bring honor to God.

Everything in life can be used or abused. It's all

a different God, and it's all good, but it's used

or abused. And God says, I'm testing you to see

what you're doing with what I gave you. And there

are eternal consequences on everything you do, eternal consequences rewards, roles,

and responsibilities. So he says, I want you to bring

me glory. Now, what about people? When people fulfill their purpose,

they bring glory to God.

But here's the problem.

As human beings, we don't think like God, and we

think only really bright people and really beautiful people are

important and they're worth a lot. But those of us

who aren't bright and aren't important, we're not worth a lot.

You're dead wrong. Where does it say that in the Bible?

Does it say that God loves some people more than others,

or that Gods a summer worth more than others.

No, whether you're.

Contributing in some giant way, or contributing in some little way,

or you're sick and even can't even contribute.

At all, you have the same value in God's ns.

Thank you so much for joining us on Pastor Rick's

Daily Hope today. Hey, I'm wondering have you ever asked

the question what does God want me to do with

my life? If you're like me, of course you have

and you're not alone. God intentionally created you to fulfill

a unique purpose. It's so important that you discover how

you can live the full and abundant life that God

designed just for you. In the Shape to Make a

Difference Bible study, it was created by Pastor Rick and

taught by Pastor Eric Reith. Now, in this study, you're

going to see how the Crosstic shape, which stands for

spiritual gifts, heart, abilities, personality and experiences. And it will

reveal how God wired you and how you can use

your shape to do the things that God made you

to do. This is a six session video and workbook

study and it's going to help clarify to.

You your future goals, and.

It shows you how you can have the most fulfilling

life possible, a life lived for God's purposes by God's design. Now,

no matter what your age is, it's never too soon

or too late to discover what God has shaped you

to do. And this life changing study kit is perfect

for personal or small group study. We so appreciate all

your prayers and support, and today, when you support Pastor

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We're going to send you your very own copy of

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