Rick Warren - My Part in Fulfilling Christ’s Vision Part One

This is Pastor Rick's Daily Hope, the Bible teaching ministry

of Pastor Rick Warren. Today we continue in a series

called the Awesome Power of Vision. In these lessons, Pastor

Rick shows us how to pursue God's amazing vision for

each of our lives so that we can see our

future with faith and not fear. But first, do you

ever feel like you've lost your spark your joy? In

just a few moments, We're going to tell you about

an exciting new resource that will deepen your relationship with

God and restore your joy. You can take a sneak

peek right now by going to Pastororick dot com while

you listen, and if you want, you can just text

the word Daily to eight hundred six hundred five thousand

and four to find out more. Right now, here's Pastor

Rick Warren with part one of a message called My

Part in fulfilling Christ's Vision.

Nothing is more valuable to God than his church. It

is his bride, it is his body, it is his flock.

The Bible tells us that Christ died for the church,

says that in Ephesians. That's why the unity of God's

family was the number one topic on Jesus's mind as

he approached the cross why he was going to die

for the church. If there had been something more important

to Jesus, you can be sure he would have prayed

about it right before the cross. But in John seventeen,

which is jesus prayer for his crucifixion, Jesus mentions his

vision for our unity multiple times in John seventeen. Remember

I asked you this last week to read John thirteen

to seventeen several times during the week, because in John

seventeen twenty to twenty one, Jesus prayed this for you.

He said, I'm praying for all who will believe in

me because of my disciples testimony, and my prayer for

them is that they'll be unified as one, Father, just

as you and I are one. May they be unified

united as one Now. Like every human parent, our heavenly

Father wants to see his children get along with each other.

You want your kids to get along, you want your

grandkids to get along. And so today we're going to

look at how we can do that, how we can

get along better as brothers and sisters in the family

of God. First, let me summarize last week's message for

those of you who missed it on the outline, there

are twelve statements that summarize why unity is so important

to the church. And I'm not going to try to

share all the scripture versus that we looked at last week.

In fact, I'm just going to give you these twelve statements.

But why is unity in the church so important? Well,

here's what God's word says. Number one, the Bible teaches

us that my unity with us believers is the proof

that I'm saved, all right. Number two, the Trinity is

our model for unity. Number three, Jesus' last prayer request

was that the members of his church would live in unity.

Number four. God gives us his glory so that we'll

be unified. And number five, our unity is our greatest

witness to unbelievers. Number six Unity removes fear and creates boldness.

If you want to be less fearful and more bold,

this is the key to it. We talked about that

last week. Number seven. When a church is truly unified,

everybody's needs are met. Number eight. Baptism and communion are

visible signs of unity. And nine, focusing on our common

purpose is what creates unity. Number ten unity begins when

we realize that we are incomplete without each other. I

need you, you need me. Nobody's got all the gifts.

We need each other. Number eleven, Jesus died to unite us,

not to divide us. And number twelve, Jesus expects me

to work hard at unifying Christians, and he expects you

and me together to work on it together now with

these statements as our foundation. And that's what we talked

about all last week. The natural question is what's my part?

What's my role? How am I supposed to do my

part in fulfilling Christ's vision? Because one day you're going

to stand for God and he's going to say, did

you do what I asked you to do? So let's

talk about it. How can I be an agent of

unity in my church? In my church? Well, since God

paid the highest price for the church, he wants it protected,

especially from the damage that's caused by division and conflict

and disharmony. And God says that if you're a part

of God's family, then he expects you you to be

an agent of unity. You are commissioned by Jesus, whether

you know it or not. You know it. Now you're

commissioned by Jesus to do everything possible to preserve the unity,

protect the fellowship, and promote the harmony in your church

family and by the way, to all believers among all believers. Now,

let's look at four simple steps. I could have given

you a dozen this week, but I thought you know,

I gave you twelve points last week. Let's cut it

down to just four. Number one, here's the first step

on how you can be an agent of harmony and

unity in your church. Number one, focus on what we share,

not our differences. When you get together with other Christians.

Focus on the things we have in common, what we

share in common, not our differences. Romans fourteen, verse nineteen.

I love this the Phillips translation that says this, let

us concentrate on the things which create harmony. All right,

let us concentrate on the things that create harmony and

on the growth of our fellowship together. Now, let's think

about this for a minute. What does it mean to concentrate?

What do you do when you concentrate, you let your

mind just go anywhere. No, No, it means you focus.

You focus. It means you give it your full attention.

You don't casually concentrate. It's intentional. When you concentrate, you

have chosen to concentrate. You choose to focus. You choose

to decide to figure out what you're going to focus on.

And when he says let's focus on the things that

create harmony and unity, he's saying, you're going to decide

to figure out what are the common things that we

share his brothers and sisters in God's family? So what

are they? What are the things that we share in

common as brothers and sisters in the family of God.

Because we're all different, we look different, we act different,

We're from different backgrounds, we different sizes and shapes, we're

different genders, different races. What are the things that we

share in common that God wants us to concentrate on? Well,

God tells us in Ephesians four that we share seven

big things in common. This is not all, but in

Ephesians four it says there are seven big things we

share in common. He says, I want you to focus

on that. Ephesians four four to six. Notice how many

times they use the word one in this In this paragraph,

he says, there's only one body, and there's one spirit,

and we've been called to one hope. There's only one Lord,

one faith, one baptism, and only one God, who is

the Father of us all, who is overall, and is

through all, and is in all.

You're listening to Pastor Rick's Daily Hope. Rick will be

back in just a moment with the rest of today's lesson.

If you've missed any part of today's teaching, you can

listen online anytime at pastorick dot com. That's pastorick dot com.

How do you feel spiritually right now? Maybe you feel

spiritually dry, like you're in a desert, or like you're

just going through the motions. Maybe you've lost your spark,

your joy. God knows how you feel right now. You

are not alone. He knows even David and the Bible

felt like that and Jeremiah twenty nine thirteen. God says,

you will seek Me and find Me when you seek

Me with all your heart. When you seek God intentionally,

it leads to renewal of your relationship with Him. That's

why Pastor Rick created a very special, brand new resource

called Going Deeper with God, a personal renewal retreat, and

it he'll personally leave you on a spiritual journey to

help you seek God together, you and Pastor Rick will

go through a series of audio lessons, and after each

session you'll take a little time to complete exercises in

the Companion workbook. You can do this at home in

short sessions, or you can get away for a day

and do it in one sitting. Through this retreat, you'll

experience a renewal of life within you. God will restore

your joy. As he renews, refreshes, invigorates, and revives your

spiritual life, You'll never be the same again. Wilsend you

going deeper with God a personal Renewal retreat as our

way of saying thanks when you give a gift today

to help daily hope, share the hope of Jesus with

it's a hurting world. Just call eight hundred and six

Hindred at five zero zero four, or go to Pastorick

dot com to get your copy of this great resource.

That's eight hundred and six hundred five zero zero four

or Pastorick dot com.

Once again, here's Rick.

Now, let's look at these phrases. He said, focus on

the things that you have in common. We're one body.

Jesus doesn't have multiple bodies, He just has the Church.

We have one spirit we've all been given the same

Holy spirit at salvation. We all share one hope. What's

that It's the hope of the second coming of Jesus.

He didn't stay dead, he resurrected, He went back to heaven,

and he promised to return. We have one Lord. We

don't worship multiple gods. We have one faith. And that

faith is contained in this one book, not multiple books.

It's in this one book, the one faith that God

has got to us. We have one baptism, which means

you don't have to be rebaptized every time he sin.

And of course there's only one God. So what he's saying,

we share the same salvation, we share the same forgiveness,

we share the same grace, we share the same mercy,

we share the same life, we share the same future.

These factors are far more important than your gender or

your race, or your age, or your economic status, or

your background or your sins or anything else your size.

These are the things that God wants us to focus on,

not our personal differences. Now, it's important to remember that

in all of the differences that we have too, not

just things we have in common, but in all of

the differences we have guess what those all came from

God to So it was God who chose to give

us different personalities. It was God who chose to give

us different backgrounds, different races. It was God chose to

give us, you know, different amounts of hair, different preferences, personality.

He's all kinds. So that means that we should value

and enjoy and learn from those differences in our church

family too, not just what we have in common, but

even celebrate our differences which are God given. Now, God

doesn't want you to merely tolerate other Christians. He wants

you to be united with them. But unity is not uniformity.

Did you hear that? You might write that down, Unity

is not uniformity. God doesn't when he says I want

you to be united. He doesn't want us all to

be alike. If he'd done that, he would have made

us all alike. And if you had wanted that, sorry,

that's not going to happen because God made us all different.

When you say I don't like the way that person

acts or lives, or I don't like their race or whatever,

you're basically saying God, you made a mistake. You should

have made everybody like me. God wants unity, but he

doesn't want uniformity. For unity's sake, we must never let

differences divide us. We should celebrate them, but we shouldn't

let our differences divide us. We have to stay focused

on what matters most. What is that learning to love

each other as Christ has loved us and fulfilling God's

five purposes for each of us in his church. Now,

I know what you may be thinking right now, because

you're saying, Rick, Okay, yeah, I get it. But what

about all those differences in members in our church that

irritate me? How am I supposed to deal with them?

How do I be unified with somebody who just irritates

me to no end? Well, let me show you a

couple verses. First, let me just say this conflict is

usually a sign that the focus has shifted the less

important issues, something that the Bible calls in Romans fourteen

disputable matters. There are some things we have to agree on,

like Jesus is the son of God, he died and

rose again, He's coming back one day. Bible is God's word.

These are not disputable matters, but disputable matters are things

where well meaning Christians can have difference of opinions, and

in Romans fourteen that whole chapters about that. You might

read that this week, but it says this in Romans

fourteen one, you must accept all fellow believers, even weak ones,

without arguing or judging them for different opinions. That's not

an easy verse to understand. Oh yes it is. It's

just an easy verse to harder verse to do. It's

easy to understand the message. Translation of this verse amplifies it.

Here's Romans fourteen to one in the message welcome with

open arms fellow believers who don't see things the way

you do. So you hear that, welcome with open arms

fellow believers who don't see things the way you do,

and don't jump all over them every time they do

or say there's something that you don't agree with. This

is scripture Roman's fourteen one. They have their own history

to deal with. Treat them gently. Now did you notice

that little phrase at the end there, they have their

own history to deal with? You know what is he

talking about? Well, we all we always tend to look

at how far a person has to go. We don't

know how far they've already come. And if you knew

how far they'd already come, you'd probably be rejoicing with them.

Go man, they'd come a long way. But we're always

judging them from where they are now to where they

need to be. And people are doing that with you too.

But they have their own history to deal with. Well.

It means that when you don't know the background of

a fellow Christian and your church family, when you don't

know the background, when you don't understand their background of

a brother or sister, maybe they came out of an

urban area, or maybe they came out of a rural area,

or maybe they came out of a suburban area, or

maybe they came out in poverty, or maybe they were

an orphan. When you don't know the background and understand

it of a brother and sister in Christ, you know

what you tend to do either dismiss them or judge

them for behavior that you don't understand. Let me give

you a question, Okay, that will change your perspective on

how you deal with people that you don't like or

that you don't understand. Okay, here's the question. Stop asking

when you see somebody that does things and you go,

that just irritates me no end. Stop asking in your mind,

what's wrong with you? And start asking this what happened

to you? What happened to you? Because there's always a trauma,

there's always a reason, a crisis behind behavior. Hurt people,

hurt people, And if you find somebody who's hurting other people,

if you dig deep enough, you'll find that they have

been hurt. And the people who deserve it the least

are those who need the most massive doses of love.

Stop asking when you see people that irritate you, what's

wrong with them? And start asking a much more sympathetic,

empathetic question, what happened to them? I wonder what warped

and what caused them to be so whatever it is? Now,

Paul understood the great importance of unity in the family

of God, so he's passionate when he talks about unity.

And First Corinthians won ten. In the New Living, it

says this, let there be real harmony, real harmony, so

there are no divisions in the church. This is what

Jesus wants, This is his vision the church. I want

no divisions in the church. I plead with you to

be of one mind, united in thought and purpose. If

you take a note circle the word plead and circle

the word purpose. Those two words plead and purpose for

real unity to take place, for it to happen in

your church, it takes both passion. Paul's pleading. I plead you,

I'm begging you to get along with each other. For unity.

There has to be passion and there has to be

a common purpose. That's why we've never in forty one years,

never had a split in saddle Back Church, not once.

Why because we've had the same common purposes for forty

one years. So that's the starting point. All right. Now,

let me give you a second step to being an

agent of unity. Number two, Realize that I must continually

work at unity. I have to realize this is not

something just happens. It's not accidental. If I'm going to

be close to other people, if I'm going to be

in harmony with other people, if I'm going to be

unified in a small group or unified in our church,

I've got to work at it. Now. The Bible says

that Hesians fourth ree says this, make every effort you're

taking notes underline that, make every effort to keep the

unity of the spirit, bind yourselves together, living in peace

with each other. Now that phrase make every effort means

it's going to take some work. Unity just doesn't happen

in your family and your marriage, in a relationship. In

our church, unity happens only when you are intentional about

it and you say, I'm going to make it happen.

We're going to make every effort to build unity. He said, well,

how do I do that? Well, I'm giving you some tips.

I could give you a bunch more, but these are

the ones we can work on right now. Let me

give you a couple of things to not do, because

these destroy unity. These create division instead of vision. Division

always destroys vision. Number one, here's something not to do.

Don't bring worldly values into the church. Yeah, why because

every time you bring worldly values into the church, it

causes division. It causes division. Now one of the world's

values and we see it everywhere today is the idolizing

of celebrities. You know, we now live in a celebrity culture.

There's a celebrity on the cover of every magazine practically

every week. And with the advent of social media, everybody

now wants to be their own little celebrity, and they're

turning their lives into reality shows. And everybody, I mean

junior girls and sixth grade boys are doing everything for

an audience today, and people are being marketed as if

they're a product, and many people are actually doing it

to themselves. They're marketing themselves as a product. And so

actors and musicians and politicians and practically everybody else are

being packaged and produced. They're long on reputation, but they're

short on character.

This is Pastor Rick's Daily Hope. We're so thankful that

you've chosen to spend some time with us. If you've

missed any part of this broadcast, just go to Pastorick

dot com and listen online. Anytime. Rick will be back

to close out our time today. But first, how do

you feel spiritually right now? Maybe you feel spiritually dry,

like you're in a desert, or like you're just going

through the motions. Maybe you've lost your spark, your joy.

God knows how you feel right now, and you're not alone.

He knows even David and the Bible felt like that,

and Jeremiah twenty nine thirteen. God says you will seek

me and find me when you seek Me with all

your heart. When you seek God intentionally, it leads to

a renewal of your relationship with him. That's why Pastor

Rick created a very special, brand new resource called Going

Deeper with God, a personal renewal retreat. Right now, here's

Pastor Rick to tell you more.

Let me ask you a very personal and serious question.

Would you truly like to have a deeper relationship with God?

Not a superficial one, a deep one Jeremiah twenty nine thirteen.

God says this, you will seek me and find me

when you seek for Me with all your heart. When

you seek God intentionally, it leads to a renewal of

your relationship with him. You're as close to God as

you want to be, and if you want to be closer,

it's up to you. That's why I created a Going

Deeper with God Personal Renewal Retreat. Yeah, Going Deeper with

God Personal Renewal Retreat. It's retreat just meant for you

where you can get alone with God and you can

connect with Him in an intimate way. That's going to

refresh and renew and revitalize your relationship with God. It's

going to give you a deeper understanding of His love,

and it will also prepare you to be used by

God in the days ahead. Now, as I lead you

through this Going Deeper with God retreat. My hope is

that God will use it to completely revitalize and re

energize your spiritual life. Together, we'll go through a series

of audio lessons and after each session you'll just take

a little bit of time to complete the exercises in

the Companion workbook that I've prepared for you. And you

can do this. You can do it at home, you

can do it at school. You can do it in

short sessions, or you can get away for a whole

day and do it all in one setting. My goal

is to strengthen your relationship with God, deepen your commitment

and surrendered Him in affirm your commitment to live for

His glory. You know, maybe you've never thought about this,

but God, You're ready to go deeper with you. He's

just waiting on you now. I want to help you

get started by sending you a copy of Going Deeper

with God Today, and when you partner with Daily Hope

to take the word of God these positive messages to

people all around the world. My team is going to

send you this very special spiritual growth tool just to

say thanks. I hope you'll take advantage of this today.

We'll send you going Deeper with God, a personal renewal retreat,

as our way of saying thanks when you give a

gift today to help Daily Hope share the hope of

Jesus with a hurting world. Just call eight hundred six

hundred five thousand and four or go to pastorick dot

com to get your copy of this great resource. That's

eight hundred six hundred five thousand and four or pastorick

dot com. Be sure to join us next time as

we look into God's word for our daily hope. This

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