Rick Warren - Choosing Your Future II

Pastor Rick Warren often says, you were made by God and for God,

and until you understand that, life will never make sense. Welcome to Pastor

Rick's Daily Hope. Today. In our series called God's Vision for the Rest

of your Life, Rick continues in his effort to help you discover the unique

purpose and vision that the Lord has for your life. In just a few

moments, we're going to tell you how to get a hardcover copy of Pastor

Rick's wonderful book, The Purpose of Christmas, just in time for the season.

Go to pastor Rick dot com to find out more, or text the

word daily to eight hundred six hundred five thousand and four. That's Pastorick dot

com. Or the word daily to eight hundred six hundred five thousand and four.

Right now, here's Pastor Rick Warren with part two of a message called

Choosy in your Future. And Jesus said this about his disciples John seventeen.

They are no more defined by the world than I am defined by the world.

Can you say that about you? No, you can't, because you've

been defined by the people in your life. You see, this is so

important that we can't deal with anything else. Do you deal with this one,

because when you know who you are, it sets you free from the

fear of disapproval, and most people are scared to death of criticism and rejection

and disapproval. It's so important I wrote a new chapter on it in The

New Purpose Driven Life, because it's one of the two things. Envy says

I must be like you to be happy, and people pleasing says I must

be liked by you to be happy. Both of them are wrong, and

both of them will keep you from fulfilling the life God intended for you to

live. You have to say, I'm going to resolve that I will refuse

to be defined by other people, and I'm not going to let other people's

approval or disapproval shape my life. I'm going to live for an audience of

one. This is what Moses did, and your first life shaping resolution is

to say this. I resolved that no more will I let other people press

me into their mold. I'm going to be what God wants me to be.

I'm going to do what God wants me to do, and I'm going

to fulfill the plan that God has for my life, not somebody else's plan

for my life. Why because you can trust God. The Bible says this

Jeremiah twenty nine on the screen. I know the plans I have for you,

says the Lord. They are plans for good and not for disaster.

Plans to give you a future and a hope. Now, friends, that

is real success, Real success, not phony, fake artificial success. Real

success in life is being exactly what you were created to be and nothing more

than that. I want you, as your pastor, I want you to

succeed in the rest of your life. But the only way you're going to

do that is to be who God made you to be, not what other

people are pressuring you to be, not what they want you to be,

being who God wants you to be. I refuse to be defined by others.

Second, the second resolution that you need to make in life to be

all that God wants you to be, a life shaping chose choice is this,

I choose short term pain for long term gain. I choose short term

pain for long term gain. Now, anybody who's ever played a sports knows

this one. You've got to put out the effort. You've got to practice,

You've got to work hard, You've got to put out some sweat in

order to play in the championship game. You just don't walk out and win

the championship. No pain, no gain. You've got to put out to

get back. If you're gonna be good at anything, you've got to put

out short term pain for long term gain. That's not just true in sports,

it's true in finances, it's true in relationships. I have a good

marriage, but I worked at it can and I have worked at it hard

for years. It didn't come easy. Nobody just has an easy relationship.

You got to work at it to make your marriage work. It takes work

to make it work, so you put out short term pain for a long

term gain. Am I grateful for the marriage I've got now? Are you

kidding me? I'd pay a million bucks it's incalculable what my marriage is worth

to me. But it wasn't always that way. We had to put out

short term pain for long term gain. Why has this resolution important in your

life? Because most of the problems in your life come from your inability to

delay gratification. Everything in society teaches us I want everything, and I want

it now, and I want it free and I want it easy. Well,

life isn't that way, So every problem in your life comes from your

inability to put off the pleasure in order to get it a longer amount of

it later on. I want it now, I want it free, and

I want it easy. The reason you're in debt is because of your inability

to delay gratification. That's why you're in debt, because you say, I

see it and I want it now. Do I have the money for it?

No? Can I afford it No? So I'm going to charge it

and I'm going to put it on a credit card. Every time you use

a credit card to buy something you can't afford, you are refusing to delay

gratification, and you get deeper and deeper in debt. And the reason America

is falling off a fiscal cliff is because our government doesn't know how to delay

gratification. We want it all, and we want it all now, even

though we can't pay for it. This is true physically in your health.

I don't want to pay for a good health with exercise and proper diet and

getting the right amount of sleep. I just want to do whatever I want

to do and feel good. It isn't going to happen. You're going to

feel bad if you don't do the pain to get the gain. It's true

in relationships when people go and say, you know, I don't want to

follow what God says about sex. I want to have sex now. I'm

not married, but I want to have sex now. It causes problems in

relationships because when you have sex with somebody, you give part of your heart

to them. There's an emotional attachment and you give keep giving part of yourself

away. It causes spiritual problems. Would you agree with me that usually the

right thing to do is not the easy thing to do. Everybody agree with

that the easy thing to do is typically the wrong thing to do. The

right thing to do is usually the hard thing. It's the painful thing.

When somebody hurts me, the easy things hurt him back. The right thing

to do is forgive them. That is not easy, and that is not

painless. It's painful to forgive. I don't want to let it go.

I don't want to forgive them. I want to carry a grudge. The

right thing is often the hard thing to do. Now here's what happened with

Moses. He made a choice. Verse twenty five. Moses chose he might

circle that Moses chose to be mistreated. That's painful, along with the people

of God as a slave, rather than to enjoy in the palace of Pharaoh

the pleasures of sin for a short time. You know what I love about

the Bible. It always tells the truth. It doesn't gloss over anything.

In that verse it says, rather than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for

a short time, sin is fun. Pleasures of sin for a short time.

Sin's fun. Even the Bible admits it. Sin is fun. Nobody

would do sin if it were painful. 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. Let the true reason for

the season fill your heart with hope this year when you discover Pastor Rick's inspirational

book The Purpose of Christmas. In it, Rick shows you how Christmas is

designed to meet your three deepest needs and out receiving the three Christmas gifts God

has for you will transform your life forever. This book is sure to become

a loved family favorite to be read at every Christmas and to be shared with

your friends who may not know how much God loves them. We'll send you

the inspiring and beautifully illustrated book The Purpose of Christmas as our way of saying

thanks when you give a gift to help Daily Hope take the Certain Hope of

Jesus to people around the world. To get your copy of this great resource,

just call eight hundred six hundred five zero zero four or go to Pastorick

dot com to get yours. That's eight hundred and six hundred at five zero

zero four or pastorick dot com. You're listening to Pastor Rick's Daily Hope once

again, here's Pastor Rick Warren. Sin is fun, pleasures of sin for

a short time. Sin's fun. Even the Bible admits it. Sin is

fun. Nobody was reduced sin if it were painful. We do sin because

it's pleasurable. It's pleasurable to break the law. It's pleasurable to eat too

much, it's pleasurable to do all kinds of things that are not good for

you. And even the Bible says that. But it says pleasure and sin

for a season. It's short term. You don't go out and have your

kicks. God's I gonna stop you, but you will have the kickbacks.

You can go out and do whatever you want to, but then there are

consequences. You see, you were free. God has given you free choice

to make any choice you want, but you are not free from the consequences

of those choices. So I can go out and I gotta have sex with

as many people as I want, But if I get somebody pregnant or I

get an STD, that's a consequence I'm not free from. You are free

to choose anything you want to do, you are not free from the consequences,

and the moment you make that choice, you are no longer free.

So you better make good choices because you can't choose choice and not choose the

consequence. He says, I want. He chose to be mistreated, do

the short term pain for the long term gain of doing the right thing.

That's interesting. In verse twenty three, God chooses Moses when he's a baby.

He said, that's the guy I'm gonna use. In verse twenty four,

Moses had to choose God. God has chosen you. Have you chosen

him? In Verse twenty four we see Moses refusing, and in verse twenty

five we see Moses choosing. The negative is followed by a positive. Before

you make some resolutions, you may have to do some dissolutions, refusing then

choosing. Now, the Christian life is not simply a matter of refusing.

Some people think the Christian life is just all a bunch of no's, a

bunch of don't do things. You know, I don't shrink, I don't

smoke drink, smoke, custchu run around girls that do you know? If

the Christian life just a matter was a matter of a bunch of things you

didn't do, then anybody who's dead would qualify as Christian because they don't do

anything no. No. Christianity is not something you say, I refuse this,

but I choose this. And the negative is always followed by a positive.

It's followed by positive. And notice in that did you notice earlier where

it says when he had grown up, he refused and he chose. He

did the refusing and choosing when he had grown up. It's a mark of

maturity, it's a mark of responsibility. Question where do you need to start

accepting responsibility for your life? Who are you blaming for your unhappiness. Well,

if I just had a different wife, really well, if I just

hadn't grown up in the family, really well, if I could just get

married, if we could just have a baby, if I just had a

job. Who were you blaming? What are you blaming for your unhappiness?

You are as happy as you choose to be, because happiness is a choice,

and so is being close to God. You're as close to God as

you choose to be. If you're not close to God, guess who moved.

God didn't move. God wants to be close to you. If you're

not close to God right now, it's because you have chosen to not be

close to God. You got to make the choice. The fact is,

he says, when he had grown up, he refused, and he chose,

when are you going to grow up spiritually? You cannot live off of

somebody else's spiritual commitment. My parents love Jesus Christ. So I grew up

in a home where I was taught to love Jesus as a young boy.

But if I were still living my life based on my parents' commitment, we

would be in deep Do do right now, because that's not enough commitment to

get a grown man through life. At some point, my parents' faith had

to either become my faith or not. You cannot depend on anybody else for

your spiritual commitment. I can't tell you how many guys man I've talked to.

You know, we're playing golf or your surfing or shooting some hoops,

and I talked to him and they say, well, you know, my

wife is a committed Christian. And I go and, so, what you

think that's going to give you some ticket into heaven because your wife's a committed

Christian. Of course not. You need a man up and make your own

commitment. I was on a plane the other day and a guy told me,

he said, you know, I was talking about becoming a Christian and

following Jesus. He goes, well, my uncle is a missionary. And

I said, yeah, you think that's gonna get you into heaven because you

got an uncle who's a missionary. It's a personal decision. It's like marriage.

I could say to some of these kids who are on stage, I

know you're married. They said, how do you know that? Pressure right?

Well, your parents are married, your grandparents are married, your great

grandparents are married. You got an older brother who's married. So you're married.

No, no, no. Marriage is a personal decision, and so

is faith in Christ. You can't depend on anybody else. When Moses had

grown up, he started accepting responsibility for his own spiritual growth. Have you

done that? Have you done that? See, you can't blame anybody else

for the direction of your life. If it sucks, it's because you're letting

it suck. Now, let me be real clear. We are products of

our past, but we are not prisoners of our past. Yes, your

past has influenced you, but it doesn't control you. Other people can hurt

you, and they will. I'm sorry, I'm really sorry. Other people

can hurt you, they can harm you, and other people can scar you.

But nobody can ruin your life except you. They don't have the power

to ruin it because you have the power of choice. They can harm you,

they can hurt you, they can scar you, but they cannot ruin

you unless you allow them to. Do you accept responsibility? Answer, I'm

gonna choose short term pain for long term gain. Now let me just say

to the I know we've got a young students in our services today, so

let me just tell you this. You're going to have pain in life either

now or later, and you can either do the easy thing now, easy

life now, hard life later, hard life now, easy life later.

In other words, if I do the hard thing right now, and I

put in the effort and the discipline to learn, to grow, to become

strong, to mature, and I do the hard things now later in life,

I get to benefit from all of that. I right now am benefiting

from decisions I made in my twenties. And I'm benefiting from those financial decisions

that I made in my twenties to not spend more than I made, to

save, to tithe, to honor God, all of the I'm benefiting from

that many years later because I was disciplined. I did the hard thing first.

Now, if you're a teenager and you do the easy thing first,

you're going to do the hard thing later, and life will be hard the

rest of your life. You can goof off in school and you not learn,

and you cannot grow, and you not accept responsibility, not grow up,

and then the rest of your life it will be hard. So it's

either going to be pain now or later. I suggest you get the pain

out of the way early. There are a couple promises from God about pain

they're on your outline. First thing God says is even the pain you go

through number one, it's going to help you grow. Romans five. We

can have joy even in our troubles because we know that these troubles produce patients,

and patience produces character, and character produces hope. So I even know

when I'm going through the short term pain, it's producing character in my life.

And the second thing I know God promises is He's going to reward me

for the pain I go through in heaven next verse. Yet, these present

troubles that we're going through are quite small, and they won't last very long.

I mean, even if they lasted my entire life, that's only ninety

years compared to trillions of years in heaven. Yet they produce, problems,

are productive. They produce for us an immeasurably great glory that will circle this

last forever. We're gonna have eternity to celebrate short term pain for long term

gain. Because God's more interested in your character than your comfort. Why are

am I going through all these problems? God's more interested in your character than

your comfort, And there's long term gain for the short term pain. The

verse after that, when we just read is verse eighteen. Look up here

on the screen, Paul says, So we fix our eyes not on what

is seen, but on what is unseen. What is seen is temporary,

but what is unseen is eternal. The problems that I'm looking at right now

in my life, I see you on my problems, financial problems, relational

problems, physical problems, emotional problems, mental problems. I see those problems.

But then I gonna last. What's gonna last is the character I developed

from going through them. What's gonna last is my trust in God that I'm

going through. What's going to last is the reward I get for putting my

faith in Christ when I'm going through the problems. So what do I do.

The first thing I do is I say, I am going to refuse

to define let myself be defined by other people. And second, I'm going

to choose short term gain for long term short term pain for long term gain.

That's what Moses did. Third thing Moses did third life shaping resolution.

I choose God's values, not the world's. I choose God's values for my

life, not the world's values. This is what Moses did, and this

is why God used him Hebrews eleven, verse twenty six. The next verse,

Moses regarded. Now, that word regarded means to evaluate. It means

to consider, It means to weigh in the balance. He's making a value

judgment. He's clarifying what matters most. Moses regarded disgrace for the sake of

Christ. In other words, I'm gonna be treated like a slave. He

regarded being disgraced for sake of Christ as of greater value. That's a value

judgment than the treasure of Egypt. He would have inherited all the treasure of

Egypt as Pharaoh's grandson because he was why looking ahead to his reward long term

gain. I'm not gonna have short term gain. I'm gonna have long term

gain. Okay, he's making a valuate. He clarifies what matters. Let

me ask you this question. What matters most in your life? What are

the top three four five values in your life? Can you name him just

like that, bam bam, bam, bam bam. What are the most

important values in your life? If you ask me, I would tell you

real simply integrity, humility, generosity. Because they decided over thirty years ago,

that's what I wanted to build my life on integrity, humility, generosity.

I'm not there, but that's what I want to build my life on,

integrity, humility, generosity because of the antidotes of the three traps of

leadership. Can you just name the three most important values in your life right

now? If you can't, you certainly can't live by them. You're not

living your values if you can't even name them. So you need to go

home, and before you go one more day into this year, you need

to sit down and say what's most important to me? What are the top

values in my life? And you need to write them out. Until you

clarify them, you can't live by them. Moses chose God's values over the

world's values. And why is this so important? I'll tell you why.

Here's a little secret. If you don't decide what's important in your life,

other people are going to decide it for you, and they're going to push

you into their mold and you're going to live their values, not yours.

You got to decide what's important to me and then live by those values,

not live by other people's values. Now, Moses said, I'm not going

to live by the world's values. What are the world's values well, the

the same ones that the world is valued throughout history. Every single advertisement is

built on one of the three values of the world. Passion, possession,

position or sex, salary and status or less of the flesh, less of

the ice, pride of life. They haven't changed in thousands of thousands of

years. We see them in these three verses. In verse twenty four,

we see the world values popularity, power, and prestige. In Verse twenty

five, we see the world values pleasures, the pleasure of sin. In

verse twenty six, we values possessions, the treasures of Egypt. Moses walks

away from the very thing we spend our entire lives trying to get. This

is Pastor Rick's daily hope. We're so thankful that you've chosen to spend some

time with us today. If you've missed any part of this broadcast, including

portions we didn't have time for, just go to pastorrig dot com and listen

online any time. Rick will be right back to close out our time today.

But first, let the true reason for the season fill your heart with

hope this year. When you discover Pastor Rick's inspirational book, The Purpose of

Christmas, In it, Rick shows you how Christmas is designed to meet your

three deepest needs and how receiving the three Christmas gifts God has for you will

transform your life forever. This book is sure to become a beloved family favorite,

to be read every Christmas and to be shared with your friends who may

not know how much God loves them. We'll send you a hardcover copy of

the inspiring and beautifully illustrated book The Purpose of Christmas as our way of saying

thanks when you give a gift to help daily hope take the certain hope of

Jesus to people around the world. To get your copy of this great resource,

just call eight hundred six hundred five thousand and four or go to Pastorick

dot com to get yours. That's eight hundred six hundred five thousand and four

or Pastorick dot com. Here's Pastor Rick with a closing thought, you know,

there's so much we can be grateful for during Thanksgiving. No matter how

things go wrong in your life, there's still something you can thank God for.

But let's remember those who are less fortunate. Reach out to somebody with

the love of God this Thanksgiving, maybe with a meal or a blanket or

invite them to church. Think about what you can do to let them know

they're not forgotten during this season of giving, Thanks God bless you all and

have a great Thanksgiving. Be sure to join us again next time as we

look into God's Word for our daily hope. This program is sponsored by Pastor

ricks Daily Hope and your generous financial support.