Rick Warren - The REAL Reason God Made You, According to the Bible (Use Wisely)

God has five purposes for your life. Number one, we

know that God wants you to know and love him.

You were planned for his pleasure, and that's called worship.

When you know and love God, we know that God

wants you to learn to love other people. That's the

second purpose of life. You were put on this planet

to learn to love, to learn to love God, to

learn to love others. One is called worship, one's called fellowship.

Then the Bible says that we are put on this

planet to grow up spiritually, to be like Christ. God's

goal is that you become like Jesus. Not God, but

become godly in character. You were created to become like Christ.

And then the fourth purpose, we know that you were

put on this planet to practice serving. This is preparation

for eternity. You're gonna serve God in heaven. God wants

you to practice now. And the way you practice now

is by you serve God by serving other people. You

can't serve God directly here because you can't even see him.

The only way you can serve God on earth is

by serving other people. And the Bible calls that your ministry.

And that's the fourth purpose of life. Worship, fellowship, discipleship, ministry.

The fifth purpose of your life is you were made

for a mission. And God has a life message that

he wants to communicate through you. And nobody else can

share your life message. And God wants to use you

to say something to this world. Now we all know those,

those five purposes that God has for our lives. But

what most people don't know is that God uses pain

to fulfill those purposes in your life. He uses pain.

But you have to cooperate with God for that to

happen in your life. And sadly, most people don't do this.

Most people waste their suffering. Most people waste their pain.

Most people don't profit from their problems. They don't harvest

their hurts. They don't advance from their adversity. Most people,

they don't learn from their losses. They don't improve from

their injuries. Most people never gain from their pain. So

tonight what I want us to do in this weekend

is to look at how to gain from your pain.

How God wants to use whatever pain you're going through, emotional, physical, financial, relational, spiritual,

in any area of life, how God wants to use

the pain in your life to move you toward his

purposes for your life. And he doesn't want you to

waste it. This is what Paul's talking about in the

book of Galatians. In chapter three, verse four, he says this.

Have you gone through all of this for nothing? Is

it really all for nothing? You know, as I look

at that verse, I just wanna ask you to answer

this in your mind. I'm not asking you to publicly

answer it. Have you grown from your pain or have

you wasted your pain? Are you further down the road

to where God wants you to be or have you

just had pain in your life and it never made

any difference? Well, maybe you say, I don't know how

to learn. I don't know how to grow. I don't

know how to develop from my pain. Well, it's not

too late to learn. So let's look at what God

wants to do in your life as we wrap up

this series. Pain can be used for all five of

God's purposes in your life. You might write these down.

Number one, the first thing I know is this. I

can use my pain to draw closer to God. I

can use my pain to draw closer to God. Now

when anything bad happens in your life, you have a choice.

You got a choice. You can either run to God

or you can run away from God. Now we by

nature instinctively turn to God in pain. Whenever there is

a massive tragedy, a bomb explodes, there's a fire, a flood,

a terrorist attack, people go, oh God, the first person

they cry out to is the God. Because by instinct,

we know that we should turn to God. But some

people turn away from God in this. You know, when

Matthew died, now several months back, it forced me to

go deeper with God than I've ever had to go

in my entire life. I've always spent time with God

every day. I've had a quiet time for most of

my life. where I sit down and I spend time

talking to God, reading his word, listening to him, and

talking to him in prayer. But I want you to know,

in the last several months, I'm a changed person. Because

I wasn't spending a quiet time with God every day.

I was spending hours, hours and hours with God every day,

just listening, thinking, meditating, praying, reading the word, reading good scriptures,

reading good books and things like that. because I wanted

my pain to draw me closer to God, not further

away from him. Now how do you do that? How

do you draw close to God in your pain? Well

you tell him how you feel, you cry out to God,

you argue with God, you trust God, you do all

of the steps we've talked about in the last seven weeks.

In shock, you express your shock to God. In sorrow,

you cry out in your sorrow to God. In struggle,

you argue with God. And in surrender, you let go

and you trust God. You take all of these steps.

You can worship at every stage of the development. This

is what our family has been doing now for several months.

We're doing what Paul did in 2 Corinthians 1. Look

at that verse. Paul says this. We were crushed and overwhelmed,

and we saw how powerless we were to help ourselves.

But that was good, for then we put everything into

the hands of God who could alone save us. And

he did help us circle the phrase, but that was good.

Paul says, wait a minute, we were crushed. We were overwhelmed.

We were in over our heads. We were ready to

give up. We were discouraged. We were defeated. We were dying.

But he says, that was good. Why? Because it drew

us closer to God rather than away from God. One

of the things that my family did in the last

several months is we did a surrender retreat together. We

went over to Rancho Capistrano and had Jamin Goggin, who's

on staff as the spiritual director at our retreat center,

and had him lead us in a retreat of surrender. Why?

Because we wanted to be drawn closer to God. Last

night I was speaking to the women of faith up

at the conference at the Honda Center. While I was

up there I heard a story about a guy who

came to Christ on 9-11, the actual day, 9-11. And

I just got to think, how many people do you

know have come to Christ out of pain? Maybe you did.

Maybe you did. Maybe there was a divorce, a death,

a disaster, a distraction, a difficulty, a disappointment. God says,

one of the things I can use this for in

your life is I will draw you closer to me

if you let it. Many of you could say pain

turned me to Christ. In 2 Corinthians chapter seven verse nine,

Paul says this, I'm glad about the pain that these

people went through. Not because it hurt you, but because

the pain turned you to God. That's the first purpose.

I can let pain draw me closer to God. Second purpose.

I can use my pain to draw closer to others.

Not just to God, but to other people. And this

is the purpose of fellowship. And if you allow it,

pain will deepen your love. Your love for other people.

It will mature your love. Suffering sensitizes you. Suffering deepens you.

Suffering turns you, it transforms you. I've seen the most stubborn, self-centered, selfish,

hard-bitten men turn into real lovers after a major tragedy

in their life. God says I can use pain to

draw you not only closer to me, but to draw

you closer to other people. Now you know the odds

aren't good for couples who lose a child. In fact,

about nearly one-third of all marriages where a child dies,

like in the case in my family, in our family,

nearly one-third of all those marriages ends in divorce once

a child is lost. But I'd have to say Kay

and I are closer today than we were four, five

months ago. Closer today. I'll just be honest with you.

I am more in love with my wife than I

have ever been in my life. And I just, well,

I won't go any further, because I don't want to

embarrass her, but I asked Kay today, as I was

preparing this message, I said, why do you think we're

closer today than ever before? She says, because you're so

nice to me now. Well, that might be part of it.

But I think there were a couple reasons, and we

actually would agree on this, is that after Matthew died,

we knew the statistics that a crisis, a death, particularly

a death of a child, often splits up a family.

And we said, we're not gonna let that happen. And

we intentionally worked at straining our marriage over the last months.

Intentionally worked at cultivating, at deepening it. We've been married

now 38 years, but we said, we're gonna make this

the best year of our marriage. And I think another

thing we did is we gave each other a lot

of grace. And one of the things was, we did

not judge each other's feelings. Because when you're going through pain,

your feelings go like this. They go up and down

and they go all over sideways and you think strange

thoughts and weird thoughts and have all kinds of emotions.

And we just decided no emotion is a bad emotion.

And Kay would say, I'm gonna tell this to you

and she would tell it and I would sit there

and non-judgmentally goes, well, that makes sense. that there is

no wrong feeling. Feelings are not right or wrong. Feelings

are just feelings. How many arguments have you had in

your marriage because you tried to convince your spouse their

feeling was unreasonable? Don't do the elbows right now. So

many of our arguments in marriage end up because we're

trying to talk each other out of feelings. Don't, don't

do it. Feelings are just feelings. They're neither right nor wrong.

They're just feelings. And so by showing grace to each other,

that brought us closer together. Do you remember a few

weeks ago, I talked about that there are four levels

of fellowship. And they go deeper and deeper. And we

talked about how in your small group, the shallowest level

of fellowship is the fellowship of sharing. That's where how's

your day? How are you doing? What's going on in

your life? How's everything going? That's the fellowship of sharing.

And that's okay. It's just not very deep. To go

a little bit deeper in fellowship, you go to the

fellowship of studying, where you study the word of God together.

To go a little bit deeper than that, you go

to the fellowship of serving. And if you've ever had

your small group go on a peace trip together, you

know how much that binds you together. It's when you're

serving together, you go deeper than studying or sharing. But

the deepest level of all is the fellowship of suffering.

The fellowship of suffering. And the only way you get

to the fellowship of suffering is by being willing to

be vulnerable. Take the risk of being vulnerable and share

what you're feeling.

Life can sometimes be challenging, isolating, and painful. Do you

or someone you know need some powerful encouragement right now?

Then let me tell you about the Journey Toward Hope.

This guided Bible study book takes you on a journey

to discover the five truths about who you are. You

are loved. You have a purpose. You belong. You have

a choice. And you are needed. This full-color vegan leather

study tool is filled with scriptures, prayers, exercises, spaces to journal,

and personal stories to help you uncover the hidden reasons

you may lose hope and teach you how to maintain

and bolster that hope for a lifetime. We'll send you

your very own copy of Journey Toward Hope when you

give a gift today to Daily Hope to take the

hope of Jesus to a hurting world.

Galatians 6.2, there on your outline, says this. By helping

each other with your troubles, you truly obey the law

of Christ. What is the law of Christ? Love your

neighbor as yourself. And he says, when you help each

other in your pain, when you help each other in

your suffering, when you help each other in your troubles,

when you enter into the fellowship of suffering, he says,

then you're obeying the greatest commandment, love your neighbor as yourself.

And I just wanna say to you that pain if

you will allow it, will teach you how to really love.

You see, pain isn't, I mean, love is far more

than chocolates and roses and valentines. Real love changes bed pants.

Real love changes, real love works. You know the meaning

of that? God bless you. Number three, the third purpose

of pain. I can use it to draw closer to God.

I can use it to draw closer to others. God says,

I can use pain to become more like Jesus. I

can use pain to become more like Jesus. In other words,

pain is always an opportunity to grow in character, to

grow in the fruit of the Spirit. Love, joy, peace, patience, gentleness, goodness, faithfulness, meekness, self-control.

These nine qualities, how do you learn them? You learn

them in tough times. You learn love in unlovely situations.

You learn joy in grief situations. You learn peace in chaos.

You learn patience, having to wait. You learn these things

in the exact opposite situations. I can choose to let

pain make me more like Jesus. But again, it's a choice.

Some people, pain makes them bitter. And some people let

pain make them better. Some people let pain be a

stepping stone to progress. And others let pain be a

stumbling block to failure. It's choice. Proverbs 20, verse 30,

Proverbs 20:30

look up here on the screen. It says this, sometimes

it takes a painful experience to make us change our ways.

Anybody wanna give a testimony on that verse? Yeah. Sometimes

it takes a painful situation to make us change our ways. Now,

The fact is, and I said this a couple weeks ago,

God's number one purpose in your life is to make

you like Jesus. Now, if God's gonna make you like Jesus,

loving like Jesus, thinking like Jesus, being kind like Jesus,

being truthful like Jesus, having the character, the integrity, the generosity,

the humility of Jesus, if God's gonna make you like Jesus,

he's going to take you through the things that Jesus

went through. Were there times when Jesus was lonely? Yes.

Were there times that you will be lonely? Yes. Were

there times when Jesus was misunderstood? Yes. Will there be

times when you were misunderstood? Yes. Were there times when

Jesus was criticized, maligned, and judged? Yes. Same for you.

Were there times when Jesus was so tired and fatigued

he felt like he couldn't go on another day? Yes.

Were there times when Jesus was tempted? Yes. What makes

you think God's gonna spare you He didn't spare his

own son. So why would he spare you? He did

not spare Jesus from pain. And if God is gonna

make me like Christ, then he's gonna take me through

the same kind of things that Jesus went through. Now

look up here on the screen. The Bible says this,

Hebrews 5.8. Even though Jesus was God's son, he learned

obedience from the things he suffered. The Bible says Jesus

learned obedience from suffering. Jesus learned to do the right

thing in spite of the fact that it wasn't the

easy thing to do. How are you gonna learn to

do the right thing in spite of the fact that

it's not the easy thing to do? Same way, through suffering.

Here's another verse, look at this verse. Hebrews 5, 9

on the screen. Suffering made Jesus perfect. And now he

can save forever all who obey him. You say, well,

suffering made Jesus perfect? I thought he was perfect. Well,

the word perfect here literally means complete. And it's saying

it completed Jesus by going through suffering. There are some things,

the only way you learn them is through pain. You

agree with that? Some things you only, only learn through pain. Now,

Paul compliments the way the Corinthians, the believers in the

city of Corinth in Greece, had handled the pain in

their lives. Look at this verse there on your outline.

Now isn't it wonderful, Paul says, all the ways in

which this distress, they'd been going through a tough time,

all the ways in which this distress has goaded you

closer to God, you're more alive, you're more concerned, you're

more sensitive, you're more reverent, you're more human, you're more passionate,

you're more responsible. looked at from any angle, you've come

out of this with purity of heart. Now notice, Paul's

talking to a group of people who've just gone through

the ringer. Their life had just been hell on earth.

They had gone through amazing persecution, amazing suffering, amazing pain.

And he says, there are seven things that have come

out of this. You're more alive, you're more concerned, you're

more sensitive, more relevant, more human, more passionate, more responsible,

He lists these seven qualities. Wouldn't you like to have

those in your life? Wouldn't you like to be more alive?

Wouldn't you like to be more compassionate, more passionate, more sensitive,

more responsible? Then you need to ask God to use

the pain in your life for good and choose to

cooperate with him. See, the fact is pain transforms us.

It never leaves us where we started. It will either

be better or bitter, as I said. It won't leave

you where it, picked you up. It will take you

to another place. Now, I want you to listen very

closely to what I'm about to say. I want you

to win in life. I want you to succeed in life.

I want your life to have meaning and significance. I

want your life to be all that God wants it

to be. The secret of every winner, whether it's winning

in business, winning in sports, winning at love, winning in relationships,

winning financially, spiritually, or any other way, the secret of

every single winner is one word. It is the word resilience. Resilience.

It is the ability to bounce back. Why? Because everybody

goes through tough times. Everybody has failures. Everybody has flops.

Nobody goes through life with unbroken success. Nobody goes through

life with no problems. Nobody goes through life with just

a breeze and everything's handed to them. There are problems, pains, pressures,

difficulties in everybody's life. And the difference between winners and

losers is that winners get back up. It's the only difference.

The only difference between a winner and a loser is resiliency.

Losers stay down. I'll never let another man hurt me.

Dumb idea. Because you shut yourself off to hurt, you

just shut yourself off to a love, and you will

live a loveless life the rest of your life. I

will never let another employer hurt me. I will never

let another... Whatever, hurt me. You build a wall and

you fill the moat and you pull up the drawbridge

and you build a prison, a self-imposed prison that your

heart stays in and you become a little clod of

a person. That's what a loser does. Winners have resilience.

Winners keep on keeping on. Winners keep going. Winners get

knocked down but they get back up. Winners have the

same problems losers do. They just have Resilience. And I

think more than any other quality, I want you to

develop resilience in your life because life is tough. Everybody

agree with that? It's tough. And you can let it

beat you down and you can get down and then

stay down the rest of your life and you may

as well die. God may as well take you on

home right now because you're not gonna live, you're just

gonna exist. But if you have resilience, You learn from

your losses. You profit from your pain. You gain from

the pain. You advance from your adversity. All of these

things happen when you have resilience. Now, how do I

get resilience? Well, you need to do what Paul did.

I wanna read you three passages. They aren't on your outline.

They're gonna be on the screen. Three passages of Paul

that show that he was probably the most resilient person

who ever lived. Now, the first one, is 2 Corinthians

2 Corinthians 11:23–28

chapter 11, verses 23 to 28. Let me read it

to you. It says this. This is Paul's personal testimony.

I've been put in jail more often, been whipped times

without number, and faced death again and again. Five different

times I was whipped with 39 lashes. Three times I

was beaten with rods, Once I was stoned. Three times

I was shipwrecked. Once I spent a whole night and

a day adrift at sea. I faced dangers from flooded rivers,

dangers from robbers, dangers from angry crowds, mobs. I faced

dangers in the cities and in deserts and even on

stormy seas. I faced dangers from people who claimed to

be Christians but aren't. I've lived with weariness and pain

And sleepless nights. This is the guy who wrote most

of the Bible you read, the New Testament. Weariness and

pain and sleepless nights. I've often been hungry and thirsty.

I've often gone without food. I've often shivered with cold

without enough clothing to keep me warm. I said often.

And besides all this, I've had the daily burdens of

all the churches I've started. And you think you had

a bad day. All right? Now, If anybody has a

right to complain, it's Paul. That list of, that laundry

list of the terrible things that have happened in his

life while he's trying to serve God, by the way. Now,

here's another verse. This is not on your outline. 2

Corinthians 4, eight to 10 says this. We are pressed

on every side by troubles, but we are not crushed

and broken. We are perplexed, but we don't give up

and quit. We are hunted down, but God never abandons us.

And we get knocked down, but we get up again

and keep going. I'm knocked down, but I'm not knocked out,

he's saying. Through suffering, these bodies of ours are constantly

shared in the death of Jesus so that the life

of Jesus may also be seen in our bodies. Now

that's what I call a resilient person.

Life can sometimes be challenging, isolating, and painful. Do you

or someone you know need some powerful encouragement right now?

Then let me tell you about the Journey Toward Hope.

This guided Bible study book takes you on a journey

to discover the five truths about who you are, You

are loved. You have a purpose. You belong. You have

a choice. And you are needed. This full-color vegan leather

study tool is filled with scriptures, prayers, exercises, spaces to journal,

and personal stories to help you uncover the hidden reasons

you may lose hope and teach you how to maintain

and bolster that hope for a lifetime. We'll send you

your very own copy of Journey Toward Hope when you

give a gift today to Daily Hope to take the

hope of Jesus to a hurting world.