Embracing the Vision: The Purpose Driven Life — Part 1

Hey, everybody. You know, Pastor Rick Warren often says you were made by God and for God. And until you understand that, well, life will never make sense. Thank you for joining us today on Pastor Rick's Daily Hope and in our series called God's Vision for the Rest of youf Life. Today, Rick will continue in his effort to help you discover the unique purpose and vision that the Lord has for your life. Okay, here's Pastor Rick. And this will be part one of a message called Embracing the Vision, the Purpose Driven Life.

God has never created anything without a purpose. Every plant has a purpose. Every rock has a purpose. Every animal has a purpose, every planet, every star. And if your heart is beating, it means God has a purpose for your life. Now, if you want to know the purpose of your life, you have to start with God. I realize that in our culture a lot of people say, you want to know your purpose, look within, like trust the force, Luke. The only problem is that doesn't work. I tried looking within. I didn't like what I saw. If you knew could discover your purpose by looking within yourself, we'd all know it by now. It doesn't work. You see, the truth is you didn't create you, so you can't tell yourself what you were created for. Does that make sense? God says, I made you, and I'm the one who can tell you what your purpose is. If I were to hold up an invention that you'd never seen before and I said, tell me the purpose of this invention. Well, you wouldn't know what the purpose of it is unless you either A talked to the inventor, the creator who made it, or B read the owner's manual. The only way you're ever going to know the purpose of your life is either a, talk to the Creator who created you, or B read the owner's manual. And so today we're going to look at what God says are the purposes of your life. Now, if you'll open to the first page, there's a couple verses from the Bible there. The first verse says, it is in Christ that we find out who we are and what we're living for. Part of the overall purpose he's working out in everything and everyone. God has a global or a universal purpose for the entire universe. He has a cosmic purpose for history, and you are a part of that. Your purpose fits into God's grander scheme. And notice the next verse. Let's read it aloud together. Everything, absolutely everything, got started in him and finds its purpose in Him. Now let me try to summarize it real simply for you. Number one. You were made by God and you were made for God. And until you understand that life isn't going to make sense. Now, God created you to last forever. Yes, forever. One day your heart's going to stop. That's going to be the end of your body, but that's not going to be the end of you because you were made in God's image. And you were made to last forever because you're made in God's image. Now what that means is this. You're gonna spend more time on the other side of death than you do on this side here on Earth. You're gonna get 60, 80 at the most, 100 years at the most. That's really not very long considering the fact that you're gonna spend trillions and trillions and trillions of years in eternity. You're gonna spend far more time on that side of death than than you do on this side of death. So the question we're asking this morning then is what on earth am I here for? What am I supposed to do with the 60 or 80 or at the most 100 years I get on this planet in preparation for the life that's in the future? You see, the Bible says that life is preparation for eternity. If anybody ever asks you what is the meaning of life, here it is. Life is preparation for eternity. This is the warm up act before the real play begins. This is the dress rehearsal before the real show starts. This is the initial warm up lap around the race before the real race begins. Life on Earth is the kindergarten, it's the preschool, it's the get ready stage for eternity. And as I said, you're gonna spend more on that side of eternity than you do on this side. And in eternity, you're gonna do a certain number of things. We're gonna talk about them this morning. And what God wants you to do while you're here on Earth is practice. God wants you to practice on Earth what you're gonna do forever in eternity. So let's get right into it. The Bible says God has five purposes for your life. Number one, you might write this down. You turn the page. God planned me for his pleasure. God planned me for his pleasure. Everything in the universe was created so that God could enjoy it. He created it all for his pleasure and for his enjoyment. The Bible says this in the book of Revelation. He, you, God created everything and it is for your pleasure that they exist and were created. Everything in the universe, including you, was created for God to enjoy it. He wanted it and so he created it for his enjoyment. Read with me the next verse. The Lord takes pleasure in his people. Let me ask you, how many of you are parents? Can I see your hands? All right. Do you take pleasure in watching your kids? You say most of the time. And I think the same thing is true with God. Most of the time. God takes pleasure in watching you be you. I've got a little 18 month old granddaughter now. Her name is Kayle. And I take pleasure just in watching Kayle. She doesn't have to do anything special. She can just kind of toddle around the room and. And I get so much enjoyment just watching her be her. Now she doesn't have to do anything spiritual like come up and preach a sermon to me. She doesn't have to quote a Bible verse, she doesn't have to pray, she doesn't have to do anything quote holy. I just enjoy her for being her. Some of you have never understood this. You think that the only time God smiles on you is when you're doing something spiritual, like when you're going to church or when you help a poor person, or when you show kindness to somebody, or you're reading your Bible and you think the only time that God is happy with you is when you are doing something quote spiritual. And you don't realize that God gets pleasure out of just watching you be you. Because he created you. When my three children were small, I used to sneak into their room at night and sit down by the side of their bed and just watch them breathe, just watch them sleep. And I got so much joy. I would just sit on the edge of their beds, these little kids, and I'd watch their chests rise and fall, rise and fall, rise and fall. And I would just watch them sleep peacefully and breathe. And I got so much pleasure out of that because I was their Father. I created them. They were created simply out of my love and I loved them. They didn't have to be doing anything fancy. I just loved them. And that's the way your heavenly Father is toward you. God looks at you and he loves you simply because he made you. Now notice what the Bible says. Look at the next verse. Long before he laid down the earth's foundations, God had us in mind. And he settled on us as the focus of his love. Now let me explain this verse. Before God even created the universe, he thought of you and he focused on you. And the Bible says that the entire universe was created simply so he could create the human race, so he could love us. We are the focus of his love. Unlike anything else in creation. Not like animals or angels or stars or anything else. We were created to be loved by God. Now this is very important. Get this. The Bible says that God is love. It doesn't say he has love, it says he is love. It is the essence of his character. It is the nature of his being. God is love. Now I can go around saying, oh, I'm so full of love, but unless I bestow it on a person or a pet or an object or something, it doesn't do a whole lot of good. The Bible says you were created as an object of God's love. Now get this. This is so important. The very reason you're sitting in that chair right now, the very reason you're taking your next breath, the very reason your heart is still beating is this. God made you simply to love you. And if God hadn't wanted to love you, you would not be alive. You would not be in existence. God thought you up in his mind and created you simply to love you. Because God is love. Now, he didn't need you. God wasn't lonely. God's never been lonely. But he wanted you. And you were made. The number one reason you were made is God made you simply to love you. Now listen, if you ever grasp the profound truth I just shared with you and you let it sink into your psyche and into your soul, you will never again have a problem with inferiority or insecurity or low self esteem. Because when you realize that God created the entire universe just so he could create the conditions, so human beings could exist, so he could create you to love you. That's how much you you matter to God. That's how valuable you are. And that would take away all of those feelings of insecurity that God created you in order to love you. Now unlike animals, we're made in God's image. And that gives us the capacity to know and love God back. That's what makes you different from animals. You're never going to see a cow praying before its meal. You're going to never see a kitty fold its hands and say grace before it eats. Why? They're not made in God's image, but God has given you the capacity to know and love him back. That's what makes you uniquely human. One day Jesus is walking down the street and a guy walks up to him and says, lord, what's the most important command in the Bible? And Jesus says this. Let's read it together. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. Circle first and greatest. God says the most important thing in life is to know and love Him. Look at the next verse. God says this. I don't want your sacrifices. I want your love. I don't want your offerings. I want you to know me. Can you sense the passion in this verse? Circle the words. Know and love. Because that's the first purpose of life. The most important thing you can know in life is to know that God created you to love you. And the most important thing you can do in life is to know and love him back. That's the number one purpose in life. Now, what does it mean? It means that when you get up in the morning, you probably ought to do something like this. Sit down on the edge of your bed and say, God, if I don't get anything else done today, I want to get to know you a little bit better. And I want to get to love you a little bit more. Because that's the first purpose of life. To know and love God, who created you to be loved by Him. And I want to know you and love you a little bit more. And if at the end of the day you have done those two things, it doesn't matter how many things have gone wrong in your life, if you know God a little bit better and love Him a little bit more, that day was a success. On the other hand, it doesn't matter how many deals you close, how many sales you make, how many achievements you rack up, how many awards you win. At the end of the day, if you don't know God a little bit better and love Him a little bit more, you have just missed the purpose of that day. You have wasted that day, and that day is a failure. Why? Because God did not put you on this Earth just to mark things off your to do list. That's a pretty shallow way to live. God did not put you on Earth simply to get up in the morning, go to work, come home, watch tv, and go to bed and go to party on the weekend. He created you first and foremost to know and love him, to get you ready for spending eternity with Him. And if you miss that, you've missed the first purpose. Now, why don't you write this down there. The first purpose of life is to know and love God. That's who created you. He knows you. He loves you. He wants you to know and love him back. The first purpose is to know and love God. You know what the tragedy is? Most people go through their entire life, missing the purpose of it. They know all kinds of other things. Oh, they know the stock quotes, they know the sports scores, they know the top 10. They know who's on the COVID of People magazine. They know all kinds of phone numbers, but they don't know God. And God says that's a tragedy. On the top of the next page, the Bible says this. Some people have missed the most important thing in life. They don't know God. Now you may know about God. Oh, I know he exists. But do you really know him personally? Do you know him personally? Do you have a relationship, a friendship, a love relationship with God? That's what God wants you to do. Now how do you know when you're disconnected from God? How do you know when you don't really know God? You know about him, but you don't really know him. Well, there's a warning light that comes on in your life when you are disconnected from God. It's called stress. Stress. Are any of you familiar with this term? Stress? Worry is the warning light that at that moment in your life you're disconnected from God. Whenever I'm worrying, it says I'm acting like I'm God. I'm acting like it all depends on me. I'm pretending I'm the general manager of the universe, that I've got to make it all happen. God isn't going to help me. I'm out here on my own. And that causes stress. And the reason you're tired all the time and the reason you're fatigued and the reason you're stressed out is because you're trying to live your life disconnected from God. It's like having a radio, transistor radio with a battery pulled out. There's no power, but you plug in the battery and get connected to God, you're going to hear all kinds of great things. This is God's plan for your life. He wants you to know and love Him. See, the Bible says in Matthew 6, people who don't know God are always worrying. Why? Because they think it's all on their own. You see, God has wired you with a God shaped hole in the middle of you so that you need him in your life. Well, there's this emptiness inside of us now. The problem is we try to fill it with a lot of other things instead of God. And you can try to fill that God shaped hole with passion or position or possessions or pleasure or popularity. Or you can try to fill that hole in your heart with sex or status or salary. But none of those things are going to fill the hole that only God can fill in your life. You were made by God and for God. And until you understand that, there's going to be a hole in your heart that leaves you empty. Here's the second purpose of life. The Bible says God formed me for his family. God formed me for his family. In other words, God wanted a family. He wanted more than creatures. He didn't want just angels and animals and plants. He wanted a family. And the Bible says the whole reason you exist is God wanted you to become a part of his family, which makes you unique. And, and that family's going to last forever. The Bible says this. God's unchanging plan has always been to adopt us into his own family. This is amazing by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. And this gave him great pleasure. In other words, again, he did it for his own enjoyment. God wanted a family and he wanted you to be a part of it. Now your spiritual family, God's family, is going to even outlast your physical family. Physical families don't last. They grow up, they move away, they die. There's divorce, there's death. Physical families don't last. But the spiritual family of God is going to go on and on and on for eternity. And the Bible says that God never meant for you to go through life alone. In fact, God hates loneliness. When God created man, he put him in the Garden of Eden, a perfect environment. And the first thing God said was, it is not good for man to be alone. Now he's not talking about whether you get married or not. That is irrelevant. He's talking about the fact whether you marry or not is not the issue. The issue is God wants to put you in a spiritual family. And that family is the family of God.

Wow. Such an encouraging message from Rick. And you know what? I've got some great news for you today. Pastor Rick has pulled together 365 of his most popular devotionals and put them all together in a brand new book called Daily Hope devotional. 365 Days of Purpose, Peace and Promise. I know Pastor Rick has always said it's so important to start your day focused on God and this book. It's going to help you do just that. Every devotional has a Bible verse that leads you into God's word. It has a teaching that explains God's message and shows you how to apply God's Word in your life so you can live the life that God created you to live. Now these devotionals provide a framework to start your day with God's Word. They will help you deepen your faith and grow closer to the Lord. And by beginning each day focused on God's promises, you'll be equipped to face any challenge with strength and peace. This devotional book is also also a wonderful way to share God's love with others. So be sure and request your copy when you partner with Daily Hope to take the Word of God to a hurting world. To get this great resource it's really easy. You just go to pastorrick.com to get your copy. That's pastorrick.com or just text the word hope to 70309 again the word hope to 70309 and thanks so much for your support. Your gift to Daily Hope means so much to us because it helps share the hope of Jesus Christ to people all around the world. Be sure to join us next time as we look into God's Word for our Daily Hope. This program is sponsored by Pastor Rick's Daily Hope and your generous financial support.