How to Get Ready to Be Used By God — 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. Hey, let's join Pastor Rick right now for part one of a message called how to Get Ready to Be Used by God.

Now, we've been talking about how God has a purpose for your life, a plan for your life, a mission for your life, and the greatest adventure of life is to be used by God. Nothing else compares to that. Nothing comes close to the feeling of being used by God. And if you've never had that feeling of being used by God, I really feel sad for you because God wants to use you. And the Bible says God is looking for people to use. But there is a qualification. God says you must be usable. The Bible says this in Romans 6:13. Let's read it aloud together. Give yourselves completely to God so you can be tools in the hands of God to be used for his good purposes. God wants to use you for his good purposes. And the big question now is now what? What do I do? What are my next steps? Well, today we're going to look at those next steps. What you do once you've surrendered your life to say God, whatever it takes, I want you to use my life. Because God says there are five things he looks for in your life. If you're going to have the blessing and the power and be usable by God, let's get right into them. Step one. The first step if I want to be used by God, is to purify my heart. Purify my heart. Because God uses people with a pure heart. Not a perfect person, but a pure person. The Bible says in 2 Timothy 2:21, if you keep yourself pure, you'll be a utensil. That's a tool that God can use for his purpose. If you keep yourself pure, your life will be clean and you will be ready for the Master to use you for every good work. Now, God uses all kinds of people. He uses shy people. He uses outgoing people. He uses really smart people, and he uses people who aren't so smart. He uses all different races, all different ages, all different stages of life, all different backgrounds. He uses men and women. God wants to use you. And God will use plain vessels, and he'll use ornate vessels. And he'll use big vessels and. And he'll use small vessels. But there's one thing God will not use. He will not use a dirty vessel. We have to be clean on the inside. That's why Joshua, when he was telling the people to get ready to go into the promised land. For 40 years they'd been waiting an entire nation. And the next day they're gonna cross over the Jordan river and go into the promised land. They're going into the next stage of their vision. And Joshua says this in the next verse. Verse 5, Joshua 3, Joshua told the people, purify yourselves. Notice this is something you do to yourself, for tomorrow the Lord will do great wonders among you. God is gonna do great things through this church. There's not a doubt in my mind in the years ahead, we're on a new level. We're on a new plane. But the starting point is we must purify ourselves. How do you do that? Well, you do it through a real simple word. Confession. Confession. Augustine said the confession of bad works is the beginning of good works. And the Bible says this. Let's read First John 19. If we confess our sins to God, he will keep his promise and do right. He will forgive us our sins and purify us from all our wrongdoings. God says, here's your part, you confess. And my part is, I'll purify. Now, what does it mean to confess? Well, the word in Greek literally is the word homologeo. That's what confess means in Greek. And confess. Homo means same, like homogenized milk, the same. And logeo means to speak. And so homologeo literally means to speak the same about my sin that God does means I just agree with him. God, you're right. It wasn't a faux pas. It wasn't a mistake. It wasn't. It wasn't a peccadillo. It was a sin. You just call it for what it is. It was wrong. Now, it doesn't mean you bargain with God. I'll never do it again. It doesn't mean you bribe God. I promise to read my Bible every day if you'll forgive me. No, you just admit it. You say, wait a minute, all I gotta do is admit it and God will forgive it. That's what he says. That's called grace. And so I admit it to God. And I say, God, what do you want me to confess? Here. Here's what I would suggest you do. If you really want to be used by God this next week, take a day off. Here's your action step. Take an hour in a day or sometime in the next couple days and sit down with a yellow pad and say, God, just be quiet. God, show me what's between me and you, what's piled up in my life. What's wrong in my life. Just show me. And I'm gonna write it down and I'm gonna admit it. I'm just gonna confess to you. And you wait and you just say, God, tell me. And you write something down. It gives you another idea. You write that down. First time I did it, I thought I was gonna write a book. The Purpose Driven Sinner. It was about nine pages long the first time I ever did this. Now, I've done this many, many times since. But the idea is you make a list and then you can write 1st John 1:9 all over it and say, God, I admit it to you. These are wrong. I don't want them in my life. And God says, I forgive and I forget. So you ask God to cleanse your life. Who have I hurt? That's guilt. Who's hurt Me? That's resentment. What am I worrying about? That's a lack of faith. Just things like that. Who have I been jealous of? You just cleanse your life. That's the starting point. I must purify my heart. Now, here's the second one. This one's even a little bit more difficult. I need to sanctify my body. Sanctify my body. Now, what in the world does that mean? Well, sanctification is just a big, fancy theological word that means to dedicate something for God's purpose. You can sanctify anything. You can say, God, I sanctify this car. I dedicate it to you for your purposes. God, I sanctify this home. I dedicate it to you for your purposes. You can sanctify anything. It's whatever you give to God and say God, you use it for your purposes. That's what it means. Now, God says, there's something I want you specifically to dedicate to me. It is your body. It is your body. Notice what the Bible says. Don't you know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who lives in you and was given to you by God. You do not belong to yourself, but for God bought you with a high price. So you must read it with me. Honor God with your body. Now, how do you do that? How do you honor God with your body? Well, real simple, you take care of it. But let me give you a paraphrase of the phrase, sanctify My body. Here, you can write this one down. Here's what it means. Get in shape, that's what it means. And if you want God to use you, you gotta get in shape. Because the better in shape you are, the more energy you'll have and the more God can use you. See how practical this is? God says, I want you to give your body to me. Why? Cause you can't do anything without your body. Psalm 119, verse 73 says this. You made my body, Lord, now give me the sense to heed your laws. You know, God set up the principles of good health and he says there's a balance between eating and sleeping and exercising. And he says you need all three. 3 John 2 God says, I'm concerned about your health. I want you to be healthy. The Old Testament is full of rules about health. And actually a major part, one third of Jesus ministry was helping people get healthy. So God says, I don't want you to just have a pure heart. I want you to have an N shaped body so I can use you more effectively. Now my guess of these three of sleep and eat and exercise, that everybody in this room probably needs to work on one of them. least some of you. You're not getting enough sleep and you're tired all the time. And really having that extra hour of sleep would probably help you be more effective in your life and you would have more energy and God could use you. God can't use somebody who's tired all the time. You're just moping around, jumping around. You need to get your proper rest. In fact, look at this verse up here on Scripture. Psalm 127:2 on the video screen says this. It is senseless for you to work so hard from early morning until late at night. For God wants his loved ones read it with me to get their proper rest. So for some of you, the most spiritual thing you can do is go to bed now. Don't do it until this sermon's over. But I mean, don't go to sleep on me. But you need to get your rest. And so some of you need to work on the rest factor in dedicating your body. Some of you need to work like me, on the food factor. I don't know why God made food taste so good. I mean, you could have made it all taste like oatmeal, but he didn't. Look at this verse up here on the screen. First Corinthians 6:13 says, Food is for the stomach and the stomach is for food. But God will put an End to both. That means they're temporary. The body is not to be used for sexual immorality, but to serve the Lord. Now, leave that scripture up there. I want you to notice a couple things. First, food is for the stomach, and stomach's for food. What is he saying there? He's saying this. You eat to live, you don't live to eat. You see the difference? You eat to live, you don't live to eat. And then notice he compares overeating down here to sexual immorality. Now, I wouldn't put those in the same category. You know, you wouldn't think of, you know, cheating on your husband or your wife. But God says, you know, these are sins against the body. And he says, this is serious. This is serious. God says, I want you to be in shape. And then, of course, everybody needs exercise. Every one of us need exercise. Now, I want to personally recommend to you sleepwalking, okay? I highly recommend this. It's multitasking, okay? You can get your rest and your exercise at the same time. Works really good. Okay, so you're doubling up your efforts sleepwalking. Very, very good. The point is this. You can have a wrong attitude or a right attitude to your body. What's the wrong attitude? The wrong attitude is neglect it. The wrong attitude is reject it. God, I want a different one. The wrong attitude is perfect it. That's the body builders who are narcissistic and, you know, they worship their body and they build all these muscles as if the body is the most important thing in life. No, you don't worship your body. You don't neglect it. You don't reject it, you don't perfect it. What do you do? You respect it and you protect it. That's what God wants you to do with your body. Why? Because God created it, Jesus paid for it, and the Holy Spirit lives in it. So what's our motivation? Look at the next verse, 1 Corinthians 9. Read it with me. Athletes practice discipline and self control. They do it to win a prize that will fade away. But we do it for an eternal prize. Our motivation is we want to please God. And in eternity you will be rewarded because you made the most of what you were given. He said, athletes, they get in shape just to win an award. He said, but this is gonna be an eternal award if you get in shape so that God could use you more effectively. Now, here's the third step. You wanna be used by God. Simplify my life. I purify my heart. I sanctify my body, and I simplify my life so I have more time to be used by God. You know, the Bible compares life to a marathon race. And in Hebrews Paul says this. Hebrews 12, we should remove anything from our lives that would get in the way and hold us back. He says, just as you're running the race of life, let go of anything that holds you back. Now, I know this one from personal experience. If the devil can't make you bad, he'll make you busy. Okay? If he can't make you bad, he'll make you busy. And it'll get you so busy, you don't have time for the important stuff. It's good things. They're all really good things. But you don't have time for God, for time alone with God, for ministry, for mission, things like that. So Paul says, simplify your life. Get rid of the excess baggage. Don't try to do it all. Do what matters most. You have just enough time to do God's will. That means if you don't have, you can't get everything done. It means there are things on that list God never intended for you to do in the first place. Serious runner's focus now. Friends, I have met thousands of people who have told me they want to be used by God, but they never will. They'll never be used by God. Why? They're too busy. They're too busy. They've got their own agenda going. They've got their own things going. They've got their own plans and dreams and ambitions going, and they don't have any time. And they try to carve out a little sliver in the pie of life and, and say, oh, I'll give this to God. It doesn't work that way. If you're serious about being used by God, you have to say, lord, what do I need to let go of? What do I need to cut out? What are the barriers that are holding me back, that are keeping me from running the race you have for me? Now, there are lots of different barriers that hold you back from God's plan for your life. But let me give you two real, common ones. You can write these down. The first one is distractions. Distractions. Jesus said this in Luke chapter six. Anybody who lets himself be distracted from the work that I planned for him is not fit for the kingdom of Heaven. He says, don't let yourself be distracted. Now, what could distract you from your life mission? Oh, a lot of things. The expectations of other people. You're trying to please everybody else. Just try to please God. You can't do that. You gotta decide, am I gonna please God with my life, or am I gonna please my boyfriend or my girlfriend or my boss or whatever? You gotta decide who you're gonna please first. In life, you can only have one number one. And the expectations of others, the opinions of others. Trying to be like other people can be a distraction. Television can be a distraction. Hobbies can be a distraction. There's nothing wrong with these things. They're good things, but they can distract you. Addictions, the wrong kind of friends can distract you. There may be some friends that you say, you know what? You're just letting me. I'm not talking about a good friendship. I'm talking about, you know, a negative one. To finish the race, you gotta let go. Now let me tell you what is the biggest distraction for most people. Your past. Your past. Some of you refuse to let go of your past. And you keep holding onto it. Either guilt, things that I've done to others, or resentment, things that others have done to me. And you won't let go of the guilt or the grudges or the grief. And as a result, you are stuck in the past and you cannot get on with the present. And you can't certainly get on to God's future. Vision for you, if you're stuck in the past, you need to let it go. Let it go? Your past is past. It's over. You gotta let it go so you can get on with the future. Stop rehearsing the past. Release it. Release it and let it go. Distractions will keep you. Notice this. Next verse, 2 Timothy 2:4. As Christ's soldiers, don't let yourself become tied up in the affairs of this life. Circle that phrase, tied up. Some of you are all tied up in knots by the affairs of this life, for then you cannot satisfy the one who has enlisted you in his army if you have enlisted in the service. And by the way, they don't call it the service for nothing. It's to serve. If you've enlisted in the service, you don't get involved in civilian affairs because you've got to please your commanding officer. And if you said to God, whatever it takes, God, I want to be yours, then you can't get tied up in a lot of other things. So what do you need to let go of? Look at this verse up here on the screen. The Bible says in 1 Corinthians 10, Everything is permissible, but not everything is beneficial. What does that mean? Everything is permissible, but not everything's beneficial? It means This. A lot of things aren't necessarily wrong. They're just not necessary. They're not necessarily wrong, they're not evil. They're just not necessary. Now let me give you the greatest time management tip you'll ever get. This is the greatest time management tip. It's a two letter word. No. No. Do you know I say no hundreds of times a week? It's a positive word to me because every time I say no, I'm saying no. That gives me more time when I say to no to that opportunity, to that invitation, to that idea, to that meeting, whatever. It gives me more time for the things that God has called me to do. And if you don't learn how to say no, you will be overwhelmed with opportunities, options, requests, things in your life that could take up all your time and. And you have no time for what God wants to do in your life. Saying no learns, helps you stay focused. In fact, Jesus said this in Matthew 16. I love this in the God's Word paraphrase, He says, those who want to come with me must say no to the things they want. Pick up their crosses and follow me.

I am so grateful for that message by Rick and I hope you are too. Now, you may know this or you may not, but tomorrow is Giving Tuesday. That's a global day dedicated to giving back. And today you can help share the certain hope of Jesus Christ with even more people around the world. Through Daily Hope, a generous friend has stepped forward with a special $25,000 giving Tuesday matching grant. And that means that every dollar you give today will be matched up to $25,000. Now, obviously time is of the essence because, well, we'll lose any part of the Giving Tuesday matching grant that isn't matched by midnight tomorrow. So we're asking you to act now. Just go to pastorrick.com that's pastorrick.com or you can text the word hope to 703 0. That's the word. Hope to 7030 9. 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.