How Being Anchored to God’s Word Is the Key to Hope — Part 2

SPEAKER 01 : 0:02

Hey everyone, this is Pastor Rick’s Daily Hope, and we are so glad that you’re here today. You know, you can lose your money, your health, and even the people you love, but you can never lose God’s love for you. Stay tuned today as Rick continues his new series called The Key to Hope. Well, I can’t wait to get started, so here is part two of a message called How Being Anchored to God’s Word is the Key to Hope.

SPEAKER 02 : 0:32

When you accept God’s identity for your life, there’s a ritual that you say it openly to everybody else. Like when you get married, you put on a ring. When you say, I’m gonna anchor my identity to Christ, accept his salvation, the symbol of that new identity is called baptism. And one of the things baptism is a picture of is I’m dying to what everybody else says about me and I’m putting all my trust in Christ. I’m dying to what the world thinks of me and I’m gonna live for Christ. If you haven’t been baptized, it’s a new way, the first way to say I got a new identity. I’m not what everybody used to say I was. I’m a new person in Christ. I’ve accepted his salvation. To live with hope, no matter what happens, I first have to anchor my identity in what God says about me. Second, I have to anchor my life mission, we’ll talk about that, to God’s purpose for me. Write that down. I anchor my life mission, what I’m supposed to do with my life, to God’s purpose for me. God has never made anything without a purpose. You’ve heard me say this hundreds of times. Every rock has a purpose, every plant has a purpose, every animal has a purpose. If you’re alive, you’re breathing, God has a purpose for your life. Now, my life verse actually comes from the book we’re gonna read this week, Acts, Acts 13, 36. It’s a simple verse, it’s talking about King David, but I think it’s the simplest definition of true success. In fact, I would like this verse put on my tombstone when I die, so somebody please remember that, okay? It says this, Acts 13 36, David served God’s purpose in his own generation, then he died. That’s it, that’s success. It’s success for you to serve God’s purpose in your generation, then you die. There’s no higher epitaph than that. It says David served God’s purpose. That’s eternal, but he does it in his generation. That’s timely. He does the timeless in a timely way. He does that which never changes in a world that’s constantly changing. He does that which is eternal in a contemporary, relevant way. He served God’s purpose in his generation, and then he dies. Once God is through with his purpose in me, I don’t wanna hang around here. I wanna go to heaven. I’m ready to die. In fact, let me just say it like this. I wanna live forever, just not here. To live forever on earth where there’s sin, suffering, sickness, sadness, sorrow, stress, that would be hell. To have to live here forever. I want to live forever just in a perfect place where there’s no pain, there’s no sorrow, suffering, sadness, sickness, there’s pleasure, there’s pain, there’s purpose, there’s power, there’s peace, there’s the presence of God. So I want to serve God’s purpose in my generation, then I’m out of here. I want people to be able to say that about you when you die. That you served God’s purpose in your generation. And you died. There’s no greater story, no greater epitaph than that. The truth is this. Let me just be honest with you. You know I love you. I’ve loved you forever, for years. You were not created to live for yourself. You’re not a big enough reason to get out of bed. No, no, you were made for much, much, much, much more. You were made for a mission. God doesn’t just put people on earth to live selfish lives, to use up space and air and eat and then retire and die. That’s not your life. You were made, you’re doing about that much of God’s purpose and mission for your life right now. Oh God, if you were totally surrendered to him, you would not believe what God will do with your life. If you told me when I was a young teenager that one day I’d be standing in front of thousands of people talking about the Lord, I would have laughed at them. I was a long-haired hippie. But God had a different plan. Now, what is your life mission? Well, part of your life mission, not all of it, is to help other people go to heaven with you. You’re gonna go to heaven because somebody told you. Who have you told? This is the greatest accomplishment you can ever do in your life, no matter whether you’re a scientist or a singer or a politician or a doctor or whatever. The greatest accomplishment you can make with your life is to do something that will outlast your life, and that is get somebody into heaven. Help them settle their eternal destiny. You could be the CEO of a Fortune 500 company, and 100 years from today, nobody’s gonna remember you. But you can have one person step across the line and settle their eternal destiny and in heaven they’re gonna be saying for a thousand years, thank you. I’m in heaven because of you. Have you ever told your story of salvation, of what Jesus means to you, of how God has been good to you? That’s called your testimony. That’s called your witness. Now, my life verse is Acts 13, 36. Kay’s life verse is Acts 20, 24. which says this, the next verse on the screen. Paul says, I don’t care about my own life. The most important thing is that I complete my mission, to do the work that the Lord Jesus has given me, to tell, and then here’s what he says it is, to tell people the good news about God’s grace. I have memorized this verse in lots of different translations because it’s so meaningful to me. The new NIV translation says, I want to complete my race and I want to finish the task that I was given. That’s what I want to do with my life. No matter how many years I’ve got left, I want to finish my race and complete, finish the task God gave me. Let me just talk about your life mission. Listen very closely. The only way you’re ever gonna complete your life mission, the purpose that God put you here on earth for, is you’re gonna have to pay more attention to the word than you do to the world. You have to pay more attention to the word, read this, than you do the world. In other words, you’re gonna have to spend a whole lot less time in Facebook and more time with your face in this book. All right? So if you’re serious about not wasting your life, because if you’re not fulfilling the purpose God put you on earth, you are wasting your life. God didn’t put you here to live for yourself. He put you here to get to know him, experience his love, and do the life mission he has planned for you. So let me ask you a very pointed question. What do you read the most? Social media or God’s word? What do you listen to the most? What do you talk about the most? You know the sad thing about the church today in America? Not in other countries, just in America. Today, Christians in America talk more about politics than they do about Jesus. That’s the tragedy of American Christians. We worry more about our nation than we worry about God’s kingdom. Christians around the world don’t do that, just in America. Now I don’t wanna be too hard on you, because I’ll tell you this, it’s a problem as old as the first disciples. The first 12 guys that Jesus chose to follow him, they fell into this very trap before they were anchored in God’s word. You don’t know this, but the very last conversation that the 12 disciples, who’d spent three and a half years with Jesus, The last question they asked Jesus before Jesus went back to heaven was a political question. I’m not kidding you. They spent three and a half years with the Lord Jesus Christ and the last question they ask is a political question. And here’s what they ask. I’m not making this up. Lord, when are you gonna make our nation great again? Are you kidding me? You spent three years eating, sleeping, and walking with Jesus Christ and you’re asking a political question? That is so human nature. And Jesus actually had to gently rebuke the guys he had personally chosen for the wrong priorities and the wrong focus. And he says, guys, guys, guys. This is not something I want you worrying about at all. It’s small potatoes. I have a far bigger assignment for you. I have a far greater, more important mission for your life and for everybody else who follows me and claims to be a Christian and claims to be a child of God and claims to be in the family of God. Here’s a far bigger issue. I want you to take the good news about my unconditional love, about my grace and forgiveness available to everybody, no matter what they’ve done, and my free salvation, that they just trust me. And I want you to take that message to the whole world. And I want you to make the gospel global. That’s what the book of Acts is all about. Now, the book of Acts begins with that conversation I just told you about. It’s in Acts chapter one, verses six to eight. It starts off the book. Look on the screen. The disciples ask, Jesus is getting ready to go back to heaven in like a few seconds. He’s up on the Mount of Ascension. And the disciples asked Jesus, Lord, when are you gonna restore the kingdom to Israel? In other words, when are you gonna restore our nation to its former greatness? Because they were a far cry from what they’d been in the past when King David was the United Kingdom. When are you gonna make our nation great again? And Jesus says… Guys, it’s not for you to know the times or the dates the Father has set. What does that mean? It’s none of your business. That’s not even what I want you even worried about, focusing on, I don’t want you even focusing on that. They wanna talk about politics, and Jesus flips the conversation, says, it’s none of your business, but, and he turns the conversation to their life mission. And he says this, when the Holy Spirit comes to you, a few days, day of Pentecost, you will receive my power. And then he says, you’re gonna be my witnesses. We’ll come back to that word. In Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and in Samaria, and in every part of the world. Now, this verse actually is such an important verse to your life mission, I need to point out three things about it. I want you to notice that Jesus flips the conversation from politics to what was really the important thing, taking the good news to the whole world. This will shock you. I’ve read through the scripture hundreds of times. Jesus Christ never said one single thing about national politics, not one thing. It wasn’t even on his agenda. In fact, he once told a politician My kingdom is not of this world. If it was, my servants would fight for it. Guys, this is not our battle. It’s not our battle. And if you’re fighting that battle, you’re not fighting the battle Jesus wants his servants fighting. He says, my goal is not to save America or any other nation. I came to save the whole world. You’re not thinking big enough. So Jesus says don’t get caught in secondary issues. You have far more important life mission. Second, your mission, he says, you will be my witnesses. You are to be a witness for Jesus, not his lawyer. Let me explain that. You ever seen a court case? What does a witness do and what does a lawyer do? A witness just sits on the stand and goes, this is what happened to me. I saw him do that. I saw this happen to me. Thank you, you get off the stand. It is the attorney’s job to press the case, make the decision, persuade and get the jury to decide a certain decision. Convince and get a decision. The witness just says, this is what happened to me. This is what I saw. God has not called you to be the attorney for Jesus Christ. You don’t have to defend or you don’t have to persuade. You just say, this is how God’s been good to me. This is what Jesus did for me. Here, I used to be and had a lot of guilt. Now I’m forgiven. I used to have no purpose. I got a purpose now. I used to be unhappy. Now I’m happy. I had problems then, I had problems now, but now I got power to solve those problems. You just say, here’s what happened to me. Now, the third thing from that verse is this. Jesus actually gives you four targets for your life mission and your witness in the world. Don’t call yourself a Christian if you’re not gonna be a witness. It’s contradiction. Now, he says four things. He says Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the most parts of the world. What does that mean? It means this, you start telling your story wherever you live. They lived in Jerusalem. You don’t live in Jerusalem, so you start wherever you live. And he says, oh, and also, you’re to go to Judea. That’s like the state around the city that you live in. Oh, and also, you go to people who are not like you. That’s Samaria. Samaritans were not Jews, but they lived in Israel. And he says, you’re to go to people who have different religion than you, different race than you, different culture than you. Now, you don’t have to go anywhere for that because you live in Southern California. We’re a multicultural nation. We speak 197 languages in LA and Orange County. Samaria lives on your block. He says, you’re to take the good news to people who are not like you, don’t look like you, don’t talk like you, don’t have the same background as you. And he said, oh, and by the way, you’re also to take the good news to the whole world. You know what? This you are the first generation that that’s possible because you have a thing called the internet. You can sit at home in your pajamas and talk to somebody in Belgium and Brussels and Botswana and Burundi at the same time. You can be a world-class Christian and never leave your home. So how do you get started on your life mission? Well, you start by praying. And you pray and you ask God to give you the courage to share your story with other people. Now your story, how has God been good to you, is called your testimony. You don’t have to know a single Bible verse to be a witness. You just go, I don’t know what happened, this is what happened, I was blind but now I see. Every one of you have a story and nobody else can tell your story. Nobody else can give your testimony. Nobody else can give your witness. It’s called lots of things, evangelism, proclaiming, prophesying, preaching, witnessing, sharing. It basically just means tell your story, communicate. But it starts with prayer. In Acts chapter one, verse 14, it says this. The apostles had a single purpose, that’s their life mission, as they devoted themselves to prayer. God, we need the courage to do this. And then it says they were joined by some women. What a strange thing to hang on there. The apostles are praying about their purpose and they’re joined by some women. Is that so strange? Why do you think the Bible points that out? Well, here’s why. because before Jesus sent his spirit on the day of Pentecost to be in everybody, then only the apostles, by the way, who happened to be men, were the ones who got to preach, proclaim, communicate, witness, give a testimony, share the good news. Only those guys did it. But on the day of Pentecost, everything changed. And God put his spirit in everybody. So now, young and old, men and women, everybody, sons and daughters, everybody gets to have a life mission. Peter announces this at the very first sermon on the very first day of the church 2,000 years ago. It’s called the day of Pentecost. And he says, the last days are beginning now. I am asked by people all the time, Pastor Rick, Are we living in the last days? And the answer is yes, we’ve been living in them for 2,000 years. Because Peter says the last days began when God gave his spirit to everybody. So we’re now in the latter of the last of the last days. We don’t know how many more days there are ahead of us. We don’t know, nobody knows. Jesus said nobody knows. But we know it’s closer than it was 2,000 years ago. So the last days began when God put his spirit in everybody. What does that mean? You have as much of God’s spirit in you as God’s spirit is in me, Rick Warren. I don’t have more of God’s spirit than you do. Not, I don’t. I’m not some holy hired guy. I’m just a normal guy that God put his spirit in, but I may have been a little bit more surrendered than you. That’s your choice, that’s my choice. But you have as much of God in you as you want. And you have the Holy Spirit in you, the same spirit in you is the same spirit in me. There’s no difference, I’m not more holy than you. So in Acts chapter two, the very first sermon, Peter gets up and he announces that the last days have started and here’s what he says. Look at this verse on the screen. In the last days, this is the first day of the church, the day of Pentecost. In the last days, God says, I’ll pour out my spirit on all people. Men and women, young and old. Your sons and your daughters will preach. Prophesy just means preach, proclaim, communicate, tell, witness, share. There’s a thousand synonyms for that. It just means you tell people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy. They’ll preach. Your young men will see visions. Your old men will dream dreams. Even on all my servants, both men and women. Amen. I will pour out my spirit, okay, in those days, and they will preach. And you look at that verse, it says this. If you circle them all, it says, all, sons and daughters, men and women, young and old. Who gets left out? Nobody. Now we all get to play in the game. Not just the hired holy men. In the Old Testament, none of us could have done this. Because in the Old Testament, you had to be from the tribe of Levi and a male to preach. But God changed that all in the day of Pentecost. He said, now, young and old can preach. Sons can preach. Daughters can preach. Women can preach. Men can preach. Young and old. Everybody gets to play. Now, what is your witness? Let me explain this. What is your witness? You’re not an attorney. You’re a witness. It’s just telling people how God’s been good to you. This is what Jesus did for me. And only you can give your testimony. I want one day you to get to heaven. Because I know what’s gonna happen to me. I’m gonna get to heaven and I’m gonna be surrounded by people who go, Rick, thank you. I’m in heaven because of you. You cared enough to tell me about the Lord. When you stand before Jesus one day, he’s gonna say, welcome, welcome, welcome into heaven. We’ve been waiting for you. Did you bring anybody with you? Good news deserves to be shared.

SPEAKER 01 : 21:47

Wow. Thank you, Rick, for that amazing message. You know, people are being transformed by these messages every day, but that’s only because of your partnership with us. In fact, here’s Rick to tell you how you can help support this ministry.

SPEAKER 02 : 22:02

Hi, everybody. You know, as we come to the end of this year, one of the things that worries me the most is that there’s still about 3,000 people groups, small tribes in the world, where there are no Bibles, no believers, and no body of Christ. We call these people the unreached, unengaged people groups, and it’s one of the reasons we started Daily Hope, to take the good news to the final frontier. We need to make every effort to reach these people with a Bible, a believer, and a new church. Now, thanks to your support, we’re being able to do this. Thanks to your support, we’re now broadcasting on radio stations, literally, not just across America, but all around the world. We’re in places like Rwanda and Uganda. We’re in places like South Sudan, which has very, very little. Zambia, Korea, things like that. But we’re also reaching even more people and more nations through the world with our Daily Hope podcast. Online, it goes literally to the whole world. As we end this year, I want to express to you how much I appreciate your prayer support and your financial support of Daily Hope for this global effort. I can’t do it without you. You can’t do it without me. And as you consider your year-end giving, I want to ask you to pray about giving a special gift to Daily Hope. Together we’re partners in going to the final frontier of people who have never heard of Jesus Christ. Now, the good news is this. A generous friend of Daily Hope is offering at the end of the year a matching gift. That’s a challenge gift, which means they will match whatever gift you give. In other words… Whatever you give will be doubled because of their matching that gift. So I’m going to ask you, I’m going to be very bold with this. Give the biggest gift you can possibly give at the end of the year, at this Christmas time. God gives his gift to us. We give our gifts back to him in Thanksgiving and out of Christmas. We give our gifts to Jesus. It’s his birthday. And when you do, it will be matched by a donor doubling the impact of your gift. Thanks so much, and we’re going to enjoy the end of the holiday seasons, and we’re going to enjoy the new year together. God bless you.

SPEAKER 01 : 24:15

This matching grant ends at midnight tomorrow and anything not matched will be lost. So please give your best gift today. You can give right now by going to PastorRick.com or you can just text the word HOPE to 70309. Again, that’s PastorRick.com or just text the word HOPE to 70309. And thank you so much for your support. 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.