In today’s message, Pastor Rick dives deep into the universal desire for acceptance and the traps of embellishing our identities. Learn how God’s grace can reshape your view of self-worth and why spiritual acceptance trumps societal validation. Pastor Rick shares poignant scripture and personal anecdotes to illustrate the profound idea that we are all chosen and cherished by God. Listen to discover how embracing your divine identity can relieve the burdens of past perceptions and lead to a fulfilling and liberated life in Christ.
00:00:02 Introduction to Seeing Through God’s Eyes
Hello, and welcome to Pastor Rick’s Daily Hope. We are so glad that you’re with us today. You know, Rick Warren is kicking off a brand new series called Seeing Through God’s Eyes. And in this series, he’ll dive into the Bible to help us discover how God sees us and how we can start seeing life from his perspective. Now let’s get started and join Rick for part one of a message called Seeing Yourself As God Sees You.
SPEAKER 02 :
The Bible says this. Look at the first verse in your outline. Your eyes are windows into your body. If you open your eyes wide in wonder and belief, your body fills up with light. Now he’s not talking about physical eyes and physical light. He’s talking about spiritual insight. He’s talking about seeing in a new way spiritually. The apostle Paul calls it seeing with the eyes of your heart, seeing from God’s perspective. In fact, Paul prays this prayer for us in Ephesians. He says this, I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened. That’s where this song, Open the Eyes of My Heart, comes from, from this verse. I pray that the eyes of your heart will be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparable great power for us who believe. Now today, as we begin this series on seeing from God’s point of view, we’re gonna look at seeing yourself as God sees you. Now that’s so important because the Bible says as a man thinks in his heart, so is he. If you see yourself as a loser, you’re gonna be a loser in life. If you see yourself as a victim, you’re gonna let other people victimize you all your life. If you see yourself as not too creative, you’ll never create anything. If you see yourself as a failure in life, you’re gonna be a failure. What you see is what you get. The Bible says our beliefs determine our behavior. The way we think determines the way we act. And what we see comes out in our lifestyle. Our beliefs determine our behavior. The problem is a lot of stuff you believe is just false. It’s just not true. And so you’re acting on false or inaccurate information about yourself. Do you remember growing up going to a carnival and in the fun houses they’d have these kind of wavy fun house mirrors? You know what I’m talking about? And when you look at those fun house mirrors, as you look at the image of yourself, is the image clear or distorted? Yeah, it’s distorted because it’s not a perfect mirror, it’s a imperfect mirror. Now when you were growing up, the adults around you were the mirrors of your life. And they reflected back to you how you began to see yourself. The problem is, there are no perfect adults, except me. And so as a result, all of the images that you got of yourself, even from people who loved you, were distorted. And we all grow up with an inaccurate picture of ourselves because some adult tells you something. As a kid, you think, this is an adult. He must know, she must know. And you tend to believe it, whether it was right or wrong, said in anger, said in jest, said in hurtfulness. And you just internalize that and you put it in your memory bank. And you’ve operated on that for years and years and years. And it’s false. And so you have to start seeing from God’s point of view, because we all grew up with these distorted images that we get from our parents, we get them from our peers, we get them from other people, we get them from our problems. Some of you can remember things that were said to you 20 or 30 years ago. You’re never gonna amount to anything. And you just filed that. And you’ve been acting on that information for a long, long time. Now, everybody has wounds. Everybody has emotional scars. Everybody in this room have emotional scars. So how do you get rid of them? How do you deal with the past? The antidote is to learn to see your life. Learn to see yourself from God’s point of view. This service today may be one of the most important services in your entire life. Because if you really grasp what it means to see yourself as God sees you, It’ll change your life. Jesus said, you know the truth, and the truth will what? Yeah, set you free. And so when we learn to see ourselves the way God truly sees us, it makes all the difference in the world. Now today, we’re going to look at God’s view of you. Five things that God says about you because of his grace. If you have accepted Jesus Christ into your life, you’ve accepted his grace. God says, I see you very, very differently than the way you see yourself. Now, how does God view you? Number one, God says, I see you as acceptable. God sees you as acceptable. Titus 3, 7 says this, Jesus treated us much better than we deserve. He made us acceptable to God and he gave us the hope of eternal life. This week I asked Rick Muchow to write a song about this song, about this idea that we are acceptable to God. Why? Because the number one hurt in your life, bar none, the most hurtful thing in life is is rejection. When you’re rejected by a parent, a spouse, a former spouse, a girlfriend, a boyfriend, a teacher, when you’re rejected, nothing hurts you more than rejection. So as a result, we spend most of our lives doing everything we can to avoid rejection. We want acceptance more than anything else in life. We want acceptance from our parents. We want acceptance from our peers. We want acceptance from our neighbors. We want acceptance from people we respect, people we envy. We want acceptance from people we don’t even like. We buy things we don’t need with money we don’t have to impress people we don’t even know. Why? Because this power to be accepted is so profound. It drives everything in your life, so much of it. It drives the kind of clothes you wear, the kind of car you drive, the kind of house you buy, the career you choose. So many of your decisions in life, you’re not aware, are really based on this desire for approval. desire to be accepted, to be recognized, to be significant. And people will do the craziest things just to be accepted. Do you remember when you were a kid and somebody would dare you? I dare you to do something. And you did it anyway because you wanted to be accepted in the crowd. You wanted to be accepted as cool, as hip, as neat. And you wanted everybody to like you. So you did some really stupid stuff. just in order to be accepted. Now, there’s a myth about acceptance, and it’s this. If I can just get everybody to think I’m perfect, they will all accept me. And so we build up this mask, and we walk around like we’ve got it all together, that everything’s in fine condition, that we’re really totally balanced, that we are perfect, and we think everybody’s gonna accept us. Well, three things. Number one, nobody believes it. Number two, you aren’t ever going to be it. Perfect. And number three, even if you were, they still wouldn’t accept you. Because acceptance is not based on how perfect you are. It’s based on the other person’s maturity and love. The Bible says Jesus was perfect. And yet it says he was despised and rejected by men. Even Jesus was not accepted by everybody and he was perfect. So even if you were perfect and you’re never gonna be, you would not ever be accepted by everybody. The one minute you get crowd A happy with you, crowd B gets upset with you. And you just can’t please everybody. Even God can’t please everybody. Somebody’s praying for rain, somebody’s praying for sunshine, who’s he gonna listen to? So only a fool would do what even God can’t do. But we want to be accepted and we want to be loved. We want people to see our value. God says, I settled this a long time ago. Look at the next verse. I love this Titus 3, 5 to 7 in the fuller expression through the living Bible. It says, God saved us, not because we were good enough to be saved, but because of his kindness and and grace, by washing away our sins, all because of what Jesus Christ, our Savior, did. Not because of what we did, because of what Jesus did. So that, here’s the reason, so that, read it with me, he could declare us good in God’s eyes. Now listen to this. I don’t care what you’ve done. I don’t care who you’ve done it with. I don’t care how many times you’ve done it or where you’ve done it. I don’t care how many things you’ve done wrong in your life. If you have invited Jesus Christ in your life, God says you are a good person. He says he could declare us good in God’s eyes. I don’t care how much bad you’ve done in life. If you’ve accepted the grace of God, God says, I look at you and I say, she’s a good person. He’s a good person. He is acceptable to me, not because of my own merit, but because of his grace. You see, you may have accepted God. You may have accepted Christ, but do you realize that Christ has accepted you? Many, if not most of you have done that. I accepted Jesus Christ. But many of you have been Christians for a long time and you don’t realize God has accepted you. And in your mind, you’re still trying to earn God’s favor. You’re treating him like an unpleasable parent. I’m just never good enough for God. I got to do more. I got to rush more. I got to hurry more because I’m never good enough. And God says, you are good in my eyes because of Jesus. You were acceptable to me. God has already accepted you. He won’t accept you any more than today or any less than today because it’s based on his grace. Now, you know, as a kid, you love to be chosen. It’s good to be chosen for an award, to be chosen for recognition. It’s fun to be chosen for a promotion. It’s fun to be chosen and singled out. And do you remember when you’d go out on PE or at recess and they would have two captains choosing teams and they’re choosing the people. If you got chosen first, you felt really good. And you were praying, oh God, please don’t let me be chosen last. Oh God, don’t let me be chosen last. Because it hurts to be rejected. We all want to be chosen. We all want to be selected. Because it gives you a lot of confidence. Being chosen does a lot for your self-esteem. You know why I have great self-esteem, why I have a lot of confidence? I was chosen by Kay Warren. Now you may not think that’s a big deal, but I know the competition I beat out. They were much better looking. And there were 17 different guys that I was in competition with. It’s true. And I beat them all out. Now I did knock them off, but I did. But when she chose, Kay Warren chose me out of all the men in the universe. Thank you, let’s close in prayer. That’s all I wanted to tell you. I feel good about me because my wife chose me. It feels good to be chosen. Well, look who’s chosen you. Look at the next verse, 1 Peter 2.9. You have been chosen by God himself. Whoa! There is no higher authority than that one, folks. God chose you to be his child, to love you, and to live with him for eternity. Not everybody’s gonna get to do that. But you’ve been chosen. You’ve accepted Christ into your heart. You’ve accepted the grace of God. You have been chosen to spend eternity with God. And that’s better than anything else in the universe. You talk about something to build your self-esteem. Some of you grew up with unpleasable parents. And no matter what you did, you just couldn’t get their approval. I mean, you know it. You saw it in your dad’s eyes, your mom’s eyes, or what they said to you. You know, if you got Cs on your report card, they expected Bs. And if you got B’s, they expected A’s. Then they expected straight A’s or extracurricular activity. No matter how hard you tried, you just couldn’t do it right. And you always just felt like this little bit of shame and this little bit of put down and this little, I’m never measuring up to my mom or to my dad. And today, even still, subconsciously, you’re still trying to earn your parents’ approval. I’m going to prove it that I’m worth something. And some of you, your parents are dead and you’re still trying to earn their approval subconsciously. You’re working real hard, you’re trying to earn it and it drives you, drives you. You wonder why you’re a workaholic? You’re trying to earn that acceptance, that approval. Now, if you had unpleasable parents growing up, let me just tell you two very important truths. Number one, if you didn’t get their approval growing up, you’re probably never gonna get it. Never. Because it’s not about you, it’s about them. It’s their lack of self-worth that’s causing them to not accept you. Hurt people hurt people. So it’s not really even about you. And so if they didn’t give you acceptance growing up, you’re probably not going to ever get it. You gotta let it go. You gotta just let it go. The second thing I need to tell you, and it’s even more important, is this. You don’t need their approval to be happy. You don’t need it. You don’t need the approval of other people in order to be happy. Now look, there are six billion people in the world. Is it okay if two people don’t like you? I would think so. Especially if it’s their hang up. It’s not about you. So let it go. Quit trying to live for the approval of somebody who’s never gonna give it. And start living for God who says, I already accept you. I already accept you. See, this should be your attitude. God likes me and I like me. If you don’t like me, what’s your problem? I mean, really, if God likes me and he knows everything about me, the good, the bad, and the ugly, and still likes me, and I think I’m okay, what’s your problem? You need to let it go. Stop trying to be such a people pleaser and live for the love and authority and approval of God. Look at this verse, Psalm 2710. Even if my mother and father forsake me, the Lord will receive me. Number two, God not only sees you as acceptable, God sees you as valuable. And if you’re gonna learn to see yourself the way God sees you, you’re gonna have to see your value. You’re not just acceptable, you’re worth something. You’re worth a lot. The Bible says this in Luke 12, 24. Look at the birds. They don’t need to plant or harvest or put food in barns because God feeds them. God takes care of the birds. And he says, and you are far more valuable to him than any birds. If God takes care of little bitty birds, he’s certainly gonna take care of you because you are more valuable. So let me ask you a question. How much do you think you’re worth? I’m not talking about your net worth, I’m talking about your self-worth. Because your values have nothing to do with your value, whether you’re rich or not. Your net worth and your self-worth are not tied together. If they are, you could lose your self-worth in an instant. What is it that creates value? What makes something valuable? Two things. Number one… Who owns it? The owner creates value. If somebody’s famous and they own something, something very common can be worth a whole lot. You go to these auctions and they offer off stuff that celebrities have had, and it’s worth a lot. Would you say, which is more valuable, your tennis shoes or Michael Jordan’s tennis shoes? There’s no question. Your car or Madonna’s car? There’s no question. Who owns it determines its value. Whatever your value is depends on who you belong to. So who do you belong to? Look at the next verse. You belong to God. Oh, you don’t get any bigger than that. You belong to God. He made you, he created you, he died for you, he saved you. You belong to God. Imagine your worth. Last year there was a famous Kuwaiti oil sheik whose daughter was kidnapped and he put out an announcement on the internet that said, pay any price, she’s the daughter of the king. You are a daughter or son of the king. You are a child of God and he will pay anything, including going to the cross to get you back. Jesus said, I love you so much, I’d rather die than live without you. He not only owns you, the second thing that creates value is what is somebody willing to pay for it? How much is your house worth? Well, not what you think. It’s worth whatever somebody’s willing to pay for it. Now, you may think it’s worth this, but if somebody’s only gonna pay for this, the market determines the value. Let’s say I got a rare baseball card. How much is it worth? It’s worth whatever somebody’s willing to pay for it. You got a piece of art in your house? How much is it worth? whatever somebody’s willing to pay for it. How much would a pair of Rick Warren socks be worth? Very rare. Very rare. So, look how much you were paid for. Next verse. You have been bought and paid for by Christ, by the way, with his life. So you belong to him. The greatest ransom ever paid was for you. And God exchanged his own son for you. Did you get that? Let me say it again. God exchanged his own son for you. And even if you were willing, if you were the only person who ever lived in the world… Jesus Christ still would have come to earth and have died for you. That’s how much value he considers you to be. Jesus did not die for junk. You are not junk.
SPEAKER 01 :
Pastor Rick, thank you so much for that great message today. Hey, do you know someone who’s graduating this year? Maybe it’s your son or daughter, a grandchild, or even a neighbor or family friend. Well, as you celebrate this important milestone and they begin the next phase of their journey, they need to know that God created them, loves them, and has a plan for their life. And that’s why Rick Warren created a special resource called just for graduates called The Purpose Driven Life. Selected thoughts and scriptures for the graduate. It’s filled with inspirational scripture, biblical wisdom from Rick, and beautiful imagery. This unique hardcover gift book provides a priceless reminder of the bountiful life God has planned for your graduate, and it will inspire them to seek his unique plan and purpose for their life. Please don’t miss this opportunity to minister to the graduate in your life today. Be sure to request your copy of The Purpose Driven Life for Graduates when you give a gift to Daily Hope to help share the hope of Jesus Christ with people around the world. Just go to PastorRick.com to get your copy of this great resource. That’s PastorRick.com, or you can just text the word HOPE to 70309. Again, that’s the word HOPE to 70309. 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.
