Pastor Rick Warren often says, you were made by God and for God,
and until you understand that, life will never make sense. Welcome to Pastor
Rick's Daily Hope. Today we begin a series called God's Vision for the Rest
of your Life. In it, Rick is going to help you to discover
the unique purpose and vision that the Lord has for your life. In just
a few moments, we're going to tell you how to get a hardcover copy
of Pastor Rick's wonderful book, The Purpose of Christmas, just in time for
the season. Go to Pastorrick dot com to find out more, or text
the word daily to eight hundred six hundred five thousand and four. That's Pastorick
dot com, or the word daily to eight hundred six hundred five thousand and
four. Right now, here's Pastor Rick Warren with part one of a message
called Choosing your Future. One of the greatest gifts that God has given you
is the freedom to choose. It's what makes us different from animals. You
have a free moral choice. Now, the problem is, what is our
greatest gift is also our greatest curse. Because we make stupid choices a lot
of time. We make dumb choices every choice I make is not a good
one, and neither is yours, and so we often waste that power that
God has given us. Now, every year, in January, people make
new choices, which they call New Year's resolutions. The problem with New Year's
resolutions is we usually make them about trivial issues, not the most important things
in life, and then we try to accomplish them by willpower. And if
you set some New Year's resolutions, you try to accomplish them. Why willpower
I give you to about the end of February, Because willpower doesn't last.
It's good to get you started, but it doesn't last, and pretty soon
you get tired and you give up and you stop that habit, that commitment,
that new thing you're trying to do. You need more than simply willpower.
We're going to talk about that today. Now there in your outline,
you know, it's the word to resolve. The verb resolve means to decide,
It means to settle, to determine, to purpose. You have a
purpose for your life, And the word resolution, like a New Year's resolution,
means a firm determination to do something. What I want us to do
this weekend is look at the four most important resolutions you can make in your
life. These are life shaping resolutions. Well, I'm going to share with
you today. If you will make these four resolutions and depend on God to
help you, your life will radically improve, not just this next year,
but the rest of your life. The rest of your life will become the
best of your life. These four resolutions will transform you. They will make
your life so much better if you'll focus on these and they come to us
from the life of Moses. Now, Moses is the greatest man in the
Bible, or at least the greatest man in the Old Testament. Moses is
the guy who led the Jews after four hundred years of slavery to freedom.
He challenged the greatest nation in the world at that time, Egypt and Pharaoh,
and set a million people free. Moses is the guy that God gave
the Ten Commandments to. Moses is the guy who wrote the first five books
of the Bible Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy. Why did
God use this guy in such an amazing way Because Moses made four resolutions.
He made four choices that altered his destiny. You see, these are the
things that change your life. What happens to you in life is not nearly
as important as the choices you make. We make our choices, and then
our choices make us. Your character is the sum total of your choices.
So while you don't control all the circumstances in your life, you do control
your choices, and these are far more important than circumstances. Now in Hebrews
chapter eleven, if you have a Bible, you might want to open there.
All of the verses are on your outline. We have about five verses
on the life of Moses that explains the choices he made. The first verse
is about the choices parents made when he was a baby, and then the
next four verses are about the choices that Moses made. And if you will
make these same choices, you will benefit dramatically for the rest of your life.
Now you know the story of Moses. Pharaoh had decided that the Jews
were getting too large in number in population in each so he made a decree
that all the baby boys were to be murdered. Moses' parents decided, we're
not going to do that. We believe this is a special child. We
believe God has a plan and purpose for his life, and so rather than
murdering their baby boy, they made a basket, put him in the Nile
River as a baby, and shoved him out in the nile nearby where Pharaoh's
daughter was bathing. Pharaoh's daughter sees the baby in the basket, falls in
love with this little baby. It decides to take him home and adopt him
as her son. So now this baby slave becomes the grandson of Pharaoh.
But nobody doesn't. Nobody knows except Pharaoh's daughter that he's actually a Jewish kid.
Now the Bible says this here on the screen Hebrews chapter eleven. By
faith, Moses' parents hit him for three months after he was born because they
saw he was no ordinary child, and they were not afraid of the king's
edict. That's Pharaoh's command to kill all the baby boys. By faith,
Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be known as the son
of Pharaoh's daughter. He chose instead to be known to He chose instead to
be mistreated along with the people of God it's the slaves, rather than to
enjoy the pleasures of sin. For a short time, he regarded disgrace,
in other words, being a slave for the sake of Christ as of greater
value than all the treasures of Egypt, because he was looking ahead to his
reward in Heaven. By faith, he left Egypt, leading the Jews out
to freedom. Not fearing the king's anger. Pharaoh's anger, he persevered because
he saw Him who is invisible. In this passage, there are four verbs.
It says Moses by faith, Moses refused, Moses chose, Moses regarded,
and Moses persevered. When you understand the meaning of these four verbs and
their implication for your life today thousands of years later, it'll change your life.
You're listening to Pastor Rick's Daily Hope. Rick will be back in just
a moment with the rest of today's lesson. If you've missed any part of
today's teaching, you can listen online anytime at pastorick dot com. That's pastorick
dot com. What the True Reason for the Season? Fill your heart with
hope this year when you discover Pastor Rick's inspirational book The Purpose of Christmas.
In it, Rick shows you how Christmas is designed to meet your three deepest
needs and out receiving the three Christmas gifts God has for you will transform your
life forever. This book is sure to become a loved family favorite, to
be read at every Christmas, and to be shared with your friends who may
not know how much God loves them. We'll send you the inspiring and beautifully
illustrated book The Purpose of Christmas as our way of saying thanks when you give
a gift to help Daily Hope take the Certain Hope of Jesus to people around
the world. To get your copy of this great resource, just call eight
hundred six hundred five zero zero four or go to pastorick dot com to get
yours. That's eight hundred and six hundred five zero zero four or pastorick dot
com. You're listening to Pastor Rick's Daily Hope once again. Here's Pastor Rick
Warren. Now let's look at these four life shaping choices, resolutions that will
flat out improve your life more than anything else if you'll do what Moses did.
Here's the first resolution, Number one. I refuse to be defined by
others. I refuse to be defined by others. God did not make you
to be what somebody else wants you to be. God didn't make you to
be what your parents want you to be. What's your girlfriend or boyfriend wants
you to be what's your wife wants you to be. God didn't make you
to be what your boss wants you to be, what your peers want you
to be. God made you to be you. And if you're going to
become all that you're going to be and what we're going to talk about the
next six weeks, you're gonna have to deal with this one. I refuse
to be defined by others. Now, this is the first issue Moses had
to deal with Verse twenty four Hebrews eleven. By faith Moses, when he
had grown up, and this is a market maturity, refuse to be known
as the son of Pharaoh's daughter. Now Moses has an identity crisis. As
I just explained to you earlier. He's born Hebrew slave, but he's raised
Egyptian royalty, the grandson of Pharaoh. And as he grows up, he's
got to decide who am I? I mean, really, who am I?
It's going to affect the rest of his life. He's got two choices.
One he can pretend to be Pharaoh's grandson for the rest of his life,
and he can live a life of luxury. He'll have fame, he'll
have fortune, he'll have all the pleasures he could possibly want in the world.
He'll be a celebrity, he'll have power, he'll have prestige, he'll
have status, and one day he'll be the most powerful man on the planet
as Pharaoh of Egypt in its heyday. Or he can admit who he really
is he's Jewish. At that point, they're going to kick him out.
He's going to go live with the slaves the rest of his life. He's
going to be disgraced, He's going to be humiliated. He's going to live
a life of pain and sorrow and drudgery the rest of his life. Now,
which one would you do? I mean, when you think about that,
Moses refused to live a lie. He's a man of integrity. Most
people are living lies today. They're trying to be people they're not. You're
trying to impress people about things that really just aren't true in your life,
and that causes enormous tension in your life. He insisted on being who God
made him to be against all kinds of peer pressure. Now here's my first
question for you. Who are you letting determine your identity? Your friends,
your parents, your family. Some of you have parents, they died years
ago. You still hear their voices in your mind. You're trying to live
up to their vision for your life. Some of you're trying to live out
what some ex husband or wife said to you, and you're trying to prove
them wrong. You're letting them control your life. Some of you're trying to
impress people. You're living a life of culture. Keep up with the joneses,
impress people social media, the what culture says, your spouse says,
what the competition says. Let me show you some verses from the Bible,
Romans, chapter twelve. Don't let the world around you squeeze you into its
own mold, but let God remold your mind from within, so that you
may prove in practice that the plan of God for you is good. You
might circle that the plan of God for you is good, but you don't
know the plan of God. We can't cover it in the next six weeks
if you don't deal with this where you say, I'm going to refuse to
let the world squeeze me in it. I'm not going to let other people
define me. Look up here on the screen, the Bible says in Exodus
twenty three to two don't follow the crowd in doing wrong. In other words,
don't let peer pressure push you into things you don't want to do,
because they don't really like you anyway. Those people you're trying and impress,
they don't really care about you anyway. The Bible says this, Our purpose
is to please God, not people. He is the one who examines the
motives of our hearts. And Jesus said this about his disciples John seventeen.
They are no more defined by the world than I am defined by the world.
Can you say that about you? No, you can't, because you've
been defined by the people in your life. You see, this is so
important that we can't deal with anything else. Do you deal with this one?
Because when you know who you are, it sets you free from the
fear of disapproval, and most people are scared to death of criticism and rejection
and disapproval. It's so important I wrote a new chapter on it in The
New Purpose Driven Life, because it's one of the two things. Envy says
I must be like you to be happy, and people pleasing says I must
be liked by you to be happy. Both of them are wrong, and
both of them will keep you from fulfilling the life God intended for you to
live. You have to say, I'm going to resolve that I will refuse
to be defined by other people, and I'm not going to let other people's
approval or disapproval shape my life. I'm going to live for an audience of
one. This is what Moses did, and your first life shaping resolution is
to say this. I resolved that no more will I let other people press
me into their mold. I'm going to be what God wants me to be.
I'm going to do what God wants me to do, and I'm going
to fulfill the plan that God has for my life, not somebody else's plan
for my life. Why, because you can trust God. The Bible says
this Jeremiah twenty nine on the screen. I know the plans I have for
you, says the Lord. They are plans for good and not for disaster.
Plans to give you a future and a hope. Now, friends,
that is real success, real success, not phony, fake artificial success.
Real success in life is being exactly what you were created to be and nothing
more than that. I want you as your pastor. I want you to
succeed in the rest of your life. But the only way you're going to
do that is to be who God made you to be, not what other
people are pressuring you to be, not what they want you to be,
being who God wants you to be. I refuse to be defined by others.
Second, the second resolution that you need to make in life to be
all that God wants you to be. A life shaping choice is this,
I choose short term pain for long term gain. I choose short term pain
for long term gain. Now, anybody who's ever played a sports knows this
one. You've got to put out the effort. You've got to practice,
you've got to work hard, you've got to put out some sweat in order
to play in the championship game. You just don't walk out and win the
championship. No pain, no gain. You got to put out to get
back. If you're going to be good at anything, you've got to put
out short term pain for long term gain. That's not just true in sports,
it's true in finances. It's true in relationships. I have a good
marriage, but I worked at it can and I have worked at it hard
for years. It didn't come easy. Nobody just has an easy relationship.
You got to work at it to make your marriage work. It takes work
to make it work. We put out short term pain for a long term
gain. Am I grateful for the marriage I've got? That? Are you
kidding me? I'd pay a million bucks. It's incalculable what my marriage is
worth to me. But it wasn't always that way. We had to put
out short term pain for long term gain. Why is this resolution important in
your life? Because most of the problems in your life come from your inability
to delay gratification. Everything in society teaches us I want everything and I want
it now, and I want it free and I want it easy. Well,
life isn't that way. So every problem in your life comes from your
inability to put off the pleasure in order to get it a longer amount of
it later on. I want it now, I want it free, and
I want it easy. The reason you're in debt is because of your inability
to delay gratifications. That's why you're in debt, because you say, I
see it and I want it now. Do I have the money for it?
No? Can I afford it No? So I'm going to charge it
and I'm going to put it on a credit card. Every time you use
a credit card to buy something you can't afford, you are refusing to delay
gratification, and you get deeper and deeper in debt. And the reason America
is falling off a fiscal cliff is because our government doesn't know how to delay
gratification. We want it all, and we want it all now, even
though we can't pay for it. This is true physically in your health.
I don't want to pay for a good health with exercise and proper diet and
getting the right amount of sleep. I just want to do whatever I want
to do and feel good. It isn't going to happen. You're going to
feel bad if you don't do the pain to get the gain. It's true
in relationships when people go and say, you know, I don't want to
follow what God says about sex. I want to have sex now. I'm
not married, but I want to have sex now. It causes problems in
relationships because when you have sex with somebody, you give part of your heart
to them. There's an emotional attachment and you give keep giving part of yourself
away. It causes spiritual problems. Would you agree with me that usually the
right thing to do? Is not the easy thing to do. Everybody agree
with that the easy thing to do is typically the wrong thing to do.
This is Pastor Rick's Daily Hope. We're so thankful that you've chosen to spend
some time with us today. If you've missed any part of this broadcast,
including portions we didn't have time for, just go to pastorick dot com and
listen online. Anytime. Rick will be right back to close out our time
today. But first, let the true reason for the season fill your heart
with hope this year when you discover Pastor Rick's inspirational book, The Purpose of
Christmas. In it, Rick shows you how Christmas is designed to meet you
your three deepest needs and how receiving the three Christmas gifts God has for you
will transform your life forever. This book is sure to become a beloved family
favorite, to be read every Christmas and to be shared with your friends who
may not know how much God loves them. We'll send you a hardcover copy
of the inspiring and beautifully illustrated book The Purpose of Christmas as our way of
saying thanks. When you give a gift to help daily Hope, take the
certain hope of Jesus to people around the world. To get your copy of
this great resource, just call eight hundred six hundred five thousand and four or
go to Pastorick dot com to get yours. That's eight hundred six hundred five
thousand and four or Pastorick dot com. Here's Pastor Rick with a letter from
one of our listeners today. I want to share with you a note that
I recently received from Mariam, a former Muslim who came to faith in Jesus
after listening to Daily Hope. Now we're not musing Miriam's real name on the
air, because she lives in a country that's actually closed to Christianity, but
here's what she wrote. Good morning, Pastor Rick. I was born and
raised in a Muslim family, and I've been brought up believing and practicing in
the Islamic faith. I want to tell you my journey to accepting Christ and
how listening to Daily Hope has affected my life. Last September, I met
a new friend. Our friendship grew quickly and surprisingly, and I would always
feel safe and secure and peaceful around him, and he would always challenge me
with some questions about my faith that I couldn't answer. I was going through
some rough times in life, and for the very first time in my life,
my new friend prayed for me. After he prayed, tears streamed into
my eyes, causing me to see a very bright light even though my eyes
were closed. I started having doubts about my Islamic faith and doing my own
research. With his help, he asked me to listen to Daily Hope and
it was so meaningful to me that I decided to describe on my own.
Ever since then, I have not missed a single broadcast of Daily Hope,
Pastor Rick. I want to thank you for giving me the opportunity to know
Christ better on a daily basis through your broadcast. I now know what love
is, that it brings people closer and connects us to Jesus. And I'm
truly honored and thankful to my new friend for bringing the light into my life
and the Holy Spirit. And I'm proud to say that I devote my life
now to Jesus Christ in his Holy Name and in His Spirit. And I'm
going to continue to enjoy and be moved by your daily inspiration through the Daily
Hope broadcast, Pastor Rick. My family doesn't know about any of this which
truly scares me at times. But one day I hope Christ will give me
the strength and the courage to confess my faith to them and encourage them to
accept the truth too. Thank you for your time, Pastor Rick, and
for helping me become a better Christian every single day. Regards Mariam, you
know, wow, Mariam, I'm so encouraged to know that you have become
a follower of Jesus Christ. That makes you my sister and the Lord,
and I want to thank you so much for writing to me and sharing your
story. I'm so encouraged by your note, and thank you for letting me
share it with literally millions of other people around the world. Helping people find
a relationship with Jesus is what keeps me going. It's why we do this
broadcast Daily Hope. And let me say to those of you who are listening
right now, did you notice that a new friend of Miriam's listened to her
and prayed for her and then shared the Daily Hope broadcast with her? Have
you done that with anybody? Have you shared this broadcast with anybody who's not
a believer. I want to encourage each of you to notice the people that
God places in your life and take some time to learn their story, and
then don't be afraid to pray with them, and then share this Daily Hope
broadcast with them and encourage them to listen to it. You could end up
making a friend for eternity. And if this broadcast has helped you grow closer
to the Lord, would you let me know about it? Write to me
Rick at Pastorick dot com and tell me your story so that I could share
some of these stories online with other people who are partners with us in taking
the good news of hope to everybody. If you'd like to let Rick know
how this broadcast has blessed you, you can write him at Rick at Pastorrick
dot com. That's Rick at pastor rick dot com. Be sure to join
us again 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