Hello, everybody, This is Pastor Rick's Daily Hope. Thank you so much
for joining us today, and if you're brand new, welcome to the Daily
Hope family. We hope you'll enjoy the teachings of Pastor Rick Warren right here.
I'm so excited for all of you to learn about your shape. It
might not be the shape you're thinking of right now. Rick loves to use
acrostics and this one is shape your shape, your spiritual gifts, heart abilities,
personality, and experiences. And one of the reasons I love this series
and have shared it with so many friends is because Rick talks about the way
God wired you and why you need not just know your shape, but how
to use it to do the things that God designed you to do. And
now let's listen to Pastor Rick as he shares the final part of a message
called the purpose of your Personality. Now, you're going to be tempted the
rest of your life, and the Bible says this, They're on your on
that linees First Peter, Chapter two. Since your real home is in heaven.
In other words, you're not going to spend forever here on this planet.
Keep away from the evil pleasures of this world. They're not for you,
for they fight against your very souls. They fight against your souls and
your emotions. It just keep away from them, don't always give in to
them. Don't do that. Now, what's the warning to feelers. The
warning to feelers is this, you must let God lead you. You must
let God lead you. The Bible says this in Glatians chapter five, verse
sixteen. Don't be led by your emotions, but be led by the spirit.
It says, let the Spirit direct your lives, and you will not
satisfy. You, won't yield to you, won't give into the desires the
lust of the human nature. Now, we all have desires, and not
all of them are good desires. Not every desire you have is a good
one. You got some good ones, you got some bad ones. You're
gonna give in to your desires unless you let the spirit lead your life.
You'll either be controlled by your feelings or by God's spirit. And when you
say I let God's Spirit lead me, it doesn't mean you don't have the
feelings. It just means you don't give in to them. A lot of
people think, well, if I feel it, then I'm gonna I'll do
it. And once I become a Christian, God will take away all my
feelings for bad. No, he doesn't. You will have those feelings the
rest of your life. But a follower of Christ is not someone who has
no feelings. The follower of Christ is someone who just doesn't obey the wrong
ones, doesn't give in, doesn't get addicted to, doesn't yield to,
doesn't let the negative or the wrong feelings control you. Doesn't say you're tempted.
It says you won't satisfy, you won't give in. That's interesting that
in worship, feelers often close their eyes. I don't know if you've noticed
this. There's nothing wrong with that. In fact, it's a good thing
if it helps you focus in on God. It's fine to close your eyes.
Feelers use their body, they'll raise their hands. You know. It's
like at a ball game. People get excited, go whoo, Well we
do about somebody hit a home run? When can you go? God,
woo? That's fine? And so you see it in their faces. And
the Bible says that, in fact, when you are worshiping God, all
around you becomes irrelevant. You're not paying attention to how somebody else looks or
how even you look, you're focused on God. The third personality are the
thinkers. Now, talkers love God with their hearts, and feelers love God
with their souls. Thinkers love God with their minds. Did you know that
you can love God with your intellect? Did you know that when you're doing
intellectual activities that brings glory to God? Did you know that God never said,
now, I want you to take the brain that I gave you and
put it on the shelf and follow me. No, he said, I
want you to use your mind. Use your brain, use your intellect.
And the Bible says love God with all your mind. When you're developing in
your mind, you're strengthening your mind, you're educating your mind. You are
doing an act of worship because you're doing something with what God gave you.
Now, the Biblical worldview and Christianity is a worldview. The biblical worldview that's
in this Bible is the only logical, rational worldview that squares with reality.
I don't know if you've studied all the nine major worldviews of life. I
have. I've studied them intensely. And every other worldview that's not based on
this ultimately ends up in nihilism. Which means nothing matters. There is no
meaning in life if there is no God. People try to make it up,
but there really isn't. There is no morality in life without God.
You cannot have a moral society if there is not a moral God. Otherwise
we're just animals. If there is no God, then you are an accident
and your life doesn't matter. Squat. If there is no God, then
your life has no purpose, it has no meaning. You are a freak
accident. You're simply just an animal and a survival of fittest. And if
I want to come over and kill you and take your stuff, well sorry,
it's survival of fittest. There is no basis for morality in society if
there is no God. The logical, rational, intelligent, systematically lining it
up with reality is the worldview that God gives us in his word, and
God says, I want you to use your mind now. People who are
thinkers, when they become believers and follow Christ, all of a sudden they
fall in love with the Bible because they love to study this book. It
is so deep. There's no other book in the world like it. And
you could study it and study and study it goes deeper and deeper and deeper,
and it has all of the answers to life's questions, like why am
I here, Where am I going? What am I here for? What
is the purpose of life? Does my life matter? What's the past,
what's the future? Where did I come from? They're all here in this
book, and thinkers dig in and they study, and they love Bible study
because they are thinkers. The Bible says this, And so I'm one nineteen.
How I love your law? I think about it all day long.
Now, why do we need thinkers in the world. We need talkers because
we need communication. We need feelers because we need compassion. We need thinkers
because the world needs consideration. Consideration. In other words, somebody's got to
be thinking through complex issues, complex problems. Somebody's got to be thinking through
the implications of what the rest of us are doing. And we need people
who think through tough problems and bring solutions to the table. That's why we
need scientists. That's why we need writers. That's why we need philosophers.
That's why we need inventors inventing new things and thinking it through. That's why
we need innovators, and why we need creators. Who are thinking through solutions
to problems that are in the world. The Bible tells us that we are
to think about what God wants to do in our own lives. It says
this in Lamentations chapter three. We should think about think about the way we
are living, and turn back to the Lord. Socrates said, the unexamined
life isn't worth living. Need to think about the direction of our lives,
and thinkers are good at this. They ponder the path that they're heading.
Now, are there any weaknesses to this personality? Well, of course,
just like their weaknesses to talkers and weaknesses to feelers, there are two weaknesses
of thinkers. Number one is pride. Pride because thinkers who have the ability
to think fast or are educated tend to look down on people who don't think
the way they do. And while you're not sophisticated, or you're not educated,
or you don't know what I know, and they tend to devalue everybody
else, not realizing that we now know there at least nine different kinds of
intelligence, not just one. First Corinthians eighty one says this. It says
pride puffs up or knowledge makes people arrogant, but love builds them up.
King James says, knowledge puffs up, love builds up. If you're going
to be smart, great, use your smarts, but you must temper it
with love, otherwise you're going to be egotistical. Now, let me tell
you a little secret. Don't tell anybody who told you this. Last couple
of years, I've had the opportunity to speak at and meet with some of
the most brilliant minds in the world in congresses and conferences and seminars, very
bright people, and you know what, some of them are just flat out
stuck up. They're snooty, they're snotty there. I won't tell you what
they are, but they're smart. They know they're smart, and they'll be
happy to tell you they're smart, and they're proud of they're smarts. And
what they don't realize is everybody's ignorant, just on different subjects. Okay,
some things a physicist doesn't know, and the person next to you knows some
things you don't know, and they know some things I don't know. Everybody's
ignorant, just on different subjects. Nobody knows everything. So the Bible says,
don't be proud of your wisdom, be proud that you know the Lord.
Now, if you are a thinker, you ought to use your intelligence,
but temperate with love, because otherwise you can become egotistical about the Other
problem of thinkers is indecision. Some people you study as an excuse to never
act. And some of the most scholarly people I know are also the most
vacillating, wimpy, indecisive people I know. They're always studying. Well,
it could be this, and it could be that, and it could be
this, and it could and they never come to conclusion. The Bible talks
about them like this, always studying but never able to recognize the truth.
And some people use study as an excuse as a barrier to never act,
to never really do anything. So the Bible gives warnings the thinkers just like
it does the talkers and the feelers. The first one is practice humility.
The Bible says, don't be impressed with your own wisdom. Why because God
is God and you're not, and he's a lot wiser. Humility is a
choice. By the way, never pray for God to humble you in the
first place. Not once in the Bible are you ever told to pray that
prayer. It never says ask God to humble you, So not ever say
God, please humble me. No. In the Bible, it says,
humble yourself before the Lord. It's a choice. Humility is something you do
to yourself. Nobody else can do it to you. They can humiliate you,
but they can't make you humble. Humble is something you do to yourself.
It's a choice to say, God, you know what in an essence,
humility is, It's total dependence upon God. God, I'm depending on
you. I'm trusting you in this moment, even with the gifts and the
talents and abilities that you've given me, I'm trusting you. And humility is
not denying your strengths. It's being honest about your weaknesses. The other warning
to thinkers is to practice what you know. Practice what you know. If
you know what, then do it. James one twenty two says, do
not merely listen to the word and so deceive yourselves. Do what. It
says. You could come to Saddleback Church for twenty years and take notes on
every single sermon ever preached here and still never really do it. Would you
write this down in your outline. I only believe the parts of the Bible,
I actually do. I only believe the parts I actually do. Do
you believe we got to give to the poort? Yeah? Do you do
it? Nah? Do you believe that people need Christ to go to heaven
the ad you tell them about it? No? Do you believe in tithing
the ad? You do it? No? You only believe the parts you
do. You may write it down, be kind to my wife. If
you're not kind to your wife, you don't believe it. You only believe
the parts that you do. Doers love God with their strength. This is
the fourth personality, the doer. These are the energetic activists of life.
They're the getted done people. They're the achievers, the accomplishers, the workers,
the people that push things forward, that make things happen in the practical
sense of life. Psalm one sixteen says this, this is an averse of
a doer. Oh God, here I am your servant. You're a faithful
servant. Set me free for your service, he saying, God, put
me in, coach. I want to be in the game. Me on
the sideline. I want to be involved in this. I don't want to
watch history happen. I want to make history. Put me in the game.
Let me in there, let me have a shot at it. I'm
ready to go to work. Lord, I'm obedient, I'm active, and
I'm ready to go to work. I'm ready to serve you. Now,
what is the purpose of doers in the world. Well, the world needs
contribution. We don't just need communication, just need compassion. We don't just
need consideration. We got to get to act, get to work and do
it. We need contribution. We need people of action. We need,
as Pastor Carrie calls him, get or done people, people with initiative,
with energy, with action, with a bias for achievement, with a bias
for starting things and growing things, and building things and developing things, hands
and feet people go getters. The Bible says in Romans twelve one, offer
your bodies to Him as a living sacrifice, pure and pleasing. That's the
most sensible, the word's practical way to serve God, says offer your body.
Why, because that's the only way you can serve God. Even if
you're using your mind or your mouth, or your heart or your emotions,
it's part of your body. You can't serve God out of your body.
So be practically, says, give him your body. Say, God,
here's my body for you to use in this world in any way you want
to be used. And of course it takes thinkers and talkers and feelers and
doers, and about a fourth of us are in each of those categories.
And God says, now, I want you to love me all four ways,
but in the way that you're primarily shaped. That's the way I expect
your primary worship, your primary love, and your primary service to come by
talking, by thinking, by feeling, by doing. And we're all necessary
in the body of Christ. Now, just as talkers and feelers and thinkers
have the weaknesses, what are the what are the weaknesses of doers? Well,
I can say it in one word, over work. Overwork. Doers
are always working work, work, work, work, work, work,
work, And they never stop to think. They certainly don't stop to feel,
and they wouldn't spend a second stopping to talk. Let's just get it
done. Let's get it done. And so they're always busy, busy,
busy. And God says this in Someone twenty seven, It is senseless for
you to work so hard from early morning until late at night, fearing you're
going to starve to death. For God wants his loved ones to get their
proper rest. That would be a good verse to put up on the mirror
in your bathroom. God wants his loved ones to get their proper rest.
This week, in my personal quiet time, as I was reading through the
Book of Jeremiah, God gave me a verse that I hadn't seen before.
In the message paraphrase, it says this on the screen, Slow down,
take a deep breath. What's the hurry? Why wear yourself out? Just
what are you after anyway? But you say I can't help it. I'm
addicted to alien gods. That means false gods, phony gods, fake gods.
It means not the true God. I'm addicted to something else other than
the one True God. And I can't quit. Let me read it again.
Slow down, take a deep breath, everybody, Just take a deep
breath right now. Slow down, Take a deep breath. What's the hurry?
Why wear yourself out? Just what are you after anyway that you say
I can't help it. I'm addicted to alien gods. I can't quit.
Question what alien gods? Are you addicted to the approval of other people?
Money status? Are you addicted to praise? Two? Sex? To making
a name for yourself. Are you addicted to adrenaline? You just like the
rush of working fast? Why can't you slow down? Why can't you stop
and take a break? What do you really after? You need to know
that, particularly if you're a doer, why do you do what you do?
When you know the why? God will show you how. But if
you don't know why you're doing what you're doing, you're in a cycle.
God says, slow it down. If you're a doer, you need to
slow it down. Some of you need to do less, not less for
God, but less in other areas, so you've got more time to do
what matters most now. The Bible says that when you become a believer,
that God makes you a new person inside. Tewod Corinthians Fire, verse seventeen
says, when anyone becomes a Christian, if any man be in Christ,
you are a new person inside. The oldest passed away, the newest come.
What is actually new in your life when you become a believer. Well,
we've talked about many times past forgiven purpose for living home in heaven.
Let me tell you something that doesn't change when you come to Christ. Your
personality doesn't change. If you were a talker before you knew the Lord,
you're still a talker. If you were a feeler before you knew the Lord,
you're still a feeler. If you were a thinker before you knew the
Lord, you're still a thinker. And if you were a doer before your
Lord, before the Lord, you still are a doer. God doesn't slow
you down when you come to him, He just changes your direction. In
fact, he says, I want to empower it. Remember you got your
personality from Him, and God doesn't want to make you a clone of everybody
else in the way that you worship and serve and love God. No,
he says, I want you to worship and love and serve me the way
I made you to be with your personality through talking, through feeling, through
thinking, through doing. And I want you to do it all four ways,
even though I primarily put you in one category. But he says,
not only that, I will strengthen your personality, not dampen it. I'm
not going to turn you into a religious nut. I'm going to make you
more you than you've ever been before. I can do all things through Christ,
who strengthens me. What a great message from Pastor Rick, I hope
it touched you just like it touched me today. And now let's end our
show with a closing thought from Rick. If you've been blessed by this message
today, here's what I want you to do. Share it, tell somebody
about it now. There's a lot of great ways you can share Daily Hope.
One of the easiest is by posting it on social media on Facebook or
Twitter or LinkedIn or Instagram. But you'll find a share button today next to
the message on my website. If you'd like to share this broadcast, just
go to Pastororrick dot com, click on the listen tap. There you'll find
buttons where you can share the message by email, social media, or WhatsApp.
That's Pastorick dot com. We hope you'll join us next time as we
continue to look into God's word for our daily hope. This program is sponsored
by Pastor Rick's Daily Hope and your generous financial support.