Speaker 1: Hey, everyone, Welcome to Pastor Rick's Daily Hope, the Bible teaching.
Speaker 2: Ministry of Rick Warren.
Speaker 1: And today we're continuing with this powerful series called the
Speaker 1: Jesus Model. In this series, Rick will walk you step
Speaker 1: by step through the process of true biblical discipleship.
Speaker 2: Rick's giving you practical tools.
Speaker 1: To grow spiritually, experience God's peace, live with greater purpose,
Speaker 1: and become more like Jesus in every area of your life.
Speaker 1: Let's get right into part one of a message called
Speaker 1: Succeeding in your Mission.
Speaker 3: God did not create you just to live for yourself.
Speaker 3: He wants you to care about the hurting people in
Speaker 3: your life. He wants you to make a difference with
Speaker 3: your life. He puts you on this planet to make
Speaker 3: a contribution. You were planned for God's pleasure. You were
Speaker 3: formed for God's family. You were created to be like Christ.
Speaker 3: You were shaped to serve God, and you were made
Speaker 3: for a mission. So like to Blues, brothers, we're.
Speaker 2: On a mission for God.
Speaker 3: Now. Jesus before the Cross was talking to the Father
Speaker 3: in prayer, and he says this, in the same way
Speaker 3: that you gave me a mission in the world, I
Speaker 3: give them a mission in the world. One of the
Speaker 3: greatest tragedies in life is for you to go through
Speaker 3: your whole life and never fulfill your life mission. And
Speaker 3: you stand before God one day and he says, well,
Speaker 3: did you fulfill the mission? I put you on earth
Speaker 3: for it? And go, oh, Lord, I didn't even know
Speaker 3: you had a mission for me. And he's gonna go,
Speaker 3: uh oh, wrong answer. You don't want to be embarrassed.
Speaker 3: At that moment, Jesus said, as God gave me a
Speaker 3: mission in the world, I give you a mission in
Speaker 3: the world. And after the Resurrection he gets more specific
Speaker 3: and he says this here on the screen Acts one
Speaker 3: to eight. You will be my witnesses, not my attorneys,
Speaker 3: my witnesses in Jerusale. That's your own hometown in Judea.
Speaker 3: That's like Orange County in Samaria. That's the cross culture
Speaker 3: in our own area, and to the ends of the earth.
Speaker 3: So it's personal, it's local, and it's global. Now Here
Speaker 3: at Saddleback Church, we take this very seriously, and that's
Speaker 3: why about five years ago or six years ago, we
Speaker 3: launched a thing called the Peace Plan to basically do
Speaker 3: what God has called us to do in our personal lives,
Speaker 3: in our local situation in the national and actually globally
Speaker 3: because God has said go to all nations. And now
Speaker 3: in the last four or five years, we've had over
Speaker 3: eight thousand of members of Saddleback Church who've gone overseas,
Speaker 3: paid their own way to go to some country overseas
Speaker 3: and go on mission for Jesus Christ. In fact, if
Speaker 3: you have gone overseas on a global peace mission, I
Speaker 3: want you to just stand up so we can applaud
Speaker 3: you and express our gratitude for you. Presentatives of our church,
Speaker 3: thank you. Now, not only do we send out people globally,
Speaker 3: but we do it locally, and even thousands of more
Speaker 3: have done it here locally in southern California. What does
Speaker 3: it mean to be on mission with God? And how
Speaker 3: do I succeed in the mission that God has given me? Well, Fortunately,
Speaker 3: Jesus gave us a model, and in Luke chapter ten
Speaker 3: he gives us an example where he sends out his
Speaker 3: peace teams.
Speaker 2: And in Luke's.
Speaker 3: Chapter ten, he sent out thirty one teams of two
Speaker 3: people each into different cities. It was local peace, its
Speaker 3: all in walking distance there in the nation of Israel.
Speaker 3: And before he sent them out, he gave them nine instructions.
Speaker 3: Those instructions still work today. They're things that you need
Speaker 3: to do that I need to do in my personal life,
Speaker 3: whether I'm trying to reach my family for the Lord,
Speaker 3: or reach my best friends for the Lord, or relatives
Speaker 3: co workers for the Lord, whether I'm doing something in
Speaker 3: local peace here in Orange County or LA or in
Speaker 3: southern California, or whether I'm going on a global peace
Speaker 3: trip this weekend. I want us to look at jesus
Speaker 3: instructions to his team, These nine principles for succeeding at
Speaker 3: your life mission. They are the basis for our peace teams.
Speaker 3: When we send out teams, this is what we want
Speaker 3: them to do, whether it's local or global. And as
Speaker 3: I said, these principles will work anywhere. They'll work in
Speaker 3: your office, they'll work at school, they'll work in your
Speaker 3: personal life. How do you succeed in your mission? Let's
Speaker 3: get right into it. Number one. The first principle that
Speaker 3: Jesus gave to his peace teams as he was sending
Speaker 3: them out in Luke chapter ten is the principle of cooperation.
Speaker 3: And the principal of cooperation is this, get a partner.
Speaker 3: Get a partner. God never intends for you to do
Speaker 3: your life mission by yourself. In fact, you can't fulfill
Speaker 3: it by yourself because it's all about relationships, learning to
Speaker 3: love God and learning to love your neighbors yourself. God says,
Speaker 3: I want you to do this in tandem with other people.
Speaker 3: And in Luke ten, verse one, it says the Lord
Speaker 3: appointed seventy two others, that's beside the twelve disciples, and
Speaker 3: send them out two by two ahead of him to
Speaker 3: every town and place he was about to go. He said,
Speaker 3: just well, grab a friend, get a coworker. God never
Speaker 3: meant for you to fulfill your life mission by yourself.
Speaker 2: Why. Two reasons.
Speaker 3: One, you're much more effective when you go with another person.
Speaker 3: You're much more effected when you team up. The Bible
Speaker 3: says this two are better than one because they get
Speaker 3: more done by working together. You can encourage each other,
Speaker 3: you can pray for each other when one's tired and
Speaker 3: discourage the other one lifts the other person up. There's
Speaker 3: so many benefits to working together. And that's why when
Speaker 3: we send these teams out. We never send out individuals. Never,
Speaker 3: we only send them out in groups. Why it's biblical.
Speaker 3: Jesus said, we're to cooperate with each other. Not only
Speaker 3: that you'd be more confident, You're more assured, You're more
Speaker 3: bold when somebody is there with you. And so you
Speaker 3: have somebody else to back you up and support you,
Speaker 3: to share ideas with and be creative and to tell
Speaker 3: your story to. Now. I don't know if you've ever
Speaker 3: thought about having a partner for your life mission, but
Speaker 3: you need one. And it could be your spouse, it
Speaker 3: could be a friend, it could be somebody in your
Speaker 3: small group. But you need to have a partner. Here's
Speaker 3: a little secret. It can be anybody. Sometimes God sovereignly
Speaker 3: puts the most unusual partners together. I'll never forget. When
Speaker 3: I was twenty years old, I went and attended a
Speaker 3: major Christian event in Soul, Korea, and there were one
Speaker 3: million Christians at this event. It was a huge, huge event,
Speaker 3: and I remember they asked for volunteers. Would anybody like
Speaker 3: to go share their faith in the city of Soul.
Speaker 2: I thought, why not?
Speaker 3: I don't know a single Korean word, why not? And
Speaker 3: so I volunteered. And they said, well, now it's biblical
Speaker 3: to pair you up with people, and so they gave
Speaker 3: me a partner. Now, I was a six foot two,
Speaker 3: long hair I mean, really long hair, skinny American. And
Speaker 3: my partner was a four foot two Filipino Catholic nun
Speaker 3: in full black garb. It's like, you know, the hippie
Speaker 3: and the saint kind of a thing, you know. And
Speaker 3: so she doesn't speak a word of English. I don't
Speaker 3: speak any Tagallo, and neither of us speak Korean. This
Speaker 3: is going to be an interesting witnessing assignment. So they
Speaker 3: gave us this little book called the Four Spiritual Laws.
Speaker 3: You've heard of this booklet, and it was in dual language.
Speaker 3: On one side it was in Korean, and on one
Speaker 3: side it was in English, so you could read the
Speaker 3: English side and show where the Korean was. So we're
Speaker 3: going out. We're downtown Soul, Korea, this huge city, and
Speaker 3: this nun and I walk into this business and into
Speaker 3: this department store, and I'm looking around for somebody to
Speaker 3: just talk to. And I found a young girl in
Speaker 3: her twenties who happened to be quite good looking. So
Speaker 3: I always noticed them when I was single. And I
Speaker 3: got and she was in the jewid department. I walked
Speaker 3: over to it. Now I don't know any Korean at all,
Speaker 3: and I hold up this little track and it says,
Speaker 3: do you know the four spiritual laws? And it's got
Speaker 3: it in Korean. So I run my finger along the
Speaker 3: line of the Korean, hoping that that's what that said.
Speaker 3: And I look at and I go. She goes, Okay,
Speaker 3: so she doesn't know the force virtual laws. So I
Speaker 3: open it up and I say, look, I'll read this side.
Speaker 2: You read this side. So I read this and.
Speaker 3: Read that, and I get the bottle page. I wait
Speaker 3: a little bit and I look up and I go,
Speaker 3: she goes. So I turned the page. Okay, I do
Speaker 3: the second page, law number two, God loves you and
Speaker 3: has a wonderful plan for your life. Okay, I finish
Speaker 3: that page. I nod, She nods. So I flipped the
Speaker 3: page again. This little track. Now I haven't said a
Speaker 3: word to her, because I don't know any Korean. My
Speaker 3: wonderful accompliced none is praying for me at this moment,
Speaker 3: standing right there looking up. Okay. I get to the
Speaker 3: next page, and there's these two little pictures on which
Speaker 3: one represents a life without Christ and what one represents
Speaker 3: a life with Jesus. And there's a line in the
Speaker 3: English that's which one represents your life. So I look
Speaker 3: over here on this page. I thought, that's got to
Speaker 3: be the same line. So I run my finger along it,
Speaker 3: and she points to of the non Christian and so
Speaker 3: then I say, on the next line, of which one
Speaker 3: would you like to represent your life? And I run
Speaker 3: my finger along the Korean and she points to the
Speaker 3: one that has Jesus. This is working, okay, this is
Speaker 3: really working. Okay. So I turned the page and it
Speaker 3: says you can pray this prayer. So I point over
Speaker 3: to the koreanside that point, and I go like this,
Speaker 3: So I bow my head and I read the prayer
Speaker 3: and I read this. She reads that prayer and I
Speaker 3: look up in a minute and I finished the prayer
Speaker 3: and I look up and tears are coming down her eyes,
Speaker 3: and I.
Speaker 2: Go, yep, she got it.
Speaker 3: Okay. Now I led that girl to Christ. She's going
Speaker 3: to be in heaven and I never said a word
Speaker 3: to her. And who is my partner on that mission?
Speaker 2: A Filipino nun.
Speaker 3: Anybody can be your partner and you if you are
Speaker 3: willing to be used by God, God will use you
Speaker 3: to change people's life. You just have to be willing.
Speaker 3: Now that's the first principle cooperation. Get a partner. You
Speaker 3: might write down a name of somebody who might You
Speaker 3: might think, could this person be a partner with me
Speaker 3: in my mission in life? And you could write a
Speaker 3: name down. Now, number two, the second principle is a
Speaker 3: principle of expectation, and that is when you go on
Speaker 3: your mission for God, you depend on God. You don't
Speaker 3: depend on your talent, You don't depend on your own creativity,
Speaker 3: you don't depend on money, you don't depend on connections.
Speaker 3: You depend on God. Now, it's interesting that the very
Speaker 3: first thing Jesus says to his peace teams that he's
Speaker 3: sending out, he says in verse four, don't take a purse.
Speaker 3: What does he mean by that? He actually says it
Speaker 3: three times in three different passages of scripture, where he says,
Speaker 3: don't take along any gold or silver or copper in
Speaker 3: Matthew ten, and take no money in your pockets in
Speaker 3: Mark six. What's he talking about? Well, first, let me
Speaker 3: tell you what he's not saying. He's not saying leave
Speaker 3: your credit card at home. That's not what he's saying
Speaker 3: when you go on a peace trip or a peace
Speaker 3: mission or a peace piece project. But Jesus is giving
Speaker 3: a warning about money.
Speaker 2: For two reasons.
Speaker 3: First, depending on money makes me less dependent upon God.
Speaker 3: Depending on money keeps me from depending on God. The
Speaker 3: Bible tells us that the poor the poor are rich
Speaker 3: in faith. And the fact is, as I've traveled around
Speaker 3: the world, I found that the poor have a lot
Speaker 3: more faith than the rich people do. Why because as
Speaker 3: a rich person, you don't depend on God very much.
Speaker 3: When you need something, you don't pray about it, you
Speaker 3: just go out and buy it. You don't have to
Speaker 3: depend on God because you can put it on your
Speaker 3: credit card. But when you're poor and you have nothing,
Speaker 3: you have to depend on God. And that's why the
Speaker 3: poor are rich in faith. They have more faith than
Speaker 3: the rich do. And God says here, he says, I
Speaker 3: want you to depend on me. I want you to
Speaker 3: trust me to provide on your journey. I'm not saying
Speaker 3: don't take any money. He's just saying, don't think that
Speaker 3: this is going to bail you out of all your issues.
Speaker 3: But there's a deeper issue here, and that is this
Speaker 3: money often harms ministry. I need to explain this to
Speaker 3: you because as we send out people all over southern
Speaker 3: California to serve those who are suffering, and as we
Speaker 3: send people all around the world to serve those who
Speaker 3: are suffering. When you see somebody who's hurting, you see
Speaker 3: somebody whos suffering, you see the poor, you naturally you
Speaker 3: want to give to them. You want to be generous,
Speaker 3: and that's a good thing. But the truth is, and
Speaker 3: every parent knows this, if you've got a kid, there's
Speaker 3: a right way and a wrong way to give money,
Speaker 3: you know what I'm talking about. You can give money
Speaker 3: to someone in a way that will ruin them, or
Speaker 3: you can give away somebody money in a way that
Speaker 3: will empower them. You can give money in a way
Speaker 3: that will make them dependent upon you with strings attached,
Speaker 3: or you can give it in a way that actually.
Speaker 2: Treats them with dignity.
Speaker 3: And this is very important for you to understand because
Speaker 3: Americans violate this principle all around the world, meaning to
Speaker 3: do well, thinking that they're helping people when they give,
Speaker 3: but that's not it. You cannot give people out of poverty.
Speaker 3: In the last fifty years, Americans have put billions and
Speaker 3: billions and trillions of dollars into Africa, trillions of dollars
Speaker 3: in foreign aid and Africa. The standard living in Africa
Speaker 3: is actually worse than it was fifty years ago. It's
Speaker 3: worse because you cannot subsidize people out of poverty, can't
Speaker 3: even do it in America. There's only one way out
Speaker 3: of poverty, jobs, job creation. You've got to help people
Speaker 3: create wealth, not wealth redistribution, but wealth creation. And that's
Speaker 3: where some of you entrepreneurs and business leaders need to
Speaker 3: come into play, in using your gifts on mission for
Speaker 3: God and learning how to create job creation. When you
Speaker 3: give money to somebody in the wrong way, in the
Speaker 3: wrong time, it can create jealousy in a village, it
Speaker 3: can split a church. It can create dependency, It can
Speaker 3: rob dignity of people, it makes them dependent, it makes
Speaker 3: something all the great Americans have come to be our savior.
Speaker 3: And all of these things can actually harm. And that's
Speaker 3: why the Bible, the very first thing Jesus says when
Speaker 3: he starts to send out his peace to you, says,
Speaker 3: don't take money. Don't throw money at the problem. He said,
Speaker 3: you need to understand this that you're going to It
Speaker 3: can be as simple as giving street kids candy. I
Speaker 3: have seen this all around the world, that well meaning
Speaker 3: people take candy and then they give it to orphans.
Speaker 3: Or give it to street kids and then get back
Speaker 3: on the bus thinking they've done a good thing because
Speaker 3: that kid smiling, And as soon as they get on
Speaker 3: the bus, that kid is beat up by the bullies
Speaker 3: and the candies.
Speaker 2: Taken away from them.
Speaker 3: When you give candy to a kid in a country,
Speaker 3: you can guarantee it's going to be stolen from him
Speaker 3: immediately and the kid you're guaranteeing, the kid's going to
Speaker 3: get a black eye, get beaten up. And what you
Speaker 3: think you're actually doing is good, you're actually harming the child.
Speaker 3: There's a way that giving hurts. Or when a peace
Speaker 3: team or any team would go into a village or
Speaker 3: something and at the end they want to they see
Speaker 3: a poor pastor and they want to take up an
Speaker 3: offering to help that pastor. And maybe they've taken up
Speaker 3: an offering US two hundred and fifty three hundred dollars
Speaker 3: and they're really excited to give that. They don't realize
Speaker 3: that in that economy that's equal to a year's wage,
Speaker 3: like in Rwanda, where an income is sixty eight cents
Speaker 3: a day, given somebody three hundred bucks, it'd be like
Speaker 3: giving you eighty grand. It throws everything out of whack
Speaker 3: and everything out of proportion. And that's why the Bible
Speaker 3: tells us, you know, it says, don't take a purse,
Speaker 3: don't take a long gold or silver, a copper, don't
Speaker 3: take any money in your pockets. Why we tell our
Speaker 3: peace teams when you go overseas, don't take a bunch
Speaker 3: of American stuff, and don't go giving out money to people,
Speaker 3: and don't come back and do a bunch of fundraisers,
Speaker 3: because that's the old way of doing missions and it
Speaker 3: doesn't work. He says, depend on God, and he says,
Speaker 3: don't take a purse.
Speaker 1: Hey, everyone, thank you so much for listening to Pastor
Speaker 1: Rick's Daily Hope. I've got something really special to share
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