Speaker 1: Hey, everyone, thanks for joining us today on Pastor Rick's
Speaker 1: Daily Hope.
Speaker 2: This is the place.
Speaker 1: Where Rick Warren brings you uplifting messages from God's Word
Speaker 1: every day to help you grow deeper in faith and
Speaker 1: live a life with purpose. Today we're continuing in a
Speaker 1: powerful series called Toolbox for Life. In this series, Rick
Speaker 1: teaches us four essential skills that you need to succeed
Speaker 1: wherever God has placed you, whether it's at home, at work,
Speaker 1: at school, or in your community. These are tools that
Speaker 1: every follower of Jesus absolutely needs. Okay, and let's get
Speaker 1: right to Pastor Rick with part one of a message
Speaker 1: called Maximizing Your Strengths.
Speaker 3: Our series theme is the verse out of the Bible
Speaker 3: Ecclesiastes ten to ten. It's one of my life versus.
Speaker 3: It's here on the screen. The Bible says, if the
Speaker 3: axe is dull and its edge is unsharpened, more strength.
Speaker 3: In other words, you've got a dull axe. It takes
Speaker 3: more energy to cut the wood. He's saying, work smarter,
Speaker 3: not harder. If the axe is dull and its edges unsharpened,
Speaker 3: more strength that's needed. But skill will bring success. It's
Speaker 3: not enough just to want to be successful in your
Speaker 3: life and your marriage and your career, in your schooling.
Speaker 2: Desire is not enough.
Speaker 3: Determination is not enough, dedication is not enough.
Speaker 2: Prayer is not enough.
Speaker 3: The Bible says skill will bring success, and until you
Speaker 3: learn those skills, you cannot succeed in life. And the
Speaker 3: more skillful you become, the more successful you'll be. Now,
Speaker 3: part of my job as your pastor is to coach
Speaker 3: you in life skills. That's one of the things that
Speaker 3: I do is to help you learn the skills of
Speaker 3: life to make you more successful, because I want you
Speaker 3: to succeed in every area of your life. Now, this week,
Speaker 3: I'm want to look at the Thurge skill, which is
Speaker 3: how to maximize your strengths you as time goes on
Speaker 3: in your life. I need to do less of what
Speaker 3: you're not good at and need to do more of
Speaker 3: what you are good at, what God wired you to do,
Speaker 3: what God shaped or formed or created or designed you
Speaker 3: to do. And we're gonna look at that in detail today.
Speaker 3: Now we've got an entire class on this called Class
Speaker 3: three OHO one Discovering My Shape. But this has to
Speaker 3: do with the fact that God made you unique. And
Speaker 3: the Bible says that God has uniquely wired you up
Speaker 3: for a purpose. He's designed you. He has shaped you
Speaker 3: for a purpose. The Bible says this Jeremiah chapter one,
Speaker 3: before I shaped you in the womb. This is God
Speaker 3: talking before I shaped you in the womb. I knew
Speaker 3: all about you before you saw the light of day
Speaker 3: in the words took your first breath as a baby.
Speaker 3: I already, he says, had holy plans for you. Now
Speaker 3: I want you to circle the word shaped. Before I
Speaker 3: shaped you in the womb, I knew all about you,
Speaker 3: and before you saw the light of day, I had
Speaker 3: holy plans for you. Did you know that God determined
Speaker 3: your life in advancing and he shaped you in advanced
Speaker 3: And by the way, this is why abortion is wrong.
Speaker 3: It's short circuits God's plan. God's plan for your life
Speaker 3: doesn't start the moment you take a breath. God plans
Speaker 3: for your life started the moment he thought you up
Speaker 3: and decided to use the DNA of your parents to
Speaker 3: create you. And it short circuits God's mind. God's plan
Speaker 3: for your life didn't start the moment you were born.
Speaker 3: It started before you were born. And the Bible says,
Speaker 3: he said, I shaped you in your mother's womb. Now
Speaker 3: Your shape reveals your purpose in life. If you want
Speaker 3: to know what you're here on earth for, you got
Speaker 3: to look at your shape. In architecture, we have a
Speaker 3: phrase that says a form follows function.
Speaker 2: You may have heard this term.
Speaker 3: And if you go and you want a building built,
Speaker 3: and you tell an architect I want to build a building,
Speaker 3: he will say first or she will say, tell me
Speaker 3: what you want to do with it? What's the function?
Speaker 3: And then form follows function. For instance, the building here
Speaker 3: at Lake Forest wearing right now was the function of
Speaker 3: it is to hold a large crowd, and so it
Speaker 3: was shaped. It was formed to fulfill a function. In architecture,
Speaker 3: form follows function, but with human beings it's the exact opposite.
Speaker 3: Function follows form. In other words, if you want to
Speaker 3: know what your function is a life, what you're supposed
Speaker 3: to do with your life, you got to look intently
Speaker 3: and deeply at how God wired you. And that's what
Speaker 3: we're going to look at this morning. Your shape reveals
Speaker 3: your purpose. I mean, anybody here have gills, no, so
Speaker 3: you weren't made to swim underwater without a scuba tank.
Speaker 3: Anybody here got wings? No, And that's why you takes
Speaker 3: a machine to help you fly. You weren't shaped for
Speaker 3: those things. Now, the Bible says, very repeated that God
Speaker 3: planned every day of your life, even before you were born.
Speaker 3: You are not an accident. Your parents may not have
Speaker 3: planned you. I've told you this many times, which but
Speaker 3: God did. And it doesn't matter whether they were good, bad,
Speaker 3: or indifferent parents, or you've never even knew your parents.
Speaker 3: God knew that they had just the exact DNA twenty
Speaker 3: three thousand chromosomes each that would create you. And God
Speaker 3: is more interested in making you than he was in
Speaker 3: their parenting skills. And God wanted you alive, and nobody
Speaker 3: else could have made you you, so He used even flawed,
Speaker 3: imperfect people.
Speaker 2: To make you.
Speaker 3: Now the next verse some on one thirty nine, I
Speaker 3: want you, as I read this aloud, to circle all
Speaker 3: of the verbs.
Speaker 2: Okay, let me read it to you. Here's on screen.
Speaker 3: You Lord made my whole being circle. The word made
Speaker 3: You formed me circle, formed in my mother's body. I
Speaker 3: praise you because you made me. There's another maid in
Speaker 3: an amazing, in a wonderful way, you saw, he saw.
Speaker 3: There's a verb you saw my borns being formed. There's
Speaker 3: another verb. As I took shape. There's another in my
Speaker 3: mother's body. When I was put together, circle put together.
Speaker 3: When I was put together, there in your mother's womb,
Speaker 3: you saw my body as it was formed. All the
Speaker 3: days planned planned for me were written in your book
Speaker 3: before I was one day old. Now I want you
Speaker 3: to write underneath that verse. God was intimately involved in
Speaker 3: my birth. He made you, he formed you, he shaped you,
Speaker 3: he planned you, he saw you. This is not something
Speaker 3: where God just said, oh, another baby's been born. No,
Speaker 3: God was intimately involved in your personal birth. He saw you,
Speaker 3: he made you, he planned you, he created you, he
Speaker 3: formed you, he shaped you.
Speaker 2: God was intimately involved.
Speaker 3: Now, notice in that verse he says, I've planned every
Speaker 3: day of your life. We don't get to choose the
Speaker 3: day of our birth, and we don't get to choose
Speaker 3: the day of our death. It's God's timing. Today there
Speaker 3: are many people trying to choose the day of.
Speaker 2: Their own death. That's called playing God.
Speaker 3: We don't get to choose when we're born, and we
Speaker 3: don't get to choose when we die, and when we do,
Speaker 3: we're trying to play God. God is God, and you're
Speaker 3: not now. Nearly thirty years ago, those who've been around
Speaker 3: for any length of time At saddle back, No, I
Speaker 3: came up with a little crosstick shape, five things that
Speaker 3: describe how God shaped you, why you are you, what
Speaker 3: makes you you? And to kick us off in today's message,
Speaker 3: Pastor Tommy, who is our three to Zho one ministry
Speaker 3: pastor who teaches the class now shaped for significance, is
Speaker 3: going to come and talk about shape.
Speaker 2: So let's give Tommy a warm welcome.
Speaker 4: So how has God shaped you? The yes stands for
Speaker 4: spiritual gifts. It stands for spiritual gifts. The moment you
Speaker 4: became a believer, God gave you some spiritual gifts. And
Speaker 4: spiritual gifts are supernatural abilities that God gives each of
Speaker 4: us through the Holy Spirit. At the moment of conversion,
Speaker 4: at the moment that Jesus comes into our hearts, the
Speaker 4: Holy Spirit enters in. We receive different kind of talents
Speaker 4: and special abilities and multiple spiritual gifts in the moment
Speaker 4: that we become a believer. Look at what First Corinthians
Speaker 4: seven to seven says, each one has his own gift
Speaker 4: from God. One has this gift, another has that. Now,
Speaker 4: these spiritual gifts that are given by God are not
Speaker 4: for your benefit, but they're for the benefit of others.
Speaker 4: These gifts are to be used to minister to the
Speaker 4: Body of Christ. They are to be used to build
Speaker 4: up to the church, to advance the.
Speaker 5: Kingdom of God. And we're given.
Speaker 4: These gifts so that we can be a blessing to
Speaker 4: other people, that our lives and how God has made
Speaker 4: us could help other people.
Speaker 5: And it's to show God's workmanship and his handiwork and
Speaker 5: his power in our lives.
Speaker 4: Now, some of you have spiritual gifts, but you don't
Speaker 4: even know you have them. And one of the reasons
Speaker 4: you don't know that you have them is because you've
Speaker 4: never actually taken a look at them. You've never unwrapped
Speaker 4: the package that God has given to you. Imagine receiving
Speaker 4: a beautifully wrapped gift and then you receive that gift,
Speaker 4: but you just put on a shelf and you just
Speaker 4: stare at it. Imagine how the gift giver would feel
Speaker 4: knowing that you've taken this gift that they've given and
Speaker 4: you haven't done anything with it. Well, God has given
Speaker 4: you these amazing spiritual gifts inside of you, and he
Speaker 4: wants you to unwrap those. We say, well, Tommy that's great,
Speaker 4: but how do I unwrap them? Well, the easiest way
Speaker 4: and the most beneficial way to unwrap them is to
Speaker 4: start serving in ministry. You discover your gifts and what
Speaker 4: God has put inside of you by getting out and
Speaker 4: serving and trying different ministries. And you'll try a ministry
Speaker 4: and it might work for you, and it's like, oh,
Speaker 4: I think this maybe me.
Speaker 5: I'm not sure. Some may not work for you, but
Speaker 5: the ones that.
Speaker 4: You're most fruitful at encourage others, encourage you and say, man,
Speaker 4: this really looks like who you are. You're doing a
Speaker 4: great job. That is where your spiritual gift is at.
Speaker 4: It's easier to discover your gift through ministry than it
Speaker 4: is to discover your gift or ministry through your gift,
Speaker 4: and so God wants you to be able to use those.
Speaker 5: Gifts for him.
Speaker 4: Now, I want to be honest with you, there's some of.
Speaker 5: You here that actually don't have any spiritual gifts.
Speaker 4: And the reason you don't have any spiritual gifts is
Speaker 4: because you've never asked Jesus into your life. You've never
Speaker 4: stepped across the line, you never tried to establish a
Speaker 4: relationship with God through his son Jesus.
Speaker 5: But the moment that you do that, the moment that you.
Speaker 4: Ask Jesus into your heart, he changes everything about you.
Speaker 4: But he also gives you gifts, these spiritual gifts. Now,
Speaker 4: every believer has at least one gift that they receive.
Speaker 5: I've never met a believer who doesn't who only has one.
Speaker 4: Most every believerrival woman always has multiple gifts. So the age,
Speaker 4: the age stands for heart. It stands for heart. This
Speaker 4: is your motivations, your interests. This is your passion, the
Speaker 4: core of who you are.
Speaker 5: Deep down inside. This is what gets you up in
Speaker 5: the morning. This is what keeps you up late at
Speaker 5: night thinking about it. This is what turns your crank.
Speaker 5: The things that you love.
Speaker 4: And we've got all different kinds of passions, all different
Speaker 4: kinds of loves in our lives, and they're all for
Speaker 4: different reasons. Some of you absolutely love football, like this
Speaker 4: is your season, this is your time. You love football.
Speaker 4: You're all up in what everything the NFL is doing.
Speaker 4: Some of you love sports, some of you love love love,
Speaker 4: I mean just love running. You could run for miles.
Speaker 4: I don't understand this at all, you know, Tommy, don't run.
Speaker 4: I just don't I don't and I don't get it.
Speaker 4: If we have to evacuate the building, I'm gonna die
Speaker 4: and go to heaven. I you know I'm gonna get out, maybe,
Speaker 4: but I'm gonna be the last one to get out.
Speaker 4: There's nothing wrong with that.
Speaker 2: Though.
Speaker 4: You got different passions. Some of you love cooking, some
Speaker 4: of you love painting. Some of you love to do
Speaker 4: business and shop and fix things and repair things. Some
Speaker 4: of you love video games, some of you love numbers.
Speaker 4: I don't understand that one either. You've got different passions
Speaker 4: and different things that you love. They make up who
Speaker 4: you are, and they're all wonderful. Have you ever noticed
Speaker 4: that there's some things that really interest you? I mean
Speaker 4: you really into it, and then there's other things that
Speaker 4: just bore you to tears and thirty minutes feels like
Speaker 4: thirty years, and you're like, are.
Speaker 5: We ever gonna get out of word? This is terrible?
Speaker 4: Have you ever noticed there's some things that really excites
Speaker 4: you and other things you could just care less about? Well?
Speaker 5: Where did that come from?
Speaker 4: It came from the fact that God put inside of
Speaker 4: you an innate desire, an innate passion for certain things,
Speaker 4: things that interest you, and God put those passions in
Speaker 4: your heart for you to enjoy them and for his benefit.
Speaker 5: Why do you do this?
Speaker 4: Because He wants you to be you only you can
Speaker 4: be you, and he wants you to be you.
Speaker 5: And my heart is the real me inside.
Speaker 4: Now you may not have known this, but every single
Speaker 4: one of us have a unique heart beat. Just like
Speaker 4: you have a unique thumb print or a fingerprints, a
Speaker 4: unique EyePrint, you have a unique heart beat, a unique emotion,
Speaker 4: a heartbeat that God put inside of you, and that
Speaker 4: person inside of you in who you are. God wants
Speaker 4: that to come out because that's the real you, those
Speaker 4: real passions. He doesn't want you to be ashamed of
Speaker 4: those real passions you have. The person you're sitting next
Speaker 4: to you more than likely doesn't necessarily have the same
Speaker 4: passions that you do.
Speaker 5: And that's totally okay.
Speaker 4: Look at what Proverbs four twenty three says, guard your heart,
Speaker 4: for it is.
Speaker 5: The wellspring of life.
Speaker 4: We need to guard our heart for many reasons. But
Speaker 4: let me give you one of the reasons why we
Speaker 4: need to guard our heart.
Speaker 5: Because there are people.
Speaker 4: In this world that will look at your passions and
Speaker 4: look at your dreams, and they'll want to dismiss them,
Speaker 4: don't want to belittle them. They'll want to deny them.
Speaker 4: They might even try to destroy them. And God doesn't
Speaker 4: want that for you. God wants the real you to
Speaker 4: be able to stand up and to step up in
Speaker 4: ministry and to serve him. Satan wants to destroy your passions.
Speaker 4: Satan wants to whisper things in your ears of like, oh,
Speaker 4: why should you care about that? That doesn't matter.
Speaker 5: He wants to destroy and he wants to distract you
Speaker 5: from them. So the Bible says you have to guard
Speaker 5: your heart.
Speaker 4: Now, if we all had the same heart, if we
Speaker 4: all had the same passions and desires, there's a lot
Speaker 4: of things.
Speaker 5: That wouldn't get done in the world, right.
Speaker 4: I mean, so thank God that we all have different
Speaker 4: things that we love, different things that get us going.
Speaker 5: I mean, thank God.
Speaker 4: People love repairing things, repairing cars, and people love teaching kids.
Speaker 5: Those are all different things that God can use for
Speaker 5: his glory and his kingdom.
Speaker 4: Now, the A stands for abilities, stands for abilities, and
Speaker 4: those are the natural abilities. These are the natural abilities
Speaker 4: that you were given the moment you were born. And
Speaker 4: everybody gets some natural abilities. Look at what Romans twelve
Speaker 4: six tells us God has given each of us the
Speaker 4: ability to do certain things. Well, I want you to
Speaker 4: underline certain things well. In this verse, God doesn't say
Speaker 4: I gave you the ability to do everything. Well, he said,
Speaker 4: I've given you the ability to do certain things.
Speaker 5: Well.
Speaker 4: There's a book called the twenty one Outrageous Lies We
Speaker 4: Tell our Kids.
Speaker 5: Now.
Speaker 4: In this book, it talks about all these different lies
Speaker 4: that we tell them. For example, this is a lie
Speaker 4: that we tell our kids.
Speaker 5: Just tell me the truth. I promise you won't get
Speaker 5: in trouble, right, Like I mean, I've told I've been
Speaker 5: so careful, I've to tell my kids.
Speaker 4: I tell my kids that, and in my mind, I'm like, Okay,
Speaker 4: no matter what comes out of their mouth, I am,
Speaker 4: they're not going to get in trouble. I just want
Speaker 4: to know the truth. But that's a lie we tell them.
Speaker 4: Here's another lie we tell our kids. We tell our
Speaker 4: kids you can be anything that you want to be
Speaker 4: in this world.
Speaker 5: It's true. We tell our kids that.
Speaker 4: Now here's the problem, though, we kind of perpetuate that
Speaker 4: lie out in their lives and they think they can
Speaker 4: be anything. Case in point, how many of you ever
Speaker 4: seen American idol.
Speaker 5: Somebody has lied to those people. They have not.
Speaker 4: Every time I watch the show, I'm like, where are
Speaker 4: their friends? Where are the people that love them to
Speaker 4: tell them that, like they can't sing, they don't know
Speaker 4: they can sing. We also perpetuate the lie inside of
Speaker 4: ourselves that we think can do anything. I mean, there
Speaker 4: was for a long time there. I want to be
Speaker 4: an NBA basketball player. The problem is I got a
Speaker 4: two inch vertical leap.
Speaker 5: That's it. And I don't like to run. So I
Speaker 5: got a problem that's.
Speaker 4: Not gonna work for me because it's not who God
Speaker 4: made me to be. So instead of telling your kids,
Speaker 4: or even instead of telling yourself you can be anything
Speaker 4: that you want to be, telling yourself the truth of
Speaker 4: what God says, and here's what God says. He says,
Speaker 4: you can be anything, absolutely anything that I created.
Speaker 5: You to be. That's what I tell my kids.
Speaker 4: I said, you can be anything, absolutely anything that God
Speaker 4: created you to be.
Speaker 5: Say this out loud with.
Speaker 4: Me, say I can be anything, absolutely anything that God
Speaker 4: created me to be. That's the truth, and.
Speaker 5: It doesn't matter about age.
Speaker 4: David was a teenager when he took on the Giant
Speaker 4: and killed him.
Speaker 5: Joshua said, you know what, I.
Speaker 4: Want to take that mountain, the final stronghold in the
Speaker 4: Promised Land, in his eighties, and he did it. He
Speaker 4: was fighting to the front of the line as an
Speaker 4: elderly man, saying we're going to the mountain.
Speaker 5: We're going to take it.
Speaker 4: When God is in it and God has created you
Speaker 4: to be who he's made you to be, and you
Speaker 4: embrace it, you can do anything. So sometimes the greatest thing,
Speaker 4: the greatest discovery, you can make, is finding out what
Speaker 4: you can't do in order for you to concentrate on
Speaker 4: what you can do. Because all of us are different.
Speaker 4: Some of you are really good with numbers. Man, you
Speaker 4: breeze through math. I mean you can do everything, geometry, calculus,
Speaker 4: You're just good with it. Others you, when you think
Speaker 4: of numbers, you're like, look, not me, I'm not doing it.
Speaker 4: Some of you are really good with words. Some of
Speaker 4: you are really good with people. Some of you are
Speaker 4: not really good with people. Some of you are really
Speaker 4: good with the animals. Some of you might have a
Speaker 4: natural athletic ability, and some of you might be really uncoordinated.
Speaker 5: You hurt yourself and you hurt other people. When you're
Speaker 5: out there. It's not good.
Speaker 4: Some of you might have a be an artist and
Speaker 4: you love to create, or you might be mechanically you
Speaker 4: have mechanical abilities in or you can create software.
Speaker 5: And I love that I am all these people.
Speaker 4: I feel like I had a mechanical bypass as a
Speaker 4: child when I was born. My brain just doesn't work
Speaker 4: that way. But some of you do amazing as architects.
Speaker 4: Some of you are teachers and hair stylists and makeup
Speaker 4: design artists and video production. You're born with leadership skills
Speaker 4: and leadership abilities, so you have music abilities. You're able
Speaker 4: to take an instrument and just a very short amount
Speaker 4: of time learn how to play it and develop that skill.
Speaker 4: Some of you, God gave this incredible ability to sing,
Speaker 4: and you have.
Speaker 5: A beautiful voice.
Speaker 4: The fact is that all these different kinds of abilities
Speaker 4: God wants to use for his glory and his kingdom,
Speaker 4: and he will to build up his church and to
Speaker 4: further the work here on this planet. Now, PEA stands
Speaker 4: for personality. We have spiritual gifts, we have heart, we
Speaker 4: have abilities.
Speaker 5: And then PA is.
Speaker 4: The fact that God has given us all a unique personality,
Speaker 4: and some of you have more unique personalities than others.
Speaker 5: Don't elbow anybody.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 4: Psychologists tell us that there are sixteen unique personality types,
Speaker 4: but within those sixteen unique personality types, there are hundreds,
Speaker 4: if not thousands, of variations based on environment, based on
Speaker 4: passions and education, based on the experiences.
Speaker 5: That you have.
Speaker 4: The fact is God loves variety, and probably none of
Speaker 4: us can really figure out anyways our personalities because they
Speaker 4: all were a combination. We're a blend of all these things,
Speaker 4: our family of origin that make up you. And when
Speaker 4: you have the Holy Spirit in your life, it's difficult
Speaker 4: to categorize it because God is constantly redeeming every aspect
Speaker 4: of who you are. He's redeeming your personality, He's redeeming
Speaker 4: those experience, the things.
Speaker 5: In your life that you've struggled. He's redeeming all these things.
Speaker 4: So let's take a quick personality quiz just for fun.
Speaker 4: So for you, some of you, when it comes to
Speaker 4: say swimming, for example, some of you like to just
Speaker 4: cannonball in your plungers, you jump in, and some of
Speaker 4: you just like to wait to the pool. You can
Speaker 4: just want to stick your baby toe in the pool
Speaker 4: just to see how this thing is. Okay, So how
Speaker 4: many of you say you jump into the pool head first.
Speaker 4: You don't even think about it. You're diving in.
Speaker 5: Okay. How many of you.
Speaker 4: Say, no, I like to wait in the pool. I
Speaker 4: like to check it out. I'll just stick my toe
Speaker 4: in there. Okay, all right?
Speaker 5: What about playing games?
Speaker 4: How many of you say, you know what, I'm a
Speaker 4: I'm a high risk person.
Speaker 5: I like to I like to play for stakes. It
Speaker 5: doesn't matter who's in the room.
Speaker 4: I mean, I could love them, baby, but if we're
Speaker 4: playing a game, they're going down.
Speaker 5: That's just who they are.
Speaker 4: How many of you say that's you, right, okay, you're
Speaker 4: highly competitive in there. How many of you would say, no, No,
Speaker 4: we're playing a game.
Speaker 5: It's good.
Speaker 4: You know, I'll play for pennies. I'm okay with that.
Speaker 4: It's just about having fun. Okay, all right, that's good now.
Speaker 4: How many of you, when it comes to to uh
Speaker 4: to organization, would say, I love to be organized.
Speaker 5: How many would you say that?
Speaker 4: How many of you would say organization just really cramps
Speaker 4: my style a little bit?
Speaker 5: How many would it's just not me. The pile is organized,
Speaker 5: and that's good enough for me.
Speaker 4: Right, it's there, I know where it's at. I can
Speaker 4: find it. I don't need a system.
Speaker 2: That's you.
Speaker 4: Okay, good now. How many of you say I absolutely
Speaker 4: love routine. I love routine. It's just I love the organization.
Speaker 4: I love to plan everything out. I plan my vacations out.
Speaker 4: I can tell you when you every moment. Okay, raise
Speaker 4: your hand. Let me see you rag your cans.
Speaker 5: Be proud. You're kind of a little bit bree proud
Speaker 5: right here. Okay.
Speaker 4: How many of you say, no, man, I just like
Speaker 4: to live by the seat of my pants.
Speaker 5: I'm good, I'm good, okay, all right now.
Speaker 4: How many of you, when it comes to decisions, say
Speaker 4: I like to think things through. I don't like to
Speaker 4: make rational decisions, like to think things through?
Speaker 5: Raise your hands. How many of you say, I live
Speaker 5: by my gut, in my feelings. Raise your hands. Okay,
Speaker 5: all right. How many of your morning people raise your hands?
Speaker 5: Your morning because it's morning. I'm here. Yeah, I'm excited,
Speaker 5: it's morning already. How many of you are night people?
Speaker 5: You're night ouls. God bless you for making it here today. Okay,
Speaker 5: we're glad that you're here.
Speaker 2: All right right.
Speaker 5: How many of you married the opposite person?
Speaker 4: Yeah, just shows God has got a sense of humor.
Speaker 5: Doesn't he. I mean, really, now.
Speaker 4: How many of you would say I'm not good in
Speaker 4: the morning and I'm not good at night, but I
Speaker 4: am fantastic at lunch.
Speaker 5: How many of you out there that's me? That's me.
Speaker 4: I don't even know if God exists before six am.
Speaker 4: I'm told that he does, but I'm not sure because
Speaker 4: I've never experienced before. Now, how many of you would
Speaker 4: say I am an outgoing, extroverted kind of person.
Speaker 5: Raise your hand, all right?
Speaker 4: How many of you say, nope, I'm more shy and
Speaker 4: more introverted.
Speaker 5: You raise your hands now.
Speaker 4: And the true introverts actually didn't raise their hands in
Speaker 4: that moment.
Speaker 5: But for those of you, we know you're there, We
Speaker 5: love you.
Speaker 4: The point is this that God uses different personalities to
Speaker 4: work in the world and do all kinds of things.
Speaker 4: One Corinthians twelve to six says God works through different
Speaker 4: people in different ways. And the fact is God can
Speaker 4: use introverts just as much as he uses extroverts, and
Speaker 4: he does.
Speaker 5: God can use.
Speaker 4: Super organize people just as much as he uses people who.
Speaker 5: Are disorganized, and he does.
Speaker 4: God can use people that love routines and people that
Speaker 4: love just to be adventurous and fly by this their pants,
Speaker 4: and he does. God uses all of these things that
Speaker 4: he has made you to be for his glory and
Speaker 4: his kingdom when you surrender and place them in God's
Speaker 4: hands and accept who God's made you to be.
Speaker 5: Pastor Rick's gonna come up and talk about the email.
Speaker 3: You know, when Tommy was talking about how God puts
Speaker 3: opposites together, I was thinking about, you know, when you
Speaker 3: before you get married, opposites attract, and then after you
Speaker 3: get married, opposites attack because what interested you in your
Speaker 3: spouse was they were different from you. Oh that's so
Speaker 3: cute the way she does that. Oh that's so I
Speaker 3: really like the way he does that. Six months into
Speaker 3: the marriage, you going, excuse me, could you be a
Speaker 3: little bit more like me?
Speaker 2: You know?
Speaker 3: And what started off as interesting is now an irritation. Now,
Speaker 3: for those of you who are unmarried and you would
Speaker 3: like to be married, I want to just tell you
Speaker 3: a little secret. You cannot change a person's personality.
Speaker 5: You can change their character.
Speaker 3: Their character can change, but you can't change their personality.
Speaker 3: You know, I've done thousands of weddings and there's an
Speaker 3: order to the wedding, and you know, the bride walks
Speaker 3: down the aisle and then she stands at the altar
Speaker 3: and then they do the hymn, And many brides after
Speaker 3: the wedding think that's the same process. I'll alter him.
Speaker 3: It ain't gonna happen, all right, You just you know,
Speaker 3: don't think you know. I have a project here and
Speaker 3: it's you. Character can change. Your fundamental personality will not
Speaker 3: change over your lifetime, and you just need to understand it.
Speaker 3: So the five things that make you u s spiritual gifts.
Speaker 3: What am I gifted to do?
Speaker 2: Heart?
Speaker 3: What do I love to do? Abilities? What am I
Speaker 3: naturally good at? Personality? Who do I like to do
Speaker 3: it with? And how do I to do it? Routine,
Speaker 3: variety together in a group, by myself. And then the
Speaker 3: e in shape that shapes your life for your purpose
Speaker 3: is experiences. And of course God uses all kinds of
Speaker 3: experiences in your life. Now, the first experiences he uses
Speaker 3: to shape you are your family experiences, good ones and
Speaker 3: bad ones. God can use them both for good in
Speaker 3: your life, even the bad ones. If you'll give him
Speaker 3: all of the pieces and he'll use family experiences to
Speaker 3: shape you. He will use educational experiences to shape you
Speaker 3: in school and I'm talking about both good and bad.
Speaker 3: If I would ask you to raise your hand and
Speaker 3: I would just say how many of you were hurt
Speaker 3: in school, every single hand would go up. Everybody has
Speaker 3: been hurt in school by something somebody said to you,
Speaker 3: or something somebody did to you, or a comment a
Speaker 3: teacher made.
Speaker 2: It's just part of life.
Speaker 3: You're going to be hurt, and like God can even
Speaker 3: use that to shape you. Spiritual gifts and herd ability,
Speaker 3: personal and experiences, vocational experiences, your job, spiritual experiences, church retreat,
Speaker 3: Bible studies, a quiet time of the Lord. But the
Speaker 3: number one kind of experience that God uses to shape
Speaker 3: you for your purpose in life. I hate to tell
Speaker 3: you this, painful experiences. More than anything else in life.
Speaker 3: God uses painful experiences in your life to get your
Speaker 3: attention and to shape you. God whispers to us in pleasure,
Speaker 3: he shouts to us in pain. Pain is God's megaphone.
Speaker 3: I can't tell how many people I've heard are go
Speaker 3: in this direction until all of a sudden they got
Speaker 3: in pain, and now they're going in a different direction.
Speaker 3: We don't change when we see the light. We change
Speaker 3: when we feel the heat. And so God even uses
Speaker 3: pain for good in your life. He doesn't have to
Speaker 3: cause it. There's plenty of pain in the world, but
Speaker 3: he can bring it for good.
Speaker 2: Let me show you a couple verses.
Speaker 3: Deuteronomy eleven, verse two says, remember what you have learn
Speaker 3: learned about the Lord through your experiences circle the word
Speaker 3: experience experiences with him. God wants you to learn from
Speaker 3: your experiences not to be bitter, but to be better.
Speaker 3: And Romans eight twenty eight says, all circle the word,
Speaker 3: all all that happens that means the good and the bad,
Speaker 3: every part of it, all that happens to us is
Speaker 3: working for our good if we love God. Now, this
Speaker 3: is a conditional promise. Everything is not good in the world.
Speaker 2: We know.
Speaker 3: It doesn't even say that not everything is good. Cancer
Speaker 3: is not good, rape is not good, terrorism is not good,
Speaker 3: evil is not good, Suicide is not good. There are
Speaker 3: a lot of bad things in the world that are
Speaker 3: not good. And the Bible doesn't say it's all good.
Speaker 3: It says all things that happen to us are working
Speaker 3: for our good, not for everybody. Everything is not working
Speaker 3: for good in the life of everybody. It's only working
Speaker 3: for good in the life of those who love God
Speaker 3: and give him all the pieces. Say God, can you
Speaker 3: bring good out of bad? Can you turn a crucifixion
Speaker 3: into a resurrection? Can you turn darkness into light? Can
Speaker 3: you turn evil into good? Can you do something with
Speaker 3: the mess in my life? Even my bad decisions?
Speaker 2: God?
Speaker 3: Say yes, I can do that. Now, it says. The
Speaker 3: key is it's working together. It's got to be mixed in.
Speaker 3: I could go to my kitchen this afternoon and pull
Speaker 3: out a can of crisco and start eating it.
Speaker 2: It wouldn't taste good.
Speaker 3: I could crack a couple of raw eggs and eat it.
Speaker 2: That wouldn't taste good.
Speaker 3: I could take a thing of salt start pouring it down.
Speaker 2: It would be very bitter.
Speaker 3: I could take some flour and I could eat the
Speaker 3: raw flour and it would be very dry. I could
Speaker 3: even take some vanilla and drink it pure vanilla, and
Speaker 3: it would be bitter. But I can put that in
Speaker 3: the mix and it becomes a cake.
Speaker 2: I'm hungry. Okay, that's all the sermon you need. Let's
Speaker 2: go out the lines.
Speaker 3: Okay, right here we go, Here we go, And the
Speaker 3: fact is there are the point is there individual events
Speaker 3: in your life that are bitter to your taste.
Speaker 2: You know what I'm talking about.
Speaker 3: But in the mix, God can make a cake. Does
Speaker 3: that make sense? God can bring good out of bad?
Speaker 3: And it's even some of the most tasty stuff is
Speaker 3: when you put sweet and bitter together, and salty and
Speaker 3: sweet and you know, you know, vinegar with this, and
Speaker 3: you go, wait a minute, how's that? It's in the mix?
Speaker 3: All things are working together if we love God in
Speaker 3: our experiences. Now, this is your shape. What I want
Speaker 3: to spend the rest of our time on is how
Speaker 3: do you maximize your shape? And you got to do
Speaker 3: four things? Write these down. The first thing I have
Speaker 3: to do to maximize my strengths to become.
Speaker 2: What God made me to be.
Speaker 3: The first thing is obviously discover it. I've got to
Speaker 3: discuss my shape. You can't use a gift that you
Speaker 3: haven't discovered. You can't use a personality you don't understand.
Speaker 3: You can't grow on your experiences if you haven't discovered them.
Speaker 3: So until you start discovering your shape, you're gonna live
Speaker 3: what I call a forur F life frustration, fear, fatigue
Speaker 3: and failure. Frustration, fear, fatigue and failure. If you have
Speaker 3: in your life a sense of frustration or fear, or
Speaker 3: fatigue or failure. It means you are not operating in
Speaker 3: your shape. You're not in the Jay zone, the joy zone.
Speaker 3: You're not being what God made you to be. You
Speaker 3: may be in a job that's totally ignoring the way
Speaker 3: God shaped you, and you've got frustration, fear, fatigue, and failure.
Speaker 3: It's like fitting a square peg in a round hole.
Speaker 2: It doesn't fit.
Speaker 1: Such a great message from Pastor Rick today, and I
Speaker 1: hope you were just as encouraged as I was. You know,
Speaker 1: the truth is, desire and determination alone aren't enough to
Speaker 1: succeed in life. So many people already work so hard,
Speaker 1: but real success isn't just about working harder. It's about
Speaker 1: working smarter. It's about working God's way. Did you know
Speaker 1: that the Bible is packed with practical instruction to help
Speaker 1: you do just that. Yeah, that's why Pastor Rick Warren
Speaker 1: created the Toolbox for Life Bible Study. Through this powerful study,
Speaker 1: you'll discover and develop for essential, real life success building
Speaker 1: skills straight from God's word. These are skills that will
Speaker 1: equip you to make a difference as you lead with
Speaker 1: confidence and clarity in your home, at work, at school,
Speaker 1: and in your community. The Toolbox for Life Bibles Study
Speaker 1: has four video sessions taught by Rick and includes a
Speaker 1: companion workbook. It's perfect for personal growth or small group study.
Speaker 1: So be sure to request your copy of the Toolbox
Speaker 1: for Life study Kit today. When you give a gift
Speaker 1: to Daily Hope to help take the Word of God
Speaker 1: to a world in need, it's our way of saying thanks.
Speaker 1: Just go to Pastorick dot com to get your copy
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Speaker 1: can just text the word hope to seven oh three
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Speaker 5: Be sure to.
Speaker 1: Join us next time as we look into God's.
Speaker 5: Word for our daily hope.
Speaker 1: This program is sponsored by Pastor Rick's Daily Hope and
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