Rick Warren - God Can Use Anybody—Part Two

April 10, 2026·27 min·2 clips

Rick Warren reveals why the most countercultural statement today is 'it's not about you.'

1. Saddleback Church's Daily Hope podcast presents part two of Rick Warren's 'God Can Use Anybody' sermon from the Miracle of Mercy series. 2. Rick Warren is the founding pastor of Saddleback Church and author of The Purpose Driven Life; this sermon draws primarily from Paul's second letter to the Corinthians. 3. The episode covers three of Paul's five secrets for being used by God: remembering it's not about me, embracing weakness as a tool, and using pain to help others. 4. Warren opens the first principle — 'it's not about me' — by noting that the first sentence of The Purpose Driven Life, 'It's not about you,' has required him to remind himself of this 20 to 40 times per day throughout his career. 5. He argues that society's entire advertising and economic infrastructure communicates the opposite message — 'Have it your way,' 'You deserve the break today,' 'We do it all for you' — making self-forgetfulness actively countercultural. 6. Warren describes a pattern he observes frequently: people who begin serving in ministry out of genuine gratitude gradually shift to doing it for the approval, applause, and sense of importance it provides, ultimately turning from servants to celebrities. 7. He uses 2 Corinthians 4:7 — 'we are like clay jars in which treasure is stored' — to argue that God's power operates through human brokenness, not in spite of it: 'we're all crackpots, and it's through the cracks that the light shines out.' 8. Warren presents a four-stage personal journey through weakness: as a young man he denied his weaknesses, then hid them when they grew too large to ignore, then accepted them as part of his make-up, and finally began glorying in them as evidence of God's mercy. 9. He articulates a distinction between humility and false humility: genuine humility is 'not thinking less of yourself, but thinking of yourself less,' while false humility involves denying real strengths you actually possess. 10. Warren argues that weakness is more socially connecting than strength: sharing strengths generates envy and resentment, while sharing weaknesses creates intimacy — which he says is why many marriages fail to achieve real closeness. 11. He introduces the concept of 'use my pain to help others' through Paul's suffering inventory from 2 Corinthians 11: five rounds of 39 lashes (195 total lash marks), three beatings with rods, three shipwrecks including a night in open sea on driftwood, constant travel, and deprivation of food, water, sleep, and clothing. 12. Warren categorizes three types of suffering: self-caused (from poor decisions), innocent suffering (from others' sins against you), and redemptive suffering — voluntarily accepted pain for the benefit of others. 13. He argues Christ's death on the cross is the model for redemptive suffering: paying a cost not owed, for the benefit of others. 14. Warren discloses personal examples of using pain for others: a troubled early marriage (which he and Kay used to counsel couples), Kay's two cancer diagnoses, deaths of both his father and father-in-law from cancer, and the suicide of their son Matthew due to mental illness. 15. He notes that at Easter the previous weekend, 54,000 people attended a Saddleback campus and 1,864 gave their lives to Christ — and frames this as the outcome of thousands of hours of volunteer time motivated by others' benefit, not personal gain. 16. Warren closes with 2 Corinthians 4:16-17 — 'though our bodies are dying, our spirits are being renewed every day' — and argues that spiritual renewal is not subject to the physical decay of aging. 17. He references Moses as a biblical example: at old age, Moses remained as full of vigor, energy, and closeness to God as he had been as a young man. 18. The episode's tone alternates between pastoral warmth, self-disclosure, and direct humor — including a joke about aging men's physique ('your chest has dropped into your drawers'). 19. Christians who carry pain from past failures, family illness, or personal grief and want a framework for making it useful will find the most value here. 20. Listeners looking for theological depth, biblical scholarship, or engagement with suffering as a philosophical problem will find the treatment applied and pastoral rather than analytical.

As heard by us

A plainspoken sermon about humility, weakness, and getting out of your own way.

Rick Warren keeps the message focused on one plain idea: God can use anybody once life stops circling the self. The sermon moves in a clear line from denying weakness to hiding it, then to admitting it, and that structure gives the point some force.

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Need a blunt reset on pride and weakness?

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