Rick Warren - Maintaining Harmony In My Home, Small Group, and Church Part One

This is Pastor Rick's Daily Hope, the Bible teaching ministry

of Pastor Rick Warren. Today we continue in a series

called the Awesome Power of Vision. In these lessons, Pastor

Rick shows us how to pursue God's amazing vision for

each of our lives so that we can see our

future with faith and not fear. But first, do you

ever feel like you've lost your spark your joy? In

just a few moments, we're going to tell you about

an exciting new resource that will deepen your relationship with

God and restore your joy. You can take a sneak

peek right now by going to Pastororick dot com while

you listen, and if you want, you can just text

the word Daily to eight hundred six hundred five thousand

and four to find out more. Here's Pastor Rick Warren

with part one of a message called Maintaining Harmony in

My Home, Small Group and Church.

Bible says, without a vision, the people perish. What does

that mean? The people perish? It means they become discouraged.

You need a vision for every area of your life

or you're going to get discouraged. You need a vision

for your personal life. You need a vision for your marriage.

If you're married, you need a vision for your work,

for your small group, for your church, and for your future. Now,

today I want to share with you the antidote to

the greatest enemy of vision. And what is that. What's

the greatest enemy of vision? It's division. Division destroys your vision.

Division destroys vision. Nothing causes you to lose your vision

for anything faster than conflict and division. And today, because

of all what we've been going through this past year,

conflict is at at all time high. Really every kind

of area, people's anger as at a higher level. Why well,

let me explain you know, this week I learned that

I never knew, and it's about what causes an explosion.

And I learned that for an explosion to take place,

you have to have three elements, and all three of

them are necessary. First, you need fuel. You gotta have

fuel for an explosion. Second, you need containment, okay, and

third you need a spark. Fuel, containment and a spark. Now,

it was that second element that I didn't know about

that causes an explosion. You need containment none. Other words,

if I take a can of gasoline and I pour

it all out over the pavement and I throw a

match on it, it's going to create a fire, but

it won't explode. It has to be contained in a

can or in a tank for it to explode. Now,

when I heard that, I immediately saw the parallels to all

the conflict and relationships that people are having these days.

And why there's so many explosions of anger out there today.

Why it is because we've been in containment for the

past year due to COVID nineteen pandemic. We have been

in a period of strict containment trying to prevent the

spread of the virus, and so we've had quarantines, and

we've had stay at home orders, and we've had social distancing,

and we've had masks and all other kinds of limitations

on our normal freedom that we're not used to. We've

felt contained, and so that containment is frustrating, and now

that we're in a new year, it's annoying, it's irritating,

and it's often infuriating. And as I said, now in

a new year, then things haven't changed. We're all really

tired of being contained. And guess what, that's a flammable situation.

So I'm telling you that if you've had more than

your normal share of explosions in your marriage, in your family,

in your neighborhood, in your friendships at work, if you

had more conflict, more explosions cause of this containment principle,

we're all frustrated, and when it's all contained and it's

all bottled up, the smallest spark can set you off

and create a huge explosion of anger and misunderstanding and

hurt feelings and disappointment conflict. In fact, I just read

this week because in the Book of Neemiah and his

word first word and his word last word, and found

a guy named Sandballet who said he exploded with anger. Now, I,

as your pastor, I told you at the very start

of this pandemic, almost a year ago, that my job

is not to help you with the disease, but to

help you cope with the disease of the disease, the

stress and the fatigue and the pressure from all that

containment and all the changes we had last year. Now,

the antidote to division and conflict is harmony. So that's

what we're going to look at today. I'm going to

give you four biblical principles on how to maintain harmony

in your home. How to maintain harmony in your marriage,

in your family, how to maintain harmony in your small group,

in your neighborhood, in your church, very very important principles.

Look at this verse Ephesians four to three in the

Amplified says, strive earnestly to guard and keep the harmony

of the spirit. Do you do that? You strive earnestly

to guard keep the harmony of the spirit in your home?

Are you working at harmony in your home, in your relationships,

in your small group all the time? One Corinthians fourteen

thirty three. God's Word translation says, this God is not

a god of disorder. He's the God of peace, and

he wants it in all of his churches. In the

Living Bible, it says he likes harmony. God wants harmony

in your life. And if you're married, he wants harmony

in your marriage. And if you're in a small group,

he wants you to have harmony in your small group.

He wants you to have harmony in your work, in

your neighborhood, in your church, and literally everywhere else. Now,

the principles that produce harmony in the church also worked

in any other relationship. So this message is going to

have really wide application in your life. Now, I want

to tell you a little personal note here. The origin

of this message is very different than when I normally

prepare a message, and I thought you'd be interested in

knowing how I came up with this message because last

Wednesday night, I went to bed early because I was exhausted.

I had been counseling pastors of other churches all day

and also people involved in marriage conflict, people who were

discouraged by conflict. The pastors were discouraged about conflict among

their members and churches because there's an epidemic of conflict

going on even in churches. Because of this containment that

I talked about earlier, there have been a number of

articles written saying that churches today are more divided than

at any other time since the Civil War, and the

divisions are actually over three different areas where opinions differ widely.

First survey show members of churches are divided over how

to respond to this COVID pandemic, and even in churches

that have already reopened, attendance is only about thirty to

forty percent of normal attendants. Across America. Second survey show

that churches are divided over racial equality right now, and

third survey show that members are deeply divided over politics. Now.

I'm sure we've got disagreements on all three of those

in our Saddleback family. Anyway, I went to bed after

counseling all these pastors and dealing a little bit of

marriage counseling too, and at about one thirty in the morning,

God woke me up. And I woke up at one

thirty in the morning, and he put a phrase in

my mind, and it was this phrase, do not let,

do not let. And I thought, well, okay, if God

put that phrase in my mind, he wanted me to

get up and study that phrase through the scripture. So

I did, and I got up at one thirty. I

spent the rest of the night searching all through the

scriptures for that phrase. And you know what I found.

I found forty different do not let commands in scripture.

They were so practical, so applicable to everything we're going

through today. Honestly, I was practically shouting Hallelujah. I was

so encouraged by the time I finished that study, and

I was amazed at how relevant those forty commands were

to all of the tension and all of the conflict

that we're seeing in our culture today.

You're listening to Pastor Rick's Daily Hope. Rick will be

back in just a moment with the rest of today's lesson.

You can sign up for Pastor Rick's free email devotional

at pastorick dot com. That's pastorick dot com.

How do you feel spiritually right now? Maybe you feel

spiritually dry, like you're in a desert, or like you're

just going through the motions. Maybe you've lost your spark,

your joy. God knows how you feel right now. You

are not alone. He knows even David and the Bible

felt like that and Jeremiah twenty nine thirteen. God says

you will seek Me and find Me when you seek

Me with all your heart. When you seek God intentionally,

it leads to a renewal of your relationship with Him.

That's why Pastor Rick created a very special, brand new

resource called Going Deeper with God, a personal renewal retreat,

and it he'll personally leave you on a spiritual journey

to help you seek God. Together, you and Pastor Rick

will go through a series of audio lessons and after

each session, you'll take a little time to complete exercises

in the Companion workbook. You can do this at home

in short sessions, or you can get away for a

day and do it in one sitting. Through this retreat,

you'll experience a renewal of life within you. God will

restore your joy. As he renews, refreshes, invigorates, and revives

your spiritual life, You'll never be the same again. Wilson

to you going deeper with God a personal renewal retreat

as our way of saying thanks when you give a

gift today to help daily hope, share the hope of

Jesus with a hurting world. Just call eight hundred and

six hundred at five zero zero four or go to

Pastorick dot com to get your copy of this great resource.

That's eight hundred at six hundred five zero zero four

or Pastorick dot com.

Once again, here's Rick Now.

Today, I'm just going to share some of those do

not let commands, and I'm going to categorize them as

four principles for preventing explosions. Okay, how to lower the

tension in all of your relationships. Four principles for maintaining

harmony and preventing explosions. Okay, here are the four principles.

Number one, reserve judgment until I know all the facts

and the whole story. That's the first principle of harmony

and the first principle of lowering the anger factor in

your relationships. Reserve judgment until I know all the facts

and the whole story. Are you the kind of person

that if there's a conclusion within fifty yards you jump

for it. Are you quick to make assumptions? Are you

swift to think the worst about people? You know? This

is everywhere because there's no unbiased news anymore. In the media.

Everything's biased, and every night, regardless of what cable channel

you watch, you're going to get three hours of strong opinion,

not news, and they always leave out the parts of

the story that don't match their opinion. But in today's

information society, there are two absolutely vital qualities that you

need to work on as and the two qualities you

need today to reserve judgment until you have all the

facts and know the whole story. The two solid commitments

and two solid values you need are sound judgment and discernment.

Sound judgment and discernment they're just friends too. Many gullible

Christians out there, willing to believe anything they hear or

anything they read on social media. They don't stop and

question it. They just automatically accept anything on the Internet

or on cable TV. Here's the first principle Proverbs three

twenty one. Preserve sound, judgment and discernment. Do not let

there's the first do not let, do not let them

out of your site? What do I have not let

out of my site? Sound judgment and discernment? What does

he say in there? He said, don't throw away your

common sense, be gullible, don't believe everything you hear. That's

going to cause conflict. It says, preserve sound judgment. What

does preserve means? Means you hold on to something, means

you don't quickly throw it out, You don't get rid

of it. You hold on to sound judgment, and you

hold on to discernment. And he says, that's going to

be the first thing that will help you have harmony

in your home and everywhere else. Why well, God says this,

You're going to have conflict when you make snap judgments.

How many times have you assumed something with your spouse

or a friend or somebody else? And you got into

trouble over it. You don't make snap judgments. You don't

be so quick to condemn criticize. You don't assume that

you know people's motivation because you don't. And you don't

assume you've heard the whole story. When you assume you've

heard the whole story and you know all the facts

and you dumped conclusion, it's going to create conflict. Proverbs

eighteen thirteen says this in a living Bible, what a shame. Yes,

it's stupid to decide before knowing the facts. This is

the first principle to lower the explosion level in your life.

Don't decide before knowing all the facts. Listen for the

whole story. One Corinthians four to five, the first part

of it in the message says this, don't get ahead

of the master and jump to conclusions with your judgments

before all the evidence is in. That's pretty clear. Don't

rush to judgment before you heard the whole story. One

reason I don't read or post much on social media

because I learned that people will take anything to say,

and they'll interpret it and amplify it and change it

and mean whatever they want it to mean. They make

snap judgments without getting all the facts in the full story,

and every time they're wrong. You know, every week I

get letters from well meaning people who will take, for instance,

one thing that I say in a sermon to build

a whole case about something that I don't even believe

at all. Why Because they don't preserve sound judgment and discipline.

They're listening to biases, they're making snap decisions. We all

need to realize that everybody. I've got a filter, and

you've got a filter. Everybody has a filter that we

hear for everything we hear. And although when you say

something to your spouse, you say something to a friend,

do you say something to me, You may mean it

one way. I'm gonna hear it and they're gonna hear

it in a very different way. If you don't understand that,

you're gonna have a lot of conflict. When you assume

that they understand what you meant by what you said

instead of what they think you meant, you're gonna have conflict.

You say stuff all the time that people take in

different ways, and you didn't mean it that way. That's

why the Bible tells us to reserve judgment. One Corinthians

four or five says this, you should not pass judge.

This is today's English version. You should not pass judgment

on anyone before the right time. And the final judgment

must wait until the Lord comes, and he'll bring to

light dark secrets and expose the hidden purposes of people's minds.

So till that comes, you can forget trying to figure

out people's motivations. You know, here's another verse Ephesians five

to six, the NCV, do not let anyone fool you

by telling you things that aren't true. There's another do

not let do not let anyone fool you. Now. The

reason I put that command in is because I discovered

it was the most repeated do not let command in

the Bible. In fact, six times the New Testament God

says this, do not let anybody fool you with lies.

He says it six times, do not let anybody fool

you with lies. Is that a warning we need to

hear in today's culture. Yeah, six times God says, do

not let anyone fool you with lies. Today we're gullible.

Christians have been deceived by conspiracy theories, duped by social media,

misled by hoaxes, tricks by false report you know, I

used to wonder why the Bible has so many many

warnings in it about false prophets and false teachers, because, honestly,

I'll just be honest with you, I didn't see that

many false teachers around. Of course I knew there were cults,

but they're obviously false. But in today's culture, we now

have many well meaning and sincere Christians who are spouting

things that are simply false. They're just wrong, and in

many of them are in the media. And that's why

we have to test everything in the Bible by God's word.

If they don't have a verse for it, you should

not automatically accept it. You see, the question should always

be when you hear something, you go you say, what

does God say about it? What does God say about it?

So that's the first principle. Reserve judgment. Okay, something your

wife said, or something you said, or something your husband said,

or something I said, until you've heard all the facts

and the whole story. Now here's the second principle. From

maintaining harmony in your home and reducing the number of

explosions in your marriage and relationships and family and group

and church. Here it is number two. Be sensitive and

empathetic to what offends others. Be sensitive and empathetic to

what offends others. We have to be sympathetic to the

things that offend other people. Now, the Bible's got a

ton of things to say about this. In Relationships one

Corinthians ten thirty two amplified, do not let yourself, do

not let do not let yourself cause anyone to be offended. Oh,

my goodness, you talk about a hard verse. Don't let

yourself cause anybody to be offended. And the rest of

the verse says whether they're Jews or Gentiles, that means

non Christians, or they're in the family of God, those

in the family of God. Now, today this principle of

being sensitive to the offense that are caused of others

when people get offended, this principle is more important because

of today's culture. Seems like everybody's got a chip on

their shoulder. It it's easy to offend everybody these days.

Everybody feels like a victim. Everybody's offended by everything. We

all get offended easily, and we all offend others easily.

But in that context, God tells us that if we're

truly Christians and we're really trying to be christ Like.

We are called to do two things. First, we're not

to take offense from others. Okay. A lot of persons

basically tell us, don't let yourself be offended by anything, okay.

And second, we don't do anything that causes others to

be offended. Those are marks of a Christian. Now. I

can't ask you to raise your hands, but I wonder

if you admit that you're often insensitive to the impact

of your words and your actions. Can you admit that?

I wonder how many of you say I have sometimes,

maybe not very often, I've sometimes been insensitive to my spouse.

I sometimes have not been empathetic to what offends her

or him. I have not always been empathetic to what

offends others. As I'm not as sensitive as I think

I am. Let me ask you a question. Can you

quickly think of five things that you do that offend

your spouse? Can you do that? If you can't, If

you can't think of five things that offend your spouse,

just ask them. They'll be glad to tell you.

This is Pastor Rick's Daily Hope. We're so happy that

you've chosen to study along with us today. If you'd

like to receive rix free daily devotional, go to Pastorick

dot com and sign up right now. Rick will be

right back to close out our time today. But first,

how do you feel spiritually right now? Maybe you feel

spiritually dry, like you're in a desert, or like you're

just going through the motions. Maybe you've lost your spark,

your joy. God knows how you feel right now, and

you're not alone. He knows even David and the Bible

felt like that and Jeremiah twenty nine thirteen. God says

you will seek Me and find Me when you seek

Me with all your heart. When you seek God intentionally,

it leads to a renewal of your relationship with Him.

That's why Pastor Rick created a very special, brand new

resource called Going Deeper with God, a personal renewal retreat.

In it, he'll personally lead you on a spiritual journey

to help you seek God. Together, you and Pastor Rick

will go through a series of audio lessons, and after

each session you'll take a little time to complete exercises

in the Companion workbook. You can do this at home

in short sessions, or you can get away for a

day and do it in one sitting through this retreat,

You'll experience a renewal of life within you. God will

restore your joy. As He renews, refreshes, reinvigorates, and revives

your spiritual life, You'll never be the same again. We'll

send you going Deeper with God a personal renewal retreat

as our way of saying thanks. When you give a

gift today to help Daily Hope share the hope of

Jesus with a hurting world. Just call eight hundred six

hundred five thousand and four or go to Pastorick dot

com to get your copy of this great resource. 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.

Hi, everybody today, I want to share a note that

we receive from Darren, he wrote me. He calls Daily

Hope his morning cup of God because it helps him

stay focused on God throughout the day. Darren wrote me this,

he said, Pastor Rick, I thank God for Daily Hope.

I support Daily Hope because Christ Hope is for me

and in me, and I support it because it sends

Christ's message to people all over the world. He wrote,

you know I've dealt with my share of demons in

my life. I've had cancer, huge financial losses, addictions, permanent disability,

chronic pain, and depression. But Daily Hope gets me going

in the morning. It's like a cup of coffee for me.

But if I haven't had my cup of God in

the morning, then I feel like I'm less able to

pass on the good news to others. So thank you,

Pastor Rick. You know daily Hope helps people like Darren

get their lives back on track because it connects them

not just with God, but with God's Word. And it

is so important for each of us to spend time

with God and in God's Word every day. So I

want to encourage every one of you to make a

daily habit of opening the Bible. Sit down and open

the Bible. You may open it on a iPad or

on your phone, but open the Bible to see what

God says about how we're meant to live. God bless

you everybody.

If you'd like to let Rick know how this broadcast

has blessed you, feel free to send him an email

at Rick at Pastorrick dot com. That's Rick at Pastorrick

dot com. Be sure to join us next time as

we look into God's Word for our daily hope. This

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