Speaker 1: This is Pastor Rick's Daily Hope, the Bible teaching ministry
Speaker 1: of Pastor Rick Warren. Today we continue in a series
Speaker 1: called the Awesome Power of Vision. In these lessons, Pastor
Speaker 1: Rick shows us how to pursue God's amazing vision for
Speaker 1: each of our lives so that we can see our
Speaker 1: future with faith and not fear. But first, do you
Speaker 1: ever feel like you've lost your spark your joy? In
Speaker 1: just a few moments, we're going to tell you about
Speaker 1: an exciting new resource that will deepen your relationship with
Speaker 1: God and restore your joy. You can take a sneak
Speaker 1: peek right now by going to Pastororick dot com while
Speaker 1: you listen, and if you want, you can just text
Speaker 1: the word Daily to eight hundred six hundred five thousand
Speaker 1: and four to find out more. Here's Pastor Rick Warren
Speaker 1: with part one of a message called Maintaining Harmony in
Speaker 1: My Home, Small Group and Church.
Speaker 2: Bible says, without a vision, the people perish. What does
Speaker 2: that mean? The people perish? It means they become discouraged.
Speaker 2: You need a vision for every area of your life
Speaker 2: or you're going to get discouraged. You need a vision
Speaker 2: for your personal life. You need a vision for your marriage.
Speaker 2: If you're married, you need a vision for your work,
Speaker 2: for your small group, for your church, and for your future. Now,
Speaker 2: today I want to share with you the antidote to
Speaker 2: the greatest enemy of vision. And what is that. What's
Speaker 2: the greatest enemy of vision? It's division. Division destroys your vision.
Speaker 2: Division destroys vision. Nothing causes you to lose your vision
Speaker 2: for anything faster than conflict and division. And today, because
Speaker 2: of all what we've been going through this past year,
Speaker 2: conflict is at at all time high. Really every kind
Speaker 2: of area, people's anger as at a higher level. Why well,
Speaker 2: let me explain you know, this week I learned that
Speaker 2: I never knew, and it's about what causes an explosion.
Speaker 2: And I learned that for an explosion to take place,
Speaker 2: you have to have three elements, and all three of
Speaker 2: them are necessary. First, you need fuel. You gotta have
Speaker 2: fuel for an explosion. Second, you need containment, okay, and
Speaker 2: third you need a spark. Fuel, containment and a spark. Now,
Speaker 2: it was that second element that I didn't know about
Speaker 2: that causes an explosion. You need containment none. Other words,
Speaker 2: if I take a can of gasoline and I pour
Speaker 2: it all out over the pavement and I throw a
Speaker 2: match on it, it's going to create a fire, but
Speaker 2: it won't explode. It has to be contained in a
Speaker 2: can or in a tank for it to explode. Now,
Speaker 2: when I heard that, I immediately saw the parallels to all
Speaker 2: the conflict and relationships that people are having these days.
Speaker 2: And why there's so many explosions of anger out there today.
Speaker 2: Why it is because we've been in containment for the
Speaker 2: past year due to COVID nineteen pandemic. We have been
Speaker 2: in a period of strict containment trying to prevent the
Speaker 2: spread of the virus, and so we've had quarantines, and
Speaker 2: we've had stay at home orders, and we've had social distancing,
Speaker 2: and we've had masks and all other kinds of limitations
Speaker 2: on our normal freedom that we're not used to. We've
Speaker 2: felt contained, and so that containment is frustrating, and now
Speaker 2: that we're in a new year, it's annoying, it's irritating,
Speaker 2: and it's often infuriating. And as I said, now in
Speaker 2: a new year, then things haven't changed. We're all really
Speaker 2: tired of being contained. And guess what, that's a flammable situation.
Speaker 2: So I'm telling you that if you've had more than
Speaker 2: your normal share of explosions in your marriage, in your family,
Speaker 2: in your neighborhood, in your friendships at work, if you
Speaker 2: had more conflict, more explosions cause of this containment principle,
Speaker 2: we're all frustrated, and when it's all contained and it's
Speaker 2: all bottled up, the smallest spark can set you off
Speaker 2: and create a huge explosion of anger and misunderstanding and
Speaker 2: hurt feelings and disappointment conflict. In fact, I just read
Speaker 2: this week because in the Book of Neemiah and his
Speaker 2: word first word and his word last word, and found
Speaker 2: a guy named Sandballet who said he exploded with anger. Now, I,
Speaker 2: as your pastor, I told you at the very start
Speaker 2: of this pandemic, almost a year ago, that my job
Speaker 2: is not to help you with the disease, but to
Speaker 2: help you cope with the disease of the disease, the
Speaker 2: stress and the fatigue and the pressure from all that
Speaker 2: containment and all the changes we had last year. Now,
Speaker 2: the antidote to division and conflict is harmony. So that's
Speaker 2: what we're going to look at today. I'm going to
Speaker 2: give you four biblical principles on how to maintain harmony
Speaker 2: in your home. How to maintain harmony in your marriage,
Speaker 2: in your family, how to maintain harmony in your small group,
Speaker 2: in your neighborhood, in your church, very very important principles.
Speaker 2: Look at this verse Ephesians four to three in the
Speaker 2: Amplified says, strive earnestly to guard and keep the harmony
Speaker 2: of the spirit. Do you do that? You strive earnestly
Speaker 2: to guard keep the harmony of the spirit in your home?
Speaker 2: Are you working at harmony in your home, in your relationships,
Speaker 2: in your small group all the time? One Corinthians fourteen
Speaker 2: thirty three. God's Word translation says, this God is not
Speaker 2: a god of disorder. He's the God of peace, and
Speaker 2: he wants it in all of his churches. In the
Speaker 2: Living Bible, it says he likes harmony. God wants harmony
Speaker 2: in your life. And if you're married, he wants harmony
Speaker 2: in your marriage. And if you're in a small group,
Speaker 2: he wants you to have harmony in your small group.
Speaker 2: He wants you to have harmony in your work, in
Speaker 2: your neighborhood, in your church, and literally everywhere else. Now,
Speaker 2: the principles that produce harmony in the church also worked
Speaker 2: in any other relationship. So this message is going to
Speaker 2: have really wide application in your life. Now, I want
Speaker 2: to tell you a little personal note here. The origin
Speaker 2: of this message is very different than when I normally
Speaker 2: prepare a message, and I thought you'd be interested in
Speaker 2: knowing how I came up with this message because last
Speaker 2: Wednesday night, I went to bed early because I was exhausted.
Speaker 2: I had been counseling pastors of other churches all day
Speaker 2: and also people involved in marriage conflict, people who were
Speaker 2: discouraged by conflict. The pastors were discouraged about conflict among
Speaker 2: their members and churches because there's an epidemic of conflict
Speaker 2: going on even in churches. Because of this containment that
Speaker 2: I talked about earlier, there have been a number of
Speaker 2: articles written saying that churches today are more divided than
Speaker 2: at any other time since the Civil War, and the
Speaker 2: divisions are actually over three different areas where opinions differ widely.
Speaker 2: First survey show members of churches are divided over how
Speaker 2: to respond to this COVID pandemic, and even in churches
Speaker 2: that have already reopened, attendance is only about thirty to
Speaker 2: forty percent of normal attendants. Across America. Second survey show
Speaker 2: that churches are divided over racial equality right now, and
Speaker 2: third survey show that members are deeply divided over politics. Now.
Speaker 2: I'm sure we've got disagreements on all three of those
Speaker 2: in our Saddleback family. Anyway, I went to bed after
Speaker 2: counseling all these pastors and dealing a little bit of
Speaker 2: marriage counseling too, and at about one thirty in the morning,
Speaker 2: God woke me up. And I woke up at one
Speaker 2: thirty in the morning, and he put a phrase in
Speaker 2: my mind, and it was this phrase, do not let,
Speaker 2: do not let. And I thought, well, okay, if God
Speaker 2: put that phrase in my mind, he wanted me to
Speaker 2: get up and study that phrase through the scripture. So
Speaker 2: I did, and I got up at one thirty. I
Speaker 2: spent the rest of the night searching all through the
Speaker 2: scriptures for that phrase. And you know what I found.
Speaker 2: I found forty different do not let commands in scripture.
Speaker 2: They were so practical, so applicable to everything we're going
Speaker 2: through today. Honestly, I was practically shouting Hallelujah. I was
Speaker 2: so encouraged by the time I finished that study, and
Speaker 2: I was amazed at how relevant those forty commands were
Speaker 2: to all of the tension and all of the conflict
Speaker 2: that we're seeing in our culture today.
Speaker 1: You're listening to Pastor Rick's Daily Hope. Rick will be
Speaker 1: back in just a moment with the rest of today's lesson.
Speaker 1: You can sign up for Pastor Rick's free email devotional
Speaker 1: at pastorick dot com. That's pastorick dot com.
Speaker 3: How do you feel spiritually right now? Maybe you feel
Speaker 3: spiritually dry, like you're in a desert, or like you're
Speaker 3: just going through the motions. Maybe you've lost your spark,
Speaker 3: your joy. God knows how you feel right now. You
Speaker 3: are not alone. He knows even David and the Bible
Speaker 3: felt like that and Jeremiah twenty nine thirteen. God says
Speaker 3: you will seek Me and find Me when you seek
Speaker 3: Me with all your heart. When you seek God intentionally,
Speaker 3: it leads to a renewal of your relationship with Him.
Speaker 3: That's why Pastor Rick created a very special, brand new
Speaker 3: resource called Going Deeper with God, a personal renewal retreat,
Speaker 3: and it he'll personally leave you on a spiritual journey
Speaker 3: to help you seek God. Together, you and Pastor Rick
Speaker 3: will go through a series of audio lessons and after
Speaker 3: each session, you'll take a little time to complete exercises
Speaker 3: in the Companion workbook. You can do this at home
Speaker 3: in short sessions, or you can get away for a
Speaker 3: day and do it in one sitting. Through this retreat,
Speaker 3: you'll experience a renewal of life within you. God will
Speaker 3: restore your joy. As he renews, refreshes, invigorates, and revives
Speaker 3: your spiritual life, You'll never be the same again. Wilson
Speaker 3: to you going deeper with God a personal renewal retreat
Speaker 3: as our way of saying thanks when you give a
Speaker 3: gift today to help daily hope, share the hope of
Speaker 3: Jesus with a hurting world. Just call eight hundred and
Speaker 3: six hundred at five zero zero four or go to
Speaker 3: Pastorick dot com to get your copy of this great resource.
Speaker 3: That's eight hundred at six hundred five zero zero four
Speaker 3: or Pastorick dot com.
Speaker 1: Once again, here's Rick Now.
Speaker 2: Today, I'm just going to share some of those do
Speaker 2: not let commands, and I'm going to categorize them as
Speaker 2: four principles for preventing explosions. Okay, how to lower the
Speaker 2: tension in all of your relationships. Four principles for maintaining
Speaker 2: harmony and preventing explosions. Okay, here are the four principles.
Speaker 2: Number one, reserve judgment until I know all the facts
Speaker 2: and the whole story. That's the first principle of harmony
Speaker 2: and the first principle of lowering the anger factor in
Speaker 2: your relationships. Reserve judgment until I know all the facts
Speaker 2: and the whole story. Are you the kind of person
Speaker 2: that if there's a conclusion within fifty yards you jump
Speaker 2: for it. Are you quick to make assumptions? Are you
Speaker 2: swift to think the worst about people? You know? This
Speaker 2: is everywhere because there's no unbiased news anymore. In the media.
Speaker 2: Everything's biased, and every night, regardless of what cable channel
Speaker 2: you watch, you're going to get three hours of strong opinion,
Speaker 2: not news, and they always leave out the parts of
Speaker 2: the story that don't match their opinion. But in today's
Speaker 2: information society, there are two absolutely vital qualities that you
Speaker 2: need to work on as and the two qualities you
Speaker 2: need today to reserve judgment until you have all the
Speaker 2: facts and know the whole story. The two solid commitments
Speaker 2: and two solid values you need are sound judgment and discernment.
Speaker 2: Sound judgment and discernment they're just friends too. Many gullible
Speaker 2: Christians out there, willing to believe anything they hear or
Speaker 2: anything they read on social media. They don't stop and
Speaker 2: question it. They just automatically accept anything on the Internet
Speaker 2: or on cable TV. Here's the first principle Proverbs three
Speaker 2: twenty one. Preserve sound, judgment and discernment. Do not let
Speaker 2: there's the first do not let, do not let them
Speaker 2: out of your site? What do I have not let
Speaker 2: out of my site? Sound judgment and discernment? What does
Speaker 2: he say in there? He said, don't throw away your
Speaker 2: common sense, be gullible, don't believe everything you hear. That's
Speaker 2: going to cause conflict. It says, preserve sound judgment. What
Speaker 2: does preserve means? Means you hold on to something, means
Speaker 2: you don't quickly throw it out, You don't get rid
Speaker 2: of it. You hold on to sound judgment, and you
Speaker 2: hold on to discernment. And he says, that's going to
Speaker 2: be the first thing that will help you have harmony
Speaker 2: in your home and everywhere else. Why well, God says this,
Speaker 2: You're going to have conflict when you make snap judgments.
Speaker 2: How many times have you assumed something with your spouse
Speaker 2: or a friend or somebody else? And you got into
Speaker 2: trouble over it. You don't make snap judgments. You don't
Speaker 2: be so quick to condemn criticize. You don't assume that
Speaker 2: you know people's motivation because you don't. And you don't
Speaker 2: assume you've heard the whole story. When you assume you've
Speaker 2: heard the whole story and you know all the facts
Speaker 2: and you dumped conclusion, it's going to create conflict. Proverbs
Speaker 2: eighteen thirteen says this in a living Bible, what a shame. Yes,
Speaker 2: it's stupid to decide before knowing the facts. This is
Speaker 2: the first principle to lower the explosion level in your life.
Speaker 2: Don't decide before knowing all the facts. Listen for the
Speaker 2: whole story. One Corinthians four to five, the first part
Speaker 2: of it in the message says this, don't get ahead
Speaker 2: of the master and jump to conclusions with your judgments
Speaker 2: before all the evidence is in. That's pretty clear. Don't
Speaker 2: rush to judgment before you heard the whole story. One
Speaker 2: reason I don't read or post much on social media
Speaker 2: because I learned that people will take anything to say,
Speaker 2: and they'll interpret it and amplify it and change it
Speaker 2: and mean whatever they want it to mean. They make
Speaker 2: snap judgments without getting all the facts in the full story,
Speaker 2: and every time they're wrong. You know, every week I
Speaker 2: get letters from well meaning people who will take, for instance,
Speaker 2: one thing that I say in a sermon to build
Speaker 2: a whole case about something that I don't even believe
Speaker 2: at all. Why Because they don't preserve sound judgment and discipline.
Speaker 2: They're listening to biases, they're making snap decisions. We all
Speaker 2: need to realize that everybody. I've got a filter, and
Speaker 2: you've got a filter. Everybody has a filter that we
Speaker 2: hear for everything we hear. And although when you say
Speaker 2: something to your spouse, you say something to a friend,
Speaker 2: do you say something to me, You may mean it
Speaker 2: one way. I'm gonna hear it and they're gonna hear
Speaker 2: it in a very different way. If you don't understand that,
Speaker 2: you're gonna have a lot of conflict. When you assume
Speaker 2: that they understand what you meant by what you said
Speaker 2: instead of what they think you meant, you're gonna have conflict.
Speaker 2: You say stuff all the time that people take in
Speaker 2: different ways, and you didn't mean it that way. That's
Speaker 2: why the Bible tells us to reserve judgment. One Corinthians
Speaker 2: four or five says this, you should not pass judge.
Speaker 2: This is today's English version. You should not pass judgment
Speaker 2: on anyone before the right time. And the final judgment
Speaker 2: must wait until the Lord comes, and he'll bring to
Speaker 2: light dark secrets and expose the hidden purposes of people's minds.
Speaker 2: So till that comes, you can forget trying to figure
Speaker 2: out people's motivations. You know, here's another verse Ephesians five
Speaker 2: to six, the NCV, do not let anyone fool you
Speaker 2: by telling you things that aren't true. There's another do
Speaker 2: not let do not let anyone fool you. Now. The
Speaker 2: reason I put that command in is because I discovered
Speaker 2: it was the most repeated do not let command in
Speaker 2: the Bible. In fact, six times the New Testament God
Speaker 2: says this, do not let anybody fool you with lies.
Speaker 2: He says it six times, do not let anybody fool
Speaker 2: you with lies. Is that a warning we need to
Speaker 2: hear in today's culture. Yeah, six times God says, do
Speaker 2: not let anyone fool you with lies. Today we're gullible.
Speaker 2: Christians have been deceived by conspiracy theories, duped by social media,
Speaker 2: misled by hoaxes, tricks by false report you know, I
Speaker 2: used to wonder why the Bible has so many many
Speaker 2: warnings in it about false prophets and false teachers, because, honestly,
Speaker 2: I'll just be honest with you, I didn't see that
Speaker 2: many false teachers around. Of course I knew there were cults,
Speaker 2: but they're obviously false. But in today's culture, we now
Speaker 2: have many well meaning and sincere Christians who are spouting
Speaker 2: things that are simply false. They're just wrong, and in
Speaker 2: many of them are in the media. And that's why
Speaker 2: we have to test everything in the Bible by God's word.
Speaker 2: If they don't have a verse for it, you should
Speaker 2: not automatically accept it. You see, the question should always
Speaker 2: be when you hear something, you go you say, what
Speaker 2: does God say about it? What does God say about it?
Speaker 2: So that's the first principle. Reserve judgment. Okay, something your
Speaker 2: wife said, or something you said, or something your husband said,
Speaker 2: or something I said, until you've heard all the facts
Speaker 2: and the whole story. Now here's the second principle. From
Speaker 2: maintaining harmony in your home and reducing the number of
Speaker 2: explosions in your marriage and relationships and family and group
Speaker 2: and church. Here it is number two. Be sensitive and
Speaker 2: empathetic to what offends others. Be sensitive and empathetic to
Speaker 2: what offends others. We have to be sympathetic to the
Speaker 2: things that offend other people. Now, the Bible's got a
Speaker 2: ton of things to say about this. In Relationships one
Speaker 2: Corinthians ten thirty two amplified, do not let yourself, do
Speaker 2: not let do not let yourself cause anyone to be offended. Oh,
Speaker 2: my goodness, you talk about a hard verse. Don't let
Speaker 2: yourself cause anybody to be offended. And the rest of
Speaker 2: the verse says whether they're Jews or Gentiles, that means
Speaker 2: non Christians, or they're in the family of God, those
Speaker 2: in the family of God. Now, today this principle of
Speaker 2: being sensitive to the offense that are caused of others
Speaker 2: when people get offended, this principle is more important because
Speaker 2: of today's culture. Seems like everybody's got a chip on
Speaker 2: their shoulder. It it's easy to offend everybody these days.
Speaker 2: Everybody feels like a victim. Everybody's offended by everything. We
Speaker 2: all get offended easily, and we all offend others easily.
Speaker 2: But in that context, God tells us that if we're
Speaker 2: truly Christians and we're really trying to be christ Like.
Speaker 2: We are called to do two things. First, we're not
Speaker 2: to take offense from others. Okay. A lot of persons
Speaker 2: basically tell us, don't let yourself be offended by anything, okay.
Speaker 2: And second, we don't do anything that causes others to
Speaker 2: be offended. Those are marks of a Christian. Now. I
Speaker 2: can't ask you to raise your hands, but I wonder
Speaker 2: if you admit that you're often insensitive to the impact
Speaker 2: of your words and your actions. Can you admit that?
Speaker 2: I wonder how many of you say I have sometimes,
Speaker 2: maybe not very often, I've sometimes been insensitive to my spouse.
Speaker 2: I sometimes have not been empathetic to what offends her
Speaker 2: or him. I have not always been empathetic to what
Speaker 2: offends others. As I'm not as sensitive as I think
Speaker 2: I am. Let me ask you a question. Can you
Speaker 2: quickly think of five things that you do that offend
Speaker 2: your spouse? Can you do that? If you can't, If
Speaker 2: you can't think of five things that offend your spouse,
Speaker 2: just ask them. They'll be glad to tell you.
Speaker 1: This is Pastor Rick's Daily Hope. We're so happy that
Speaker 1: you've chosen to study along with us today. If you'd
Speaker 1: like to receive rix free daily devotional, go to Pastorick
Speaker 1: dot com and sign up right now. Rick will be
Speaker 1: right back to close out our time today. But first,
Speaker 1: how do you feel spiritually right now? Maybe you feel
Speaker 1: spiritually dry, like you're in a desert, or like you're
Speaker 1: just going through the motions. Maybe you've lost your spark,
Speaker 1: your joy. God knows how you feel right now, and
Speaker 1: you're not alone. He knows even David and the Bible
Speaker 1: felt like that and Jeremiah twenty nine thirteen. God says
Speaker 1: you will seek Me and find Me when you seek
Speaker 1: Me with all your heart. When you seek God intentionally,
Speaker 1: it leads to a renewal of your relationship with Him.
Speaker 1: That's why Pastor Rick created a very special, brand new
Speaker 1: resource called Going Deeper with God, a personal renewal retreat.
Speaker 1: In it, he'll personally lead you on a spiritual journey
Speaker 1: to help you seek God. Together, you and Pastor Rick
Speaker 1: will go through a series of audio lessons, and after
Speaker 1: each session you'll take a little time to complete exercises
Speaker 1: in the Companion workbook. You can do this at home
Speaker 1: in short sessions, or you can get away for a
Speaker 1: day and do it in one sitting through this retreat,
Speaker 1: You'll experience a renewal of life within you. God will
Speaker 1: restore your joy. As He renews, refreshes, reinvigorates, and revives
Speaker 1: your spiritual life, You'll never be the same again. We'll
Speaker 1: send you going Deeper with God a personal renewal retreat
Speaker 1: as our way of saying thanks. When you give a
Speaker 1: gift today to help Daily Hope share the hope of
Speaker 1: Jesus with a hurting world. Just call eight hundred six
Speaker 1: hundred five thousand and four or go to Pastorick dot
Speaker 1: com to get your copy of this great resource. That's
Speaker 1: eight hundred six hundred five thousand and four or Pastorick
Speaker 1: dot com. Here's Pastor Rick with a letter from one
Speaker 1: of our listeners.
Speaker 2: Hi, everybody today, I want to share a note that
Speaker 2: we receive from Darren, he wrote me. He calls Daily
Speaker 2: Hope his morning cup of God because it helps him
Speaker 2: stay focused on God throughout the day. Darren wrote me this,
Speaker 2: he said, Pastor Rick, I thank God for Daily Hope.
Speaker 2: I support Daily Hope because Christ Hope is for me
Speaker 2: and in me, and I support it because it sends
Speaker 2: Christ's message to people all over the world. He wrote,
Speaker 2: you know I've dealt with my share of demons in
Speaker 2: my life. I've had cancer, huge financial losses, addictions, permanent disability,
Speaker 2: chronic pain, and depression. But Daily Hope gets me going
Speaker 2: in the morning. It's like a cup of coffee for me.
Speaker 2: But if I haven't had my cup of God in
Speaker 2: the morning, then I feel like I'm less able to
Speaker 2: pass on the good news to others. So thank you,
Speaker 2: Pastor Rick. You know daily Hope helps people like Darren
Speaker 2: get their lives back on track because it connects them
Speaker 2: not just with God, but with God's Word. And it
Speaker 2: is so important for each of us to spend time
Speaker 2: with God and in God's Word every day. So I
Speaker 2: want to encourage every one of you to make a
Speaker 2: daily habit of opening the Bible. Sit down and open
Speaker 2: the Bible. You may open it on a iPad or
Speaker 2: on your phone, but open the Bible to see what
Speaker 2: God says about how we're meant to live. God bless
Speaker 2: you everybody.
Speaker 1: If you'd like to let Rick know how this broadcast
Speaker 1: has blessed you, feel free to send him an email
Speaker 1: at Rick at Pastorrick dot com. That's Rick at Pastorrick
Speaker 1: dot com. Be sure to join us next time as
Speaker 1: we look into God's Word for our daily hope. This
Speaker 1: program is sponsored by Pastor Rick's Daily Hope and your
Speaker 1: generous financial support.