Rick Warren - Fighting for an Awesome Family - Part 2 (11/28/2024)
God stresses that to build an awesome family we must model good behavior and hold meaningful conversations about important things, while firmly avoiding criticism, nagging, and comparisons that only breed resentment. Using scriptures like Ephesians 6:4, Colossians 3:21, and Galatians 6:4, the message shows how families should protect each other in storms and serve God together. In the end, awesome families happen by intentional choice and commitment to the Lord.
God says you need to talk about the things that are important—at home, when you're relaxing, when you're on vacation, when you're having a walk, at bedtime conversations, at breakfast conversations.
He said if you're not doing this, you're never going to have an awesome family; you're going to have an average family.
So by example and by conversations—these are the two ways we help each other grow. You can help your wife, your husband grow through example and through conversation.
Let me tell you two ways that don't work—and it's the ones we all use.
Why Criticism Doesn't Help Anyone Grow
Write these down: not through criticism, not through criticizing. We think that being critical of someone will actually help them grow. It has never, ever, ever worked.
Nagging doesn't work. Condemning doesn't work. Criticizing and complaining doesn't work. It is totally ineffective in helping a person change.
Why? Because when you criticize, you're focusing on what you don't want rather than what you do want.
For instance, if I'm a professional pitching coach for the Angels or for any team, and I go out on an important game and I go out to the pitcher on the mound and I say to the pitcher, "Whatever you do, don't throw a curveball." What have I just planted in his mind? A picture of a curveball.
I didn't give him a picture of the right thing to do. I gave him a picture of the wrong thing to do. And I told him to focus on the wrong thing, and that's going to pretty much guarantee he's not going to do the right thing.
When you criticize a child or your wife or your husband or anybody else, they don't go, "Yeah, you're right." Criticizing just labels people. It reinforces the negative. It does not work.
So why are you so critical? Why are you so rough? Why are you so tough on your kids? "I want them to be tough." You're not making them tough; you're making them a failure.
Through all your incessant criticizing, they never measure up. And at some point, when it's criticism after criticism, the kid just goes, "Okay, I give up. I can't please my dad. I can't please my mom. I just give up."
And so, "Let me just show you how lazy I can be. Let me show you how late I can be. Let me show you how irresponsible I can be. I'll show you."
And so it doesn't work. Judging, criticizing, demeaning—it didn't work on you. And by the way, it doesn't work in preaching either, which is why I don't use it on you.
I could get up here every week and say, "Okay, let's talk about your sins this week." That'll be a four-hour sermon. And I could get up here every week and tell you everything you're doing wrong. It doesn't work.
Why? Number one, you know what you're doing wrong, and me telling you about it isn't going to change it. You have to promote the positive alternative—that's called repentance. Change your mind.
Every one of my sermons is preaching for repentance. Repentance doesn't mean stop doing bad. It means start doing good. And that's what it's all about.
So not through criticism. Look at what the Bible says. Ephesians 6:4 to parents: "Don't keep on scolding and nagging your children"—doesn't work—"making them angry and resentful. Instead bring them up with the loving training and teaching of the Lord."
Another verse in the Bible, Colossians chapter 3, it says specifically to dads: Don't be so hard on your kids. You'll drive them to resentment. Says don't keep demeaning them, don't keep criticizing them, don't keep judging them, don't keep telling them everything that they're doing wrong. That makes them angry and bitter.
So that's dumb for a dad to do—not to criticize.
The Harmful Effects of Comparison
And then there's another one that we use, and this one doesn't work either. We don't help people grow this way—not through comparing.
Any time you compare anybody to anybody else, you've made a major mistake in life. Why? Because everybody's unique. Everybody's different. There's nobody in the world like you. So you are incomparable.
And the Bible tells us not to compare. You should never compare your wife to anybody else. You should never compare your husband to anybody else. You should never compare your lawn or your house, your job to anybody else. You certainly should never compare your kids.
"Why can't you be more like your brother? Why can't you be more like your mom? Why can't you be more like your dad?" I'll tell you why—because I'm not them. And neither are you.
Comparing never, never works. And when you do it, it's unhelpful, it's unfair, and it's lethal to any relationship. You start comparing your wife to somebody else, you're headed for divorce court. It's lethal. Just stop.
The Bible says over and over again, you should never compare. Let me show you one verse, Galatians 6:4: "Each person should judge his own actions and not compare himself with others. Then he could be proud for what he himself has done."
He said, wait a minute, I thought pride was a sin. The moment I compare, the pride becomes sin. So you take pride in yourself—"Man, I did, with the gifts God gave me, I did the best I could; I feel pretty good about that." You can take pride in a job well done.
The moment you start comparing yourself—"But I did better than that guy"—now it's fallen into sin. So don't compare.
The Raincoat: Protection in Life's Storms
Now, let me give you a third symbol of an awesome family. And the third symbol of an awesome family is a raincoat. And it's a raincoat—what is a raincoat for? A raincoat is for protection.
You remember these? You remember your cute little booties with them? "Don't forget your booties," okay?
Now let me show you a verse. Look up here on the screen. The Bible says in Matthew 5:45, Jesus said this: "It rains on both those who do right and those who do wrong."
Bad things happen to good people; bad things happen to bad people. It rains on both the good and the bad because we're in a broken world.
And when you go through life, you're going to go through storms. Every member of your family is going to go through storms—emotional storms, financial storms, moral storms, physical storms like illnesses, relational storms like conflict.
You can't go through life without storms because it rains on both the good and the bad, those who are trying to do the right thing and those who couldn't care less.
And when you go through a storm, you're going to need some protection. You're going to need some covering when the rains and the thunder and the lightning and the snow and the hail come—you need a raincoat.
Families are meant to be a raincoat in the storms of life. Okay? Write this down: awesome families protect each other. Awesome families protect each other because in a storm you need support.
Ecclesiastes 4:9 says this: "Two are better than one... and if one of them falls down, the other can help him up. But if someone is alone and falls, it's just too bad because there's no one there to help him up."
In the storms of life, you need other people to help you get through that tough time. Sometimes a child is going through a storm. Sometimes mom is going through a storm. Sometimes dad is going through a storm.
And no matter which of our family members go through the storm, we have to help each other. We protect each other. Families stick together. Families are a raincoat.
Three Common Storms Families Face
Now, let me give you three storms—write these down—that we need to care for each other in our family.
Number one is change. Change is a storm in life. It's like a big bump in the road. You're just going down the road smoothly, and all of a sudden a major change happens—boom—and it throws your car out of line.
And change can be upsetting, particularly to kids. Kids don't like change. It's a storm of life. And we need a family to be around them when there's a major or even a minor change.
Now, if I'm driving down the road and I hit a pothole, it throws my wheels completely out of alignment, and I have to take my car in to get it realigned because of the change I just went through.
I highly recommend you get counseling when you've gone through a major change in life. Counseling is a good thing. It's not a shameful thing. It's not a bad thing, and it's a good investment in your family.
When you've gone through a major change, it's good to get some advice from the outside. You're not a freak. You're not a nut. You're just getting coaching.
Any person who's smart gets coaching. Every professional singer has a vocal coach. They don't just depend on their talent—they've got a vocal coach.
Every professional athlete has a personal coach. And if you were a CEO of one of the biggest corporations in the world, you got an executive coach—somebody on the outside giving you counsel.
Sometimes you need a family coach. I highly recommend when you go through the changes of life and you hit a bump, go get some counsel. Get a third perspective to help you work through that change.
Protecting Against Harmful Ideas
Another storm of life—what I call harmful ideas. All around, our little kids are being bombarded with harmful ideas.
By the time a child gets to be 18 years old, they have amassed 18,000 hours of television viewing, and they have seen thousands and thousands of murders by the time they're 18 years old.
And if they're playing video games, it's tens of thousands of murders. And they've seen sex portrayed in the wrong way. They've seen life portrayed in the wrong way. They've been given all kinds of violent, harmful, and hurtful ideas.
Many children—listen to me—are provided for but they are not protected. They're letting their kids go to movies they have no business going to see, watch TV shows they have no business watching, read books and listen to music and follow celebrities they have no business following.
And the kids—you could be a parent, and you've got perfectly balanced, gluten-free, nutritional, organic food—you're feeding your kids the best food in the world for their body, and you're letting their mind feed on junk.
And their little minds are like an open railroad, and you go, "Well, I don't make choices for my kids." Well, then you're not a parent.
Parents protect kids in the storms of life, and one of the storms is all the vulgar, vain, vile things in this planet that are out there in movies, books, songs, radio, television, and everything else.
And we let our little kids' minds be like a freeway, and garbage truck after garbage truck is going into your kid's mind and dumping it. That's bad parenting. Parents protect.
If you protect your kids' health, you need to protect their mental health too.
The Pain of Rejection and Family Support
Third storm is rejection—and this was the storm all of us faced at some point in life, and it's the most painful storm of all when we feel betrayed or when we feel rejected.
And when your children are rejected or when your husband or your wife feels rejection at work, the family needs to rally around and be there as a raincoat in the storms of life.
I'll never forget, many years ago when my oldest Amy was in high school, and she tried out to be a cheerleader or a song leader—every little girl wants to be a cheerleader or song leader or whatever.
And she went and went to practice. And her friends got accepted, and she got rejected because they said she was, quote, too large.
And it broke her heart. And she came home and she ran into her room and she went into her closet and sat down on the ground and burst into tears.
And every one of us in our family could hear Amy crying, and one by one, all on our own, we ended up walking into the room, sitting down on the floor in her closet with her, and crying with her.
And here was a family of five sitting on the ground just crying with our daughter. We didn't give her any advice. She didn't need advice.
We didn't say, "Now, now, don't worry. It's not a big deal." It was a big deal. We didn't say "Don't cry"—that's a stupid thing to say to somebody who's grieving.
No, we cried with her. And we all just sat there, and for about 30-40 minutes, we just cried with her.
Our family will never forget that incident. Why? Because at that point, we were being a raincoat. We were being a storm catcher. We were being a protector.
Somebody in our family had been hurt, and we weren't demeaning it, we weren't trying to talk her out of it, we weren't trying to say, "Cheer up. It won't matter. You're not going to care about this in five years." No, no, no—we just wept.
The Bible says, weep with those who weep. That's what it means. Awesome families protect each other in the storm.
And by the way, sometimes it's not just the kids who need protection. Sometimes dad's going through a tough time, sometimes mom's going through a tough time, and everybody rallies around and puts the raincoat on them.
And sometimes it's grandma and grandpa who need protection, and the roles reverse.
Psalm 71, verse 9 says this: "And now in my old age, don't set me aside. Don't abandon me when my strength is failing."
Many of you are moving into this stage of life. Your kids have moved out—maybe some have moved back in—but at the same time, your parents now need your care, and the roles have reversed.
There was a time when they wiped your nose, and now there's a time you need to wipe their nose. That's called family. Families are for life.
And you don't just abandon somebody because they, quote, aren't useful according to society. Every life is valuable, and God is watching.
And the Bible says a guy who won't take care of his own family is worse than an infidel, an unbeliever.
When Kay's dad died—right before he died, I went to him, and he was dying of cancer. And I said, "Burt, I want you to know that I will assume responsibility to care for your wife as long as she is alive. And I will accept that responsibility gladly." Why? That's what families do.
Serving God by Serving Others
Number four—what makes an awesome family? Awesome families are playful, awesome families encourage growth, awesome families protect each other, and the fourth one: awesome families serve God and others.
Actually, we serve God by serving others. It's the way you serve God—by serving others.
And awesome families teach their kids: it's not about you. You're not the center of the universe. Awesome families teach their kids you were made by God for a mission.
I am the man that I am today, first of all, because of my parents. And my parents instilled in me certain values to care about other people.
You know, my signature hug? Where do you think I learned that? Not in school. I learned it from watching my parents.
My parents were very, very poor. They didn't have any money at all. They served the Lord. They loved the Lord, but they were poor.
And they both had the gift of hospitality, and they both loved to give to others even though they were very poor.
So we lived out in the country, and my dad would plant three-quarters of an acre to a full acre in garden—all kinds of vegetables. There was no way we could personally eat all that food, but he did it just so we could give it away because he didn't have any money to give away.
So we always planted more, and then we gave it away to help other people who were in need.
And my mother had the gift of hospitality, and she said we will treat everybody with respect. And so our home was constantly filled with other people.
If people were in pain, they were at our house—they were spending the night at our house. If they were on the road, they were at our house. If they were going through a conflict, they were at our house. If they were well-known Christian leaders coming through town, they were at our house.
The Bible says this—Hebrews 10:24: "Let us think about each other," not just ourselves, "and let us help each other to show love and to do good deeds."
That's what awesome families do. We teach each other to show love, and we teach each other to do good deeds. Good deeds are called ministry. They're called service.
A good example of this is a family in the book of Acts—Acts 10:2 says about Cornelius: "He and all his family were devout and God-fearing; and they gave generously to those in need and they prayed to God regularly."
See, awesome families model dedication, model service, model generosity, and model prayer. That's what awesome families do. Average families don't do those things. Awesome families do.
By the way, are you modeling generosity for your kids? Are you teaching your kids to be selfish or unselfish?
If they see you giving, then they're going to become givers. If they see you being generous, they're going to be generous.
When my kids were little, I gave each of them three piggy banks. And in their allowance—if they got 30 cents, it was divided: a dime for giving, a dime for saving, and a dime for spending.
And then when their allowance went to a dollar, a dollar into saving, a dollar into spending, and a dollar into giving.
And I was teaching my kids that you don't spend everything you get.
Choosing to Build an Awesome Family Legacy
Now let me close with a couple of verses. 1 Corinthians 16—it's here on the screen—is a model of a family, an awesome family.
It says: "Remember Stephanas and his family. They were the first to become Christians in Greece, and they now are spending their lives helping and serving Christians everywhere." What a legacy.
What I'm saying is this: awesome families are not perfect families, but they are intentional. They become awesome by choice.
And you're not an awesome family by accident. You become an awesome family by making choices, making decisions, making commitments, and even making sacrifices.
And my challenge to you today is to say, you know what? No matter what stage I am in my family's life, I'm going to make the rest of it the best of it.
And we're going to become an awesome family for whatever remaining days we've got in it. We're going to become an awesome family, and we're going to start a new legacy, and we're going to leave a legacy.
And it begins by making a choice to commit your family to God, to Jesus Christ.
The Bible says this in Joshua 24—the last verse on your outline: "Choose today whom you will serve." You're going to serve yourself? You're going to serve society? You're going to serve money?
"Choose today whom you will serve," Joshua said, "but as for me and my family, we're going to serve the Lord!"
Okay. I don't care what other families do. Me and my family, we're going to serve the Lord.
And until you make that decision—dad, husband, mom—as for me and my family, we're going to serve the Lord, it's not going to be an awesome family. It's going to be an average family.
Let's bow for prayer.
If you've never given your life to Christ, that's the starting point. If you've never given your family to Christ, that's the starting point.
Would you pray this prayer in your heart?
Dear Jesus Christ, I want to live an awesome life and I want to have an awesome family, and I know I won't have either if I just live for myself. So today, I give myself to you. As for me and my house, we're going to serve the Lord. And I want my family to be a place of play and fun, not just work and negativity. I want my family to be a place where we encourage each other to grow constantly. Thank you for a church that helps our family grow. I wanna be a family that's a shelter and a storm, a safe haven, a safe place, a refuge. Help me to protect my family, not just their bodies, but also their minds. And I want my family to serve you by serving others. Help us to find our family mission, our family purpose, what you shaped our family to do. Help me to teach my kids to be generous by modeling generosity to God and to others. Help me to have a bifocal vision to not just care about my family, but to teach my kids, my wife, my husband and all of us to care about the whole world. And may we model dedication and service and generosity and prayer. I can't do this on my own, Lord. So I ask you to come into my life and take complete control of every area of me and give me the power to do the right thing. In your name I pray, amen.