Pastor Rick's Daily Hope

Guest (Male): Hello and thank you for joining us today on Pastor Rick's Daily Hope. This is the Bible teaching ministry of Rick Warren. Today, we are continuing in a series called The Miracle of Mercy. Rick will show us how God's mercy can lift your guilt, heal your wounds, and transform the way you live. So let's take a listen to part one of a message called Showing Mercy to Your Family.

Rick Warren: The sad fact is, sometimes the hardest place to show mercy is at home with the people you live with all the time. In fact, we're often harder on ourselves, harder on our spouse, and harder on our children than we are on total strangers. What's wrong with that picture, that often we are more ungracious to our own family than we are to total strangers?

Have you noticed this? You could be in a major argument in your home, and I mean it's a knockdown, drag-out fight, and the phone rings and you're at the top of your voice and you pick up the phone and say, "Hello?" What just happened? Wait a minute. You could control your anger for a stranger, but you couldn't with somebody you're having a conflict with? We are often harder on our spouse and on our kids than on anybody else.

I'm not proud to admit this, and I don't like this, but it bothers me. It bothers me that sometimes we say the most ungracious things to those we love the most. Does that bother anybody else? Does it bother you that you can be the angriest or even the meanest to the people in your life you love the most?

Maybe you can identify with what David said in Psalm 101, verse 2. David said this, "Lord, I want to live a blameless life, but how I need your help, Lord, especially in my own home where I long to act like I should." Especially in my own home, where I long to act like I should.

Now, you may think you're a very loving person, and love and mercy, of course, go together. The miracle of mercy is the miracle of love. You may think, "Man, I'm a great lover. I'm just so full of love. I'm a very loving person." Okay, let's just have a little quick quiz. Let's take a little quiz right now. How merciful and how loving are you with your family, really?

When my spouse or my sibling or another family member gets some detail wrong while telling a story, do I interrupt them and correct them publicly? Or do I say nothing and let it go, knowing I've done the same? Write down your answer right now. You may not cheat on this; God is watching. Admit it. It's more likely that you interrupt them and correct them publicly.

How about this second one? When my spouse or my sibling or another family member keeps making the same mistake over and over and over, do I become irritated and angry at them? Or do I graciously forgive them and pray for them? I can feel the humility in your life rising right now.

Today's worship together weekend, we've got our students with us. Welcome, junior high and senior high. I love you guys. Here's a good one for you. Number three: when my spouse or my sibling—that's your brother or your sister—or another family member is getting more attention than I think they deserve, do I feel resentful and feel the need to bring them down a notch? Or do I celebrate with them, which is the merciful thing to do? Some of you are lying through your teeth right now.

Number four, how merciful really are you with your family? When my spouse or sibling or another family member says or does something that I don't understand, do I assume they have the best motivation for doing it? Or do I question their motivation and think the worst? "I know why they're doing that." You don't even know your own motivation most of the time. How in the world could you possibly know your brother's or your sister's or your mother's or your father's or your wife's or your husband's? You don't even know your own motivation most of the time.

And then here's the last question: am I more polite with strangers or with my own family? I can see you're ready for the sermon now. Maybe I do need to work on this thing about mercy in my family.

We've been saying for weeks that mercy is love in action. Mercy is not a feeling. It's not an emotion. It's a behavior, it's a choice, it's a decision, it's something you choose to do. You choose to be merciful. And we've been saying for months that mercy is love in action. So whatever is true about love is also true about mercy.

Now, that helps us out a lot because the Bible has a very famous chapter called 1 Corinthians 13. The whole chapter defines the meaning of real love. And in 1 Corinthians 13, it gives us 15 characteristics of real love. Real love is very different from the phony love you hear about on the radio and songs and stuff like that. If it's true of love, those same characteristics are true of mercy. They are the marks of mercy.

In 1 Corinthians 13, verses 4 to 8, God gives us the 15 characteristics of real love. And unless you're doing these things, you don't really love somebody. These are the characteristics of real love. Let me read them to you. Love is patient. So anytime I'm impatient, I'm being unloving. Love is kind. Anytime I'm unkind, I'm being unloving. Love does not envy. In other words, you don't want what somebody else has.

Love is not boastful or proud. When I'm prideful, I'm not full of love. Love is not rude. Anytime I'm rude, I'm not being loving. Love is not self-seeking. It's not me first. Today, a lot of songs, love songs on the radio, they're not love songs; they're lust songs. Love is all about giving; lust is all about getting.

When you hear a song that says, "Give it to me, give it to me, if you don't give it, I'm going to take it," that's not love. That's lust. Love can always wait to give; lust can never wait to get. And if it's all about you—you make me feel brand new, you make me feel like a natural woman—that's not love. That's about me. Love is not self-centered; love is focusing on the other person.

And when you say, "I love you because of what you make me feel," that's not love; that's selfishness. I love you if, I love you because—no, love is I love you period. Love is I love you in spite of yourself. Love is not self-seeking. Love is not irritable or easily angered. Love keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil. This is real love.

Love rejoices with the truth. You don't manipulate people when you love them. Love is always supportive. Real love always trusts. It is always hopeful. Love always perseveres. And love never gives up. Love never fails. It never ends.

These are the 15 characteristics of love. I was tempted to do a message on all 15 characteristics, but then I asked Kay, who is a very wise woman, "Honey, what should the mother's message be?" She said, "Short."

So we're only going to look at four of these marks of love today. And what I've done is I've asked four moms to share their story, Saddleback moms that illustrate these four points. We're going to look very quickly at four ways to show mercy to your family members and in your home.

Number one: the first way we can show love in our home and in our family is by overlooking irritations and offenses. By overlooking—in other words, ignoring, not even paying attention to—the irritations and offenses. You're going to have irritations in life. Nobody has good days every day. Many families and marriages are buried with a lot of little digs and irritations and offenses.

And yet the Bible says in 1 Corinthians 13:5, real love is not irritable or easily angered. Circle "easily angered." Real love does not get angry easily. Now, anger is by far the most misunderstood human emotion. It's also the most mismanaged of all the emotions. Anger is the most mismanaged emotion that we have.

Anger is not necessarily a sin. Sometimes anger is the only appropriate response. There are some things you ought to get angry about. Anger's not a sin necessarily because God gets angry. God sees people getting hurt on the earth, and he gets angry about it. The only reason you have anger is because you're made in God's image.

There's a good kind of anger; there's a bad kind of anger. There's a righteous kind of anger; there's an unrighteous. There's an unselfish kind of anger that's based out of love, and there's a selfish kind of anger based on "you hurt my pride." And that's wrong. It's not anger that's wrong; it's why you're angry and how long you stay angry. Long anger turns into resentment and turns into bitterness, and that's always a sin.

But anger is a God-given capacity. When you see racial prejudice and racial profiling and bigotry in the world, you ought to get angry. When you see injustice and unfairness in the world, you ought to get angry. When you hear about a woman being raped or a child being abused, you ought to get angry. When you hear about Christians being beheaded by radical people in other parts of the world, you ought to get angry.

In fact, if you don't get angry, if you never get angry, you're a vegetable, not a human being. Anger is a part of human life. And some things are worth getting angry for; you get angry out of love. If you hurt my grandchildren, I'd get angry. Anger is a God-given capacity, but you've got to learn to control it and you've got to learn to use it wisely.

Managed anger is an asset. Every great leader in history has learned how to manage anger, and those who didn't, it was their downfall. And the Bible says that's the problem. Now, the real problem is that a lot of you think you don't get angry because you stuff it. But that's just as inappropriate as expressing it incorrectly.

There are two wrong ways to get angry. One is to blow up, Mount Vesuvius, and the other is to clam up and stuff it in. Both of them are inappropriate responses of anger. Neither is correct. And you blow up or clam up. You're either the mute—you hold it in—or you're the maniac—you let it all out. You're either a skunk or a turtle.

In life, everybody here is a skunk or a turtle. Skunks, when they get upset, they let everybody know it. They stink up the place. When a skunk gets angry, everybody knows they're angry because it smells. Turtles, when they get angry, they pull into a shell.

Now, here's an interesting thing: I used to do marriage counseling. What I've discovered is skunks always marry turtles. So in your marriage, one of you blows up and one of you clams up. Count on it. And neither is the righteous one, and neither is more sinful than the other one. They're just both inappropriate ways of dealing with anger.

Love is not irritable or easily angered. The Bible is very specific about the cost of uncontrolled anger. The Bible says in Proverbs it causes arguments. The Bible says it causes mistakes. The Bible says uncontrolled anger causes foolish things to happen in your life. And what is the antidote to harmful anger in your marriage and in your family? Love and mercy. The more you feel God's love and the more you feel God's mercy, the more you're going to show God's love and you're going to show God's mercy to other people.

Love is not irritable or easily angered. The Bible says this, Proverbs 17:9, "Love forgets mistakes." So when you hold on to a mistake and you keep remembering it over and over, that's not loving. Nagging parts separate even close friends.

Proverbs 19:11, the Bible says, "It is to your glory to overlook an offense." Circle the word "offense." It is to your glory to overlook an offense. It is to your credit. It shows your maturity if you can overlook offenses. People who get offended at everything are immature. People who don't get offended at everything, they just let it slide, they overlook irritations, they overlook offenses—that's a mark of emotional maturity.

If you're always getting your feelings hurt, you need to grow up. You need to grow up because that doesn't mean that's not legitimate; maybe they really are hurting your feelings, but you need to learn how to overlook an offense or you're going to be unhappy all your life.

When I get irritated, when I get offended, when somebody says something mean about me—nobody ever does that, but critics and things like that—and if I start to get upset, I ask myself three questions. Number one: why am I angry? You need to know why. Number two: what do I really want out of this? And number three: how can I get it? And you will never get it by clamming up or blowing up.

You're never going to get what you want in your marriage. You're never going to get what you want in your family, in your relationship with your friends or anybody else, if you use these blow-up or clam-up alternatives to anger. Love is not easily angered.

Here's a good verse. Look at this next verse, 1 Thessalonians 5:15. Be careful—I love this in the Message paraphrase—be careful that when you get on each other's nerves, you don't snap at each other. Look for the best in each other, the Bible says. Look for the best in each other and always do your best to bring it out.

If we would just memorize that verse, everybody in our church family, and we'd practice it for a year, we'd be a whole lot happier. We'd have a whole lot better relationships, better marriages, better friendships. Look out for the best in each other and always do your best to bring it out. Now, the first mom that I want you to hear her story today about overlooking irritations and offenses is Katie. Would you give her a warm welcome?

Katie: Good morning. My name is Katie, and I'd like to share what I'm learning about how mercy overlooks irritations and offenses in marriage, in my marriage. I'll never forget the day three years ago when I locked myself in my room and opened my Bible, searching for a verse that would tell me it was okay to get a divorce.

I knew it said God hates divorce, but I was desperate and bartering. What if my husband doesn't meet my emotional needs? What if he doesn't talk to me enough? What if he says things that hurt my feelings all the time? What if we're on different spiritual paths? What if, what if, what if? After an hour of searching and being left with no out, I gave up and fell to my knees. God, please fix this. I don't know what to do.

In that moment, I felt peace. I just knew it was going to be okay. God drew me near and showed me what to do as I spent daily time in the word, asking him what I could do to fix the situation. The mercy I showed to my husband was to allow God to fix me. Instead of focusing on all the things I thought he did wrong, I started focusing on showing mercy in my response to him as I surrendered to God.

God softened my heart. The Lord corrected my delivery of words. He knocked down walls of resentment, and most of all, he calmed waves of rage and desire for retaliation. Instead of reacting in anger, God is teaching me how to respond with mercy and to use words of mercy and acts of mercy to heal our marriage.

And guess what? As I changed, it changed my marriage. The changes in me began to be mirrored in my husband. When I got word that Pastor Rick wanted me to talk about showing mercy in my marriage, I immediately assumed that my husband would not be okay with this. I didn't think he'd want me to air dirty laundry, but he actually suggested telling our story.

He only suggested that I also point out that we aren't done yet. We haven't figured it all out. Learning mercy in your marriage is a lifelong process. But that's the beauty of it, isn't it? God doesn't rush us; he merely asks us to continue to grow closer to him, and as we do, he blesses that.

I stand here today still married because my husband had the mercy to forgive my ugliness and because I had the mercy to forgive his. I stand here happily married because God had mercy on me when I cried out to him to fix the mess we'd made of our marriage.

Mercy is hard. As Pastor Rick just taught, mercy requires overlooking irritations and ignoring offenses. It also requires you taking the first step and being the first to show mercy. When I wanted the yelling matches to stop, I had to stop yelling first. My relationship to my husband had to become more important than my opinion. It had to be more important than being right. It had to be more important than wanting to correct him. And that's not an easy one, right ladies?

But as God's word promises, I can do all things, even show mercy, through him that gives me strength. If I can leave you all with just one big idea today, it's this: God is a God of mercy and redemption. So if you want to redeem and restore or even just improve a relationship, stop trying to be right and start doing right, which is to humbly accept God's mercy for yourself and then humbly offer mercy in your words and deeds to those you have conflict with. If you'll do that, you'll experience the miracle of mercy in your marriage. Thank you.

Rick Warren: It occurred to me while Katie was talking that of these four women who are going to share today, we ought to applaud the courageous husbands who let them stand up here and talk about their families. So let's hear it for the husbands. Thank you, guys.

Let's go to the second way you can show mercy to your family. Number two: by being kind when they don't deserve it but they need it.

Guest (Male): Wow, what a great message from Rick today. A lot of you already know that one of our deepest needs is to feel peace in a world that rarely slows down. But true, lasting, unshakable peace isn't found in circumstances. It's found in Jesus, the Prince of Peace.

The Bible says his peace exceeds anything we can understand, and one of the surest ways to draw close to Jesus is by spending time in God's word. And that's why Pastor Rick created a 52-card scripture collection called Experiencing God's Peace. As you read these verses, you'll steady your heart on God's truth. Let his peace wash over you and begin memorizing scripture so that you can recall it right when you need it most.

And these cards aren't just for you; you can use them to encourage others. Give one to a friend and write a personal note on the back. If a scripture speaks to you, frame it. Place these cards where you can see them throughout the day and be reminded that God is with you.

Request your set of experiencing God scripture cards when you give a gift to support Daily Hope and help share the hope of Jesus with a world in need. It's our way of saying thank you. Just go to PastorRick.com to get your copy of this great resource. That's PastorRick.com, or you can just text the word "hope" to 70309. Again, that's the word "hope" to 70309. Be sure to join us next time as we look into God's word for our Daily Hope. This program is sponsored by Pastor Rick's Daily Hope and your generous financial support.