How to Build a Castle

Well, Happy New Year! Happy New Year! That's pretty good. We tried this with Christmas, so let's try it one more time. Happy New Year! Happy New Year! I like it. My name's René, I'm another one of the pastors here. I want to invite you to grab your message notes that look like this, because we are in a little three-week series. To kick off the new year, it's all about relationships. The series is called "Your Home, Your Castle." How do you make your home not just a beautiful place, but a place with beautiful people? We want to focus on the people in our home, not just the place of the home. How do you make your home a beautiful, safe, inspiring place like a castle?

Now, right off the bat, I want to say, this might sound to some of you church veterans, like maybe a light little series, right? Oh, relationships, you know, to kick off the new year. That's entry-level stuff. Not to God. You know, the whole Bible is basically a book about relationships. Would you agree with that? That's the whole Bible, like every verse is about either God's relationship with us and our relationship with God, or our relationships with one another. And so this is really important stuff we're talking about in this series. In fact, nothing is more important.

Now, in this series next week, I want to talk about our relationships with friends and spouses, but specifically this morning, I want to talk about how do you build up the children in your life? And before you say, "Oh, this doesn't apply to me because I don't have young kids at home," I'm talking about whether you have kids at home right now, or whether you have grown kids out of the home, or whether you have grown kids that have moved back into your home, or whether you have grandkids, or maybe you're young, you haven't had kids yet, or you never had children, but you probably play a significant role, like as an unofficial aunt or uncle, in the lives of some kids in your life. How can you build them up? How can you change their lives, right? Let's talk about this today.

I was thinking about this because our own family just got back from Disneyland. And here we are having fun there at the happiest place on earth. And when I say we just got back, I mean as in yesterday. I mean yesterday morning we were riding the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disneyland, and we just had a ton of fun. How many Disney fans do we have here? Kind of Disney geeks. Okay, I'm among friends because I am a complete Disney nerd. I'll read any book you ever give me about Walt Disney. It's fascinating stuff.

But while I was down there this last week, I thought to myself, this ties in perfectly to our series, Your Home, Your Castle, because of course there's a famous castle right there at the end of Main Street. And it struck me as I was looking at this. The way Walt built this castle, follow me here, is really the exact way you make your home into a castle. Because this place didn't just spring up out of the ground with no effort. In fact, here's a rare aerial photograph of the Disneyland area before it became Disneyland. Just an orange grove in Anaheim. And yet Sleeping Beauty's castle rose up in that very unlikely spot.

I love this. This is a famous photograph taken the morning of the grand opening of Disneyland. No guests had yet walked through that famous castle. And here is Walt walking into Fantasyland alone, taking in every detail. He had to be very intentional about creating all this. And this morning, here's what I want to do. I want to use Walt Disney's construction of Disneyland as kind of an overarching metaphor for how to build your family and your children into a healthy, happy, holy place. So let's talk today about how to build a castle.

Now I want to be clear about something. I'm not using the building of Disneyland as a metaphor because Walt was some kind of a saint. I mean, I love Disney, but I do not wear a WWW bracelet. What would Walt want? I'm a follower of Jesus Christ, not Walt Disney. But I'm using the construction of Disneyland as kind of a parable this morning. And I'm hoping the construction of this place, Disneyland, is kind of a sticky metaphor for you to remember how to be intentional about turning your home into an inspiring, fun, safe, and healthy place.

And only in any great construction project, whether you're building Disneyland or your family, there are five irreducible elements that have to be there. Jot these down in your message notes. Number one, you need vision. You need to share the big picture purpose with the people that you're engaged on this effort with. This was by far the most important part of building Disneyland that he had ever seen anything like it before. There had been amusement parks, but there had never, ever been theme parks.

And so check this out. Walt had one of his artists make a giant painting of his vision. He actually stayed at the studio during a long weekend with one of his artists, and he and this artist worked all weekend long on this painting. Before one brick was laid, in fact, before any plans were even drawn, they conjured this painting, an aerial view of Disneyland, out of Walt's imagination, and he showed this same painting to financial backers, to his workers, and even on TV to the entire nation. He kept pointing to this picture saying, "This is what we're all about. Don't get lost in the individual rides. Here's the theme. Here's the big picture. Here's the vision."

And you and I need to do this for our families. What's the big picture? What's the vision? What are we all about here? What's the purpose of our family? And what's the destiny of us as individuals? You know, Joshua 24:15 said, "As for me and my household, we will serve the Lord." And this is what, since the time they've been little, Lori and I have tried to explain in different ways to our kids. Our family's priority is serving the Lord. We believe we have a mission to reach people with the gospel of Jesus through words and deeds, and we're making specific choices with our resources, with our money, with our time that match that mission.

And we also tell them, "Personally, you are here for a purpose. God has put you on this planet for a destiny. You are here to spread God's kingdom, and there can be no higher calling everywhere you go. Let that place be a little outpost of the kingdom of God that Jesus talked about. Be in your life what it looks like when up there comes down here, when the kingdom of heaven comes to earth. Be a peacemaker. Be merciful. You have a destiny to do that.

I can tell you from personal experience the difference it makes to believe you have a purpose that goes beyond making money, that you have a purpose that goes beyond striking it rich, that you have a purpose that goes beyond becoming famous. You know, my single mom, I was raised without a dad for most of my growing up years. My single mom used to tell me over and over, "René," she'd say in her Swiss accent and English, "René, you have been placed on this planet for a purpose. God has a reason for you to be alive." And not just, "Mom, I remember all of our relatives just drummed it into me. "René, you have a purpose. You have a destiny." I mean, I lost track of how many times they told me this. Every time something good would happen, they'd relate it to this. "See, God has His hand on you. This is proof." At any time something bad would happen. They would say, "It's okay. You have a destiny. God has His hands on you." It was drummed into me and that really changes your whole response to life. To bad times, to good times, to the opportunities all around you to believe that you have a destiny. That there is a reason that you're breathing oxygen on this planet. That God has a role for you to play.

So I'm begging you, please do this for the children in your life. You know, kids naturally love to think about their purpose. They don't put it that way. They don't say, "I want to think about my destiny. I want to think about my purpose in life." What they say is, "I love to think about what I'm going to be when I grow up." But really what they're thinking about is, "What is my purpose?" When our kids were really little, we were at the Snow White Wishing Well in Disneyland. And I'll never forget this. I gave them each a penny. And I said, "Why don't you throw it in and make a wish?" And little Jonathan was just six years old then, and he looked up at me. I'll never forget this. With his big eyes as he threw in his penny, he said, "I wish I could grow up to be just like my daddy." He smiled at me and threw in his coin. And I said, "All right, Elizabeth, it's your turn." She was four. And she looks at me and says, "Well, I wish I could be a hamster." And in went the penny. I'll rank by a hamster, right? What's the goal of your kid's life, right? I mean, it's going to change. I want to be a fireman, an astronaut, a doctor. But whatever it is, have you tied it in for them to the sense of larger purpose?

Maybe you're still not clear on what I'm talking about. In this series, we want to equip you, not just lecture you. And so we bought several cases of some books for you. For example, this one is by my friend John Trent and his wife, Cindy. It's called "The Treasure Tree." And this is specifically meant for parents with younger kids at home to talk about how their unique skills and their unique personality ties into God's gospel purpose. It's really a really well-written book. It's great for little kids, how their personality ties into God's purpose in their lives.

Now, unfortunately, though we bought several boxes of this book, they're all already gone. Those first two services cleaned us out. But I want you to look at this, this green sheet that's in your bulletins. This is a list of the resources that we're referring to all throughout this series. These are conferences that our church puts on or connects you with. These are classes our church offers. These at the bottom here has all the books that we're going to be recommending throughout this series, some of the books on marriage you'll be hearing about next weekend. And then last weekend and this weekend, we'll be recommending some of those books on children there. And the treasure principle is listed there in case you want to pick that up at a bookstore or online.

But the point is, you build a castle, first of all, with a big vision, with a sense of purpose and idealism that you're imparting to everybody who's involved in the endeavor. But then secondly, you also need supervision. You need to give the gift of your presence. Just be there, right? The gift of your presence. I was reading about how Walt Disney was at the park supervising construction almost every day. And again and again, I read about how the people there said his presence made such a difference. Why? Well first because they saw the wonder on his face, right? He was just enjoying the park like a little kid. And that reminded them about what they were doing and why.

Now sometimes Disney had to correct or overrule. It wasn't all positive vibes, right? But his presence, just being there, made a huge difference in terms of motivation. And similarly, you and I need to be present with the children in our lives too. Just being there is huge. Unfortunately, this is a dying art. There's so many stats that I could just recite to you here about how much less time in the history of the American family, American parents have never spent less time with their children than they do right now. But instead of giving you boring stats, I want to read you some quotes from actual children. Parade magazine recently asked kids, "What's dinner time like at your house?" Here's some of the responses.

Ashantiya, age 14. Well during dinner we don't talk a lot because we're too busy watching the soap opera that was recorded that day. Matthew, age 14. I usually eat by myself. My parents are either not home or they're upstairs playing on their computers. So obviously I rarely talk to them during dinner. Sasha, age 14, said, "Eat together. We never eat together." Now most of the kids in this article said things like that except for these two. Daniel, age 14. I like dinner time because first we say our prayers and then we eat and talk about our day we laugh and have a nice time together. Or what about Jonathan, age 17? In my family we have to wait until everybody shows up and then we eat. We talk about what happened during the day. We have a happy time. My parents always give me some ideas to solve my problems. And talking to them at the dinner table makes me feel comfortable.

Now listen, I know we can't always have dinner together. Sometimes schedules just make it impossible. But research shows that kids value eating together much more often than they let on. Just being present with your children is so crucial. Here's an interesting verse. Ephesians 6:4 says, "Fathers, do not exasperate your children." Do not exasperate your children. Now stop right there in that verse and I want you to circle the word "exasperate" where that verse appears in your notes. What does that mean? That word means being provoked to anger, to depression, to frustration. So the Bible says fathers do not exasperate your children. If that's in the Bible, all of us have to ask ourselves, "Alright, what is it that exasperates our children?"

Well I found this, Dr. Armand Nicole, he's a professor at Harvard Medical School, did a 10 year study on basically what most exasperates children. Where does childhood frustration come from? And it's this. The perceived inaccessibility of one or both parents. The perceived inaccessibility of one or both parents. So be there, be present with your kids. Now, all of us know that work gets busy. And you can't be there all the time, or maybe even most of the time. But you know and I know how easy it is to be seduced by the relative calm of work. I know it's true for me, at work I can focus. At work I kind of feel important. At work things are relatively organized. And then sometimes you go home and it feels like chaos, right? Especially if you've got little kids. They're running around shouting and your wife has a long to-do list for you. And so sometimes you spend a little bit more time at work than you need to.

Well check out this story. I found a great quote from Walt Disney's daughter Diane from just a few years ago. This was when they opened up the great Disney Family Museum in San Francisco. And she was asked by a reporter, "Well, what do you want people to know about Walt Disney that you don't think they know right now?" And let me read you her quote. She said, "No one understands he was really a dad. He drove my sister and me to school every morning. And every weekend either Saturday or Sunday he'd say, 'It's Daddy's Day and he'd take us all to a local park where they had a beautiful carousel.' Or he'd take us to the studio. We'd run around the studio a lot on weekends where there was nobody there. We'd prowl around. He was really a dad." She said, "He went to every school function, every father's night." Man, I read that and I thought, "What's my excuse, you know?" He was a very busy guy too. And yet he found time to be present.

And here's why your presence is so important. The rest of that verse, "Bring them up in the nurture and instruction of the Lord." That second word there, "instruction." That doesn't mean handing your kids a list of instructions. Here you go. Here's the list. It means modeling. In the Hebrew culture it was like apprentice training. And you have to be there to do that. This is reflected in this verse, Deuteronomy 11:19. It says, "Teach these things to your children, talking about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road. When you lie down and when you get up, just as you're living with them, impart your values, teach them." Here's what a first grader wrote about her dad in an essay contest. I love this. "At night, before we go to bed, we talk about our day. And if I'm sad or scared, he always makes me feel good before going to sleep, because he reminds me of the good things that happened."

Teach them, just like the verse says, "When you lie down, when you go to sleep." You know, studies show that bedtime is the time of day when your kids are the most receptive to you. And yet that's also what we try to rush through. Well, listen to what another first grader named Nicholas wrote about his dad. "He gets home late, but I still feel his big, strong hands holding mine as we pray. And he says, 'God bless.' And then he leans to my ear and whispers, 'Sleep with angels, son. Daddy loves you.'" You see, kids remember those very moments that this verse talks about, and that leads right into how, third, your family needs direction. Teach God's principles.

You know, any construction project like Disneyland has to have vision, big picture, purpose, and supervision, your presence, but you can't be there every second. And so you need blueprints, plans to give people direction. And Disney learned this the hard way. Great story. He painstakingly walked through the orange orchard before construction, marking with green and red ribbons that he tied around the trunks which trees to save and which to bulldoze. Red meant to cut down, green meant keep. And then the bulldozer operator came through, and when Walt got there the next day, the exact opposite of his wishes had happened. Turns out the bulldozer operator was colorblind. And he tore down exactly the wrong trees, couldn't tell the difference between the red and the green ribbons.

And it's then that Disney realized, "Okay, it's good for me to be personally on site pointing things out and personally supervising, but I need to put together some detailed plans so we're all on the same page literally." And he hired a guy named Joe Fowler, who'd been head of the naval shipyards up here in San Francisco to work up some real construction plans so they weren't just all in Disney's head. Well, you have to give your kids blueprints too, because you can't be there with them every second of the day. Now, by this I don't mean just a list of hundreds of dos and don'ts. I mean overarching principles that they can remember that apply to every life situation. These are all from Scripture.

Here's just a couple of examples. Galatians 6:7 is a great place to start. Let's read this out loud together. Let me hear you. "Do not be deceived. God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows." This is the principle of cause and effect. What I do has an effect on my life. You reap what you sow, but later both with seeds for success and seeds for disaster. So you sow the seeds now and then you wait. You wait, the delayed gratification, right? You need to teach your kids this is true. Now, all kids need to learn this. They do not come with this principle permanently, deeply, naturally ingrained. And it's just kind of an object lesson.

I want to play a game with you guys right now that I call "Stand Up, Sit Down." Are you ready for this? First, I want you to stand up if you are somebody's child. So go ahead and stand up if you are somebody's child right now. Just to make it easy on those of you who are sleepy, this applies to everybody. So stand up. And if you can't stand, raise your hand, all right? Everybody involved here. I'm going to ask you some questions about your childhood here. And if any of these apply to you, then take a seat. And sometimes I might ask you to stand back up again. So listen carefully.

Number one, it's always fun to see how many people this applies to. Sit down if you ever used scissors to cut your own hair or your siblings' hair for them. Go ahead and sit down. Siri, holy smokes, wow. All right, that got rid of half the people right now. All right, next, sit down if you ever flushed a toy, a golf ball, or other foreign object down the toilet just to see if it would go down. A few more people said. All right, stand back up if your parents had to call a plumber because of that. And sit back down if you never told them you did it. Okay. All right, next, sit down if you ever begged for a pet by promising you would take care of it every day and then you broke that promise. Look at this. Now I'm going to ask you a question because in the two previous services, we actually had people stand back up on this one just out of curiosity. Those of you who stood down on that question, stand back up if the pet that promised got you was a horse. Let me just see. Seriously? That's amazing. I feel sorry for your parents.

Okay, now, sit down if you ever dressed up your pet in a humiliating costume. We lost some more people. Okay. Sit down if you ever did something dangerous that you didn't tell your parents about. Wow. All right, stand back up if they still don't know about it to this day. All right, sit back down if they're here in the room and they just learned about it just now. Wow. Sit down if you ever thought to yourself, "You know, I actually probably committed a misdemeanor crime as a child but just didn't get caught for it." You'll notice our entire pastoral staff sat down on that question. Good. And finally, sit down if you ever told your parents you would obey and then went ahead and did your own thing anyway. Sit down. All right, we only have four perfect children remaining standing, so let's give them a hand, a round of applause right now.

But my point is, most of us sat down at some point in there, right? The point being, kids are naturally foolish. Children are childish. Stop the presses, right? They don't come with these principles ingrained. And so we can't be surprised by that. It's our responsibility to teach them these principles clearly. And by the way, that's the role of discipline, to show that principles like this are true. Because if you tell your child that doing bad things turns out badly, let your teaching be true, right? Don't short-circuit the lesson by short-circuiting the reaping because they'll have a better life ultimately if they learn this.

Or how about this principle? 1 Corinthians 15:33, "Do not be misled. Bad company corrupts good character." I read an interview just yesterday with police gang intervention experts at a seminar here, and they talked about how, in their opinion, they said 99 percent of youth crime can be traced to bad friends, corrupting peer groups. And these kinds of principles are what I'm talking about. These are going to help guide your child when you may not have made some specific rule or you can't be there in person. This is what Proverbs 22:6 is talking about, when it says, "Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it." This does not mean it's impossible for kids to be rebellious if they've been raised right. What it means is they can't completely leave behind the conscience that you've developed in them with these general principles. They may rebel, in fact they will, right? God's the perfect Father and all his children rebel. But the conscience, the principles, will be right there with them the whole time reminding them.

But don't be a nag about it. This is why this fourth principle has to come next. To build a castle you need motivation, spread a positive attitude. A positive attitude. It's funny, one thing I read again and again was that Disney's own personal joy in Disneyland motivated everybody else. For example, I love this picture, right? Here's this multi-millionaire famous guy, and you can tell he's just leaning on the monorail like, "I love trains so much. They're so cool, and this monorail is so cool, right?" And they say his personal enjoyment of everything. He brought his grandkids and he loved the park as much as they did.

Now, again, don't get me wrong here. I'm not saying he was perfect or never grumpy or something like that, but his enthusiasm in Disneyland comes up again and again and again when you talk to veteran workers about what helped to motivate them to establish this unique place. And it's the same exact thing in your family. Have a positive attitude toward your kids. Do your kids think you enjoy them? Do they think you like being there with them? That you think they're cool? You know, one night many years ago I came home late from work yet again. It was maybe a year after I started pastoring this church, and it was a period where I was working super long hours, super late, and it was bad, missing dinner, and I had to change my ways there. But one night I came home very late just in time to tuck my little four-year-old boy, Jonathan, just four years old at the time, into bed, and I'll never forget this. He said, "Daddy, I'm so glad you came home. I never thought you'd come home."

And I said, "Well, I'm glad I came home too. I love you." And Jonathan said these words to me, "I know you love me, Daddy, but do you appreciate me?" And I said, "Quiet down. It's bedtime." No, I didn't say that. I said, "What?" And he said again, "Daddy, I hope you appreciate me." Well, that little boy is now almost 23 years old, and he's married. Time goes by so fast. But that little question he asked me stuck with me. I think of that probably on a weekly basis at least, if not daily. And I try to let my kids know I like them, not just love them, that I appreciate them. And again, this is biblical. The Bible says, "Therefore, encourage one another and build each other up." In 1 Thessalonians 5:11. And that goes for parents too.

Now, you're saying, "Well, what are you saying, René? I need to always be positive. Can't criticize my kids?" No, it's not. What I'm saying is this, reject the wrong, but never reject the children. Preserve the relationship. Because even if they're rebelling or doing something you don't approve of, once you lose the relationship, it's so hard to get it back. And one of the quickest ways to lose the relationship is through nagging. Nagging never works. Now, again, I want to equip you, not just lecture at you here, so we put these little encouragement cards in your bulletins, and there's more at the info desk. So take out these little cards out of your notes. On top it says, "Encouragement for you." It has 1 Thessalonians 5:11. And then it says, "To and from." And here's what I appreciate about you.

So let me give you a little homework assignment. Here's what I want you to do. Where it says, "To right now," as I'm talking to you, "think of a child in your life you want to encourage." It could be a grown child. It could be a young child. It could be somebody else's child that you're sort of a surrogate aunt, uncle, father, mother to, and write their name in right there. And then your homework tonight, before you go to bed, is to write 2 or 3 sentences of encouragement. It will really make a huge difference. Look at Colossians 3:21. "Fathers, do not embitter your children." And this goes for mothers too. "Do not embitter your children, or they will become discouraged." Discouraged. This means your kid develops a "why even try" attitude. And this isn't on a slide, but if you want to jot this down, here is how to embitter and discourage your kids. A little list I found. These are the top four ways.

Now the first one, I'll be very candid with you. I don't think I've got a problem with the first one, but there's been times I've fallen into numbers 2 through 4 here. Number 1 is label them. Like stupid fools in the cells you fail. I'd never label my kids. Yesterday we were at Disneyland, in the first hour in the morning, and we're standing in line for Star Tours, and the family right behind us, the father's just laying into the kids. And he's saying, "We've wasted one whole hour at Disneyland. You said you knew where to go, and then we got lost. If we would have walked straight, we would have found this ride, but tweedled dumb and tweedled dumber over here had to get us lost." Can you believe that? It's so easy to think you're being clever or something and express yourself in ways that are hurtful. Don't label them. That's number 1. How to discourage your children.

Number 2. And these other ones I can fall into. Prophesy Doom. Like, "Ah, this is too hard for you." I know that the teachers are giving you too much work for you. You know, you're not good at sports. Basically you're saying, "I know you'll fail." Prophesy Doom. Number 3, compare them. You know, you're just like Uncle Joe. He never changed, and you won't either. Family resemblance. Or, in subtle ways, "Why aren't you more like your sister or more like your brother?" And then, fourth, talk openly about their faults in their presence to other relatives or friends. This is how to embitter and discourage your children.

Listen, the Golden Rule applies to parents too. Remember the Golden Rule, "Do you want others as you would have them do it to you?" We're required to do to our children as we would have them do to us if the roles were reversed. In other words, you can't demand that they speak respectfully to you if you speak rudely to them. Now listen, I don't want to minimize the pain and frustration of raising children. In fact, some of you have been so mistreated by your own kids and you're grieving the loss of that relationship. And probably 99% of us who are parents are feeling convicted right now and may be guilty about mistakes we've made. Here's what I want you to do. Ask yourself, "Do I have a healing attitude?" Ask, "Will this attitude I've got about my parenting or about my children, will this heal?" Could your attitude lead somewhere positive? You might not have much of a relationship right now. It may be very sketchy with your grown children. But the Bible says, "Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer." And that's something you can always do no matter what, even when your kids are being rebellious.

Because realize this, rebellious kids usually are not out to hurt you. They're out to enjoy life. You get hurt in the process, but they don't want to hurt you. They don't even want you to find out. They have tunnel vision. They just want to have fun. So don't resent them. In fact, look at a couple of those verses on the bottom of page one here before you flip your notes over. Look at Job 5:2, "Resentment kills a fool and envy slays the simple." Listen, a lot of parents have a whole cloud of resentment surrounding their relationships with their children. They resent that their kids don't call more if they're grownups. Or they resent it when people say, "I'm so sorry to hear you're having trouble with your kids. You know, we never had any trouble with our four." Or your own parents tell you, "I knew all along you were going to have trouble with that one. Bad seed knew it from the start." And you resent them. Or you resent your own kids sometimes. Or you feel like a failure. You resent yourself. You feel guilty. But those are toxic attitudes. Again, ask yourself, "Is this a healing attitude?"

Those of us who are parents and grandparents, you aren't perfect as a parent. Nobody is perfect as a parent. But is self-hatred going to heal the situation? Will hatred of somebody, your children even, heal? Will blaming somebody for how things turned out heal? Will self-pitying heal? Will worrying yourself sick heal? No, no, no. Then what will heal? Receiving God's forgiveness of you will heal. Extending that forgiveness to others will heal. Forgetting the things that are behind and focusing on what's ahead will heal. Meditating on things that are excellent, true, noble, praiseworthy will heal. Getting help will heal. So have a positive attitude. And find ways to bless your kids, even if the relationship's not all that you'd hoped it would be.

In fact, I want you to look at the last verse at the bottom of page one, and don't turn the page yet, because I want to talk about this for a minute. It's so important and so biblical. Genesis 28:1 says, "So Isaac called for Jacob and blessed him." Now, this was not a perfect father-son relationship, but he blessed his son. It was a tradition in the Old Testament. Parents literally laid their hands on their children and blessed them. Now, can you do this? And I'm not just talking to parents with little kids in the house. If you have grown kids, I can almost guarantee you, your son or your daughter, though they're adults, they wonder sometimes, "Does Mom or does Dad think I'm a success or a failure?" And if you literally just put your hands on them and you look them in the eye and you bless them, it can make such a difference.

And maybe if they're not even your own children. Last night, before the 6 p.m. service, the first service of the weekend, a man named Ernie Friesen was sitting right about there. And about two minutes before the service, Ernie Friesen walks up to me, and Ernie had been my fifth grade Sunday school teacher over in Lascantis when I was growing up. Little class of maybe 12 or 13 boys. And he walks up to me and he puts his hands on my shoulders. He had no idea I was going to talk about this. And he just claps his big hands. He's much taller than I am on my shoulders. And he looks me in the eyes and says, "René, I just feel like I should tell you something." Now, this was so huge for me because, as you know, I didn't have a dad growing up. And Ernie was one of the two or three men that had -- he didn't know this, but he was kind of a father figure to me. And here he's in his 80s now, and he puts his hand on my shoulders. He says, "I just want you to know I'm so proud of you." He said, "To think that a boy in my Sunday school class, I thought I was doing everything wrong in that class, and that you guys didn't hear anything that was said. And now you're a pastor of a church and I'm so proud of you. And I got to tell you, I almost broke down and cried right there." Because, oh, no, you know, thank you. But certain men become father figures. Certain women, perhaps, you became mother figures. It can mean so much to hear that from them, right? But how about you playing that role in other people's lives? You can play that role.

And again, to equip you in this, we literally bought boxes and boxes of copies of this book. It's so good. It's by Deborah Evans. It's called "Blessing Your Grown Children." It's listed in the resources on that one sheet in your bulletin. It's also all sold out by now. People have picked up every copy of this, but you can pick it up online or at a local bookstore. It talks about how to bless your grown children again. Even if your relationship with them is sketchy, you can still choose to bless them because that preserves the relationship.

Okay, now, flip over those notes because last, but really most basically and very quickly, your castle needs a foundation, right? Build the whole enterprise on God's grace. God's grace. Build your family on that foundation. You know, there's a statue near the castle at Disneyland. It's of Walt and Mickey Mouse. And on a plaque there, it has the words of Walt Disney, "Remember, it all started with a mouse." In other words, the fun and simple innocence of childhood. That's what this whole multi-billion dollar corporation now is all about. That's the foundational value. Every great project, including Disneyland, has a core value like that at its foundation, if it's a great project. But what's the foundation of your family? What's the core value? What would your kids say? What would observers say?

For a lot of families, in my observation, it's achievement. Or success. Or even just having fun. But in my opinion, those all fall short. The best foundation for a Christian family is grace. Look at the thinking in this verse, Colossians 3:12. "Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy, dearly loved." In other words, because you're a child of God, you're a friend of God. Excuse me. "Clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience." In other words, since this is how God treats you, since you know you are bathed in His grace, then you can bathe others in grace. You can love unconditionally too.

How's this applied to what we're talking about today? Make sure your kids know, whether they're little or grown up, they do not have to earn your affection by their performance. You would be surprised how often I talk to people who say it's been so hard for them to understand the concept of God's grace, and they say specifically, I've probably literally heard this a hundred times, they say specifically, I can't understand God's grace because I got so little grace from my parents. I thought I had to earn their affection. Make sure you grace your children as you've been graced.

One of my favorite Disney stories, which is actually verified true, when his daughter Diane was just a little girl in kindergarten, her first grade, she didn't know her dad was the Walt Disney. True story. She just figured he was daddy and some guy who coincidentally had that name, and one day at school her classmates convinced her who her dad was, and that night Walt said he was reading the paper, sitting on the couch, and he sensed, you know, that somebody was looking at him, and he lowers the paper and Diane is staring at him, her hands on her hips. And he says, what's wrong? And she says, well, you never told me you were Walt Disney. True story. And she went on to say that her whole self-concept changed, and she went on gobsmacked for a week. My dad is Walt Disney, right? Well, the same thing happens really to you and me, only even better. When you realize whose child you are, you're a child of God. You have a perfect heavenly Father who is the Lord of glory. And when you realize he loves you unconditionally, everything changes.

That's even better than your fifth grade Sunday school teacher laying his hands on your shoulders saying, I'm blessed by your life. God has laid his hands on your shoulders, and he said, I love you unconditionally. You're my child. Now look back over your notes here in your hands. You know, one thing that Disney also said was that Disneyland will never be completed. They would keep improving it. And you know what? Your relationship with your children is never completed. This is very important because I have parents tell me all the time. In fact, I've had parents tell me this weekend, you know, this message just makes me feel convicted because I've blown it. I blew it. Oh, really? How old are your kids? Eight and nine? But it's over now. I kid you not. Parents say that. But you say that's ridiculous. What if the kids are 12? What if they're 16? What if they're 25? What if they're 33? What if they're 50? It's never over. It's never completed. You can still keep developing that relationship.

In fact, you might use these five elements as just a grid to start a conversation. I did just that with my two youngest kids this past week. I said, these are the five elements I'm going to be talking about. Where in our family life have you seen us be strong? Where are we the strongest of all these five points? And where are we the weakest, frankly? Where do we need to shore up? And we had a great constructive conversation. Try it yourself. But don't give up. Just remember the bottom line. Love your family the way God loves you. I really want to emphasize this. It's not about trying harder to be a good parent. It's really about letting God love you. Because He loves you in these five exact ways. He loves you so much He came to earth as Jesus and died on the cross for your sins. That's love. And when you get that, that's when these things are naturally going to flow out of you.

In fact, let's pray to our perfect Heavenly Father right now. Would you bow your heads with me? Now with our heads bowed, I want to prepare our hearts for communion right now. And really it's a perfect time to take communion after a message on parenting. Let me just talk to those of you who are parents here with your heads bowed and your eyes closed. I know this is a tough message to hear for a lot of people. Because you might be filled with regret for mistakes you made. But let God's forgiveness wash over you. Don't dwell on any of your perceived flaws as a parent. Dwell now on the riches of God's grace toward you. He is your loving Father. Lord, thank you so much for being our Father. Thank you that you loved us so much you died on the cross for our sins and then rose again. Help us to remember that love now and then to love as we are loved. In Jesus' name, Amen.