Speaker 1: Hey, thanks for joining us today on Pastor Rick's Daily Hope,
Speaker 1: the Bible teaching Ministry of Rick Warren, and today we're
Speaker 1: continuing our series called the Habits of Happiness. In this series,
Speaker 1: Rick dives into the Book of Philippians and helps.
Speaker 2: You discover God's path to.
Speaker 1: True and lasting happiness. Let's get going with part one
Speaker 1: of a message called how to Keep Your Heart Happy.
Speaker 2: This week, a little boy jumped into his father's lap
Speaker 2: and he said, Daddy, my heart is so full of happiness.
Speaker 2: Then he jumped off, went off to play with his brother.
Speaker 2: An hour later, came back in with a long face,
Speaker 2: really really, you know, like gloom had come over him.
Speaker 2: And his daddy said, what happened to your happy heart?
Speaker 2: He said, Brian made it all leak out. Would you
Speaker 2: agree that sometimes our hearts spring a leak. Would you
Speaker 2: agree that it's quite easy to spring a leak. You
Speaker 2: can be very very happy, and the next second, because
Speaker 2: of the phone call or what somebody said to you,
Speaker 2: or somebody who cuts you off in traffic or whatever,
Speaker 2: you can spring a leak. And it is very very
Speaker 2: easy to lose the happiness in our hearts. Now, we
Speaker 2: started a few weeks ago this series through the Book
Speaker 2: of Philippians that I'm calling the Habits of Happiness. And
Speaker 2: this weekend, if you'll take out your message notes, I
Speaker 2: want us to look at how do you keep your
Speaker 2: heart happy? In spite of all the things that happen
Speaker 2: and all the things that cause you to spring a leak?
Speaker 2: How do you keep your heart happy? And we're looking
Speaker 2: at Philippians, Chapter two, verses twelve to eighteen. Now, this
Speaker 2: is a very powerful passage Philippians two twelve to eighteen,
Speaker 2: because in it it gives us examples of five of
Speaker 2: the most common ways that we lose our happiness. But
Speaker 2: more important than that, it gives us us the antidotes,
Speaker 2: the cures, the remedies, the five cures to keep you
Speaker 2: from losing your happiness so often so that your heart
Speaker 2: doesn't spring a leak. Now, let me read the text
Speaker 2: to you, and then you see if you can pick
Speaker 2: out the antidotes as I read this to you, Philippians
Speaker 2: two twelve to eighteen. Therefore, my dear friends, as you've
Speaker 2: always obeyed, not just in my presence, but even more
Speaker 2: in my absence. Remember Paul was writing from prison to
Speaker 2: these people in Philippi A church that he started. He
Speaker 2: was the planter of this church. He says, Now I
Speaker 2: tell you to continue. Continue, I means keep on, continue
Speaker 2: to work out your salvation. Work out your salvation with
Speaker 2: fear and trembling. Now fear means deep respect, and trembling
Speaker 2: means with sensitivity. It means with deep reverence and humility.
Speaker 2: Work out your salvation fear and trembling. For it is
Speaker 2: God who works in you to will and to act
Speaker 2: according to His good purpose. Do everything without complaining or arguing,
Speaker 2: so that you may become blameless and pure children of
Speaker 2: God without fault, and a crooked and depraved generation in
Speaker 2: which you shine like stars in the universe as you
Speaker 2: hold on to and hold out the Word of life,
Speaker 2: in order to maybe boast of the day of Christ
Speaker 2: that I did not run her labor for nothing. Then
Speaker 2: he says, But even if I'm being poured out like
Speaker 2: a drink, offing on the sacrifice and service coming from
Speaker 2: your faith, the sacrifice and the service coming from your faith,
Speaker 2: he said, I'm still glad. I'm still happy, and I
Speaker 2: rejoice with all of you. And so you too should
Speaker 2: be happy, and you should rejoice with me. Now the
Speaker 2: key verse in this passage is there in your outline.
Speaker 2: It's it's verse twelve and thirteen, where it says you
Speaker 2: must continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling.
Speaker 2: In other words, deep respective humility, deep reverence and humility.
Speaker 2: He says, you work out your salvation, for it is
Speaker 2: God who works in you, both to will and to
Speaker 2: act according to His good purpose. Now I want you
Speaker 2: to circle the phrase work out and circle the phrase
Speaker 2: work in in your life. God has a part and
Speaker 2: you have a part in your spiritual growth. God's part
Speaker 2: is to work in in you, to work in your salvation,
Speaker 2: and your part is to work it out. Now what
Speaker 2: does it mean to work out your salvation? Notice it
Speaker 2: doesn't say work for big difference, you cannot work for
Speaker 2: your salvation. You can't earn your salvation. You can't buy
Speaker 2: your salvation, you can't deserve. So he doesn't say work
Speaker 2: for your salvation, like work real hard and then you'll
Speaker 2: be saved. The Bible does not teach that. In fact,
Speaker 2: the Bible teaches the exact opposite. And Ephesians two eight
Speaker 2: and nine it said it's by God's grace that you're
Speaker 2: saved through faith, and even the faith is not of yourselves.
Speaker 2: It's the gift of God, not of works. So no
Speaker 2: one could boast. If you could work your way to heaven,
Speaker 2: then everybody would be bragging who got up there? And
Speaker 2: it would be like hell. So you can't work for
Speaker 2: your salvation. He doesn't say that. He says you were
Speaker 2: to work out what God works in. God works in
Speaker 2: the salvation. You work when you work out a puzzle,
Speaker 2: did you create the puzzle? No, it was already created.
Speaker 2: What's the working out part of a puzzle? You're putting
Speaker 2: it together? And then I said, oh, look at the
Speaker 2: big picture. Okay, when you go work out in a gemist,
Speaker 2: I can tell you do every day? Are you working
Speaker 2: to create a muscle that's not there? Are you creating
Speaker 2: the strength than the muscle God already gave you? The
Speaker 2: second Okay, you can't create muscle. You can strengthen and
Speaker 2: enlarge the muscle God gave you. But when you go
Speaker 2: do a workout, it's not like you don't have any muscle.
Speaker 2: You have some, it's just pretty weak. And so you
Speaker 2: are to work out what God has already worked in you.
Speaker 2: This is the key where to work out what God
Speaker 2: works in. This week I read an article on five
Speaker 2: exercises for a healthy heart, and it said, if you
Speaker 2: really want to have a strong heart, good strong Coronary
Speaker 2: Health said, you need to do five things. Said the
Speaker 2: five workouts were a treadmill, a swimming pool, stretching, weightlifting,
Speaker 2: an aerobics class. Those were the five workouts recommended by
Speaker 2: the American Heart Association for a healthy heart. But I
Speaker 2: don't want to talk to you about a healthy heart
Speaker 2: this week. In this passage is about a happy heart.
Speaker 2: How do you have a happy heart? And the workout
Speaker 2: for a happy heart is quite different than a workout
Speaker 2: for a physically healthy heart. But in this passage that
Speaker 2: we just read, we have Paul's workout strategy, his workout plan,
Speaker 2: his five exercises for a happy heart. All right, let's
Speaker 2: look at these five exercises for a happy heart, not
Speaker 2: a healthy heart, but a happy heart. And Paul in
Speaker 2: these verses gives us five things to do. Now. Again,
Speaker 2: as we've been going through this book of Philippians, it's
Speaker 2: a very simple, straightforward book. But simple does not mean easy.
Speaker 2: I'm going to share these five exercises with you. They're
Speaker 2: pretty easy to do, be easy to understand, but they're
Speaker 2: very hard to do. I mean, you know the right
Speaker 2: things that will make you physically healthy, do you do them? No?
Speaker 2: And these are the things that will make you emotionally
Speaker 2: and spiritually happy, and you can hear them and not
Speaker 2: do them. Now with the first exercise to maintain a
Speaker 2: healthy heart has to do with fear. You see, fear
Speaker 2: is one of the primary reasons we lose our happiness.
Speaker 2: You cannot be afraid and be happy at the same time.
Speaker 2: You just can't. And when we get afraid, when fear
Speaker 2: comes in the front door, happiness goes out the back
Speaker 2: door of our lives, and happiness stays on until fear
Speaker 2: goes So you've got to get rid of fear. And
Speaker 2: one of the biggest fears we have is the fear
Speaker 2: of being abandoned, the fear of being alone, the feel
Speaker 2: like I'm facing life all by myself. And you've all
Speaker 2: felt that. We've all felt it at different times in
Speaker 2: our lives, that we're here on alone by ourselves and
Speaker 2: nobody is there to help us. And so here's the
Speaker 2: first exercise. Number one. Remember that God is with me,
Speaker 2: He's in me, and he's for me. Remember that God
Speaker 2: is with me and in me and for me, and
Speaker 2: this is the first verse that we have to deal
Speaker 2: with Verse thirteen. No matter what I'm facing, no matter
Speaker 2: what you're going to face this next week, you're not
Speaker 2: going to face it alone. God is with you, He
Speaker 2: is in you, and he is for you. Now look
Speaker 2: at these three verses. Philippians two fourteen two thirteen says this,
Speaker 2: for God is always working in you, giving you both
Speaker 2: the desire to obey him and the power to do
Speaker 2: what pleases him. Now let's look at this verse, word
Speaker 2: by word. God is always working circle the word working.
Speaker 2: That word in Greek is the word inner ghosts, from
Speaker 2: which we get the word energy. Energy says God is
Speaker 2: the energy driver in your life. You're not just going
Speaker 2: on willpower. You're not just going on your own power,
Speaker 2: God says. God says, I will give you the power,
Speaker 2: and I am working in you, and no matter what
Speaker 2: you're facing, I am in you. Not only is he
Speaker 2: in us, he is with us. Look at the next verse.
Speaker 2: John fourteen eighteen to twenty says, I will not leave
Speaker 2: you as orphans. Jesus is speaking, I won't leave you
Speaker 2: as orphans. I will be with you, and you will
Speaker 2: realize that you are in me and I am in you.
Speaker 2: That's quite a promise. That's quite a promise. God says,
Speaker 2: not only am I with you, I am in you.
Speaker 2: And not only am I in you, I am around you.
Speaker 2: I'm around you. The Bible tells us in the Book
Speaker 2: of Colossians that we are hid with Christ in God.
Speaker 2: Now think about this. The Bible says Christ is in me.
Speaker 2: The Bible says I am in Christ. The Bible says
Speaker 2: we're hid with Christ in God. And the Bible says
Speaker 2: we're sealed with the Holy Spirit. That means for the
Speaker 2: devil to get to you, he's got to get through
Speaker 2: the Trinity. That's a pretty good protection. That is a
Speaker 2: great fear reliever. Look at the next verse. Not only
Speaker 2: is God with us, and in the Bible says God
Speaker 2: is for us Romans eight thirty one. If God is
Speaker 2: for us, who can defeat us? So go back and
Speaker 2: look at those three verses and circle the phrase in you,
Speaker 2: and with you, and for you or for us. I
Speaker 2: think of the verse where in Psalm twenty three it says,
Speaker 2: surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days
Speaker 2: of my life. Now you know that's the Lord's the
Speaker 2: shepherd's prayer, the good shepherd prayer, where the Lord is
Speaker 2: my shepherd, I shall not want. And the whole poem
Speaker 2: is about David being a shepherd to his sheep and
Speaker 2: God being a shop to David. And he says, surely
Speaker 2: goodness and mercy will follow me. You know, when a
Speaker 2: shepherd leads his sheep, they are always guard dogs at
Speaker 2: the back, and these little guard dogs at the bat
Speaker 2: nipping at the back, so that as a shepherd leads them,
Speaker 2: the guard dogs behind keep the sheep moving in the
Speaker 2: right direction. And the Bible says that the guard dogs
Speaker 2: in your life are goodness and mercy. God's goodness in
Speaker 2: your life and God's mercy in your life. God's goodness
Speaker 2: God gives you the things you don't deserve. And God's
Speaker 2: mercy is he doesn't give you the things you do deserve.
Speaker 2: And in those in your life, you're going to have
Speaker 2: both of those. He says, I'm not just with you,
Speaker 2: I'm not just in you, I'm for you. Do you
Speaker 2: ever feel the smart smile of God in your life.
Speaker 2: If you don't, you don't really know God. Some people
Speaker 2: think God is like their angry parent who's mad at
Speaker 2: him all the time. No it says, God says, I
Speaker 2: am for you. And the first exercise, if I want
Speaker 2: to be happy, I need to get up every morning
Speaker 2: and I need to say God, I thank you that
Speaker 2: you're going to be with me today. You're gonna be
Speaker 2: in me today, and you're gonna be for me today.
Speaker 2: How good is that? What kind of great news is that?
Speaker 2: If God is with me, God is in me, and
Speaker 2: God is for me? What in the world am I
Speaker 2: doing being depressed? Number two? The second habit or exercise
Speaker 2: to maintain a healthy heart is this, be grateful and
Speaker 2: never grumble. Uh oh, Now we go to verse fourteen.
Speaker 2: This deals with the second cause of the loss of happiness,
Speaker 2: fretting and fighting over the small stuff. Do you ever
Speaker 2: do that? Yes, we all do it. We fret and
Speaker 2: we fight over a small sout. That's verse fourteen. Now,
Speaker 2: this is a hard habit to break because we're negative
Speaker 2: by nature and we're conditioned by our culture. And ever
Speaker 2: since Adam and Eve existed, we have been going around
Speaker 2: excusing and accusing, excusing and accusing, excusing and accusing. We
Speaker 2: excuse ourselves for all the mistakes we make, and we
Speaker 2: accuse everybody else of all the mistakes we hide and
Speaker 2: we hurl, and we blame others for the problems in
Speaker 2: our life. And we say, you know, if I just
Speaker 2: had a different husband, then i'd be happy. If I
Speaker 2: had just hadn't gotten married, then I'd be happy. If
Speaker 2: I had children, I'd be happy. If my children would
Speaker 2: leave home, I'd be happy. That's that win. And then thinking,
Speaker 2: and we're always blaming somebody else. I've said this many
Speaker 2: times to you. You were as happy as you choose
Speaker 2: to be. You can't blame anybody else. Happiness is a choice.
Speaker 2: And you have to stop excusing it and accusing, and
Speaker 2: you have to stop fretting and fighting over the small stuff. Now,
Speaker 2: Philippians two fourteen and fifteen says this, do everything without
Speaker 2: complaining or arguing, so that no one can speak a
Speaker 2: word of blame against you, that their friends. It may
Speaker 2: be one of the most difficult verses in the Bible.
Speaker 2: Would you agree with that, do everything without complaining or arguing,
Speaker 2: so then nobody can speak a word of blame against you.
Speaker 2: This week I sent on I wrote a list of
Speaker 2: the type of complainers that I run into all the time.
Speaker 2: I didn't put your name down, I just put I
Speaker 2: just put the description. First are the whiners. You got
Speaker 2: any whiners in your life? And when they complain, they
Speaker 2: you know, they rise and whine in the morning. I
Speaker 2: saw a bumper stock the other day said I may rise,
Speaker 2: but I refuse to shine. That's what a whiner does.
Speaker 2: They they wake up negative. You know, people used to
Speaker 2: always ask Katie, you wake up grouchy? She said no,
Speaker 2: I usually let him sleep. And you know, again, this
Speaker 2: is a choice. You can get up in the morning
Speaker 2: and you can say good morning, Lord or good life.
Speaker 2: It's morning. That's a choice. You have a choice. And
Speaker 2: the second habit of happiness, the second skill, the second
Speaker 2: exercise in the workout for a happy heart, you got
Speaker 2: to learn to be grateful, always grateful, and never grumble.
Speaker 2: Always grateful, never grumble. They're whiners. Then the second kind
Speaker 2: of complainers are martyrs. Don't look at them. Their favorite
Speaker 2: expression is nobody appreciates me, and they are pros at
Speaker 2: throwing pity parties. They love to be everybody hates me,
Speaker 2: nobody loves me. I'm gonna go eat worms. They're they're martyrs.
Speaker 2: Made me think of that hypochondriac who had put on
Speaker 2: her tombstone. I told you I was sick. She was
Speaker 2: a martyr. How do you react when you don't get
Speaker 2: your way? Huh? How do you react when when you
Speaker 2: don't get your way? Do you pout? Do you mount? Am?
Speaker 2: You know? Complaining campaign? Do you continue to fuss and
Speaker 2: argue and complain and moan? You know, but mom, they're
Speaker 2: whiners and their martyrs third kind of complainer, I see her.
Speaker 2: The cynics, and the cynics take a different approach. Your
Speaker 2: attitude is what's the use? Why bother? Why try? It
Speaker 2: isn't going to make any difference. And cynics they just
Speaker 2: they just kind of poison everything. It's like the lady
Speaker 2: who walked into the uh, you know, the seafood restaurant,
Speaker 2: and she said to the waiter, sir, do you serve
Speaker 2: crabs here? He said, man, we serve everybody. Or the
Speaker 2: lady walked into the grocery store and the clerk said,
Speaker 2: shopping bag and she said, no, just looking. There are cynics.
Speaker 2: And then number four, there are perfectionists. Perfectionists and perfect
Speaker 2: Nothing is ever good enough for these complainers. You know,
Speaker 2: everything is just not quite the way it ought to be.
Speaker 2: They're unpleasable. And you know, the favorite phrases is that
Speaker 2: the best you can do. And if you got c's,
Speaker 2: the perfectionist wants you to get be's. You got b's,
Speaker 2: they want you to get a's. If you got a's,
Speaker 2: they want you to get straight a's. But we are complainers,
Speaker 2: and the Bible says, if you want to be happy,
Speaker 2: you've got to be grateful and never grumble. Do everything
Speaker 2: without complaining or arguing, so no one can speak a
Speaker 2: word to blame against you. You know, to me, friends,
Speaker 2: the most the scariest verse in the Bible is Matthew
Speaker 2: twelve thirty six. It's not on your outline. You might
Speaker 2: write that one down, Matthew twelve thirty six. It's up
Speaker 2: here on the screen. It's something Jesus said. Here's what
Speaker 2: he said. I tell you this that you will give
Speaker 2: an account on judgment day of every careless word you
Speaker 2: haven that ought to sin shivers up your spine. How
Speaker 2: many times have I complained, grumbled, argued about something when
Speaker 2: I shouldn't have been sweating the small stuff? Don't sweat
Speaker 2: the small stuff is law number one of life. Law
Speaker 2: number two is it's all small stuff, or at least
Speaker 2: most of it is. The Bible says this in first
Speaker 2: that is one. It's five eighteen. In everything, give thanks
Speaker 2: for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus.
Speaker 2: Now people ask all the time, Rick, what's God's will
Speaker 2: for my life? There it is in everything give thanks? Really, yes,
Speaker 2: that is God's will. When you do that, God will
Speaker 2: show you step b Now, notice circle. The word in
Speaker 2: it does not say four. It does not say for everything,
Speaker 2: give thanks. It says in everything, give thanks. There are
Speaker 2: a lot of things I shouldn't be thankful for. I'm
Speaker 2: not thankful for war. I'm not thankful for leukemia and cancer.
Speaker 2: I'm not thankful for people who get raped and molested.
Speaker 2: I'm not thankful for racial injustice. And there's a lot
Speaker 2: of evil in the world. To be thankful for evil,
Speaker 2: it is a perversion of what God teaches in his word.
Speaker 2: The Bible doesn't say you're to be thankful for everything.
Speaker 2: It says you're to be thankful in everything. Why well,
Speaker 2: remember when I did the series on grief and the
Speaker 2: last one I talked about five ways to use your pain.
Speaker 2: I can use it to draw closer to God. I
Speaker 2: can use it to draw closer to others. I can
Speaker 2: use it to grow more like Christ. I can use
Speaker 2: it as a ministry to serve others, and I can
Speaker 2: use it as a platform of witness. I can be
Speaker 2: thankful in a situation because I know Romans eight twenty eight.
Speaker 2: In all things God works for the good. Not everything's good,
Speaker 2: but in all things as God works for the good.
Speaker 2: We've covered this many times. And so in everything I
Speaker 2: can give thanks because I know that if I respond correctly,
Speaker 2: God could turn crucifixions into resurrections. He loves to change
Speaker 2: beauty for ashes, our ashes into beauty. So in everything,
Speaker 2: give thanks. In other words, be grateful and never grumble,
Speaker 2: be grateful for what you do. Have a question, do
Speaker 2: you think you would be happier if you followed this
Speaker 2: second exercise every day you grumbled less and were more grateful. Duh?
Speaker 2: Okay again, it's not rocket science. Okay, but if you
Speaker 2: want to have a happy heard, you do what God's
Speaker 2: word says. And the first thing is to remember that
Speaker 2: God is always with me. God has always in me,
Speaker 2: and God is always for me. That makes me happy.
Speaker 2: And I should be grateful and not grumble, not complain
Speaker 2: and argue, and be grateful for what I have. What
Speaker 2: I don't have study after studies show on the gratitude
Speaker 2: is the healthiest attitude psychologically.
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to Pastor Rick's Daily Hope. Hey,
Speaker 1: did you know that most people look for happiness in
Speaker 1: all the wrong places. You won't find it through money, fame,
Speaker 1: or power. You'll only find real, lasting happiness by following
Speaker 1: God's commands. And that's why Rick created the Habits of
Speaker 1: Happiness Bible study.
Speaker 2: Here's Rick to tell you more. If you'd like to
Speaker 2: learn more about the habits of happiness, I've got a
Speaker 2: new resource to help you. It's called The Habits of
Speaker 2: Happiness Guided Experience Book. In this resource, you're going to
Speaker 2: learn how seeing things from God's perspective will help you
Speaker 2: develop the Biblical habits of happiness. And you're going to
Speaker 2: discover how happiness runs deeper than any circumstance or any
Speaker 2: feeling or any relationship. Now I'm excited because this book
Speaker 2: is filled with biblical truth, practical lessons, application exercises, and
Speaker 2: a lot of space for you to write down your
Speaker 2: responses to what God is teaching you. It's a really
Speaker 2: powerful workbook, and it's a comprehensive study tool I believe
Speaker 2: is going to help you grow to your next level
Speaker 2: of spiritual maturity.
Speaker 1: This Bible study is only available on Daily Hope and
Speaker 1: quantities are limited, so be sure to request the Habits
Speaker 1: of Happiness Bible study today. When you give a gift
Speaker 1: to help Daily Hope take the Hope of Jesus to
Speaker 1: a hurting world, it's our way of saying thanks. Just
Speaker 1: go to Pastorrick dot com to get your copy of
Speaker 1: this great resource. That's Pastorick dot com. Or you can
Speaker 1: just text the word hope to seven oh three oh nine. Again,
Speaker 1: that's the word hope to seven oh three oh nine,
Speaker 1: and thank you so much for your support. Your gift
Speaker 1: to Daily Hope helps us share the hope of Christ
Speaker 1: with people everywhere. Be sure to join us next time
Speaker 1: as we look at into God's word for our daily hope.
Speaker 1: This program is sponsored by Pastorc's Daily Hope and your
Speaker 1: generous financial support.