Pastor Rick's Daily Hope

Guest (Male): Hey, thanks for joining us today on Pastor Rick's Daily Hope, the Bible teaching ministry of Rick Warren. And today, we're continuing our series called The Habits of Happiness. In this series, Rick dives into the book of Philippians and helps you discover God's path to true and lasting happiness. And now, let's get to Rick. Here's part one of a message called How to Keep from Stressing Out.

Pastor Rick Warren: I read a headline that said that personal stress worldwide is now at near record levels. Near record levels. The highest it's been really since about World War II. So, I decided to do a little research on this, and I found out that today, suicide has now passed car crashes as the number one injury death in America. The number one injury death in America is now suicide.

I read another statistic that the top seven stresses in life are: number one, your job; number two, money; three, health; relationships; poor diet; media overload; lack of sleep; and parking at Saddleback. Oh, I made up that last one, obviously. Maybe you can identify with this.

I got this note: Pastor Rick, a few weeks ago, I went to a doctor for some chronic aches and pains that seemed to be getting worse. I don't sleep well, and I live in a constant state of fatigue. I told my doctor that I started a business seven years ago that's become very, very successful, but I now must force myself to go in to work. I feel overwhelmed. I feel overloaded.

So my doctor asked me to list the stresses in my life and then think up some possible ways to reduce those stresses and then write down a plan of attack. I'd like to know what the Bible says about stress management. Today, we're going to look at the classic text in the entire Bible on how to keep from stressing out.

We've been in this series through the book of Philippians, and as we come to chapter four, Paul gives us in verses 6 to 13 the classic anti-stress management recipe. If you have a Bible, you can open to Philippians chapter four. If you didn't bring a Bible, that's okay, just pull out these notes. All the verses we're going to look at are inside your bulletin on this text passage outline.

Now, the key to this is that this passage actually comes with a stress management guarantee. And it's not guaranteed by a doctor, it's guaranteed by God. So you really want to pay attention to this one if you want to lower the stress in your life. In verse 7, we have the promised guarantee. Here's what it says.

If you do these things, you will experience God's peace. There you go. You will experience God's peace, which is far more wonderful than the human mind can understand. The Bible calls this the peace that passes understanding. How do you know when you have the peace that passes understanding? You're in a situation when you have no logical reason to be at peace, and you are. That's the peace that passes understanding.

When you're in a situation where you're in total chaos, total meltdown, total stress, total tension, everything is going wrong at the same time, and yet you're at peace inside. That is the peace that passes understanding. And God says, "I guarantee this to you, if you do these things, you'll experience God's peace, which is far more wonderful than the human mind can understand." His peace will keep your thoughts quiet and keep your heart at rest. Wouldn't you like that? To have your thoughts quiet and your heart at rest as you trust in Christ Jesus.

Now, God promises a more peaceful, less stressed mind. Is anybody interested in this? Yeah, yeah, I think so. Now, you know that there are over 7,000 promises in the Bible, but with every promise, there is a premise. God says, "If you do this, then I'll do this." There is a condition. And I want you to circle the premise for this promise, and it is those first several words: "If you do these things." Circle that. "If you do these things, it's going to keep you from stressing out. You will experience God's peace. His peace will keep your thoughts quiet, keep your hearts at rest as you trust in Christ Jesus."

"If you do these things." What things? Well, that's what we're going to look at today. And there specifically are five things that God says to do in this passage. He says, "I want you to worry about nothing. I want you to pray about everything. I want you to thank God in all things. I want to keep you to keep your mind on good things, and I want you to be content in all things." Now, we're going to look at these in detail. So let's get right into it. If you're taking notes, here's the first step.

If I want to keep from stressing out, number one, refuse to worry about anything. Refuse to worry about anything. Why? Because the number one source of stress in your life is not work. It is worry. You may be overworked, but it's more likely you are overworried. Work doesn't keep you up at night, worry does. And most of you are overworried. Now, God is very clear in the Bible what he thinks about worry.

And that's the first verse, verse 6. The first part of the first verse, verse 6, Philippians 4, it says this: "Never worry about anything." Now, circle "never" and circle "anything." "Never worry about anything." Question: Is there any wiggle room in that verse? No. Is there any exception? No. Is there any exemption? No. Is there any reason where God says, "It's okay to worry in this circumstance"? No. "Never worry about anything." That's about as big a blanket statement as you can make.

He says, "In no circumstances." What about? No, "Never worry about anything." But what about? No, "Never worry about anything." But what about? No, "Never worry about anything." Now, Jesus thought worry was such an important topic that he spent a major section of his most famous sermon, it's called the Sermon on the Mount, talking about worry. And in that Sermon on the Mount, he gives us the four reasons you should never worry about anything. You might want to write these down.

Number one, Jesus says about worry, worry is unreasonable. It's illogical, it is unreasonable, it doesn't make sense. Matthew 6:25, Jesus says this: "Don't worry about your life. Don't worry about your life, what you'll eat or drink or about your body, or what you wear. Is not life more important than food, and is not the body more important than clothes?" He's saying, "This is not logical. You got your priorities out of order. It's irrational, it's it doesn't make sense, it's unreasonable." Now, why is worry unreasonable?

Well, there's a couple reasons. First, because worry exaggerates the problem. It never makes a problem smaller, it always makes it bigger. Have you noticed, if somebody says something bad about you, the more you think about it, the bigger it gets. Are you got a problem, you start worrying about it. The more you worry about it, does the problem shrink with your worry? No, it always gets bigger. Worry exaggerates, it's irrational, it's unreasonable. It makes it bigger, it grows the problem out of proportion.

And not only does is worry exaggerating your problem, worry doesn't work. It never has worked. It is worthless. It is stewing without doing. It doesn't make any difference in your life. You see, to worry about something you can't change is useless. And to worry about something you can change is stupid. Just go change it. In either case, worry is not the answer. Worry doesn't work, it's unreasonable.

Second, Jesus says worry is unnatural. There are no born worriers. You might think you are, but you're not. You're not a born worrier. You learned it. Worry is something you learned. Now, the good news is, if you learned to worry, it can be unlearned. Now, you learned it, and actually, to get good at it, you got to practice it. Some of you are pros at worry. You have practiced it so much, you are so good at worrying, you are, I mean, you get the PhD. If you were if they had Olympics on worry, you'd get a 10. Okay, because you have practiced it so much, but it's learned.

Worry is not natural. No baby is born worrying, they pick it up from everybody else. Now, Jesus says in Matthew 6:26, "Look at the birds of the air, they don't sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?" If anybody's on God's welfare program, it's birds. They don't do anything except birdy things. Tweet, that's it. Well, I tweet, but maybe yeah, maybe they tweet too.

Look at the birds of the air, they don't sow or reap, but he says, "Your heavenly Father feeds them." Notice, your heavenly Father, he's not talking about the birds' heavenly Father, he's saying, "Your heavenly Father." Now, if God is your heavenly Father and you are his child, children get special privileges, and children of royalty are treated royally. And he says, "What are you worrying about?" Birds don't worry, and they're not even God's not their Father, God's their Creator, but not their Father. God's your Father, don't worry about it. Verse 28 and 29, Jesus says, "And why do you worry about clothes?"

Why do you worry about clothes? "Look at the lilies of the field, the field lilies, they don't worry about theirs, yet King Solomon in all his glory was never clothed as beautifully as they are." He's saying, in all of God's creation, in the entire universe, only human beings worry. We are the only thing God made that doesn't trust him. And he says worry is unnatural. He says God says, "You're valuable, more valuable than these things I take care of them." By the way, since worry is unnatural, it's also unhealthy. Your body wasn't designed to handle worry.

It wasn't designed. When people say, "I'm worried sick," they're telling the truth. And and doctors say a lot of people could leave hospitals today if they knew how to get rid of guilt, resentment, and worry, because that's what puts most people in. And you see, what I'm saying is, it's not so much what you eat. It's what eats you. It's what eats you that makes you sick. It's the worry in your life. It's not just unnatural, it's unhealthy, causes all kinds of health problems, and the Bible says this. Proverbs 12:25, "An anxious heart weighs a man down." Oh, you know that one. And you feel like you're just pulled down by the worries.

You know, the word worry actually comes from an Old English word which means to strangle or to choke. That's what worry comes from, to strangle or choke. And whenever every time you worry, you are strangling and choking the life out of your life. An anxious heart weighs a man down. Look at the opposite, Proverbs 14:30 says, "But a heart at peace gives life to the body." You want to be healthier? You need to stop worrying. "Never worry about anything." Why? It's unreasonable and it's unnatural.

The third thing Jesus says, it's unhelpful. It's unhelpful. Worry cannot make you one inch taller. Worry can't make you one inch shorter. Worry can't take 10 inches off my waist. If it could, it would have. Worry cannot lengthen your life, it it can shorten your life, though. We know that. Worry cannot change the past, and worry cannot control the future. It messes up today. That's all it does. It doesn't change the past, it can't change control the future, it just messes up today. It's kind of like sitting in a rocking chair, you expend a lot of energy, but you don't make any progress.

You just it's it's useless. The only thing that worry changes is you. It makes you miserable. It doesn't solve, has never solved the problem, it's unhelpful. And then the fourth reason why the Bible says, "Never worry about anything," is because it's unnecessary. God says, "What in the world are you worrying about? Don't you think I'm going to take care of you? Don't you think I'm going to meet your needs? I made you, I created you, I saved you, I love you. I put my spirit in you. Don't you think I'm going to take care of your needs?" It's unhelpful, but it's also unnecessary, there's no need to worry.

Jesus says this in Matthew 6:30. "You know, if God cares so wonderfully for flowers that are here today and gone tomorrow." Think of all the beautiful flowers that are never seen by human beings, but God takes care of them. He said, "If God cares so wonderfully for flowers that are here today and gone tomorrow, won't he most surely care for you? Oh, you of little faith." The Bible says this, First Peter 5:7, "Unload all your worries on God since he is looking after you." And I love that word "unload" because literally in the original Greek, it means to just drop. It's not like take a a long throw of it like like you're throwing a baseball or throwing a rock across a lake. It just says "unload," it means let it go. Let it go.

And God says, "You know all those things you're stressing about this morning, all those things you're anxious, you're worried, you're fearful, you're uptight about?" Let it go. Let it go. "Never worry about anything," because it's not going to do any good anyway. So what do you do anyway? You do the next step. And that's the second part of this verse. The first part of verse 6 says, "Never worry about anything." The second part is, "Talk to God about everything."

That's the second step. You talk to God about everything. Don't panic, pray. Don't worry, worship. Stop talking to yourself about all the stuff that's stressed you out, and start talking to God. Talking to yourself won't do anything, but talking to God will. He's saying, "Talk to God about everything." This is the second part of this verse, Philippians 4:6, "Never worry about anything, instead, in every situation, let God know what you need in your prayers and in your requests." You know, I got to thinking yesterday, if you prayed as much as you worry, you'd have a whole lot less to worry about.

And by the way, God is since God has promised to care for you, if it's not worth praying about, it's not worth worrying about. He says, "Talk to God about everything." God knows what you need in your prayers. You know, when I was a kid, anytime I had a need in my life, I would I'd go talk to my dad. Say, "Dad, I need this." And sometimes it was something that cost something, it was expensive. And I said, "Dad, I need this." I I can distinctly remember that not once as a kid, when I said, "Dad, I need this," never once did I worry about where my father was going to get the money. Never once.

Because that's not my job. It's my dad's job to figure out where the money is going to come from. It was my job as a kid, as a child, to simply ask. It's not your job to figure out how God's going to do it. It's your job to ask, to ask your heavenly Father. "Father, I need this help." You see, when you worry instead of asking, you're acting like an atheist. Worry is practical atheism. That's what it is. It's it's acting like I don't have a heavenly Father in my life. It's acting like God doesn't exist. It's acting like I'm a spiritual orphan. Worry is practical atheism.

God says, "I'll take care of you." It's acting like God can't be trusted. Now, here's what the Bible says. Look in your outline, James 4:2, "You do not have because what? You do not ask. You do not ask God." So here's the second key to stress management: worry less, ask more. Worry less, ask more. Instead of worrying, pray. Worry about nothing, pray about everything. He said, "Well, I don't want to bother God with this little bitty tiny little thing." There's nothing tiny to God. Every problem in your life is tiny to God.

There's no big problems in your life, there are no little problems in your life because all of them are tiny to God. Now, here's what the Bible says in Romans chapter 8:32, "Since God did not spare even his own son, Jesus, but gave him up for us all, he died on the cross for us, won't he give us Christ who won't he who gave us Christ, also give us everything else we need?" What's he saying here? Follow the logic.

Your biggest problem is getting into heaven, because heaven's perfect, and you're not, and neither am I. I stopped batting a thousand about breath number three. And so God came up with plan B. He came to Earth in human form, and he said, "I'll live a perfect life, and I'll die for you, and you can get into heaven on my ticket." It's grace. I don't work it, I don't earn it, I don't deserve it, I don't buy it. It's just grace. I told you last week, one of my mentors was Peter Drucker, and I asked Peter one time, "Peter, at what point did you step across the line and accept a relationship with Jesus?" He said, "You know, Rick, the day that I understood grace for the first time, I realized I'm never getting a better deal. There was no way I'm getting into heaven on my goodness. I'm I'm not good enough."

He says, "If God did not spare his own son, but gave him for us, won't he give us everything that Christ has given to us, won't he give us everything else we need?" If God solved my biggest problem, everything else is small by comparison. If God loved you enough to die for your sins, don't you think he loves you enough to help you with your finances? Don't you think he loves you enough to help you with your health, with your relationships, with your career decision, with closing a deal, with making a sale? Yeah. There is no area of your life that God is not interested in. The Bible says he has the hairs on your head numbered. Now, for some of us, that's not too hard.

But God knows every hair on your head and even the ones you left in the sink this morning. That's how detail. I don't even know how many hairs are on my head, but God does. God says, "I'll care for you, and I'll care for all of your life." So one of the dumbest things you can say is, "God, I'll handle this." Really? When he's offered to take care of every area of your life to say, "God, I'll handle this," why? You want to lower the stress in your life, worry about nothing and pray about everything.

Number three, the third thing he tells us to do is to thank God in all things. Thank God in all things. Now, it doesn't say thank God *for* all things, because there are a lot of things you shouldn't be thankful for. There's pain in the world, there's there's evil in the world. Somebody gets cancer, you don't have to thank God for cancer. Somebody dies, you don't have to thank God for their death. But it says, "in all things," give thanks, which means even in the bad times I can find something good. Now, here's the third part of that verse.

Philippians 4:6, he says, you know, "Worry about nothing," and then he says, "When you ask God for what you need, also thank him." Circle that. "Thank him for all he's done. Always ask with a thankful heart," the today's English version said. Now, I'm not going to belabor this point because twice already in this series, we've talked about the connection between gratitude and happiness. You cannot be happy and ungrateful at the same time. Happy people are grateful people. Unhappy people are ungrateful people. Study after study after study has shown that the healthiest emotion known to human beings is the attitude of gratitude.

And the more you build gratitude in your life, the more happy and the more healthy you're going to be. And the in fact, studies show that having an attitude of gratitude actually raises your immunities. And being ungrateful and being resentful actually lowers your immunity to to other other things in life. We know that that gratitude is one of the remedies for depression, because it gets my eyes off myself and gets it on other people. Instead of looking at what I don't have, I look at what I do have. It's a stress reliever, it gets the focus off me.

Ungrateful people are unhappy people. He says, "When you ask God, don't just ask, but also thank him. Always ask with a thankful heart." Now, the fact is, I can always find something to be grateful for. We've talked about this before on on on the cover of Kay's last book, on choosing joy. There is a pair of railroad tracks, and it's representative of life, that on in your life, you're always got you've got two rails at the same time. One rail are the good things that are happening in your life, and and the other rail are the bad things that are happening in your life.

Now, I used to think that life was a series of hills and valleys, mountaintops and and low low times. And and you know, that you have all of these good times and you have all these bad times, but that's not really true. The fact is, you get them both at the same time all of your life. In other words, there's no time in your life when everything is good and and there's nothing bad in your life. And and there's no time when everything is bad and there's nothing good in your life. No matter how good things are going on in your life, there's always something you need to be working on.

And no matter how bad things are in your life, there's always something you can be thankful for, be grateful for. And and so, I can always find something, and this is the third step for stress reduction. Be thankful and thank God in all things. This is exactly what the Bible says. First Thessalonians 5:18 says this: "In everything." Circle that. It doesn't say in most things, it says in everything. Not for, but in everything, "Give thanks for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you." You know, people ask me all the time, "Rick, I'm just trying to figure out what God wants me to do with my life. What is God's will for my life?" There it is right there. "This is the will of God for you."

And before God shows you step two, you need to take step one. God does have a will and a plan for your life, your marriage, your career, your education, and everything else. But before we get to those specifics, God says, "Let's work on the general. The first thing is, I want you to learn to be grateful in every situation. This is the will of God for you."

Guest (Male): You know, one of the things you ask about us most here on Daily Hope are the Bible scripture cards. We get a ton of requests for them. So, Pastor Rick has created another deck of scripture cards with 52 key verses from his Habits of Happiness teaching series. These verses will help you discover God's path to true and lasting happiness. They're colorful, eye-catching cards, and they make it easy to memorize the word of God so you have it when you need it most. Something you hear Pastor Rick talking about all the time. So, be sure to ask for the Habits of Happiness scripture cards when you support Pastor Rick's Daily Hope with a gift to help share the hope of Jesus Christ with people all around the world. It's our way of saying thanks. 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. And thank you so much for your support. Your gift to Daily Hope helps us share the hope of Christ with people everywhere. 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.