Pastor Rick's Daily Hope

Pastor Rick Warren: 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. Okay, here's the final part of a message called How to Keep from Stressing Out.

If I want to reduce the stress in my life, I worry about nothing, I pray about everything, I thank God in all things, and number four, I think about good things. I think about good things. Now, this is extremely important because the stress and your war with stress in your life, that war, that battle is going on between your ears. The stress isn't out there, it's in here, it's inside, it's between your ears. The battle is in your brain. It's in your thought life, it's in your mind. And your war with stress, whether won or lost, in your mind. And what you fill your mind with will determine the level of stress in your life.

If you want peace of mind, now, listen closely, if you want peace of mind, you're going to have to start controlling what you allow in it. Most people, they just, their mind's like a freeway, anything can drive through it. And they fill their mind with poison, and garbage, and stuffing, and all kinds of things. And you know, the mind is like a computer, it's GIGO, garbage in, garbage out, whatever you put in your mind is going to come out in your life. And so they go and they see movies they shouldn't see, and they watch shows they shouldn't watch, and they read novels they shouldn't, and they listen to gossip they shouldn't listen to, and they just let anything in their mind.

They worry about water pollution, they're worried about food pollution, they're worried about air pollution, but they're not worried at all about mind pollution, and yet that's the most serious pollution. Oh, they say, well, I'm just trying to be open-minded. Some people are so open-minded, their brains fall out. And they will allow anything into their lives and let it in. Now, here's what the Bible says, Philippians 4:8. Fill your mind with those things that are true and good and right. Think about, there it is, fill your mind. Think about things that are pure and beautiful and respected.

If anything is excellent, if anything is worthy of honor, think about those things. Now, notice, the Bible gives us eight tests on whether we should allow something in our mind or not. It says, if you want to lower the stress, you're going to have to change what you think about and control what you allow into your mind. And and the eight tests are, before I listen or watch or talk or say or hear this, I should say, is it true? Is it good? Is it right? Is it pure? Is it beautiful? Is it respected? Is it excellent? Is it worthy of honor?

Now, he says here, uh, think on things that are good and pure and right. Let me give you a verse to write down. Proverbs 14:9. This isn't in your outline. Proverbs 14:9, it's here on the screen, it says this, "Fools make fun of sin." That's foolish. That's foolish. Now, when you think about these things, um, true, good, right, pure, beautiful, respected, excellent, worthy, uh, you know what that is? It's a picture of God. What he's really saying is, think about God.

Here's what Isaiah says, there on your outline, "You, Lord, will keep in perfect peace." Wouldn't you like to live in perfect peace? Wouldn't you like to be less stressed out? "You, Lord, will keep in perfect peace all who trust in you, whose thoughts are fixed on on you." If you fix your thoughts on God, he says, "I will keep you in perfect peace." You see, the what you think about is going to determine how stressed and how worried you are.

You know, I've told you the story of Corrie ten Boom. Corrie ten Boom was a Dutch Christian young woman uh during World War II, her family, the ten Boom family, her dad was a clockmaker and they lived in Amsterdam during World War II. And uh they made a story, that she wrote a book about it and they actually made a movie of her life called The Hiding Place. And during World War II, the ten Boom, this Christian family, took in Jewish uh friends and hid them in what was called the hiding place in their house for many years uh to prevent them from being captured by the Nazis and shipped off to death camps.

Uh, one day, uh, the Nazis found out, and not only took the the Jewish friends, but took Corrie and her family, and they went were taken to death camps in Poland. And Corrie lost her entire family, she was the only one that survived. And it's a very wonderful story, and in it she says something I've never forgotten. She said, "If you look at the world, you'll be distressed. If you look within, you'll be depressed. But if you look at Christ, you'll be at rest." It all depends on what you have your eyes on.

You know, people say, well, look within. Well, I did, I didn't like what I saw. I don't want to look within, I want to look without, I want to look at God, I want to look at Christ. Think about good things. Now, there's one other step, and that's number five. Be content with anything. The Bible tells us to be content with anything. This is the fifth key to living a reduced stress life. God says, if you do these things, you'll have God's peace in your life.

Now, let me explain contentment, because a lot of people misunderstand the meaning of contentment. A lot of people think it means contentment means I have no ambition. No, no, no, no. Paul, who wrote this book, remember? He's probably one of the most ambitious men who ever lived. He single-handedly takes the good news, the Gospel, all across the Roman Empire. He's one of the most ambitious people ever, and he says, "I've learned to be content." So it has nothing to do with ambition. That's not contentment.

Contentment is not laziness. Contentment is not apathy. Contentment is not complacency. Contentment is not fatalism, what will be, will be, que sera, sera. Contentment is not lacking ambition. Conten- here's what contentment is. It's enjoying what I have right now, rather than waiting for something else to happen in order for me to be happy. Does that make sense? It's enjoying what I've got right now. Doesn't mean I don't want to progress, doesn't mean I don't have goals. The Bible says you should have goals. It means I'm not waiting for something to happen in my life in order to be happy.

Contentment is the opposite of coveting. Coveting is when and then thinking. When this happens, then I'll be happy. When this happens, then I'll be happy. And when that happens, then I'll be happy. That's when and then thinking. Contentment is actually independence from circumstances. It means my joy is not connected to what's happening in my life right now. My joy, my happiness is not based on my happenings. It's not based on my circumstances. It means I've learned to enjoy whatever I've got right now, and I'm not waiting for something or someone to make me happy.

Now, here's what Paul says in the in the next two verses, verse 11 and 12. He says, "I've learned, I've learned to be content." Circle the word learned. Contentment is is not natural. I'm not by my nature content, you're not by nature content. You have to learn it, just like you have to unlearn worry, and you have to learn happiness, you have to learn contentment. It's something that we we get educated on. "I've learned to be content, whatever the circumstances." He says, "I know how to live on almost nothing, or I know how to live with everything."

And in the original Greek, here he said, "I know how to live in poverty and I know how to live in luxury. I know them both." He says, "I I know how to be happy in either." In poverty or luxury, and nothing or with everything. "I've learned the secret of contentment in every situation. Whether I'm well fed or hungry, or whether I have more than I need or when I don't have enough." Now, he says there, "I have learned to be content." How do I learn contentment? Let me give you a couple of three ways. You might just write these down, they're not in your notes, just write them down.

The first way you learn contentment is this, stop comparing. Stop comparing, that's so important. Because the source of all discontent is comparison. I remember many, many years ago when I was a little boy and got up on Christmas morning and my parents had given me the gift of my lifetime, a Sting-Ray bicycle. Okay. With butterfly handles. Get your motor running. Banana seat. I thought it was so cool and I thought I was so cool until I saw my neighbor got a better one. And my happiness went out the door.

Now, the Bible tells us over and over and over, it's foolish to compare yourself to anybody else. Why? Two reasons. One, you're always going to find somebody who's doing a better job than you and somebody who has more than you, and you're going to get discouraged. Two, you're always going to find somebody you're doing a better job than, and you have more than, and you get full of pride. Either way, you're dead in the water. God takes you out of the game and you sit on the sidelines for the rest of the game. Discouragement and pride are the two things that take you knock you out of life.

So he says, "Don't do that." God says, "I called you to be you. I made you to be you. If you don't be you, who's going to be you?" When you get to heaven, God doesn't say, "Why weren't you more like your sister?" "Or why weren't you more like your mom or your dad or what God God says, "Why didn't why didn't you be you?" I made you to be you. Most of us start off as originals and end up as carbon copies. God never makes copies of anything. No two snowflakes are alike, no two human beings are alike. You have a unique thumbprint, handprint, voiceprint, footprint, eye print.

You are unique. Even even uh identical twins aren't really identical, they're different in millions of ways. God never makes a repeat. God, man makes clones, God never makes clones. When God made you, he broke the mold. God wants you to be you, and if you don't be you, who's going to be you? And so he says, "Stop comparing." And when you because when you compare, you get jealous and you get envious. Now, the Bible says this, look at this verse on your outline, "Peace of mind makes the body healthy, but envy is like a cancer." In other words, it eats you up. It will eat you alive if you get envious.

Now, that phrase peace of mind makes the body healthy, that phrase that word peace of mind actually, in other translation, is the word contentment. Contentment makes the body healthy. So stop comparing. Here's a second little tip for uh for uh uh learning contentment. Stop thinking that having more is better. You see, there are three myths that we're taught by advertising and society. Having more will make me more happy. Having more will make me more important. Having more will make me more secure. None of those are true. They're all lies.

Having more will not make you more happy. Having more will not make you more valuable, and having more will not make you more secure. First place, you can lose it all. You can use billion you can lose a billion dollars in a lot of ways. And your value is not based on your valuables, and your net worth is not based on your self worth, is not based on your net worth. It's based on who you are, not what you own. So stop thinking that having more will make me more happy. Having more will make me more important. Having more will make me more secure. None of those are true.

You need to find your security in something that can never be taken from you. Well, I can't, if I put my security in my job, it can be taken from me. If I put security in my bank account, I can lose that. If I put my security in my health, I can lose that, or my good looks, I can lose that. It has to put security in something that can't be taken from me, and that is my relationship to God. I'll never forget Viktor Frankl standing in a death camp. If you've never read his book, Man's Search for Meaning, it's a terrific book.

And he says, you know, they they stripped me naked, they took away everything including my wedding ring. And then he said, "I realized that there was one thing that could never be taken away from me, my my ability to choose my response." You you cannot control everything that happens in your life, but you can choose how you respond. That's your freedom. Now, here's what the Bible says. Ecclesiastes chapter 4. "It's better to only have a little with peace of mind than to be busy all the time with both hands trying to catch the wind."

That's what I call the Saddleback Syndrome. We go out and we buy things we can't afford with money we don't have, to impress people we don't even like. And then we get in debt, we have to we have to become workaholics to pay for all the things we bought. And and if you own something, and God told you to give it away, you don't own it, it owns you. A lot of people are possessed by their possessions. There's nothing wrong with possessions, nothing wrong with them, but unless you make it your God. And and you cannot be possessed by your possessions.

And he said, "You know, if your whole life is trying to work harder to pay for stuff, he says, you're missing the point." A a third thing and I I'll end with this is learn to a learn to admire without having to acquire. I found this personally fun for me. Learn to admire without having to acquire. In other words, I have learned that I don't have to own it in order to enjoy it. The fact is with ownership, ownership's a lot of pain a lot of the times.

I mean, you you got to insure it, you got to maintain it, you got to store it, you got to haul it. I mean, let me give you an example. My family, and my kids, and my grandkids, we like to jet ski. And we like to go down to Mission Bay in San Diego, particularly and jet ski. We've done on several vacations, we'll go jet skiing. And because we've done this a lot as a family, I I've often thought, well, maybe I should go buy some jet skis. And then I think, why in the world would I do that? I mean, then I got to insure it, then I got to maintain it, then I got to store it, then I got to haul it back and forth.

If if you know, if it's just down there, I go down there and use it. Rent it for an hour or two. I'm going to give you a true confession, I know this is going to shock you. I have never spent one hour of my life scraping barnacles off my boat. Because I don't own one. Okay? I just use yours. Okay? You got a lodge at Aspen, I'll jump up and down on your bed. You can insure it, maintain it, and store it, and haul it, and I'll learn to admire without having to acquire. Learn that I don't have to own it to enjoy it. That's part of contentment.

Now, these five strategies that I've just mentioned, they're very easy for me to explain, but they're very hard to do. It's not easy to worry about nothing. It's not easy to pray about everything. It's not easy to thank God in everything. It's not easy to think about good things. And it's not easy to be content with anything. So where in the world am I going to get the energy to do these things that reduce the stress in my life?

God says this. You come to me. You come to me. And I will give you the power and the ability to do what will help you do what is best for you. Paul ends his passage with verse 13, one of the most famous verses in the Bible is verse 13. "I have the strength to face anything and everything by the power that Christ gives me. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. I can worry about nothing when Christ strengthens me. I can pray about everything when Christ strengthens me. I can thank God in everything, in all things, when Christ strengthens me.

I can keep my mind on the right thing when God strengthens me. And I can be content with anything when Christ strengthens me." What we're talking here is not about a religion a religion, but a relationship. You may be Buddhist, you may be a Baptist, you may be Catholic or Protestant, or Jewish, you may Muslim or Mormon, or no religion at all. God has never made a person he doesn't love. God has never made a person he didn't die for. God has never made a person he doesn't have a purpose for.

And he says, "If you'll come to me, I will help you." I'm going to close with this last verse. Job 22:21 says this, "Obey God and be at peace with him. This is the way to happiness." You see, the real reason you're not at peace is because you're at war with God. And until you make your peace with God, that's what the Bible says God sent Jesus to do, is to make peace with God for us. When you make peace with God, then you get the peace of God, and then you can have peace with others. There's not going to be peace in the world till the Prince of Peace is reigning in our hearts.

So, in order for you to have the peace of God, you have to first have the peace with God. And let's close with that. Let's bow our heads. Would you bow your heads with me? And I'm going to lead you in a prayer. My blessing on you this week is Romans 15:33. It says, "I pray that God who gives peace will be with you." So, would you pray this simple prayer? It doesn't really matter what your word you say. If you just say, as I say this, you can say, "Me too, God, me too." Say, "Dear God, I don't really want to be stressed out. I want to learn the habits of happiness. And you have promised that if I do these things, I will experience your peace. So I'm going to hold you at your word."

"Now, I don't have the strength to do these. So, Jesus Christ, I need you to give me that strength. Help me to worry about nothing. To remember it's unreasonable, and unnatural, and unhelpful, and unnecessary. You're going to take care of me. Dear God, help me to worry about nothing. And and dear God, help me to pray about everything instead of talking to myself to talk to you. Help me to thank God in all things. Help me to think about the good things. And God, I ask you to help me to be content with anything. God, I want to have peace with you, so I can have the peace of God."

"Jesus Christ, I don't understand it all, but as much as I know how, I say yes to you. I don't want a religion, I want a relationship. I just want to get to know you. And so I open my heart as humbly, God, I say, make yourself real to me. And I pray this in your name. Amen."

Pastor Rick Warren: What a great message from Pastor Rick today. There's something I always take away from his message. Here's Rick to tell you how you can help support this ministry.

Pastor Rick Warren: Jesus told his disciples that they should live their lives according to five specific purposes. He said, "You've got to love God with all your heart, that's worship, and love your neighbor as yourself, that's ministry." That's called the Great Commandment. And then Jesus said, "Go make disciples," that's evangelism, "baptize them into the family of God," that's fellowship, a sign of fellowship, "and then he said, teach them to obey everything I've taught you." That's discipleship. And we call that the Great Commission.

We believe at Daily Hope that a great commitment to the Great Commandment and the Great Commission will produce a great Christian, a great church, a great company, a great community. You know, I started Daily Hope so I could spread the good news about Jesus, not just across America, but all around the world. And we want people to know that God's Word is filled with hope and truth and the power that we need to follow him every day is available to every single one. You know, as well as I do, that the Word of God changes lives. It's alive, it's active, and it breathes new life and new love into all of our lives.

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And God will bless it, and God will bless you, and we'll get to heaven and we'll thank God for all the people that are going to be in heaven because you cared.

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