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. 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. Now let's jump right in for the final part of a message called Grow Healthy Relationships.

Rick Warren: You might write this down: positive praying is more effective than positive thinking. People read all these books about positive thinking. Well, there's nothing wrong with that. I would rather have you thinking positively than negatively. But all the positive thinking in the world isn't going to change your husband, or your wife, or your child, or your friend, or your situation. Positive thinking can change you, but it can't change somebody else. Positive prayer can.

The quickest way to change a bad relationship to a good one is to start praying for them. It will change you, and it can change them. You might ask what you should pray. I would encourage you to pray what Paul prayed. In verses nine to 11, we have what Paul prayed.

He says, "And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and that you may be pure and blameless until the day of Christ, and that you may be filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ to the glory and praise of God."

He mentions four things you can pray for your kids, your friends, your boyfriend, your girlfriend, or your boss. Pray with joy for the people in your life, and pray these four things. First, pray they will grow in love. Paul says, "that your love will grow more and more." Second, pray that they will make wise choices. Verses nine and 10 say, "that you will know and fully understand how to make the right choices."

Third, pray they will live with integrity. Paul says, "I pray that you may live pure and blameless lives until Christ returns." The fourth thing to pray is that they will become like Jesus. Parents, there is your prayer agenda right there. Husbands, wives, and friends, pray that the people in your life will become like Christ.

Verse 11 says, "that you will be filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ to the glory and praise of God." He is talking about the fruit of the Spirit, which is the character of Jesus. Galatians 5:22 and 23 says the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. That is a perfect picture of Jesus.

You can pray those four things for me any day of the week. Pray that I will grow in love, make wise choices, live with integrity, and become more like Jesus. You can pray these for yourself and your spouse. You can know they will be answered because they are in the Bible. This is not a prayer where you have to wonder if it is God's will. It is in the Bible, so you know God wants to answer it.

First, I have to be grateful for the people in my life. Second, I have to pray joyfully, not with complaining or criticism. Saying, "God, why can't you get this man of mine in shape?" is not praying joyfully. That is praying whinely or crankily. Pray joyfully.

The third habit Paul mentions is expecting the best from the people in my life. These things are simple for me to teach you, but they are hard to turn into habits. We do not normally expect the best from the people around us. We expect the worst. We expect them to let us down because we have a track record with them. He is saying you should make a habit of believing in people rather than criticizing them.

Philippians 1:6 says, "I am confident of this: that God who began a good work in you will carry it to completion until the day of Christ Jesus." Paul was a pro at bringing out the best in people. There are three things you do to bring out the best in others, and Paul does all three in this verse.

First, he believed in people. He says, "I am confident." He gave them confidence. Do you give the people in your life confidence or do you tear them down? Do you build them up? In the last series, I gave an illustration about what a good parent does when a child stumbles. If a child is running a race at school and they mess up, stumble, and fall flat on their face, they are embarrassed.

As a parent in the stands, you do not get up and say you are embarrassed and leave. A bad parent would do that. A good parent stands up and yells, "You can do this! Get up! I believe in you! I know you can do it! This is just a minor thing. Don't worry about anyone else. Just keep on running!" That is what God does with you when you stumble.

That is what God wants you to do with people in your life when they stumble. That is what it means to be like Jesus. Paul says he believes in people, gives them confidence, and helps them grow. We all need people to believe in us because that is how we change. You cannot change unless somebody believes in you and you believe in yourself. Acceptance always precedes transformation.

That is why I say don't tell it like it is, tell it like it could be. Sometimes I train pastors in preaching. They might say they just tell it like it is. Well, that does not change anybody. Telling it like it could be is preaching for faith. If I got up here and told you all the areas where you are not doing a good job, it would just make you defensive. It would not change you one bit.

Nobody changes by nagging. It does not happen in the pulpit or anywhere else. If I help draw a picture of what you could become with God's power in your life, then you get excited. Paul says he is confident and believes in people. The second thing he did was give people vision. He told them they were going to keep growing because God finishes what he starts. He painted a picture of the future.

That is important because study after study shows that we tend to live up to the expectations of others. When people expect the best of you, you tend to do better. When teachers expect the best of their students, those students always perform better than those with teachers who do not expect the best. We tend to become what we believe the most important people in our lives think about us.

Paul expected the best, believed in people, and gave them vision. The third thing he did was remain patient with people's progress. He was confident that what God began, he would carry to completion. If you insist on perfection in people, you are going to be miserable the rest of your life because nobody is perfect, especially you.

If you are always expecting perfection before you can enjoy people, you are never going to be happy. Celebrate how far people have come rather than judging them for how much further they have to go. You have to be patient with their progress. When my kids were little, they would draw me pictures. They would ask what I thought, and I would tell them it was perfect.

I did not mean it was a Picasso. It was perfect for that stage in their life. God does not wait until you are mature to start loving you, so you should not do that with others either. You have to love them warts and all. The key to patience is love. Paul says in verse seven, "It is right for me to feel this way about you since I have you in my heart."

Having people in your heart is a key to happiness and healthy relationships. I have discovered that if people are not on my heart, they are on my nerves. If I want to get them off my nerves, I have to get them on my heart. If I am praying for someone, they do not bug me as much. But if I am not praying for them, I get perturbed by them pretty easily.

Many relationship problems occur because we tend to react with our heads instead of our hearts. If your wife tells you she is frightened or worried about something, don't react with your head by saying that is illogical or dumb. That does not build a bridge. You are reacting with your head rather than your heart.

When people say you don't understand, they aren't really talking about understanding. They are saying you don't feel their pain. It has nothing to do with logic and everything to do with empathy. They feel you aren't being sympathetic. When they say you don't understand, we try to logic it out. But feelings aren't right or wrong; they are just feelings.

Loving from the heart begins with understanding. It means you know how people tick and you don't judge them for it. You listen, accept, and understand their moods. That leads us to the fourth big habit, which is the granddaddy of them all. I must love people in my life like Jesus does. I must be grateful for them, pray for them with joy, and expect the best from them.

It is easy to teach but incredibly hard to do because you are not Jesus. We tend to be self-centered and look at our own needs. However, I have to love people like Jesus does. In verse eight, Paul says, "God is my witness that I tell the truth when I say that my deep love for you all comes from the heart of Christ Jesus himself."

I identify with this verse because Paul started the Philippian church. He was the first member and the first pastor. I identify with how he felt about that church, as I do about you. I am grateful for you. I pray for you with joy. I believe in you and have confidence in you. It is an honor to serve you.

First John 3:16 says, "This is how we know what real love is: Christ gave his life for us. So then we ought to give our lives for others." Does that remind you of John 3:16? The same guy wrote both. The problem with relationships today is that people who know John 3:16 ignore First John 3:16.

Most of you could quote John 3:16: "God so loved the world that he gave his only son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life." That is the way to salvation and past forgiveness. God sent his son because he loves you. We are all grateful for that love. But we cannot ignore First John 3:16, which says we must do the same thing for others.

If we did that, we would not have relational problems because we would be thinking about other people instead of ourselves. Let's bow our heads. Which of these four habits do you need to work on? Who do you need to be more grateful for? Who have you taken for granted or failed to appreciate because of their faults or flaws?

Are you praying for the people in your life with joy or with complaining? I encourage you to make a prayer list and pray the four things Paul prayed: that people will grow in love, make wise choices, live with integrity, and become like Jesus. Are you patient with the progress of the people in your life or do you demand perfection?

If people have to be perfect for you to enjoy them, you are never going to enjoy them. Who do you need to start loving from the heart rather than from the head? In this series, we are going to talk about the habits of happiness. Desire will get you started, but habits will keep you going. Make a commitment to be a part of this series.

If you have never invited Christ into your life, say, "Jesus Christ, thank you for loving me and dying for me. I don't understand it all, but I want to get to know you and learn to love you back." Dear God, I ask you to give me the power to be grateful for the people in my life. Help me to remember the best and forget the rest.

In those bad relationships, help me to start praying with joy. Pray that they grow in love, live with integrity, and become like Jesus. Help me develop the habit of expecting the best from people rather than criticizing the worst. Help me to believe in people and build confidence. Help me to be patient with their progress.

Help me to recognize how far people have come instead of how far they still have to go. Help me to have love in my heart and to love people from the heart, not the head. For the men who are married, ask God to help you love your wife from your heart. Help me to love people like Jesus does, being willing to lay down my life in sacrifice or service. I pray this in Jesus' name, amen.

Guest (Male): If you just prayed to receive Jesus, congratulations! We would love to send you some free materials to help you along on your spiritual journey. Just email rick@pastorrick.com. That is rick@pastorrick.com.

Rick Warren: Jesus told his disciples that they should live their lives according to five specific purposes. He said you have to love God with all your heart, which is worship, and love your neighbor as yourself, which is ministry. That is called the Great Commandment. Then Jesus said to go make disciples, which is evangelism, and baptize them into the family of God, which is fellowship.

Finally, he said to teach them to obey everything he taught. That is 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 and a great church. I started Daily Hope so I could spread the good news about Jesus all around the world.

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