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. Let's get going with part one of a message called How to Keep Your Heart Happy.

Rick Warren: This week, a little boy jumped into his father's lap and he said, "Daddy, my heart is so full of happiness." Then he jumped off and went off to play with his brother. An hour later, he came back in with a long face, really gloom had come over him. His daddy said, "What happened to your happy heart?" He said, "Brian made it all leak out."

Would you agree that sometimes our hearts spring a leak? Would you agree that it's quite easy to spring a leak? That you can be very, very happy and the next second because of the phone call, or what somebody said to you, or somebody who cut you off in traffic, or whatever, you can spring a leak. It is very, very easy to lose the happiness in our hearts.

We started a few weeks ago this series through the book of Philippians that I'm calling The Habits of Happiness. This weekend, if you'll take out your message notes, I want us to look at how do you keep your heart happy? In spite of all the things that happen and all the things that cause you to spring a leak, how do you keep your heart happy?

We're looking at Philippians chapter 2, verses 12 to 18. This is a very powerful passage, Philippians 2:12-18, because in it, it gives us examples of five of the most common ways that we lose our happiness. More importantly than that, it gives us the antidotes, the cures, the remedies—the five cures to keep you from losing your happiness so often so that your heart doesn't spring a leak.

Let me read the text to you, and then you see if you can pick out the antidotes as I read this to you. Philippians 2:12-18: "Therefore, my dear friends, as you've always obeyed, not just in my presence, but even more in my absence..." Remember, Paul is writing from prison to these people in Philippi, a church that he started. He was the planter of this church.

He says, "Now I tell you to continue, continue—that means keep on—continue to work out your salvation. Work out your salvation with fear and trembling." Now, fear means deep respect and trembling means with sensitivity; it means with deep reverence and humility.

Work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose. Do everything without complaining or arguing so that you may become blameless and pure children of God, without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe as you hold onto and hold out the word of life.

In order that I may boast of the day of Christ that I did not run or labor for nothing. Then he says, "But even if I'm being poured out like a drink offering on the sacrifice and service coming from your faith, the sacrifice and the service coming from your faith," he said, "I'm still glad, I'm still happy, and I rejoice with all of you. And so you too should be happy, and you should rejoice with me."

The key verse in this passage is there on your outline. It's verse 12 and 13, where it says, "You must continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling," in other words, deep respect and humility, deep reverence and humility. He says you work out your salvation, for it is God who works in you both to will and to act according to his good purpose.

I want you to circle the phrase "work out" and circle the phrase "work in." In your life, God has a part and you have a part in your spiritual growth. God's part is to work in you, to work in your salvation, and your part is to work it out. Now, what does it mean to work out your salvation? Notice it doesn't say "work for"—big difference.

You cannot work for your salvation. You can't earn your salvation, you can't buy your salvation, you can't deserve it. So he doesn't say "work for your salvation" like, work real hard and then you'll be saved. The Bible does not teach that. In fact, the Bible teaches the exact opposite. In Ephesians 2:8 and 9, it says it's by God's grace that you're saved through faith, and even the faith is not of yourselves. It's the gift of God, not of works, so no one could boast. If you could work your way to heaven, then everybody would be bragging who got up there, and it would be like hell.

So you can't work for your salvation. He doesn't say that. He says you are to work out what God works in. God works in the salvation; you work it out. When you work out a puzzle, did you create the puzzle? No, it was already created. What's the working out part of a puzzle? You're putting it together and then you see the big picture.

When you go work out in a gym, are you working to create a muscle that's not there, or are you working to strengthen the muscle God already gave you? The second. You can't create muscle; you can strengthen and enlarge the muscle God gave you. But when you go do a workout, it's not like you don't have any muscle. You have some; it's just pretty weak. And so you are to work out what God has already worked in you.

This is the key: we're to work out what God works in. This week I read an article on five exercises for a healthy heart. It said if you really want to have a strong heart, good strong coronary health, it said you need to do five things. The five workouts were a treadmill, a swimming pool, stretching, weightlifting, and aerobics class. Those were the five workouts recommended by the American Heart Association for a healthy heart.

But I don't want to talk to you about a healthy heart this weekend. This passage is about a happy heart. How do you have a happy heart? And the workout for a happy heart is quite different than a workout for a physically healthy heart. But in this passage that we just read, we have Paul's workout strategy, his workout plan, his five exercises for a happy heart.

Let's look at these five exercises for a happy heart, not a healthy heart, but a happy heart. Paul, in these verses, gives us five things to do. Again, as we've been going through this book of Philippians, it's a very simple, straightforward book. But simple does not mean easy. I'm going to share these five exercises with you. They're pretty easy to understand, but they're very hard to do.

You know the right things that'll make you physically healthy; do you do them? No. And these are the things that will make you emotionally and spiritually happy. And you can hear them and not do them. The first exercise to maintain a happy heart has to do with fear. Fear is one of the primary reasons we lose our happiness. You cannot be afraid and be happy at the same time.

When we get afraid, when fear comes in the front door, happiness goes out the back door of our lives. And happiness stays out until fear goes. So you've got to get rid of fear. One of the biggest fears we have is the fear of being abandoned, the fear of being alone, the fear like I'm facing life all by myself. And you've all felt that, at different times in our lives, that we're here all alone by ourselves and nobody is there to help us.

The first exercise. Number one: remember that God is with me, he's in me, and he's for me. Remember that God is with me and in me and for me. And this is the first verse that we have to deal with, verse 13. No matter what I'm facing, no matter what you're going to face this next week, you're not going to face it alone. God is with you, he is in you, and he is for you.

Look at these three verses. Philippians 2:13 says this: "For God is always working in you, giving you both the desire to obey him and the power to do what pleases him." Now, let's look at this verse word by word. "God is always working." Circle the word "working." That word in Greek is the word *energos*, from which we get the word energy. Energy.

God is the energy driver in your life. You're not just going on willpower. You're not just going on your own power. God says, "I will give you the power and I am working in you." And no matter what you're facing, I am in you. Not only is he in us, he is with us. Look at the next verse. John 14:18-20 says, "I will not leave you as orphans," Jesus is speaking. "I won't leave you as orphans. I will be with you. And you will realize that you are in me and I am in you."

That's quite a promise. God says not only am I with you, I am in you. And not only am I in you, I am around you. I'm around you. The Bible tells us in the book of Colossians that we are hid with Christ in God. Now think about this. The Bible says Christ is in me. The Bible says I am in Christ. The Bible says we're hid with Christ in God. And the Bible says we're sealed with the Holy Spirit. That means for the devil to get to you, he's got to get through the Trinity.

That is a great fear-reliever. Look at the next verse. Not only is God with us and in us, the Bible says God is for us. Romans 8:31: "If God is for us, who can defeat us?" So go back and look at those three verses and circle the phrase "in you" and "with you" and "for you" or "for us." I think of the verse where in Psalm 23, it says "surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life."

That's the good shepherd prayer where "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want." And the whole poem is about David being a shepherd to his sheep and God being a shepherd to David. And he says surely goodness and mercy will follow me. You know, when a shepherd leads a sheep, there are always guard dogs at the back. And these little guard dogs are at the back nipping at the back so that as the shepherd leads them, the guard dogs behind keep the sheep moving in the right direction.

The Bible says that the guard dogs in your life are goodness and mercy. God's goodness in your life and God's mercy in your life. God's goodness—God gives you the things you don't deserve. And God's mercy is he doesn't give you the things you do deserve. And in your life, you're going to have both of those. He says, "I'm not just with you, I'm not just in you, I'm for you."

Do you ever feel the smile of God on your life? If you don't, you don't really know God. Some people think God is like their angry parent who's mad at them all the time. No, it says God says, "I am for you." And the first exercise if I want to be happy, I need to get up every morning and I need to say, "God, I thank you that you're going to be with me today, you're going to be in me today, and you're going to be for me today."

How good is that? What kind of great news is that? If God is with me, God is in me, and God is for me, what in the world am I doing being depressed? Number two: the second habit or exercise to maintain a happy heart is this: be grateful and never grumble. Now we go to verse 14. This deals with the second cause of the loss of happiness: fretting and fighting over the small stuff.

Do you ever do that? Yes, we all do it. We fret and we fight over the small stuff. That's verse 14. Now this is a hard habit to break because we're negative by nature and we're conditioned by our culture. And ever since Adam and Eve existed, we have been going around excusing and accusing. We excuse ourselves for all the mistakes we make, and we accuse everybody else of all the mistakes.

We hide and we hurl, and we blame others for the problems in our life. And we say, "You know, if I just had a different husband, then I'd be happy. If I just hadn't gotten married, then I'd be happy. If I had children, I'd be happy. If my children would leave home, I'd be happy." That's that "when and then" thinking. And we're always blaming somebody else. I've said this many times: you are as happy as you choose to be. You can't blame anybody else. Happiness is a choice.

And you have to stop excusing and accusing, and you have to stop fretting and fighting over the small stuff. Now, Philippians 2:14 and 15 says this: "Do everything without complaining or arguing so that no one can speak a word of blame against you." That there, friends, may be one of the most difficult verses in the Bible. Would you agree with that? Do everything without complaining or arguing so that nobody can speak a word of blame against you.

This week I sat down and I wrote a list of the type of complainers that I run into all the time. I didn't put your name down, I just put the description. First are the whiners. You got any whiners in your life? And when they complain, they rise and whine in the morning. I saw a bumper sticker the other day said, "I may rise, but I refuse to shine." That's what a whiner does. They wake up negative. People used to always ask Kay, "Do you wake up grouchy?" She said, "No, I usually let him sleep."

This is a choice. You can get up in the morning and you can say, "Good morning, Lord," or "Good Lord, it's morning." That's a choice. You have a choice. And the second habit of happiness, the second skill, the second exercise in the workout for a happy heart: you've got to learn to be grateful. Always grateful and never grumble. Always grateful, never grumble.

There are whiners, then the second kind of complainers are martyrs. Don't look at them. Their favorite expression is, "Nobody appreciates me." And they are pros at throwing pity parties. They love to have pity parties. "Everybody hates me, nobody loves me, I'm going to go eat worms." They're martyrs. Made me think of that hypochondriac who had put on her tombstone, "I told you I was sick." She was a martyr.

How do you react when you don't get your way? How do you react when you don't get your way? Do you pout? Do you mount a complaining campaign? Do you continue to fuss and argue and complain and moan? "But Mom!" There are whiners and there are martyrs. Third kind of complainer I see are the cynics. And the cynics take a different approach. Their attitude is, "What's the use? Why bother? Why try? It isn't going to make any difference."

Cynics, they just kind of poison everything. It's like the lady who walked into the seafood restaurant and she said to the waiter, "Sir, do you serve crabs here?" He said, "Ma'am, we serve everybody." Or the lady who walked into the grocery store and the clerk said, "Shopping bag?" And she said, "No, just looking." There are cynics.

Then number four, there are perfectionists. Perfectionists. And perfectionists, nothing is ever good enough for these complainers. Everything is just not quite the way it ought to be. They're unpleasable. And the favorite phrase is, "Is that the best you can do?" And if you got C's, the perfectionist wants you to get B's. You got B's, they want you to get A's. If you got A's, they want you to get straight A's.

We are complainers. And the Bible says if you want to be happy, you've got to be grateful and never grumble. "Do everything without complaining or arguing so no one can speak a word of blame against you." You know to me, friends, the scariest verse in the Bible is Matthew 12:36. It's up here on the screen. It's something Jesus said. Here's what he said: "I tell you this, that you will give an account on judgment day of every careless word you have spoken."

That ought to send shivers up your spine. How many times have I complained, grumbled, argued about something when I shouldn't have been sweating the small stuff? Don't sweat the small stuff is law number one of life. Law number two is it's all small stuff, or at least most of it is.

The Bible says this in 1 Thessalonians 5:18: "In everything give thanks, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus." Now, people ask all the time, "Rick, what's God's will for my life?" There it is: in everything give thanks. That is God's will. When you do that, God'll show you step B. Now, notice, circle the word "in." It does not say "for." It does not say "for everything give thanks." It says "in everything give thanks."

There are a lot of things I shouldn't be thankful for. I'm not thankful for war. I'm not thankful for leukemia and cancer. I'm not thankful for people who get raped and molested. I'm not thankful for racial injustice. There's a lot of evil in the world. To be thankful for evil is a perversion of what God teaches in his Word. The Bible doesn't say you're to be thankful for everything; it says you're to be thankful in everything.

Why? Well, remember when I did the series on grief and the last one I talked about five ways to use your pain? I can use it to draw closer to God. I can use it to draw closer to others. I can use it to grow more like Christ. I can use it as a ministry to serve others, and I can use it as a platform of witness. I can be thankful in a situation because I know, Romans 8:28, in all things God works for the good. Not everything's good, but in all things God works for the good.

We've covered this many times. And so in everything I can give thanks because I know that if I respond correctly, God could turn crucifixions into resurrections. He loves to change ashes into beauty. So in everything give thanks. In other words, be grateful and never grumble. Be grateful for what you do have. Question: do you think you would be happier if you followed this second exercise every day? You grumbled less and were more grateful? Duh!

It's not rocket science. But if you want to have a happy heart, you do what God's Word says. And the first thing is to remember that God is always with me, God is always in me, and God is always for me. That makes me happy. And I should be grateful and not grumble, not complain and argue, and be grateful for what I have, not what I don't have. Study after study showing that gratitude is the healthiest attitude psychologically.

Guest (Male): Thank you for listening to Pastor Rick's Daily Hope. Hey, did you know that most people look for happiness in all the wrong places? You won't find it through money, fame, or power. You'll only find real, lasting happiness by following God's commands. And that's why Rick created The Habits of Happiness Bible study. Here's Rick to tell you more.

Rick Warren: If you'd like to learn more about the habits of happiness, I've got a new resource to help you. It's called The Habits of Happiness Guided Experience Book. In this resource, you're going to learn how seeing things from God's perspective will help you develop the biblical habits of happiness. And you're going to discover how happiness runs deeper than any circumstance or any feeling or any relationship.

I'm excited because this book is filled with biblical truth, practical lessons, application exercises, and a lot of space for you to write down your responses to what God is teaching you. It's a really powerful workbook, and it's a comprehensive study tool I believe is going to help you grow to your next level of spiritual maturity.

Guest (Male): This Bible study is only available on Daily Hope, and quantities are limited. So be sure to request The Habits of Happiness Bible study today when you give a gift to help Daily Hope take the hope of Jesus to a hurting 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.