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 we bring you the final part of a message called How to Keep Your Heart Happy.

Rick Warren: The third exercise to maintain a healthy or happy heart is this. This is a big one. Keep my conscience clear. That's verse 15. One of the things that causes us to lose our happiness is feeling guilty or feeling ashamed. The Bible says if you want to be happy, you’ve got to get rid of guilt. You cannot be guilty and happy at the same time. You’ve got to maintain a clear conscience. Look at these verses, Philippians 2:15. You are to live clean and pure lives as children of God in a broken and corrupted generation.

That was written 2,000 years ago. Generations are still broken and corrupted, aren't they? Human nature doesn't change. Everything else does, but human nature doesn't. You're to live clean and pure lives as children of God in a broken and corrupted generation. You are to shine like stars lighting up a dark world. What a beautiful image. You live such a clean life, a life of integrity, a life of purity. You live with a clear conscience. You live with such authenticity. Your life is an open book in such a way that when people look at you, they say, "Man, they are a star."

It’s like when a jeweler will always put diamonds on black velvet. They shine brighter against a black backdrop. As the world and culture becomes more dark, as cultures crumble, Christians are to shine brighter and brighter. Let me show you a couple of other verses that say the same thing. Psalm 119:1 and 2 says this: "Happy are those who live pure lives, who follow the Lord's teaching, keep his rules, and who try to obey him with their whole heart." Jesus said it like this: "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God."

The word "blessed" is the word for happy in Greek. When Jesus gets up and does the Beatitudes, "Blessed are you when you do this," "Blessed are the meek," "Blessed are the poor in spirit," "Blessed are you when you hunger and thirst for righteousness," he's saying, "Let me give you eight ways to be happy." He starts the greatest sermon ever on eight ways to be happy. He says, "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God." You're going to be the happier your heart is because it's a pure heart. It's a clean heart.

Psalm 32:1 tells us what to do when we don't have a clean heart. A lot of us say, "Wait a minute, I'd like to be happy, but how can I keep my conscience clear when it's not clear right now?" Then you need to do what Psalm 32:1 says. What happiness for those whose guilt has been forgiven. What joys when sins are covered over. What relief for those who have confessed their sins and God has cleared their record. I call that the soap dish verse of the Bible. It just cleans us.

Circle the word "happiness" and "joy" and "relief." Those are three things that everybody's looking for in life. We all want to be happy. We all want to enjoy life. We all want relief from our pain. The Bible says it comes from purity. Purity comes from forgiveness from God's grace. What happiness, what joy, what relief for those who've confessed their sins and God has cleared their record.

Here's the third exercise to maintain a happy heart. I've got to keep a clear conscience. That means I keep short accounts with God. That means at the beginning and at the end of every day, I do a spiritual inventory. I say, "God, is there anything between me and you? I'm not going to bed tonight with junk. I had some garbage today that I picked up from bad attitudes, bad reactions, things I said, things I did. I'm not going to climb into bed tonight with this sack of garbage and get up in the morning and carry it off again. No, I'm going to deal with it."

You practice what's called spiritual breathing. You breathe out your sins in confession. You breathe in God's power and cleansing. If we confess our sins, he's faithful and just to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. God has promised this. I keep my conscience clear. I keep short accounts with God. How would your house smell if you took out the garbage once a week? Pretty stinky. You usually have to take it out every day. You need to do that spiritually too.

You need to take out the garbage every day. If you do that, you'll have a happier heart. You have confession to God every day and you get cleansing and forgiveness. Number four, the fourth exercise to maintaining a happy heart is the next verse, verse 16. This is that I need to memorize God's word and live it. This is an extremely important habit of happiness. I've told you many times that if you're feeling depressed, if you're acting depressed, it's because you feel depressed. If you're feeling depressed, it's because you're thinking depressed thoughts.

If you want to get out of your depression, you change the way you think. You be transformed by the renewing of your mind. You have to change your mind. How do I wash out the depressive thoughts in my mind? Well, there are many ways. Sometimes there's a chemical way if there's a chemical reaction. Sometimes there's an emotional way, sometimes there's a relational way, and sometimes there's a spiritual way. The Bible talks about the washing of the water of the word. If I choose to dwell on a worry, have you noticed when you dwell on a worry it gets bigger?

It doesn't get smaller the more you worry about something. The more you worry, it gets bigger and bigger and bigger. If you know how to worry, you already know how to meditate on the word of God. Worry is when you take a negative thought and you think on it over and over and over and over. That's called worry. When you take a passage of scripture and you think on it over and over and over and over, that's called meditation. God has promised many wonderful benefits in your life if you will meditate on the word of God and then do it.

You'll hear it, and you'll study it, and you'll memorize it. Do you remember when we did 40 Days in the Word? Do you remember the hand illustration? It might be a good idea to just go here and review that hand illustration. There are six ways that you can fill your mind with God's word. There are six ways you can get a grasp on God's word. You can hear it, you can read it, you can study it, you can memorize it, you can meditate on it, and you can apply it.

If all you do is hearing the word of God, you don't have a very good grip on the word. For instance, if I am trying to hold on to the word of God with just my pinky, Satan can easily pull that out. It’s very easy to pull it out because we forget 90 to 95% of everything we hear within 72 hours. That's why I never teach without handing you one of these things because this is going to last longer than your memory. If you don't take notes, you're going to forget everything I've said by Wednesday, except maybe 5%.

If you've never taken notes, you could have spent at Saddleback for 30 years and only remembered 5% of everything I've said. That's probably the jokes. If all you do is hear the word of God, your only intake of the Bible is coming to church, you have no grip on the word of God. It can be pulled out of your mind very easily. If you begin to hear it and you read it, now you've got a better grip. You've got a little bit better grip and it's harder for Satan to pull it away because you're not just hearing it, you're reading it.

If you hear it and you read it and you study it, now you've got a better grip. But if you start memorizing it, "Thy word have I hid in my heart that I might not sin against thee," and you meditate on it, you really think about it, you're not going to pull that out of my hand. If I apply it, then I have a solid grip on the word of God. Why is that important? Let's look at what scripture says. Look at these verses. The Bible says in verse 16, "Hold tightly to the word of life." That's what I was just saying.

You’ve got to hold tightly. You’ve got to get a good grip on it. You don't have a good grip on the Bible unless you're doing all six habits: hearing it, reading it, studying it, memorizing it, meditating on it. Then it can't be pulled out. Hold tightly, the Bible says, to the word of God. Why should I do that? Psalm 119:16 says, "Your principles make me happy, so I never forget your word." Look at that verse for just a minute. Question: do you want to be happy? Obviously you do. God's principles make us happy.

How do I remember God's principle? I never forget. That means you need to memorize. You need to memorize. You know that's why we do this a lot in services. We'll memorize a verse in service because it's the only way you're never going to forget it is to memorize. Look at the next verse: "Lead me in the path of your commands because that is where my happiness is found." Usually we're looking for happiness in all the wrong places. God says happiness is found in the path of God's commands.

The fourth exercise is to maintain a happy heart by memorizing God's word and then living it. Get a grip. Hold tightly to the word of life, Paul says. There's one more. The fifth exercise in Paul's workout for a happy heart is this. It’s the last verse. Use my life to serve God by serving others. If I'm serious about happiness, and happiness is a serious subject, if I'm serious about being happy, I need to use my life to serve God by serving others. The only way you can serve God is by serving others.

You can't see God here on earth. He's invisible. How do you serve God when you can't even see him? You serve God by serving others. Jesus said in Matthew 25, "Inasmuch as you've done it unto the least of these my brethren, you did it to me." He said even if you give a cup of cold water in my name, he says it's as if you did it to me. When you're polite to people, when you're nice to people, when you're friendly, when you're helpful, when you serve others, God says it's like serving me. How does this bring happiness in my life?

Because God wired the universe that happiness does not come from status. I know a lot of people with status who are very unhappy. Happiness does not come from your salary. I know a lot of wealthy people who aren't happy. It doesn't come from status, it doesn't come from your salary, it doesn't come from sex, it doesn't come from success, it comes from service. God wired the universe that you are most happy when you are giving your life away. Why? Because he wants us to become like him. It's all about love.

The more I give my life away, the more I serve others, and the more I serve God by serving others, the happier I'm going to be. Here's what Jesus said: "If you insist on saving your life for yourself, you will lose it. Only those who sacrificially give away their lives for my sake and for the sake of the good news will ever know what it means to really live." This is the fifth secret of a happy heart. You have to practice service and generosity every day.

Jesus said it like this: "I didn't come to be served, but I came to serve and to give my life as a ransom for many." Jesus said, "I came to serve and I came to give." Those are the two things that will bring more happiness in your life than anything else. Status won't, success won't, salary won't, sex won't. Service will. Jesus said, "I came to give and to serve." Those two words define what it means to follow Jesus. If you're not serving, if you're not giving, you're not following Jesus. It’s just very simple.

But Jesus wired the universe in such a way that the more I give myself away, the more God gives to me, the more I'm blessed, and the happier I am. Notice this verse, Philippians 2:17 and 18. Paul says, "Your faith makes you offer your lives as a sacrifice in serving God." That's using my life to serve God by serving others. Then Paul adds, "If I have to offer my own blood as a sacrifice, I'll be happy and full of joy, and you should be happy and full of joy with me too."

Circle the word "sacrifice" in that verse. "Your faith makes you offer your lives as a sacrifice in serving." Those two words, sacrifice and serving, are two of the keys to lifelong happiness: generosity and service, giving my life and giving my resources. Let me ask you two very pointed questions. Number one, where do you sacrificially volunteer to serve others on a regular basis? Would you like to be happier? Would you like more happiness in your life? You need to add sacrifice and serving in your life somehow.

It’s an essential exercise for a happy heart. I read two articles this week, one of them in American Medical Journal and the other in Time Magazine. One of them said that they have now proven that serving other people, volunteering, actually extends your physical life. You will live longer if part of your life you give it away in unselfishly serving, sacrificing for others in some way. You will live longer. Studies have shown this. That's an amazing fact.

The other one was that serving is one of the quickest ways to pull yourself out of depression. That's obviously not the only way, but it's one way to pull yourself out of depression by getting my focus off me and getting my focus on somebody else. God has wired the universe that through sacrifice and through service, my joy goes up and my sorrow goes down. Where do you sacrificially volunteer to serve others on a regular basis? Let me ask you another one: is your heart growing more generous every year?

Are you more generous with your resources this year than you were a year ago? Are you more generous that year than you were the year before? Or are you stuck at the same level of generosity and wondering why you're stuck in unhappiness? Jesus said it is more blessed to give than to receive. Remember what "blessed" means? It's happy. There's more happiness in giving than in receiving. Jesus says my giving reveals the condition of my heart. He says, "Where your treasure is, your heart will be."

It only reveals, my giving reveals how happy my heart is. Giving also increases the happiness in my heart. It’s an exercise that causes me to be happier. It is not an accident that the word "miserable" comes from the word "miser." The more miserly I am—"It's mine, it's mine, it's mine. I'm going to keep it. I'm going to hold on tight"—the more miserable I'm going to be. You know my testimony on this. I don't have to tell you about this one.

Every year, as God has challenged me, Kay and I determine that we would be more generous than the year before and it has created a lot of joy. Before you begin these exercises, these five workouts that Paul gives for more happiness in your heart, you know if you were going to go to an exercise program, they always say the first thing you do is you need to check with your doctor about any preexisting condition. Before attempting this, every diet book, every exercise, check with your doctor about any preexisting condition.

You might have a heart problem. I'll tell you right now, spiritually, you have a heart problem. You’ve got a coronary disease. It's called sin. Yes, you do have a heart problem and that's why in order to, before you can do these exercises, you’ve got to get your heart healed. What I love about the Bible is it's just honest. It always tells the truth. Even when it's painful, even when we don't like it, it tells us the truth. The Bible tells us that our hearts are often broken and bitter.

The Bible tells us that our hearts are often sick and self-centered. The Bible says that our hearts are often deceptive and discouraged, that we have an amazing ability to deceive ourselves. The Bible tells us that our hearts are often cold and calculating. The Bible tells us that our hearts are sometimes fearful, that sometimes our hearts are frustrated. We all have coronary disease, spiritually. What we need is a new heart. What we need is a heart transplant.

I would like to recommend to you my favorite heart specialist. His name is Dr. Jesus. Let me tell you, I've been going to him for like my whole life. Let me tell you why I like Dr. Jesus as a heart specialist. He makes house calls. He has never lost a patient, not one. He doesn't charge anything. It's all grace. That's a good one. There's no wait. He will see you right now. But the main thing is he specializes in heart transplants.

You get a whole new heart. God doesn't just fix up your old one. He gives you a brand new heart. Ezekiel 36:26 says this: "I will give you a new heart with a new and right desire and I will put a new spirit in you and I will take out your heart hardened by sin and I'll give you a new heart of love." These are God's workout conditions for a happy heart. Remember the verse said you’ve got to work out your salvation after what God has worked in.

You can't work on your salvation. You can't work out your salvation. You can't strengthen what God has given you until you've got it. You can't work out your salvation until God works it in you. How do I get it? Last verse on your outline, Acts 4:12. Salvation can only be found in Jesus alone. In all the world, there's no other name. There is no one else whom God has given who can save us. We start with that one. Let's bow our heads.

As I told you, it's easy to explain these five exercises in Paul's workout for a happy heart. He says you must continue to work out. You can't just stop. But he says first God's got to work in, both the will and to act according to his good pleasure. You may have gone to church all of your life or maybe this is your first visit. It really doesn't matter. You may be a religious person. You may be Catholic, Jewish, Buddhist, Baptist, Mormon, Muslim, or no other religion. You still need a heart transplant.

Salvation can only be found in Jesus alone. In all the world, there's no one else whom God has given who can save us. Why don't you in just sincerity and humility talk to God right now? Say, "I don't know what to say." Well, let me give you words to say. Just say something like this. Dear God, I need a new heart. Mine has been broken, battered, embittered. It's been fearful and frustrated. It's been cold and calculating sometimes.

It's been deceptive. It's been discouraged. I've been fearful and I've been frustrated and sometimes I've been sick and self-centered. I need a heart transplant. Dear God, I want to become a new person inside. Jesus Christ, I ask you to do heart surgery on me today. As much as I know how, I ask you to come into my life and work in me and give me both the desire and the ability to do the right thing.

Lord, I can't do any of this workout until first you've done the working in. I'm asking you to save me. I want to put my trust in you. I want to learn to love you and I want to learn to follow you, Jesus, from this day forward as best I know how. I pray this in your 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's Rick@PastorRick.com. Here's Rick to tell you how you can help support this ministry.

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. 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. 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. I started Daily Hope so I could spread the good news about Jesus, not just across America but all around the world. 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. Wherever you listen to this, whether you listen on the website, whether you listen on a radio station, or whether you listen through a podcast, you're a part of the Daily Hope family and I need your help. We could not do this without your support. We're 100% listener-funded.

Would you continue to pray for this broadcast and would you continue to support us? Write to me, let me hear from you. I absolutely love reading the stories that are sent to me. Write me, pray for me, and support this ministry. God will bless it and God will bless you and we'll get to heaven and we'll thank God for all the people going to be in heaven because you cared.

Guest (Male): Hey, if you'd like to support Pastor Rick's Daily Hope, just go to PastorRick.com. That's PastorRick.com. Or you can text the word "Hope" to 70309. That's the word "Hope" to 70309. From the bottom of our hearts, we 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 when 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.