Rick Warren - The Habit of Happiness Pt. 1

I want to greet all of our campuses and those

who are watching online. And you know, I am having

so much fun visiting all of our campus. As I

mentioned about a month ago, we now have more members

of our church family not at lake Forest than we

do at lake Forest, and so I've been traveling all

around visiting each of our campuses every week.

And that's been a whole lot of fun.

Recently, somebody wrote me this on Facebook, Pastor Rick, I've

walked down many roads searching for happiness, but nothing is

ever as good as it promises to be. I'm frustrated.

I just want to be happy. Can you help me?

And I would say to that person, if you're watching

online right now, absolutely I can help you.

I want to.

Start this series by giving you what I call five

laws of happiness. And I apologize that I didn't put

space in your outline for this, so you're just gonna

have to write on the sides up down the edge

because it's not on your outline. I added this after

I wrote the outline, but I thought it would be

a good introduction to this series that we're going to

begin this week, five Laws of Happiness. When somebody says

I've been searching for happiness. I've been looking for happiness.

I want to find happiness. This is what I tell them.

Number one, don't look for happiness, create it. Happiness is

not something you look for. Happiness is something you create,

and it's your choice. You're as happy as you choose

to be. Actually, it's quite easy created, and we're going

to be looking at it in this series. Number two,

happiness is not a goal. Happiness is not a goal.

It's actually the result of right thinking, right living, right acting.

It's the bip. If you make happiness the goal of

your life, you're going to live a very self centered life,

and that's going to end up making you miserable. Making

happiness the goal of your life will guarantee that you're

never going to be happy happiest. Happiness is never the goal.

It is always the result. It's always the byproduct of

something else, and so if you make it your goal,

you're going to be miserable. Number three, My habits create

my happiness. My habits create my happiness. Happiness is a choice.

We shape our habits and then they shape us, and

we're going to look at this in detail in this

new series. How we shape our habits, and then our

habits shape us, and you can create the habits of

happiness in your life.

Number four fourth.

Law, Happiness based on happenings is temporary, but happiness built.

On habits is long lasting.

I'll say it again, happiness that is built on happenings

is temporary. I go to Disneyland, I'm happy. I come

out realize how much money spend. I'm not happy. I

have the happiness of going to see a movie. Everybody's

telling me is great. It's not so great. I come

out not happy, disappointed. Anything where you base your happiness

on a happening, on a circumstance, on an occasion, as

soon as the occasion's over, you lose your happiness, so

you don't want that. Happiness based on happenings is short term.

It's temporary. Happiness based on habits is long term. You

can be happy the rest of your life. Number five

fifth law is this. Happy habits are as addicting as

bad habits, but they are a whole lot more rewarding.

There aren't the negatives that are given to bad habits. Now,

bad habits take some time to develop. You don't develop

them overnight, and the same thing with good habits, you

don't develop them overnight, but happiness and the habits of

happiness can be developed so that they become habitual in

your life. Now this weekend, we're beginning this new series

I'm calling the Habits of Happiness. And what we're going

to do is we're going to go through the Book

of Philippians, verse by verse, through the books, through the

chapters of Philippians. Now, Philippians is a great book. It's

the happiest book in the Bible. The word joy, the

word glad, the word enjoy, the word rejoice, of the

word happy, happiness, these words that are used in various

forms seventeen times in a very short book. It's the

happiest book in the Bible. It was written by Paul.

And what's amazing that this happiest book in the Bible

is written by Paul while he's in prison in Rome,

which means your happiness isn't based on your happenings or

your happenstances. And actually what this book is is a

thank you note Paul writing to the church in Philippi,

which is a city in Greece that he started, he planted.

He's now in prison in Rome, and he's writing to

thank them. He's thanking them for financial gifts that they've

given to him. He's fine thanking them for their prayers,

for their support, for their love, all these things. And

it's actually the most personal book in the Bible. And

we're going to look at it together for the next

twelve weeks as we go verse by verse through the

Book of Philippians. Now, I want to encourage you to

bring your Bible with you because you can mark it

up as we go straight through the chapters like we

do this. If you want to be happy, where do

you start? I mean, really, what would you start with?

Money? Sex, time? What would you start with?

You say, we need to learn how to be really

happy in life, Paul starts with relationships. With relationships, it

is impossible to be happy while your relationship are unhappy.

Iver I agree with that. I mean, you can meet

all kinds of people. They've got all kinds of money,

they've got all kinds of fame, they've got every kind

of pleasure you can imagine. But if they're in the

middle of a divorce, they're not happy. If your relationships

are unhappy, your life is going to be unhappy. So

Paul when he starts talking about and modeling the Habits

of Happiness, he begins right off the bat the first

eleven verses of Philippians chapter one, talking about how do

you have happy relationships? How do you have healthy relationships?

So we've got to start here before we can go

anywhere else in the Habits of Happiness. Now, in the

first eleven verses, Paul makes his description of his relationship.

He describes his relationship to the people of Philippi, and

he gives us four statements. And we're going to come

back and look at these as habits you can develop

to have healthier, happier relationships.

Let me read it to you, Philippians chapter one.

This letter is from Paul and Timothy, slaves of Jesus Christ.

It's written to all of God's people and Philippi who

believe in Jesus Christ, and the elders and the deacons

of the church. May God, our Father and Lord Jesus

Christ give you grace and peace. That's his introduction. Now

he gets into his first subject. He says, every time

I think of you, I give thanks to my God.

I always pray for you, and I make my request

with a heart full of joy because you've been my

partners and spreading the good news about Christ from the

time you first heard it until now. And I am

confident that God, who began this good work within you,

will continue his work until it's finally finished on the

day when Jesus Christ comes back again.

Now it's right that I should feel.

As I do about all of you, for you have

a very special place in my heart.

We've shared together.

The blessings of God, both when I was in prison,

when I was out defending the truth and telling others.

The good news.

God knows how much I love you and how I

long for you. Can't you see the personal nature of

this book how much I love you and long for

you With the tender compassion of Christ. Jesus and I

pray that your love for each other will overflow more

and more. And I pray that you will keep on

growing in your knowledge and understanding, for I want you

to understand what really matters, so that you may live

pure and blameless lives until Christ returns. And may you

always be filled with the fruit of your salvation, those

good things that are produced in your life by Jesus Christ,

for this will bring much glory and praise to God.

Now in the first eleven verses of Philippians, Paul models

four relational habits that if you will just practice these things,

your relationships will be more enjoyable and your happiness.

Will be greater.

They are easy to explain, they are simple to understand,

but they are incredibly hard to do because when I

tell you these you go, oh, yeah, I know this,

I know this, but you don't do it. And so

although it's easy for me to teach them, it's very

hard for all of us to practice them. But if

you will do these four relational habits, and you'll build

them in your life, your relationships will be transformed.

And you'll be happy. All right, let's look at it first.

Number one.

To be happy, The first thing Paul says is this,

I must be grateful for the people in my life.

I must be grateful for the people in my life.

Study after study after study after study after study link

gratitude to happiness. It's been proven over and over by psychologists, sociologists,

and others that the more grateful you are, the more

happy you are. The more ungrateful you are, the more

unhappy you are. And if you want to have good relationships.

You start with the attitude of gratitude, you will be

far happier. You will enjoy your relationships more if you

will develop the habit of being grateful for the people

in your life. The habit of being grateful for the

people in your life. Filippians, Chapter one, verse three. Paul

starts off with this, this very first thing. Every time

I think of you, I remember he's in Rome. They're

in a city called Philippi. Every time I think of you,

I give thanks. I give thanks to my God. Paul says,

you know what, I remember the good things about you,

and I focus on the good times we've had friends.

That simple truth right there is the source of good relationships.

And when marriages stop doing this, they crumble. When you

stop remembering why you got married in the first place,

what attracted you to that person. When you stop remembering

the good times, when you stop being grateful for your mate,

your marriage is already on a long slide into oblivion.

Paul says, every time I think of you, I give

thanks to God for you.

Let me ask you, just be real, honest.

When you think of the people in your life, do

you automatically is your first thought gratitude.

No, it's not.

No, it's what do they need to do for me?

Are they late? Are they in a hurry? Uh? What's

not right? What have we had a problem with? What

have we got to get done? Your first thought is

not gratitude, Paul says. When I think of you, the

first thing I do is I think your gratitude. I'm

grateful for who you are. I'm grateful for what you've done.

Now here's the problem with us. The problem with this

is the longer you know someone number one you take them,

the more you take them for granted.

Isn't that true.

The longer you know someone, the more you take them

for granted, the more you focus on their faults, and

the easier it is to remember bad times. I don't

know why it is, but it's easier to remember baptimes

than it is happy times. Paul says, every time I

think of you, I give thanks. If you would just

develop this habit that whenever you think of the people

in your life, your friends, your neighbors, your husband, your wife,

your kids, your relatives, whatever, that the first thought is gratitude.

It's going to change your relationship. Now, that's a habit

you have to develop. It does not come natural. We

are not by nature grateful people. We are by nature

discontented people. We are by nature always wanting more, wanting

things to be different. Philippians, Chapter one, verse five. Paul

says it again, I thank God, I thank God for

the help that you gave me. Now, if you know

the story of this church that he started, there there

was a woman named Lydia who was a businesswoman who

opened up her home, and he says, from the very

first day, you welcomed us, and you helped us.

From the very first day.

And then, as I said several times in Paul's travels,

the Philippian Church was funding Paul's missionaries journeys, and in

this particular instance, they had son, a man named of Paphroditis,

all the way to Rome to bring him a financial gift,

because Paul was in Rome by himself in prison. And

if Paphordita said nearly died on the way, we'll get

to that later in the book. And now Paul is

sending him back with this thank you note to the

people in Philippi, and he says, I thank God for the.

Help you gave me.

I just wonder what is it that you have forgotten

that other people have done for you. Again, the longer

you know someone, the more you take them for granted,

the more you look for their faults, and the more

it's easy to remember the bad things than the good things. See,

the truth is about Paul and Philippi. He didn't have

a good time in Philippi. In fact, it was one

of his roughest churches getting started. But you don't get

any of that in this letter. The fact is when

Paul went to the city to start a church, he

was beaten, he was whipped, he was humiliated, he was

falsely arrested, he was thrown in a prison, he went

through an earthquake, and then he was politely asked by

the city.

Leaders to leave town.

When I thank God for you, I think of you,

I thank God for you, what is he doing? He

is choosing selective memory. This was not a happy place

all the time. It wasn't all sunshine and lollipops and

roses and rainbows in my little Pony. It was a

lot of bad stuff. It happened, but Paul chose not

to on painful memories. Are you still living some painful

memories with some people in your life. You've never let

them off the hook, and you can't enjoy a relationship

because you're still holding on to the past. Would you

write this down? Memories are a choice. Memories are a choice.

I remember hearing a story one time about two women

talking and one of the wives said to the other

wife said, don't you remember that time when your husband

did da da da da da da da, And she said,

I distinctly remember forgetting that. That's a choice. Your memories

are a choice. Now, if you want to hold onto

your painful memories, go right ahead, but you're not going

to be happy. Paul had a lot of reasons that

painful memories in Philippi. It was not a happy time

for everything that happened there. So they said, beaten, maligned

and all these things. But he says, every time I

think of you, I thank God for you. He's choosing

to be grateful for the people in his life.

Now.

In this series, I'm going to give you what I

call happiness hints, and I'm going to put a little

HH next to the next to these happiness hints. And

here's the first one I get. I want to give

you the whole series. Remember the best and forget the rest.

If you want to be happy, remember the best and

forget the rest. Develop selective memory. By the way, September

twenty one is World Gratitude Day.

Did you know that?

It's World Gratitude Day according to the United Nations. So

here's my assignment for you this weekend. I want you

to go home, make a list of the people in

your life and write down five or ten things you

can say, I'm really grateful for these things in their lives.

It's the first habit. The attitude of gratitude will transfer

in relationship. If you're not grateful, you're going to have

all kinds of complaining, worrying, all kinds of other things.

I've got to be grateful for the people in my life.

Number two, the second habit of happiness in relational happiness

is this, I need to not only be grateful for

the people in my life. I need to pray with

joy for the people in my life. I need to

pray joyfully. I need to pray with joy for the

people in my life. Now Paul is praying as we

just read this passage, praying for these people. How would

you like to have the apostle Paul praying for you.

You think that would help the guy who wrote much

of the New Testament, wouldn't you like?

Don't you know.

Those Philippians thought, Hey, this is pretty cool. Paul is

praying for us. Doesn't it encourage you to know when

somebody is praying for you? Yes, yes, it does. It

encourages you. In fact, the thing that keeps me going

is your prayers. And when people say I'm praying for you,

pastor Rick, I take that serious because it's.

What I move on.

It is that power that I move on, Paul says.

In verse four, he says this, I always pray for you.

Now that's part of it. But notice the rest of

the verse. And I make my request when he's praying

for you, he says, with a heart full of joy.

Now I want you to just a minute, think of somebody.

Who irritates you. Don't look at them, just think of him.

Okay, maybe somebody you've got a strained relationship with, or

they just kind of rub you the wrong way. I

have two questions for you. Number one, do you pray

for them?

Okay? Do you pray for it?

Or do you just complain and grumble and nag a nitpick?

If you prayed more.

You'd have a lot less to grumble, complain, nag and

nitpit about. So you can decide does nagging work? No?

Prayer work? Yes?

So why do you do more of the thing that

doesn't work than does? Paul says, I pray for you,

and you need to pray for the people in your life.

But then he says, I pray for you, making requests

with a heartful of joy. When you do pray, do

you pray with joy? And let me give you a

little secret here. There are things within people's lives around

you you'd like to change.

You don't want to change yourself. You want them to change.

If she would just do this, if she would just

do that, if he would just do this. And we

always want to change other people. You can't. You can't

change anybody. You cannot change anybody. They can only change themselves,

and you can only change yourself. So all of that

trying to change your change program doesn't work. But you

can pray, and God can change people. You might write

this down. Positive praying is more effective than positive thinking.

You know, people read all these books about positive thinking. Well, okay,

there's nothing wrong with that. I mean, I'm sure I'd

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 is not enough.

Positive thinking can change you, but it can't change somebody else.

But positive prayer can.

So positive prayer is more powerful than positive thinking. So

I want you to write this down. Here's my little

happiness hint. The quickest way to change a bad relationship

to a good one. The quickest way start praying for them.

Start praying for It'll change you and it can change them.

Start praying for them. You say, well, what do I pray? Well,

I would encourage you to pray what Paul prayed, and

in verses nine to eleven, we have what Paul prayed.

Here's what 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, 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. What

does he say four things you can pray, write these

down four things pray, and I would say, pray these

for your kids. Pray these for your friends, Pray these

for your boyfriend, your girlfriend, Pray these for your boss,

Pray these for me, anybody.

You care about.

Pray with joy for the people in your life, and

you pray these four things. First, pray they will grow

in love. Pray that they will grow in love. Paul

says that your love will grow more and more. Number two,

he says, pray that they will make wise choices. Pray

that the people in your life, in your family, and

your friends and your neighbor, Pray that they will make

wise choices.

Verse nine to ten says that you will.

Know and fully.

Know and understand how to make the right choices.

Third thing to pray for the people in your life,

pray they will live with integrity. Pray that they will

live with integrity. Paul says, I pray that you may

live pure and blameless lives until Christ returns. And the

fourth thing to pray is pray that they will become

like Jesus. Parents. There's your prayer agenda right there. Husbands, wives, friends,

there's your prayer agenda right there, pray that they will

become like Christ. Verse eleven, that you will be filled

with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ

to the glory and praise of God.

Circle the word fruits. What the fruits he.

Talk about there, well, we call it the fruit of

the spirit. The fruit of the spirit is the character

of Jesus. In Galatians five, twenty two and twenty three

says this. The fruit of the spirit is love and joy,

and peace and patience and kindness. The fruit of the

spirit is goodness and faithfulness. Fruit of the spirit is

gentleness and self control. What is that?

It's the perfect picture of Jesus.

Now, these four things you can pray for me any

day of the week. Pray that I will grow in love.

Pray that I will make wise choices. Pray that I

will live with integrity. Pray that I will become more

and more like Jesus. You can pray these for yourself.

You can pray these for your spouse. And you know what,

you can know they will be answered. Why because they're

in the Bible. This is not a praier if it's

your will God, this is God's will.

It's in the Bible.

So you know God wants to answer that prayer. So

the first thing I do, I have to be grateful

for the people in my life. And second, I have

to pray and actually pray joyfully, not with complaining, not

with criticism like, oh God, why can't you get this

man in.

Mind in shape.

That's not praying joyfully, that's praying whinily, crankily. No, pray joyfully,

and here's what you pray. Number three, here's the third habit,

Paul says, and it's in.

The next verse.

I must expect the best from people in my life.

I must expect the best.

Now, these things are so simple for me to teach you,

but they are so hard to turn into habits. We

don't 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. Now he's saying,

you want to make a habit of believing in people

rather than criticizing them. Expect the best Philippians one. And

in the verse six is the next verse he says this,

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. Now circle the word confident.

I am confident of this that God, who began the

good work in you, will carry it on to completion

until the day of Christ. Is I'm expecting the best

from the people in my life.

Now.

Paul is a pro at bringing out the best in people,

and I want to teach you how to do it

right now. There are three things that you do to

bring out the best in people, and Paul does all

three of them. In this verse, he says, here's how

I bring out the best people. Number one, he just

write this down. He believed in people. He believed in people.

He says, I am confident, and he gave them confidence.

Do you give the people in your life confidence or

do you tear them down? Do you build them up

or do you tear them down? Do you give the

people in your life confidence?

You know?

In the last series, I gave you an illustration about

what a good parent does when a child stumbles. Do

you remember I said, if a child is running a

race and you're at the track watching him run a

race at school, and all of a sudden, they really

mess up and they stumble and they fall flat on

their face, and they embarrass themselves and you're in the

stand as a parent, what do you do? You don't

get up and say, oh, I'm so embarrassed, I'm leaving

you know how pathetic you are. A bad parent would

do that. But what does a good parent do. A

good parent stands up and yells even more. You can

do this. Get up.

I believe in you.

I know you can do it.

Come on, come on, get up. I know this is

just a minor thing.

No, don't worry about it, don't wory about anybody.

Just keep on running. That's what God does with you

when you stumble.

That's what God wants you to do with people in

your life when they stumble. That's what it means to

be like Jesus. Paul says, I believe in people. I

give them confidence, I helped them grow. I am confident

that what God has started in your life, he's going

to continue to do. You see, we all need people

to believe in us because it's how we change. You

can't change unless somebody believes in you and you believe

in yourself. Acceptance always precedes transformation.

That's why I always say, you know.

Don't tell it like it is, Tell it like it could.

Be Sometimes you know, I train pastors in preaching, and

sometimes pastors say, well, I just tell it like it is.

I said, well, okay, but that doesn't change anybody. Tell

it like it could be is preaching for faith. I

could get appearance. You know you're all not doing a

good job, and I could tell you all the errors

you're not doing a good job in.

What would it do? Just make you defensive?

It wouldn't change you one bit, and next week you go, oh,

let's go back and have requipus some more. Some people

acts or a spiritual massacres o pastor, that's such a

great sermon.

It made me feel so bad. I don't gonna what.

No, No, that's not it. Nobody changes by nagging. Doesn't

happen in the pulpit or anywhere else. So don't tell

it like it is. Tell it like it could be.

If I helped draw a picture, say this is what

you could become, this is what you could be with

God's power in your life, then you get excited. Paul says,

I'm confident I believe in you. The second thing he

did is he gave people vision, and the vision was

you're gonna keep growing. God's not gonna what God starts

he finishes. He's not gonna leave you halfway out there.

He gave people vision. He painted a picture of the future.

Now why is that important? Because study after study after

study shows that we tend to live up to the

expectations of other people. When people expect the best of you,

you tend to do better. When teachers expect to the

best of their students, they always perform better than teachers

who don't expect the best from their students. That has

been proven over and over again in studies that we

tend to become what we believe the most important people

in our lives think about us. So Paul says, I

expect the best from people. I believe in people. I

give people vision. And the third thing, this is really important.

You write this down from this verse he was patient

with people's progress. I am confident to what God's began

in you. He's going to keep on and he's going

to carry it to completion until the Jesus Day of

Jesus Christ. He was patient with people's progress. Now why

is that I'm so important to your happiness? I'll tell

you why. If you insist on perfection in people, you're

going to be miserable the rest of your life because

there's nobody perfect, especially you. And if you're always expecting

perfection in people before you can enjoy them, then you're

never going to be happy because nobody's perfect. Paul says,

I am patient with people's progress. Now, let me give

you a little happiness hent on this one. You're write

this one down if you want to really be happy

in your relationships, If you want to have happier relationships,

healthier relationships, celebrate how far people have come rather than

judging them for how much they still have to go.

Celebrate people for how far they've come rather than judging

how far they still have to go. You got to

be patient with people's progress. When my kids were little,

they would draw me pictures and they would bring it

to me and they'd say, what do you think of this, Daddy?

And I would say, that's perfect, Amy, that's perfect, Josh,

that's perfect, Matthew.

It looks great.

And when I said that perfect, I mean its a Picasso. No,

it was perfect for that stage in their life. God

doesn't wait until you're mature for him to start loving you,

So you shouldn't do that with others either, you gotta

love them worts and all. You got to be patient

with their progress. Now, what is the key to patience?

How do I celebrate how far people have come rather

than judging how far they let go? The key to

patience is love, and Paul says in the next verse,

verse seven, it is right for me to feel this way.

In other words, I expect the best from you.

It's right for me to feel this way about you

since I have you in my heart circle that frame

in my heart. This is a real key to happiness,

and it's real key to healthy relationships. You had to

have people in your heart. You know what I've discovered.

If people aren't on my heart, they're on my nerves.

And if I want to get them off my nerves,

I got to get them on my heart. If I'm

praying for somebody, they just don't bug me as much.

They just don't bother me as much. If they're on

my heart, they're not on my nerves. But if I'm

not praying for them, I get perturbed by them pretty easily.

He says, I have you in my heart. You see

so many of the relationship problems that you have, that

you have over and over and over is because we

all tend to react with our head, not with our heart,

and that's the wrong place to go in relationships. That's

you know, he comes you, let's say men, let me

talk to them in for am it. Your wife comes

to you and says, honey, this really frightens me, this

really worries me. This thing really concerns me. And you

react not with your heart. You react with your head. Go, well,

that's illogical, that's dumb. You shouldn't feel that way. Oh

that was helpful. Now did that really build a bridge? No, no,

it did at all, because you're reacting with your head

rather than with your heart. When people say, and you've

had people say this to you before, you just don't understand.

You just don't understand. You just don't understand. They're not

really talking about understanding. What they're really saying is you

don't feel my pain. You don't feel what I'm feeling.

Has nothing to do with understanding. It has everything to

do with empathy. You're not sympathetic. You're not empathetic, you

don't care, you're not feeling my feet. And they say,

you don't understand. We try to logic it out and say, well,

let me understand. No, it's not logic, it's it's feelings.

The feelings are just feelings. They're not right or wrong,

they're just they're just feelings. The last five months I've

been getting a PhD in learning empathy and all of

the things we've been going through in our family, that's

what they're saying is you don't feel it. And so

when Paul says, I have you on my heart, loving

from the heart begins with understanding, and it means you

know why they tick, you know how they tick, and

you don't judge them for ticking that way. You just

listen and you accept, and you listen and you understand

moods and you respond accordingly. And that leads us to

the fourth big habit. And this one is the granddaddy

of them all. And Paul says, this is the fourth secret.

I must love people in my life like Jesus does.

I must love people in my life like Jesus does.

I must be grateful for the people in life. I

must pray for the people in my life with joy.

I must expect the best from the people of my life.

And I must love people in my life like Jesus does.

Now again, I told you. It's easy for me to

teach it.

It's incredibly hard for you to do this because you're

not Jesus, and we tend to be self centered. We

tend to look at our own needs and all of

the things that have happened in their life. But I've

got to love people like Jesus does. Verse eight. Here's

the fourth thing Paul says about relational habits.

God is my witness.

That I tell the truth when I say that my

deep love for you, my deep love for you all

comes from the heart of Christ, Jesus himself. I love

this verse so much because I identify with it. Is See,

Paul started the Philippian Church. He was the first member,

he was the first pastor, and so I identify with

how he felt about this church as I do about you.

I want you to know that I am grateful for you,

just like Paul was. I want you to know that

I pray for you with joy. I want you to

know that I believe in you, I have confidence in you,

and I want you to know that it is an

honor to serve you. You know, this week, when Kay

and I did that Pierce Morgan interview, that was interesting

me the only time that I really lost it emotionally.

I mean I felt the whole interview, but the only

time I really lost it emotionally.

That's what I thought of you. Because Pierce asked me,

he said, what was it like.

The first time back with your church family? And I

will never forget that moment? And I told him some

of you heard it, who watched that interview. So I said,

you know, for thirty three years, Can and I have

given our lives for this church, for these people. We

love them with all our hearts. We love them from

the heart. I'm like Paul, I'm grateful for you. I'm

like Paul, I pray for you with joy. I believe

in you. I am confident to what God began in

your life. He's going to finish.

And I love you from the heart.

And I says, we've given out for thirty three years,

and in that moment when we walked on the stage,

you gave all thirty three years back in one second.

And I wish everyone could feel that kind of love

just so oh deeply. And uh and I lost it first.

John three sixteen says, this, this is how we know

what real love is. Christ gave his life for us,

So then we ought to give our lives for who

for others?

Now, what is that reference? Again? Look at it? What

is it?

It's first John three sixteen. Does that remind you of

any other verse? John three sixteen? Same guy wrote both,

You know what the problem with relationships is today? People

who know John three point sixteen ignore first John three sixteen.

We all know John three sixteen. Most of you could

quote it. God so loved the world that he gave

his only son that whoever believes in him should not

perish but have everlasting life.

That's the way to salvation. It's a way to have.

Past, forgiven purpose, for living home in heaven. God says,

I sent my son. That's how much I love you.

And we're all grateful for God's love for us John

three sixteen. But we want to ignore our first John

three sixteen, it says, and this is real love. God

gave his life for us, He gave his son for us,

and we.

Must do the same thing.

If we would do that, we would not have any

relational problems because we wouldn't be thinking about ourselves. We'd

be thinking about other people. That's about our heads. And

as we close, I just want to ask you to

do a little personal evaluation. Whether you're watching online or

at any of our campuses or here at Lake Forest,

which of these four habits do you need to work on?

Who do you need to be more grateful for? Who

in your life have you taken for granted? Who have

you failed to appreciate? Who have you because of their

faults or flaws you have not been grateful for them?

That's the first habit of happiness. Be grateful for the

people in my life. Number two, are you praying for

the people in your life? And are you praying with joy?

Are you praying with complaining? God fix that person? Are

you praying with joy? I'm going to encourage you to

make a prayer list and write down some names and

pray the four things that Paul prayed. That people will

grow in love, that they will make wise choices, that

they'll live with integrity, that will become like Jesus. Let

me ask you this. Are you patient with the progress

of the people in your life or do you demand perfection?

It's never good enough, so I said, if people have

to be pray perfect for you.

To enjoy them, You're never going to enjoy them.

And Number four who do you need to start loving

from the heart rather than from the head. Now, in

this series, we're going to talk about the habits of happiness.

Desire will get you started, but the habits will keep

you going. So I want you to first make a

commitment to be a part of this series for all

twelve weeks. And why don't you in your heart right

now say God, I really do want to be happy

and I want to learn the habits of happiness. And

I commit to being a part and not missing any

of this series that I may learn the habits of happiness.

If you've never.

Invited Christ in your life, say Jesus Christ, thank you

for loving me, Thank you for dying for me. I

don't understand it all, but I want to get to

know you and I want to learn to love you back.

And then, 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,

and on those bad relationships, help me to start praying

for them and pray with joy, to pray that they

grow in love and that they live with integrity.

To become like Jesus.

Dear God, I want you to help me develop the

habit of expecting the best from the people of my life,

rather than criticizing the worst. Help me to believe in people.

Help me to be confident and build confidence. Help me

to be patient with people's progress. Help me to recognize

how far people have come, not how far they still

have to go. God, help me to have love in

my heart and to love people not from the head.

Men who you guys who are married say God, help

me to love my wife from my heart, not from

my head. And help me to love people in my

life like Jesus does. That I would be willing to

lay down my life in sacrifice or in service.

I pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.