Rick Warren - Grow Healthy Relationships—Part One

Hey everybody, thanks for joining us today on Pastor Rick's

Daily Hope. This is the Bible teaching ministry of Rick Warren,

and today we're starting a 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. Well,

I can't wait to get started. Here's part one of

a message called grow Healthy Relationships.

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, 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. It's actually the

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

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. 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 is writing

to the church in Philippi, which is a city in

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 relationships are unhappy. Iver,

I agree with that. 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 philipp I 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 that passage, just those few eleven verses, Paul tells

us four things about his relationship with the Philippians, and

he tells us that there are models in his life 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

all 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. Filippius,

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 this. 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 bap

times 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

at 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 at 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 dwell 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 relationship because you're still holding on

to the past. Would you write this down? Memories our choice?

Memories our 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 our 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 Philip it was not a happy

time for everything that happened there, as 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. 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 a relationship. If you're not grateful,

you're gonna 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

this minute, think of somebody who irritates you. Don't look

at him, 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, nagging, nitpit about. So

you can decide, does nagging work no? Does 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? Now, 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't pray. God can change people.

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.

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. Now I'm excited

because this book is filled with Biblical truth, practical lessons,

application exercise, 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.

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

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