Have you ever wondered what the key to happiness is? It’s a question I’ve been asked more than a few times in my years as a pastor. And as humans, we seem to always be searching for that happy place. Some believe it’s some Utopia here on earth. Others believe that we’ll only find true happiness when we get to Heaven. I say, let’s look to the Bible and see what God’s Word has to say about happiness.
The Bible says in Proverbs 10:28, “The hopes of the godly result in happiness, but the expectations of the wicked come to nothing.” Unfortunately, our society says just the opposite, that the hopes of godly people make for an unhappy life. Our society says to manipulate the situation, be aggressive, assert yourself, do whatever it takes to reach the top.
Well, again, the Bible is going to say the opposite of that. In Matthew 5:5, the Bible says the meek—the righteous—will inherit the earth. In fact, the most potent force on the planet today, according to the Bible, is meekness. Meekness is literally strength under control.
Well, since so many of these recipes were hearing about seem to be in direct contradiction with each other, who’s right? Not surprisingly, I’m going to go with God’s recipe, but let’s start first with the world’s recipe.
The World’s 4-P Recipe for Happiness
So let’s start in this cook-off with ingredients in the world’s happiness recipe. But, before we get started, I will say that you’re going to notice something: some of the ingredients are the same for both the world’s recipe and God’s recipe. It’s the order these ingredients are added in that’s different.
Now, most people like dessert. We can all agree on that. Know what I’ve not seen, though? Someone whose mouth waters at the thought of eating the separate ingredients of—for example, a delicious chocolate cake—before they’re stirred together and baked. Who would like to eat flour by itself? Or raw eggs? (I know, we all saw Rocky drinking raw eggs, but he didn’t like them.) So let’s look at some of these separated-out ingredients.
Popularity
The first ingredient for the world’s happiness recipe is popularity. Proverbs 12:26 says, “The righteous choose their friends carefully, but the way of the wicked leads them astray.” In other words, the world’s recipe doesn’t put a lot of thought into who their friends are; they just want a lot of them.
Popularity for the world is a must ingredient if you have any shot at being happy. For some, this is all they’re after, like being TikTok famous (that’s the latest rendition). But no matter how many followers these influencers on TikTok or Instagram or YouTube amass, it never seems to be enough. Proverbs 18:24 tells us why. “A man of many companions may come to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother,” so it’s definitely quality over quantity.
Possessions
The next ingredient in the world’s recipe for happiness is possessions. Proverbs 27:20 tells us why this doesn’t work. “Just as death and destruction are never satisfied, so human desire is never satisfied.” The eyes of man always want and desire more. As Andrew Carnegie once noted that millionaires who laugh are extremely rare. Think about it. That’s true. Wealth is out to take smiles, and Jesus Himself told us in Luke 12:15, “Be careful to guard yourself from every kind of greed.” Life is not about having a lot of material possessions.
Power
Those who aren’t GQ cover material or who aren’t going in the first, second, or third round of the draft pick (because you’re a great athlete), there still remains the ingredient of power. People who go for power for happiness figure they’re going to get all the other things thrown in any way if they’re powerful enough or feared enough.
In fact, are you noticing a trend? Popular people often create an avenue to wealth, and wealth, many times, gains influence, and influence a lot of times leads to power. At least, that’s what Satan would have us believe—that these things can all come together, or even as individual ingredients, and lead to happiness.
Not surprisingly, God’s Word disagrees. The irony is that, frequently, when people prosper, they often drift away from God. They don’t have time for God, and their passion for Him diminishes. Their devotion decreases. They begin to believe, “Well, it’s my hard work which has allowed me to get that ski boat or take that vacation.” Or, “It’s my good looks, my popularity, my power, and I have to maintain it, so I don’t really have time to serve the Lord. Sorry, God, maybe later.” That’s the Pastor Rob paraphrase of Deuteronomy 8:17-18.
Peace
Finally, in this hodgepodge stew of happiness, people just want peace. It’s what they’re really after. If you chase after the other three ingredients long enough, you notice a sort of restlessness that never quite goes away. You start seeing that with any of them—or even all three of them—there’s still a high potential for a troubled heart.
So what do all these have in common? Well, according to CS Lewis, the late theologian, the answer is an ever-increasing craving for an ever-diminishing pleasure. He calls that Satan’s formula. But even stirred together and cooked up perfectly, even if we have all these things, without God, it leads to misery according to the Bible.
Solomon wrote the whole book of Ecclesiastes, testing this very theory. He tested popularity, wealth, sex, everything you could think of, and came to the same conclusion, found in Ecclesiastes 12:13-14. “…Here now is my final conclusion: Fear God and obey His commands, for this is everyone’s duty. God will judge us for everything we do, including every secret thing, whether good or bad.”
You see, the problem is that none of these secularly-pursued ingredients are added by God, or even with God’s blessing. So standing alone—or even all together—when we do it, it doesn’t lead to happiness. It leads to tragedy.
Is there a better recipe? There sure is, and I’ll share more about that next Thursday. Until then, I invite you to join us at The Summit—online or in-person—every Sunday morning at 9am & 11am MDT, where getting into God’s presence and hearing His Word will do more than move the arrow on your happiness scale. It will help to bring you that peace we’re all in need of.
~Pastor Rob
aka, P-Ro