True for You: As Long as You Are Happy

Pastor Burcham’s Sermon

Sunday, September 20, 2009

[Video. Lie Detector Test. “Reverend Burcham, we are trying to get at the truth so please answer the question. Have you ever stolen anything?” “Yes, but I really wanted it.” “What?” “Well, I mean, technically speaking, I did steal it but I knew how much I would enjoy it, so I guess I’m just not really seeing a problem here.” “You don’t see a problem with stealing?” “Well, that depends.” “Look, either you’ve stolen something or not. This is a simple matter of right and wrong, truth or deceit. It’s really that simple.” “Oh, I’m not so sure it’s just all that simple. I mean, if something makes me happy, then how can it be wrong? I have a right to be happy, don’t I?”]

We all have a right to be happy, don’t we? I mean, that just makes sense. That seems reasonable. If we do the things we’re supposed to do, if we live the way we’re supposed to live, we treat other people the way that we would want to be treated, we’re honest, we have some integrity, we have good morals, it would seem that it would be reasonable to say that I could have a somewhat happy life. I guess, at the very least, I shouldn’t be unhappy. Doesn’t that sound true to you? We all have a right and to be able to work at being happy.

That sounds true, feels true. It’s kind of hard to argue against a statement like that, but is it true? Last week, we started on this journey to try to discover and look into this idea of truth because it’s really being called into question in our world. The whole concept that there is an absolute truth really doesn’t, well that just isn’t really accepted much anymore.

We learned that Jesus said He came to testify to the truth but He also told us there was one who was working against Him, the devil, Satan. He calls him the Father of Lies and he’s trying to thwart all of Jesus’ attempts at the truth. We also found out that when the devil tells us a lie, it’s not going to be so outlandish that we’ll recognize it easily. No, no, no, when he lies to us, it will always have an element of truth to it. It will sound true. It will feel true. It would be hard to argue against but it will move us just slightly off the mark so we end up very, very far from the truth.

He has two weapons in his arsenal. There is relative truth and there is subjective truth. Relative truth says that sometimes it’s wrong to do something but, other times, it’s okay, it’s acceptable. It depends on the circumstances you’re in. It depends on your situation. So sometimes, it is absolutely wrong to lie. Other times, it seems more prudent to stretch the truth and it’s okay. That’s relative truth.

Subjective truth says that I, the subject, will determine what is right and what is wrong for me. So what’s true for me isn’t necessarily true for you and what’s true for you isn’t necessarily true for me, but we’re going to respect each other and we’re going to be tolerant of each other’s beliefs, you see, because you don’t know how I’m feeling and what I’m dealing with and neither do I for you, so truth is very subjective.

This morning, what we want to get into is we want to talk about the subjective truth of happiness and how the subjective truth of happiness sounds right, it feels right but it moves us very far from the truth. The subjective truth of happiness says that as long as something makes me happy, if it brings joy, fulfillment in my life, then it must be right. It would go something like this: Maybe a person says to you, “Now I know that you don’t agree with this and that’s okay and you probably think you’re wrong that I’m wrong in the way that I live but the fact of the matter is I’ve never been so happy in my life. In fact, I’ve never had such fulfillment, such joy in my life and I’m having a hard time, I’m really struggling how that can be wrong. How can bringing joy and happiness in my life, how can you say that is wrong of me?” You see, that’s subjective truth of happiness.

Now lest you think this is something that’s just on the fringes as something that, you know, some guru out on the coast is thinking about, well, no, no, no. It’s infiltrated every part of our society. So this week, I got on the Internet as I usually do and Googled happiness to find out all the happy sites. There are lots of happy sites out there. In fact, there’s one they called I Deserve to be Happy.com. You can go check it out. It will tell you all the reasons why you deserve to be happy.

But the one that caught my eye, the one I really zeroed in on was a Christian site that had all Christian authors in it and the title of the article was You Deserve to be Happy. Really, I thought? Christian site, Christian author, I deserve to be happy. So here’s just a snippet from this Christian author. “Everyone is different. Happiness in life is like a smorgasbord. If 100 people went to a smorgasbord and each put on their plate the quantity and mix of what they felt most pleasing to him, every plate would be different. Happiness is the same way and your mix is changing continuously. If you went to the same smorgasbord every day for a year, you would probably come back with a different plateful each time that you went. That makes sense, okay? So each day, sometimes each hour, only you can tell what it takes to make you happy.” Now here’s the crux of his statement. “Therefore, the only way to judge whether a job, a relationship, an investment or any decision is right for you is to get in touch with your feelings and listen to your heart.”

That, my friends, is a subjective truth of happiness. We’re all different and life is a smorgasbord. And each of us, as we go up to the smorgasbord, are going to take things that are a little bit different and so what makes me happy probably isn’t what makes you happy so what’s right for me obviously isn’t going to be right for you but that’s okay because you’re just coming back from the smorgasbord with something different than I’m coming back from the smorgasbord. And it changes all the time, daily, sometimes hourly. So how do I decide whether I keep my job or not? Does it make me happy? How do I decide whether I stay in the relationship or I dump the relationship and move on to something else? Does it make me happy? In fact, he says, “How do I make every decision in my life? I have to get in touch with my feelings and my heart. What do I think about it and does it make me happy?” That’s the subjective truth of happiness. The bottom line is I deserve to be happy. And he’d probably say, “God wants you to be happy.”

So if happiness is the bottom line, then happiness determines all of our actions and all of our decisions. It’s very, very prevalent in our society. We see it all around, people making decisions on whether it makes them happy or not. Now I don’t know if you remember the song by Sheryl Crow, I’m not really a fan, but I remember this particular line because it struck me and it says, “If it makes you happy, it can’t be bad.” That’s contemporary culture. If it makes you happy, it can’t be bad. So now we’re going to make all of our decisions of right and wrong of whether something makes me happy or not.

I’ll give you an idea. Let’s say that you go to the mall. Better yet, you go to the new Bass Pro Shop and you’re walking around the new Bass Pro Shop and you turn the corner and you see something that you didn’t know you needed. Five minutes earlier, you had no idea that you needed this. But you turned the corner, there it was and you said, “Yes, I need that.” And you say to yourself, “Do you have any idea how much happiness that would bring into our lives? It would be great for the kids and the grandkids if we had that. We could take them out on Saylorville and we’d have all these family times together. That would be wonderful. That would bring so much happiness to our home. We have to buy that. We have to get that.” Now mind you, you are so far in debt, you can’t make your monthly bills. And you’re paying 20% interest on a whole lot of credit cards but you make the decision to sign on the dotted line or grease it on the MasterCard because it will bring happiness in your life and so, therefore, it can’t be wrong. It must be right.

Maybe you’ve heard somebody say this, “I don’t believe in divorce but I really don’t think I should spend the rest of my life being miserable. I really can’t imagine that God wants the two of us to go through life being this miserable for the rest of our days in this world.” That’s the subjective truth of happiness. What we once considered to be wrong, we now say it’s okay because how can something that brings joy, fulfillment, happiness, how can that be wrong? So we judge all of our decisions, all of our thought processes on happiness.

The corollary to that is anything that brings discomfort, anything that brings pain into my life must be wrong. Anything that would cause me to be unhappy, well, that has to be bad and that has to be wrong. So if I’m inconvenienced in any way, any obstacles that I might incur in life, any inconveniences, unpleasantness, well, that can’t possibly be God’s will for me because God doesn’t want me to be unhappy so if God doesn’t want these obstacles to come into my life, this unpleasantness to come in my life, so anything that causes me to be unhappy, that’s bad and that’s wrong.

To cut to the chase here, if we bring this down to its logical conclusion, the subjective truth of happiness, what it really says is this: If I’m not happy, then God’s not doing His job. If we believe that I deserve to be happy, you deserve to be happy and God wants us to be happy but we’re not happy, then God failed. Somewhere along the line, somebody dropped the ball, especially if you consider that we’re doing our part and we’re living the way that we’re supposed to live and, all of a sudden, we’re not happy, that means God failed. God didn’t do His job. Now maybe you’d never put it that crass‑fully, in fact, I’m confident that you wouldn’t. But I wonder if you haven’t at least had these thoughts: You’re going along pretty well, you’re living your Christian life, you say to yourself, “You know, I’m treating others well. I have good morals, I have good ethics. I have integrity. I have honesty. I’m living the life that’s the best I can and then the bottom falls out.” I mean life just goes south. Everything and anything that could go wrong goes wrong and then something else goes wrong and so what is your response to that when life goes south? You ask one question, “What did I do to deserve this?” Everyone asks it. “What did I do to deserve this?” You know what you’re really saying? “I did all the right things. God’s supposed to make me happy. I lived the way I was supposed to live. You see, God didn’t keep up His end of the bargain.”

This, by the way, is the same way of thinking when you talk to someone who says, “You know, I tried that church thing. It didn’t work for me.” “Yeah, I tried religion for awhile but it just really wasn’t my thing.” What are they saying? “I tried the religion thing. I tried the church thing but God didn’t keep up His end of the bargain. It didn’t make any difference in my life. I wasn’t happy doing that. I did what I was supposed to do.” We’ve turned God into a vending machine. Put the coin in, say the prayer, do the good deed and, ah, out pops happiness. But if happiness doesn’t pop out, then God failed. God didn’t do His job.

Now here’s how serious this gets. It’s this great reversal. Instead of we exist to serve God, now God exists to serve us. You take subjective truth of happiness to its logical conclusion and God exists to serve us. We do the right things and now God is supposed to make us happy. You see, you move just slightly off the mark and it takes you very, very far from the truth. That’s the subjective truth of happiness.

May I suggest the absolute truth from God? The absolute truth from God is this: The absolute truth is does God want you happy? Sure. God is not opposed to you being happy. God takes delight and joy in your life. God gives you blessings, material blessings, blessings in your relationship, blessings spiritually. Is God opposed to you being happy? No, not at all. He wants you to enjoy this life. But God put some caveats on that. God says, “I don’t want you happy if it means sinful behavior.” You see, God says that happiness via sinful behavior, all it does is lead to pain and suffering and He doesn’t want that for you. Here’s what He says in Proverbs 14:12, “There is a way that seems right to a man but, in the end, it leads to death.” It seems right to us, right? It brings happiness. I just can’t understand how something that feels so right, that seems so right, that brings such joy could be wrong. It feels right to us but He says, “But in the end, it leads to death.”

Let’s try this on for size. God has given us the gift of sex. And He gave us that gift in the context of marriage. From the beginning of time, that’s how He created it, that’s how He designed it. He says that you’re supposed to enjoy this. It’s supposed to bring happiness into your life but in the context of marriage between a husband and a wife. And we have been messing with it ever since the beginning of time. We have been messing with that. We’ve been perverting it one way or another since the beginning of time. And it’s always ended up in pain and suffering.

Go to our own bible. Go to the Old Testament and look at all of the fornication, look at all the promiscuous behavior, look at all the adultery that happens there and, every single time you mess with what God gave us, you don’t use it the way He designed it, it ends up in pain and suffering. Look at today. We went through the whole free love of the 60’s and the 70’s until we’re at the point right now, having sex before marriage is just part of the courtship. That’s part of the dating process. It’s as normal and natural as going out to dinner. And what do we have to show for it? How many diseases do we have in our world that can be traced back to that? How many broken hearts are out there because of that? Happiness via sinful behavior results in pain and suffering.

Now don’t get the idea that God is some cosmic killjoy. It’s not as if God is sitting up in heaven saying, “Hum, I wonder how I can take away the joy in life today. I wonder if I could boil it down to like ten things to make sure they don’t have fun.” God doesn’t do that. God wants to protect us. God created you and God designed you, so God knows what’s right for you and what’s wrong for you. He knows the things you should do and the things you shouldn’t do.

Alright, it’s confession time. How many of you have used a butter knife as a screwdriver? Come on, you didn’t feel like going to the toolbox so you just reached in the kitchen drawer, grabbed a butter knife as you wanted to loosen a screw. Did it work? Sure, sometimes. Okay, now how many of you have butter knives where the end is just bent at the end? A butter knife wasn’t designed to be a screwdriver. It’s not why it was created. It’s not how it’s supposed to be used. God created you. He designed you. He knows what’s right and He knows what’s wrong. God wants you to be happy but not via sinful behavior. It always ends up in pain and suffering.

God wants you to be happy but God doesn’t want you to be happy if it means that it’s based on the things of this world because happiness via the things of this world, all it does is leave you with emptiness and it’s temporary. We read just a few moments ago from John’s first letter. He said this, “Do not love the world or anything in the world.” Okay, why? “For everything in the world, the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does comes not from the Father but from the world.” What does that result in? “The world and its desires pass away but the man who does the will of God lives forever.” Let that last verse sink in for a minute. “The world and its desires pass away but the person who does the will of God lives forever.” The things of this world are temporary. The things of this world are empty and yet, we just fight so hard to really believe that.

For instance, I have a formula for you here. I want you to try this on to see if this doesn’t ring true, okay? If I have Better Possessions + Peaceful Circumstances + Thrilling Experiences + The Right Relationships + Perfect Appearance = Happiness. And the more that I have of those, the happier I am. If I have three as opposed to two, I’m happier. If I have four as opposed to three, then I’m happy. If I have all of them, I’m on Cloud 9 because I’m happier. Because we believe if we have better possessions, bigger, shinier, brighter, that’s great. If there is no conflict in our life, so if I’m having trouble with the boss, it’s time to move on to another job because I don’t like conflict, that’s uncomfortable to me. If I have thrilling experiences, I get the vacations, the excursions, right relationships, people are making me happy, I look like I should be on the cover of GQ magazine, yes, I’m happy. Except there’s only one word that describes all of those. More. Because you never have enough. There’s always something newer, something brighter, something shinier. There’s always a more peaceful way of living. The relationship could always make me happier. And you could always be better looking. You see, it’s empty because all that’s there is this constant craving for more. You’re never satisfied. It’s temporary. All that stuff passes away. Things wear out, things change. You may have looked spot-on fantastic at 25. I have to tell you, the later side of the 40’s, stuff falls out, other stuff sticks out. You can’t help it. That’s just the way it is. That’s empty. It’s temporary. God wants you to be happy but not through the things of this world. They’re empty and temporary.

And actually the fact of the matter is God wants you more than happy. God wants you blessed. God wants you more than happy. He wants you blessed. If you look at the scriptures, new International version, there are about 31 instances of the word happy. There are over 400 of the word bless or blessed. God wants you blessed. Blessed is like happiness super-sized. Blessed is like, well if you pit blessed versus happy, that’s like doing Elmer Fudd against Speedy Gonzales in a foot race, alright? There’s no contest. Grandparents, you’re going to have to tell your kids, your grandkids when good cartoons were around, we had things like Elmer Fudd and Speedy Gonzales, not this Avatar stuff. But you get my idea? There’s no contest here.

Blessed is so much better than happiness. Why? Because happiness deals with the happenings around us. It’s all external. Blessed is what’s going on inside of us. It’s deeper. Happiness? Happiness can be taken away from you. The stock market can go south, you can lose all your money. Somebody can steal your car. You can, all of a sudden, contract a deadly disease and your health is gone. Happiness can be taken away from you. No one can take away being blessed.

In fact, scripture says there’s no power that can take away God’s blessing. Listen to the way he put it in Romans 8, “For I’m convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, the present nor future nor any powers nor height nor depth nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Nothing. Absolutely nothing. There is no power, there is no entity, there is nothing in this world or outside of this world that can ever take away God’s blessing in your life. That means no one, nothing can ever take away from the fact that God loves you above all else. That means nothing, no one can ever take away the fact that God loved you so much, He was willing to send His Son into the world. It means no one, nothing can ever take away from you the fact that Jesus lived among us and then He died for us and although He was sinless, He took on all of our guilt and all of our sin. He went through hell so that you wouldn’t have to. No one, nothing can ever take away the fact that you’ll spend an eternity in heaven. No one. Nothing can take away the fact that you will not have to spend one moment of one day alone because God says, “Never will I leave you, never will I forsake you.” Even when the times get tough, God is there beside you. And no one can take that away.

God wants you more than happy. He wants you blessed. And that’s the absolute truth. The devil wants to take us down this path that sounds so enticing and it sounds right, that we have this right to be happy but if he moves us just slightly off the mark, it takes us very, very far from the truth. Sure, God wants you to be happy but God wants you to be more than happy. He wants you to be blessed. He wants to give you something that no one can ever take away from you and that’s His love through Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.

Copyright 2009 Gloria Dei Lutheran Church