It’s a question that we all ask at some point in our lives. For many people, it’s the driving force of their entire lives: “How can I be happy?”
We’re all looking for happiness. The world tells us to be happy by getting what we want. But most of us know that doesn’t actually work. As one of the prophets of our generation has said, “Mo money, mo problems.”
No, happiness isn’t found by getting what we want. According to Jesus, happiness is more about how we respond to the gospel and what God has done for us through Christ.
He answered this question of how to be happy at the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5. He lists eight “Blessed are …” statements that actually describe a saved person’s heart, a heart blessed and filled by God. In short, a happy heart. And these eight statements teach us two important truths about happiness:
1. According to Jesus, happiness is not a set of circumstances, but the fruit of a right relationship with God.
Our English word “happiness” comes from the word “happening.” You are happy when what you want to happen happens, and when what you want to happen doesn’t happen, you are not happy. (Easy for me to say, right?)
Jesus says that our happiness should not be rooted in our circumstances. In fact, it can only be the result of being rightly related to God.
So here’s the question for you: If life didn’t change at all for you from this moment on, could you be happy with life?
None of the things that we think we need to be happy in life happened to Jesus: He was single his whole life, he never owned a home, he was misunderstood, maligned, and eventually abandoned by his friends.
And yet he had joy, because he was in perfect relationship with his Father.
You can look your whole life for happiness, but you don’t have to look any further than Jesus to see that you’ll only find it when you are secure in your relationship with God.
2. According to Jesus, happiness is a response to the gospel.
One of the most important but overlooked details about the Sermon on the Mount is where Jesus taught these things from. Matthew 5:1 says that Jesus went up to the mountain, and the teaching he gave was the law. So throughout the Sermon on the Mount, he kept referring back to Moses’ Law — “You have heard it said, but I say unto you …” Jesus is giving a new version of the Law. It’s supposed to remind you of another great teacher who had done just that — Moses at Mt. Sinai.
That connection makes me think of the most common way people misconstrue these teachings: People see the Sermon on the Mount as a list of tasks that you have to work through to earn God’s favor and salvation. They think you have to do these things in order to be blessed by God.
This is the most common way people misunderstand the original Ten Commandments, too: “Do this” or “Don’t do that,” and you’ll live.
But in Exodus, Moses gave the Law after salvation. God had already delivered the Israelites out of slavery from the Egyptians through the Red Sea. These 10 commandments were not ways they should live in order to be saved, but ways they should live because they had been saved. Throughout the commandments, God kept saying, “I am the God who delivered you from Egypt … therefore you shall have no other gods, you shall not kill, steal, lie, etc.”
In the same way, these are the eight things we do because we have been saved.
Because Jesus saved us, we can be poor in spirit because we know he promises to be our sufficiency in all things, from righteousness before God to the ability to be a good parent.
Because Jesus saved us, we can enter into others’ pain and mourn without fear because that’s what he did for us.
Because Jesus saved us, we can be meek and not try to always be first because God has promised to exalt us like Jesus when we serve like he did.
Because Jesus saved us, we can hunger and thirst for righteousness because God’s righteousness is no longer a threat to us. The God of perfect righteousness is our loving Father who sacrificed himself to save us.
Because Jesus saved us, we can’t help but be merciful to others the way he was to us.
Because Jesus saved us, we want to be pure in heart so we can know him more, and his blood gives us the ability to do that.
Because Jesus saved us, we can prioritize peace instead of vindication because that’s what he did and, one day, God will vindicate us like he did Jesus.
Because Jesus saved us, we can endure persecution because Jesus’ Resurrection shows us it is worth it.
Our lawgiver was not a taskmaster who simply gave the law and threatened punishments if we disobeyed. Our lawgiver was a Savior who not only issued the law but also offered himself as a substitute sacrifice for those ways in which we had broken it.
Jesus didn’t just ascend the mountain just to give a new law. He ascended the cross to die in our place for breaking it.
If we look at these eight things from the Sermon on the Mount as a checklist we accomplish to earn heaven, then it will lead us to despair. We can never do them well enough to earn God’s favor. But that is not what they are there for.
These eight things are not rungs on a ladder you climb to get to God. They are a grateful response to Jesus coming down that ladder to save you, taking your place on the cross.
Only in response to this grace and being in right relationship with God can we learn how to live like Jesus — and, in doing so, find what it means to really be happy.
For more, be sure to listen to the entire message here.
