How to Be Happy

Introduction

Edgar Allen Poe’s poem, The Raven, opens with a grieving man attempting to forget his grief.

Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December;

And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.

Eagerly I wished the morrow;—vainly I had sought to borrow

From my books surcease of sorrow—sorrow for the lost Lenore—

When he tries to forget the pain of his loss and numb it with books and with reason, a raven invades his life with the constant refrain “nevermore.” “Nevermore” is the constant reminder of grief. The way things were will never be that way again.

The same thing could be said of happiness in general. Happiness, according to our culture, involves our response to our world. That what goes on matches what we want. Happiness is woven in to the fabric of our society.

The Declaration of Independence says, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

Ever since the first major sorrow in my childhood, I gave my life to the pursuit of happiness. Everything in my adolescent life revolved around the fact that I wanted to be happy. I pursued it first by trying to achieve the impossible. But the raven rapped and tapped at my door, saying, “Nevermore.”

Then In turned to the pursuit of a life well lived. You see the ancient philosophers defined happiness in such terms: a life well lived. That is, they attempted to discern what reality was—what was really good—and conform their souls to it. This of course has its merit for it determines the difference between virtue and vice and earnestly seeks to conform the soul to virtue. This is what the soul wants, they would argue, and achieving that goal brings happiness. From the world’s perspective, happiness is making what goes on match what we want.

And I wanted to be perfect in my character, in my ability, and in my religion. But there’s always that one who is better. And there’s always that vice gnawing away at hopes and dreams. And there came the raven again sitting on my bust of Plato and Aristotle with its shriek, “Nevermore.”

And so I turned to fantasy. If I could not make my reality make me happy, at least my make-believe world could. I would grow engrossed in TV shows and video games. I had exhilaration in being able to do things beyond reality, but there it came again, that all happiness I felt was just as fake as the fantasy from which it comes. And so that raven flew out of my chest back into reality with its familiar cry, “Nevermore.”

And at this point in my life there is a pause because I let the raven pick and peck, and scratch with is claws. I grabbed a knife to end it all, but God intervened before my fall.

I turned my pursuit of happiness into uplifting a lost cause. And that cause for me was the religion of Christianity. I had been in a boring and bleak church all my life and I knew the one solution: to bring people on God’s side again I’d just have to offer a slight substitution. “Christianity’s cool!” was my message a large, I went around telling all sorts of people this charge. But soon and very quick I was met with failure and severe regret. No one in their lost mind would think Christianity is cool, and for me to convince them, I was a fool. Then I looked upon the steeple and a raven sat high above the people. It’s cry was the same, as it always had came, “Nevermore”

The pursuit of happiness is the largest golden calf America has built. I have spent the majority of my life worshipping at this false altar. In fact, so much of who I am, what I do, how I interact, what I believe, is shaped by the pursuit of happiness. Without even realizing it, I had let this idol reshape my very core.

And this idol has shaped so much of Christian preaching and teaching, especially here in the states. “If you add Jesus to your already happy life, it will make you even happier.” Consider this for a moment. If we define happiness as making what goes on match what we want; and then we use God to achieve happiness; then God ceases to be God and instead becomes a supernatural way to achieve our selfish goals. So, who then is God if we treat God this way? The pursuit of happiness.

We live in a society where more things now than ever before are designed to make us happy. And yet we have more depressed people today than ever before! You see this is how the idol of the pursuit of happiness works! He dangles one carrot in front of you and once you grab a hold of it, it ends up being no carrot at all and so you move on to the next one, and the next one.

Depression in the United States…

Affects over 18 million adults (one in ten) in any given year. ItIs the leading cause of disability for ages 15-44. It is the primary reason why someone dies of suicide about every 12 minutes. – over 41,000 people a year.

What’s crazy is that how fast our society is moving, the carrots aren’t even working anymore! You know the entertainment industry is dying a slow death, because people now would rather be “distracted” than “entertained.” Why is this? Perhaps because the raven has pecked away at every sensibility that people realize they can no longer attain the happiness they pursue and instead are resolved to distract themselves from the incessant reminder that this life is under a curse.

Media platforms are designed to give us dopamine hits to keep us involved in their platforms and keep us distracted. Think about how “YouTube shorts” is a thing now. People can sit and watch these short videos for hours, getting dopamine hit after hit and be distracted from the raven’s cry. But if you will not hear the raven, let me speak in his stead, “Nevermore!”

The evils that beset our path Who can prevent or cure? We stand upon the brink of death When most we seem secure. If we today sweet peace possess, It soon may be withdrawn; Some change may plunge us in distress, Before tomorrow's dawn. Disease and pain invade our health And find an easy prey; And oft, when least expected, wealth Takes wings and flies away. A fever or a blow can shake Our wisdom's boasted rule; And of the brightest genius make A madman or a fool. The gourds, from which we look for fruit, Produce us only pain; A worm unseen attacks the root, And all our hopes are vain. I pity those who seek no more Than such a world can give; Wretched they are, and blind, and poor, And dying while they live. Since sin has filled the earth with woe, And creatures fade and die; Lord wean our hearts from things below, And fix our hopes on high.- John Newton

You see Jesus teaches on happiness, and what he teaches turns happiness upside down. Happiness is not our attitude towards life, but rather, it is God’s attitude towards us. Jesus teaches us that happiness as the world defines it, is not a goal worth pursuing. You see “That what goes on matches what we want” fails to see we are under a curse.

Happiness in the Christian life Jesus calls “Blessed” And this blessing is a state of being given what Christ has done for us. This does not mean we give up on emotions and become stoic. But this does mean that our center of happiness is no longer tied to our circumstances, but it is now tied to our state of being blessed.

Our circumstances change like the tides of the seas, ever waxing and waning, but we stand on the rock who is Christ. The storm comes and we weather it because our house is on the rock. Happiness is not something we pursue, it is what Christ has pursued for us! It is what he lived his righteous life for. It was in the pursuit of our happiness—our blessed state no longer under the curse—that Christ endured the cross. Hebrews 12:2 “looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.”

You see, it is the raven that reminds of our curse. But in Christ’s resurrection, he trampled that raven. And with Christ we can tread the ravens and proclaim, “Nevermore” Nevermore will there be sorrow and death. Nevermore are we under a curse. Nevermore!

And I know this is a lengthy introduction, and we will not have time to go through all the test in detail, but I say all this to introduce and define the word we find so often in the beatitudes, and that is the word “blessed.”

Look at Matthew chapter 5 and verse 1

Matthew 5:1–2 ESV

Seeing the crowds, he went up on the mountain, and when he sat down, his disciples came to him. And he opened his mouth and taught them, saying:

Matthew has already made a comparison of Moses and Jesus. We know when God gave Moses the law, he ascended to the top of Mt. Sinai. Here we see Jesus ascending to the top of a nondescript mountain superior to Sinai.

God promised to raise up another prophet like Moses in Dt. 18. Moses was known as a deliverer, a savior to the people of Israel, and we see Christ fulfilling a similar role, but on a much larger scale. Moses brought the people out of physical slavery. Jesus brought us out of spiritual and physical slavery. Our slavery to sin has physical affects which Christ delivers from both. And I don’t just mean illness and death, but also how we treat one another, as we will see so often in this great sermon.

Some things that were unique to Moses’s ministry were his direct relationship with God, his many miracles, and his defining of a life pleasing to God. And here we see the parallels to Jesus’s ministry. Jesus has a direct relationship to the Father and performed many miracles. Jesus also defines for us a life pleasing to God.

In the Old Covenant the law was written on stone. In the New Covenant, the law is written on the heart. As we dive into the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5-7) we will see the life pleasing to God in the New Covenant. The beatitudes in Matthew 5:3-13 are not an outward righteousness that we seek to conform to, but an inward righteousness that we are transformed by a work of God through his grace. This sermon is not a call to repentance, but a description of character and conduct of those in the kingdom.

And we see that at the end of verse 1 when it says, “his disciples came to him.” This indicates to us that the intended audience of this sermon was the disciples, the ones already committed to following Christ. The “Them” in verse two refers grammatically to the closest antecedent which is the disciples. The things in this sermon, especially what we will see in the beatitudes, are the evidence of the repentance and transformation that has taken place in a true believer’s life.

And this is important because some have characterized this sermon as an impossible standard that no one can achieve. Some have argued this sermon is for a kingdom dispensation and has no relevance for us today. Some have said its merely an explanation of the law. Others have said this is how every person on earth should interact morally and socially. But the audience is clear: the disciples of Christ.

And so this sermon is not to give us a list of commands. The sermon on the mount is more than what we should do—it’s who we are.

A Raven, which you know is black as coal, was envious of the Swan, because her feathers were as white as the purest snow. The foolish bird got the idea that if he lived like the Swan, swimming and diving all day long and eating the weeds and plants that grow in the water, his feathers would turn white like the Swan's.

So he left his home in the woods and fields and flew down to live on the lakes and in the marshes. But though he washed and washed all day long, almost drowning himself at it, his feathers remained as black as ever. And as the water weeds he ate did not agree with him, he got thinner and thinner, and at last he died.

The moral of this fable: A change of habits will not alter nature.

And how true that is for the Sermon on the Mount. This sermon is about a new nature, wrought in us by the work of the Holy Spirit. And unbeliever can read this sermon and attempt to follow all its precepts, but he will end up being like the raven of the fable. And soon that other raven we talked about will be rapping at his door.

So as we continue to walk through this sermon the next few weeks, the question you should ask is not “How can I apply all these laws to my life?” but, “Is there evidence in my soul that I have this new nature?”

If that new nature dwells there, seek to conform your soul to this sermon. But if not, repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. You will do no good to convince yourself and everyone around you that you’re a swan when your tormented by the cursed raven.

I want to take some time now and look at our first blessing.

Matthew 5:3 ESV

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

This verse begins the section known as the beatitudes. The word beatitude comes from Latin translation of the word Μακάριοι which means “blessed” or “happy.” We will continue to be careful in how we define this term as we did in the introduction.

Have you ever met someone when you ask, “How are you?” They reply, “I’m blessed”? Now, I don’t have an issue with this at all. I thank it’s a fine thing to do, because it is a statement of truth as long as we mean it how it is meant.

Remember that blessing is a state in which God shows us favor because we are not under the curse of sin. There are two states in which humanity can exist: blessing and curse. Sometimes what people mean when they say they are blessed is that “I’m doing fine, and I’m also holier than you.” And if that is the case we should refrain from using it. However, if we mean to say that “Whatever circumstances assail me, my anchor is not in them, but in Christ in whom I stand,” then it is a commendable thing to say.

And let me reiterate that the blessed life is not merely a life of an ascetic monk who puts away all worldly pleasure to purposefully punish himself in some earthly purgatory. Just because the Roman Catholic Church proclaimed someone a saint, does not make them blessed. Secondly, the blessed life is also not necessarily the person who has lots of material wealth. This is not the “sow our seed and God will ‘bless’ you” kind of place.

Do we really need to go back to the book of Job? Job had it all, lost it all, got it all back. Did Job ever lose his status of being “blessed” in the midst of all that? No. Because whether we lack the world’s goods or have them all; neither is an indication of God’s blessing.

Being in the state of God’s blessing is also not achieved by our own righteousness. So many times, the beatitudes are flipped on their head. We read “Blessed are the poor in Spirit” and so we then strive to be poor in spirit so that we can then be blessed. But this is backwards.

Again, being in the state of God’s blessing means that God looks favorably upon us because we are no longer under the curse of sin. How is that achieved? Nothing in what we have done. Rather, the state of blessing was achieved by Christ. He was the one who was not born under a curse (virgin birth), lived righteously (baptism), was not subjugated by the curse (temptation). He was the one who then took on the curse for us. Galatians 3:13 “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree”—” Then he was buried and raised from the dead. All who trust in him are in the state of blessing because of what he has done.

So when we read the beatitudes we should not thing, “Boy, I better do this so God will give me more money—or more of what I want.” This sort of thinking again makes God the means to get our happiness. This reads in the culture’s definition of happiness into the text. I grew up taking the “be” off of “beattitude” and thinking “These are the attitudes I must have for God to bless me.” And this thinking is a heresy of heresies— a works based religion bent on manipulating God to get what I selfishly want.

Rather, we should see that blessing is a state of being in God’s favor. And now, because we are in the state of being blessed, this is now our nature. These are indicators that we are in this state of blessing. And the first one of such is “poor in spirit.”

The idea of being poor in a physical sense is that not having anything on our own. Living in a state of dependence upon others. The picture is that of a beggar who is sitting in the streets. Today we have panhandlers. (Story of panhandler?) Panhandlers sit in the streets for a get-rich-quick scheme. That is not the beggar. The beggar sits in the street because there is no other option left to him. The beggar will take any resource you give, not just money, because he is destitute and at the end of his rope.

So that connection is now made to those who are poor, not with material wealth, but spiritually. This is someone, “who is keenly aware that he is spiritually destitute and must rely entirely on the grace of God for salvation”

Charles L. Quarles, Sermon on the Mount: Restoring Christ’s Message to the Modern Church (Nashville, TN: B&H Academic, 2011), 43.

And doesn’t this turn the false understanding of the beatitudes on its head—The idea that if I do this God will bless me? If I can achieve this great spiritual feat then God will give me what I want to make me happy.

Just think about that for a moment. How many people enter the doors of the church on Sunday because they believe that if they attend, God will look down favorably at them at give them what they want to be happy? How many people when tragedy strikes complain to God, “Why did you let this happen to me? I’ve read my Bible, I’ve given money, I’ve sung the songs, I’ve prayed the prayer, I’ve attended regularly, never missed a Sunday”

Me, me, me. Is that the attitude of a beggar or a panhandler? poor in spirit are those who stand “without pretense before God, stripped of all self-sufficiency, self-security, and self-righteousness

Charles L. Quarles, Sermon on the Mount: Restoring Christ’s Message to the Modern Church (Nashville, TN: B&H Academic, 2011), 43.

This person who complains is rich, wealthy in spirit and wants to cash in that wealth to convince God to give him exactly what he wants. And pretty soon the raven will be tapping at his window, reminding him of his curse. He can try to numb the curse away with a placebo or try to ignore it, but there is stands cawing away its cry, not blessed, but “Cursed!”

And don’t you see the opposites? Cursed are the rich in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of this world which is passing away.

But truly, friends, we have a savior who has provided all our spiritual needs when we could not work them out ourselves. Our spiritual need was caused by sin which ever besets us. And that sin lead to death. But Christ has victory over death. He has victory over the grave. And through him, and our beggar-like dependence on him we will attain to the kingdom of heaven.

Not the labors of my hands can fulfill thy law's demands; could my zeal no respite know, could my tears forever flow, all for sin could not atone; thou must save, and thou alone.

Nothing in my hand I bring, simply to the cross I cling; naked, come to thee for dress; helpless, look to thee for grace; foul, I to the fountain fly; wash me, Savior, or I die.

So tread the ravens and say to that curse, “Nevermore!”