We all want to be happy, but what if we’ve been chasing the wrong things to find happiness? Money, success, relationships, and accomplishments can be good things to enjoy, but they were never meant to give our lives meaning—only God can do that.
Notes 📓✏️:
Nobody wants to travel through life miserable.
Much of what we do is driven by the pursuit of happiness.
If I can get _________, then I’ll be happy.
Your circumstances influence your happiness, but they don’t completely determine it.
“I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances.”
Philippians 4:11
“I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty.”
“I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation.”
Happiness built on circumstances requires circumstances to cooperate.
HAPPINESS AND MEANING
THE MACRONUTRIENTS OF HAPPINESS:
- Enjoyment
- Satisfaction
- Meaning
“Meaning is the why of my life: The reason I am alive, and that for which I would give my life as well.”
Dr. Arthur Brooks
You cannot build a deeply happy life without know why you’re living it.
Biblical Meaning = knowing that your life comes from God, belongs to God, and has been given to you for His purposes.
“I’m going to try everything this world says make a person happy and see if any of it actually satisfies me.”
- You Can Have What You Think Makes You Happy And Still Not Be Happy.
- Happiness Is Not The Destination.
- Meaning Begins With The One Who Made You.
- God Doesn’t Tell Us To Chase Happiness, But To Be Rightly Planted.
“I said to myself, ‘Come now, I will test you with pleasure to find out what is good.'”
Ecclesiastes 2:1
“I denied myself nothing my eyes desired; I refused my heart no pleasure.”
“Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done and what I had toiled to achieve, everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind…”
Ecclesiastes 2:11
The problem is that we’re asking temporary things to do an eternal job.
Jesus never said: “Follow Me and every moment will make you happy.”
“For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for Me will find it.”
Matthew 16:25
The fullest life isn’t found by pursuing what makes you happy, but by pursuing what God says makes your life matter.
The pursuit of happiness says, “What can life give me?”
The pursuit of meaning asks, “What has my life been given for?”
Happiness is a byproduct of pursuing a relationship with God and His purpose (meaning).
Our culture tells us: “Look inside yourself and decide what your life means.”
“So God created mankind in His own image…”
Genesis 1:27
“For in Him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible… all things have been created through Him and for Him.”
Colossians 1:16
You don’t have to invent the meaning of your life. You get to discover it.
My life already matters because it belongs to God.
“Happy is the man who does not walk in the way sinful men tell him to, or stand in the path of sinners, or sit with those who laugh at the truth. But he finds joy in the Law of the Lord and thinks about His Law day and night. This man is like a tree planted by rivers of water which gives it’s fruit at the right time and its leaf never dries up. Whatever he does will work out well for him.”
Psalm 1:1-3
They were meant to be enjoyed but not define your life.
“Now all has been heard; here is the conclusion of the matter: Fear God and keep His commandments…”
Ecclesiastes 12:13
“I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.”
John 10:10
Jesus isn’t against happiness. He just know where you’ll actually find it.