Will Purpose Make Me Happy? Transcript

There's no denying that we live in a culture that glorifies happiness over anything else.

How we feel is what matters most. What makes us feel good, what makes us happy, is of most importance.

We see this in so many different ways. We get angry when anything would get in the way of our happiness or what we want. When we look out at people who do things that are appalling to us, we see that they are doing it because they want to. It makes them feel good. And it doesn't matter the impact. It doesn't matter the impact that it has on anyone else because they're after that feeling of instant gratification. These things can be as simple as when our family is at Hershey Park and we see a group of people cutting in line because it gets them to the ride faster, no matter what it does to anybody else behind them. Simple thing I know. It doesn't create a whole lot of problems, may make a few people angry, it really doesn't impact. It doesn't affect the world all that much, but it gets worse. Just this week, a number of students at Great Valley High School were in the news for creating TikTok accounts impersonating teachers and then posting homophobic remarks, sexual innuendo, and causing all sorts of problems. And the school district's trying to figure out what they can do, the teachers who have been negatively impacted, negatively impacted. or trying to figure out what is available to them. But for the students, it was a reflection of our culture saying, if it makes me happy, if it makes me laugh, if it entertains me, if it makes me happy, then it doesn't matter the lasting impact. It doesn't matter what happens next. It doesn't matter what it does to somebody else. Else, I'd argue that the same mentality is at what was at play in Pennsylvania with the assassination attempt on President Trump. If it makes me happy, if it accomplishes my goal, if it is ultimately good for me, then it doesn't matter the impact that it has. So we see this progression, this attitude of happiness first, of self-servingness first, above anything else. And we see it progress in different ways. The problem that we run into is that, yes, you probably aren't cutting in line. Yes, you're certainly not performing any assassination attempts. But this drive of happiness, this drive of as long as it makes me feel good is still present in the church today. Some preachers preach on it. It's called the prosperity gospel. That God's primary goal, God's primary function is to make us happy, to make our lives easier, to give us what we want, to give us what we think we need. And if we are faithful to God, if we give, if we serve, if we pray, if we go to church, then God will bless us with happiness.

But this is not biblical. This idea of, of happiness first does not come from scripture. And we have to wrestle with that. We've seen inklings of this in our world and in our culture. Some of you may remember Marie Kondo. believe I said her name correctly. What sparks joy. And in many ways, it wasn't necessarily joy that she was describing, because if you pick up an object that you have in your house and decide, does this make me happy? Does it evoke? Does it evoke an emotion in me that's worth keeping? And if not, throw it away. But at any given time, I can pick up anything in my house, and sometimes it evokes happiness, and sometimes it evokes dread, and sometimes it's the same object, depending on when I pick it up. The same thing can probably be said about me. I evoke joy sometimes. I evoke happiness and others. And probably there are still other times that I evoke dread. the nature of life. The question is about that happiness. Does it evoke that emotional response that makes us feel good? As we talk about fulfilling our purpose, if we don't disconnect this idea of happiness from this idea of lasting joy, we're going to be in trouble. Because our natural inclination is to do what makes us feel good. And that is not always the case. It's not always what God wants us to do. And we've got to be able to set that aside. We have to be able to make a distinction between what makes us happy, that emotional feeling, that emotional high, that thing that feels good, with something that creates lasting joy, that survives outside of the circumstances, that survives outside of the very thing that can drive us to the highest happiness and the lowest despair.

Emotions are fleeting. But joy and purpose and fulfillment will outlast life's circumstances. And this is what we need to connect with. This is where we need to go. We see in today's passage that Mary and Martha send a note, a message to Jesus that said, Your friend Lazarus is dying. Please come and heal him. was a statement of faith in there that they knew Jesus could do it. And if Jesus would come and heal him, then he would be okay.

Now if happiness, if people's happiness, if his own happiness was driving Jesus' purpose and mission, then he surely would have gone right away. Or as in other stories, he could say from a distance, Go home. Lazarus will be fine when you get there. As he healed the centurion. The centurion's daughter.

But Jesus' mission was more than just happiness. His own or others. There was something deeper that he was trying to create, trying to show. And he says this. He says it's a good thing that I wasn't there when he died because you're going to see something, you're going to experience something that shows the depths of not only God's power, but of God's love. so he tarries, he waits two days. The disciples ask him why he's waiting and they're confused by this because they see, they've seen the friendship and the relationship, the love between Jesus and Mary, Martha and Lazarus. We see it later when Jesus arrives at the tomb and he weeps over his death.

If Jesus was all about their happiness, that fleeting emotion, he surely could have kept that going by healing Lazarus or going right away. But his goal was to help the people in this story grow deeper in faith, have a deeper understanding of what he was there to do, have a deeper understanding of his love and his power what it means to trust in God.

Now in order to get there, he had to set aside happiness, his own and others. He had to set aside the good feelings that he would get by healing a beloved friend and all of the feelings that arise when everybody around them would be so happy that he had done it.

He had to temper his own, well, the expectations around him for the greater good. For a year, there was no joy that would last beyond life's circumstances. so, he waits. He talks to the disciples about going back to Jerusalem and the disciples, they still don't get it. And Thomas, beloved Thomas, let us go with him so that we might die as well. Jesus arrives and talks to Mary and Martha.

And he says, if you had been here, if you had come when we asked you to, if you had come when you were supposed to, brother would be alive. If you had done what we expected, if you had focused on our needs and what we wanted you to do, our would be alive.

Jesus knows Lazarus is dead. Jesus knows what he's about to do.

He weeps over the death of Lazarus.

He has told the disciples that Lazarus is dead.

He even says to Mary and Martha that he will be resurrected and they have faith in the resurrection that someday Lazarus will rise again. Jesus makes that bold proclamation. I am the resurrection. I am the life. He goes to Lazarus and he commands him to rise.

And I can fully believe that this evoked that feeling of happiness. The one that they thought had been dead, that had been in the tomb for four days, was now alive again. The joy, the laughter, the happiness, the exuberance.

Picture it in my mind.

But what Jesus gave them was more than just that happiness.

It was more than just any other death. That would outlast when Lazarus would die again whenever that would be. His joy and faith in God outlast any circumstance. we talk about our purpose, as we talk about living it out, living out our calling and who God has made us to be, both as individuals and as a church, we have to be like Jesus.

We have to live and operate our lives like Jesus. is really hard to do. We have to set aside those things that give us happiness that would make us feel good for just a little while. We have to set aside those things that make other people just fleetingly happy.

And find a way to faithfully live and serve in ways that isn't about what makes us feel good.

It's about what will create lasting joy and fulfillment.

That often means setting our desires aside, our wants, what we think should happen. And be willing to experience the greater good.

And experience a diminishing of ourselves so that others may experience more. Now our purpose as a church is to make Christ known. To proclaim the good news that healing is possible. That there is new life that is possible. That the way things are are not the way things always have to be. That if people are feeling lost in sin, lost in despair, feeling alone and lonely, feeling as if the world is working against them, feeling as if they are tossed by the waves, that there is a better way.

They're feeling that their mistakes are driving them, that they can't get away from them. To tell them that their sins do not define them. That they can break away from them through the power of the Holy Spirit and Jesus Christ in their life. And yes, there is a day when we will be reunited with our loved ones and we will be united with Christ in glory. But they don't have to wait to experience the joy that comes with that. They do not have to wait until death.

Here and now. But they may have to, they will have to, set aside their desires, set aside the things that make them happy at the cost of others. This is what it means to be patterned by faith and patterned by Christ. And our primary mission in this world as the church is to help people come to know who Christ is and how much they love Him. That they might experience it for themselves seek it out for others.

Where are you on that spectrum? Have you experienced Christ's love for yourself? Have you experienced that life changing transformation that can happen? Maybe you weren't as far gone as some of the stories that you've heard and so your transformation is not as strong. But surely some point in your life of faith is knowing Christ. have you gone the next step? Do you have within you a strong desire to make Christ known to others? take the experiences of joy and laughter and celebration and faithfulness that you've experienced and have carried you through difficult times and I know many of you have experienced some difficult times and take what Christ has done for you in those times and say I want this for other people. a church we need to figure out how to do that. Sunday morning is one option. The last few weeks we've been talking about messy church and reaching out to a new group of people through that experience. And I honestly believe the future of the church is not going to be centered around the Sunday morning gathering. It's going to be centered around worship in some form. honestly believe what we will see is a church united in mission but expressed through different communities in the same building. Sunday morning worship, messy church. Dinner church.

Maybe reaching out to small business owners in our community who are struggling in life and building community around those. Building community around the families that come to the nursery school so that we might help them live life in a new way if they're open to it. And in each of these communities there's a different purpose and a different hope and a different gathering and a different reason that they meet but united together for a desire to know Christ and make him known.

So my hope and desire is to see Sunday morning grow as we reach out to new people and neighbors to experience Christ in our midst. But also recognize that as we start new things, as we reach out to new groups and we may not see them on Sunday morning.

We may see them at a church picnic or another gathering of service know that we are united together. That we are one body with many parts.

So as we know Christ and make him known through outreach and through mission and service do so recognizing that it may not be what we want for ourselves and for our church we'll create something that lasts that's fulfilling and hope giving and in order to do that we all must work together we all must commit ourselves to that mission all going to have to place aside some of those things that we would like to see cling on to others for sure the God that has guided us trust in the God that saves us and unites us trust in the God that has been faithful to us as he has journeyed with us and yes we would have preferred him not to tarry as long as he has we certainly don't want to experience death as we wait even if that were the case our job is to be faithful we united together in that are we united together in that purpose are we united together in saying let's make this happen in whatever way that we can for the sake of not the people that are here but for the sake of the people in our community that are hurting that are lost and desperate who are open to experience and receiving the good news will we take it to them each week at the end of our service we pray send to us all the people who feel unwanted and unloved everywhere else and if they can't come to us send us to them if we want to be sent we want to be sent to the hurting and to the lost going to have to get out of our comfort zones may take away some feelings of comfort and happiness but in the end give a sense of lasting joy and fulfillment of purpose as we've talked about figuring out what our purpose is and living it out as individuals and as a church one thing that I hope that we have heard one thing that I hope that you take from this is not it's not about what we do it's not about figuring out that one thing that God wants us to do it's about figuring out and living our daily lives as God wants us to go about those lives living it with purpose of living Christ loving Christ and sharing Christ in all that he has done for us all that he will do for us from those moments on the cross to the resurrection the future coming in glory