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Welcome to Trinity Sermons. Here at Trinity Church,

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Streetsville, we want to share with you biblically based messages that not only

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teach but also inspire you in your faith journey as we learn together to love

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Jesus, live like Jesus, and lead others to Jesus. We are thrilled to be starting a

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brand new sermon series today and we are so glad that you are joining us for it.

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This is episode one of our new series titled, What Makes You Happy? And Rob

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Hirkmans will be exploring the passage from Matthew 22 chapters 35 to 40 and

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specifically looking at what or more accurately who makes us happy. Now before

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we begin, we'd like to invite you to follow our podcast, check us out on

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social media, and visit our website at trinitiestreetsville.org. Thanks for

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listening and we hope you enjoy. God bless.

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Matthew chapter 22 verses 35 to 40. One of them, an expert in the law, tested him

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with this question, Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the law? Jesus

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replied, Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and

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with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is

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like it. Love your neighbor as yourself. All the law and the prophets hang on

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these two commandments. Well, as you've heard by now, we're starting a new

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teaching series and the teaching series is called What Makes Us Happy? That could

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be a question, that could be a statement, but let's imagine for a second, let's say

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that I'm a researcher and I want to get to the bottom of this question to figure

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out what makes us happy. How would I conduct my research? Well, I suppose one

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of the things I could do is I could just go around and I could start asking

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people what makes you happy. I could say what makes you happy? What makes you

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happy? What makes you happy? Because after all, who knows what makes us happy

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except us? Only I know what makes me happy. Only you know what makes you happy.

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And so I would do my research. I would collect everything that people said. I

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would file it. I would publish it. It would, you know, I'd do the talk show

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circuit. I'd become a famous researcher who determined what makes us happy. But

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what if I was wrong in the end? What if actually all my results were incorrect?

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What if all that stuff that people told me makes them happy actually didn't make

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them happy? And it wasn't that they were trying to lie to me. It was just they

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actually didn't know the answer for themselves. They thought they knew

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what made them happy and that's what they told me. They assumed they knew what

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made them happy and that's what they told me. But what if what they actually

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said didn't make them happy and actually doesn't make them happy? What if in fact

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people don't really know the answer to the question what makes us happy? Or as

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actually some real researchers who researched the topic of happiness put it,

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people are terrible at knowing what's good for them. Now you might be totally

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offended by that statement. How dare somebody say that I don't know what's

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good for me and I don't know what makes me happy. But it is kind of true because

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if you think about it, if we all want to be happy but many of us are not happy,

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then could it be that we actually don't know what it is that makes us happy? Now

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it's not your fault. It's not my fault when we're not happy because every time

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you open up a magazine, every time you turn on the television, every time you

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scroll through Instagram or you scroll through Facebook, there are people who

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you've never met, who live in cities that you probably never visited and they are

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creating commercials and they are creating advertisements and they are

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trying to tell you what makes you happy. Now it's important to know these people

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actually don't know what makes them happy any more than you know what makes

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you happy. They are just trying to sell something but the point is we fall for

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it again and again. We fall for it once, twice, and a hundred times. We find

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ourselves scrolling through our phone and scrolling it down our screens and

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watching the ads and and we start saying things like, well you know if only I had

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I'd be happy or if only I've done I'd be happy. If only I wore then I'd be happy.

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If only I drove then I'd be happy. If only I went, if only I had then maybe I

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would be happy and we spend a lot of time and we spend a lot of money trying

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to be happy and yet we still aren't happy sometimes. So maybe it's true, maybe

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we actually don't know the thing that makes us happy. To find out what really

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makes people happy you'd have to do a different kind of research project.

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You couldn't just go around and say hey what makes you happy what makes you

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happy because we know that you know people would tell us things and it

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wouldn't necessarily be true. But what you'd have to do is you would have to

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actually look at people's lives. You'd have to look at people's lives over a

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long long period of time and you'd have to actually observe their the times in

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their lives when they really experienced happiness. Imagine you could do a

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research project like that. Imagine you do a research project that didn't just

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last a day or a week but a project that lasted like 85 years long and imagine

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that you didn't just talk to one or two or three people imagine you talk to

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thousands and thousands of people about what made them happy and what if you

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observe these people and you didn't just observe teenagers you didn't observe

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young adults or adults or seniors but you you observe people from all ages of

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life and what if you observe people who were poor and people who were rich and

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people from all sorts of different ethnic backgrounds and what if you

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didn't just study them in the moment but there was a way in which you could

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study their lives as their lives unfolded over time. What if someone was

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actually able to do kind of research like that. Maybe then you'd actually start

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to learn what makes people happy. Well enter the world-famous Harvard study on

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happiness. It is the longest scientific study on happiness. It is 84 85 years and

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counting and for 85 years they have been tracking hundreds of individuals taking

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thousands of measurements asking thousands of questions and the current

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directors of the world-famous happiness study recently wrote a book called The

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Good Life and I had a chance to read this book while I was on vacation this

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summer and I was so excited I was like I cannot wait to see what they say is the

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thing that makes people happy and and of course I started reading and it was

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there right in the very first chapter and and when I got to it I was like well

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duh I mean of course I already knew that I know that's true I think we obviously

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obviously that's the thing that makes everybody happy I mean that's what they

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found they found that there is one factor that again and again with

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strength and consistency is constantly associated with happy people and when

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you hear what it is you're gonna say the exact same thing you're gonna say oh I'm

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not shocked because deep down we all knew this we all know this right the thing

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that makes us happy it's not career achievements not you know necessarily

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money or wealth or advancement or a healthy diet or any all those things

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help those things help they say but there's one thing most of all that

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really makes us happy and that is relationships relationships yes in fact

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let's take a quote from the book they said if we had to take all 84 years of

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the Harvard study and boil it down to a single principle for living it would be

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this good relationships keep us healthier and happier period that means

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if you were gonna make one choice for your life a single decision to best

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ensure your own health and happiness science tells us that the best thing you

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could do would be to cultivate warm relationships and it's not just a choice

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you would make just once it's a choice that you would make again and again each

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and every day and when we talk about the types of relationships that make people

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happy it's not just your closest loved ones or your family members or your

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friends but even our relationships with interactions with strangers actually

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make us happy but we often don't think it will let me tell you about one of the

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experiments that they they had in the book it was pretty fascinating they said

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imagine this imagine that you were sitting down on a train and on this

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train it is just filled with with strangers and you need to make a

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decision about what's gonna make this the happiest commute for you today you

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have two choices your one choice would be to keep to yourself and the other choice

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would be to spark up a conversation with one of these random strangers on the

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train now if I was to ask you that question just like the researchers asked

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a bunch of people this question nearly all of us would say oh my goodness I

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would just totally keep to myself or I've got some work to do I would rather

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listen to a podcast listen to some music besides if I spark up a conversation

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with a stranger they're probably gonna go on and on and tell me their whole

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life story and it's gonna become really really awkward and so that they predict

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it you predict I predict we all predict that what's gonna make us happier is if

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we keep to ourselves and we don't get into something with a stranger on a

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train well what they did is they actually did this study they took a

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bunch of commuters and they asked them to predict and they predicted the exact

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same things we predict that they would rather keep to themselves and start a

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conversation with a stranger and then they split the group into two and they

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told this group we want you to intentionally keep to yourself on this

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train trip and they told this group we want you to intentionally enter into

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conversation with a stranger on this train trip and when the results came

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back it was exactly the opposite of what everybody had predicted for

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themselves and about themselves people who had to get into a conversation with

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a stranger consistently rated the enjoyment and pleasure of their commute

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higher than usual even if they had work to do they found themselves to be you

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know still as productive as ever and they enjoyed the trip more why is that

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it's because relationships are the things that make us happy whether it's

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with loved ones or with complete strangers but often we don't know it and

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we don't act like it's true in other words happiness we're discovering is

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more about who than what which totally makes sense because if happiness was

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just about a what all you'd have to do is go out and get that what and you'd be

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happy if you had a miserable day at work and you came home from work you could

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just go pick up your what and hold on to it and you become happy again everybody

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would be happy if happiness was a what you could just pick it up but happiness

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is almost always a who and it is not a what I'm gonna give you some examples of

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how I kind of feel like this played out in my own life from time to time but I

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remember when I was in high school I don't think I think I'm remembering

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correctly but the thing that mattered most to me was the who's not the what's

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if I went to school and I could find a group of people that I felt like I

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connected with and I had a community and these were my people these were my who's

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that was more important than what I had or what I was wearing I needed to have

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those who's that was more important to me sometimes when we go to visit my

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parents they have this big wall full of photos my parents came from Holland they

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came from England to Canada and it was a hard hard life for them they eked out a

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living they didn't have much but I look at all these photos on the wall and

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they're all smiling and they're all happy and why is that it's because

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happiness is more about a who than it is a what or let's go a little further

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some of you like me you've been to maybe a developing country and you've been to

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those countries and you see people who do not have enough what they need more

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stuff they need more resources they need more education they need more support

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and and that's all true but when you come back one of the things you're often

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struck with is man they still seemed happy how could that be it's because

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even though they did not have very much what they still had lots of who and even

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though they needed more what and they need more what they had enough who and

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it's the who's that make us happy or here's another example have you ever

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noticed that when somebody in your family is sad you have a really hard

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time being happy yourself right I can't be happy if you're sad why is that

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because my happiness is related to the other who's in my life and if you're

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happy I can be happy but if you're sad I have a really hard time being sad

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because happiness has more to do with who's than what's or perhaps the best

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example maybe the one people always talk about is at the end of your life when

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you're lying on your deathbed the thing that you will want to see the most is

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not a thing it'll be a person it'll be a who not a what you will not say bring me

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my portfolio I want to see it one last time you will not say to the nurse would

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you please wheel me down to the parking lot it's out to my car I just want to

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spend a few more moments with my car that's not what you'll say you'll say

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can you bring me my kids bring me my grandkids bring me my my spouse bring me

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my parents whatever the case may be happiness is about who it's not about

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what and you'd have your own stories I think to verify that so you could answer

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the question what makes us happy by saying this nothing makes us happy and

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when I say nothing what I mean is no thing makes us happy no what makes us

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happy it's a who not a what in fact I want to suggest to you today that there's

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actually three who's three who's in particular that I find that happy people

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seem to be in really good relationships with these three who's again and again

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you come across happy people you say man they seem to have really good

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relationships with these three who's in their life what are these three who's

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here's the first one first of all happy people seem to to be really happy with

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themselves the first who is you they have a piece about who they are if you've

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ever met a happy person you'll have this sense that they know who they are and

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they're not trying to be someone else they're not pretending they're not

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projecting they're not promoting themselves they're just genuine they have

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a relation a right relationship with themselves you could say right and often

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in this word we're told you know go and be this person or go and act like that

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person and when we go and we try to act like something we're not it actually

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takes away our happiness creates turmoil within us but when you meet a happy

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person it's like they say hey I am happy to be me right I'm cool with who I am I

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am who I am and I'm okay with that they're in the right relationship with

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themselves right but there's a second who that happy people seem to have

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really good relationships with and that is with others happy people have good

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relationships with other people they don't seem to be angry they don't seem

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to be bitter all the time or ready to blow up even if they've been mistreated

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they still seem happy sometimes you hear their story and you'll be like I can't

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believe they did that to you I can't believe she said that to you you must be

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so furious you must be so bitter you must be so resentful but then these

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happy people say things like well you know what I just kind of moved on I just

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kind of forgave them you know I don't want to deal with all that you know and

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so I just moved on and that was that they're not consumed with with payback

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they're not consumed with revenge happy people say it's okay and we're like it

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is not okay that is not okay and they're like yeah you know it's okay it's okay

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I'm ready to move on they have good relationships they've reconciled their

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relationships with other people in their life so those are the first two's of the

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first two who's of happiness we have right relationships with ourselves and

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right relationships with other people but I would say that another thing you

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sometimes not always I was not say always but you when you encounter people

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who are happy oftentimes they also have another relationship that's in the right

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place and that's their relationship with God they just have this peace with God

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there's something about them they believe that there's more to this life

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than this life and they believe that God loves them and that God has a purpose

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for their life they believe that in the end somehow everything is going to work

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out and that belief enables them to go through life go through difficult stuff

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that would otherwise steal people's happiness but they're able to cruise on

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through because they have this right relationship with God and so here are

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the three who's of happiness our relationship with our relationship with

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others and our relationship with God are the three things that make us happy and

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anything that undermines these three relationships often steals our happiness

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away from us right in fact if you think back to an especially unhappy time in

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your life chances are it was because one of these relationships was undermined or

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broken or or fell apart whatever happened I'm not sure what it was maybe it

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was with God or with others or something that you just lost faith in yourself

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anyways it chipped away at your happiness because the relationship was

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broken so if I was to turn this into a bit of an equation you might call this

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the happiness equation you could you could put it this way you could say that

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happiness is the sum of right relationships with ourselves a right

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relationship with others and right relationship with God but I think

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actually this works better not so much as a sum but almost as a flowchart and

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that is to say this when we have a right relationship with God that actually

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leads us to have a renewed right relationship with ourselves and that

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makes it possible for us to actually have right relationships with other

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people when we get it right with God something happens inside of us changes

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us and then we're able to love people forgive people and get it right with

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others now I know if you go look in the Bible and you say oh Rob I don't see the

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happiness equation anywhere in the Bible what are you talking about of course you

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won't find it the happiness equations not in the Bible that's not what the

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Bible calls it that's not what Jesus calls it but it seems to me that this is

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exactly what Jesus was talking about today in our reading this morning Jesus

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is offering us this recipe this recipe for satisfaction and peace and happiness

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in our life and it has everything to do with these three who's I want to end by

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just taking you through that story one more time it all started when a lawyer

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asked Jesus hey Jesus you know what is the most important thing in life now

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what is the most important law in life what is the most important commandment

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in life it makes sense that lawyer is asking questions about commandments and

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laws it was kind of his job and and there are in the Old Testament something

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like 600 different laws so it's not necessarily the easiest question to

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answer and so he says teacher which of these commandments is the greatest

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commandment in the law and it's funny you might be saying like Rob I don't know

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where you're going with this but when I think of commandments and when I think

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of laws I think of things that keep me from happiness not not things that

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actually cause me happiness laws don't give happiness but but Jesus replied

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and he replied this way he said he said the greatest commandment is love and then

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let's just pause there for a moment probably at this point the lawyer was

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like no no Jesus you you probably didn't hear the question I was looking for a

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commandment and Jesus says yeah yeah so the greatest commandment is this love

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and he's like no no you see I'm looking for give me a couple thou shalt not or

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thou shalt I'm looking for like some rules like some do's and don'ts what's

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the greatest commandment Jesus like no I heard the question so here's the

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greatest command greatest command is to love and he's like I want a commandment

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this love that's a relationship word Jesus that's not a that's not a legal

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word that's not a commandment word but see Jesus knew that God's laws have

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everything to do with relationships and are given actually to make us happy

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especially this one Jesus goes on to say this is the greatest

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commandment love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul

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and with all your mind and love your neighbor as yourself now look at this

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just look there's the happiness equation that there are those three who's the

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three important relationships love God love others and love yourself the most

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important thing in life is to have a right relationship with God God loves

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you can you love God back the second thing is to love others to love your

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neighbor and the third thing is to actually to love yourself to live your

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neighbor as you love yourself my friends this could be this what we're looking at

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right now could be the only thing that we really need to learn in this life

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loving God loving others loving yourself this is the key to peace

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satisfaction and happiness in your life so if you were to say Jesus Jesus what's

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most important he'd say love God love others love yourself Jesus well how do I

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find the purpose of my life says love God love others love yourself Jesus you

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were to distill and summarize all the commandments in the whole Bible and all

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the old and new testament what would you boil it all down to love God love

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others and love yourself and then we would say but Jesus if I were to love

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God and to love others and love myself well then then I I'd be happy and Jesus

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would say you got it and and then we'd probably say but if that's the case

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Jesus then it really sounds like you want me to be happy and I think Jesus

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would say I do want you to be happy after all why Jesus come wasn't it to

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mend the broken relationships that exist between God others and within

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ourselves isn't that what the cross was about our sin our selfishness shattered

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and broke relationships all over the place but Jesus came to fix all that

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Paul puts it this way he says all this comes from God who fixed the relationship

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between us and him and then called us to fix our relationships with each other so

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just let me get this straight if happiness depends on right

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relationships with God and with others and with myself and if Jesus died to

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heal the relationships between God and others and myself then Jesus must really

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want me to be satisfied and happy in this life which for some of you is a bit

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of a revolutionary idea because you have always assumed that actually God was in

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the way of your happiness some of you left church for this reason you went to

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church and you found church to be such a dry and dull and boring place and it was

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so cold it was so lifeless and the people did not seem happy and and so you

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almost had felt like you had to make a decision either I follow all this these

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religious rules and rituals or I am gonna be a happy person but but the both

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can't exist at the same time and you had to make a choice you thought God was

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against happiness and so you you chose of course happiness over God you chose

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happiness over over church like all of us would do because who wants to be

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unhappy of course you left of course you left but what we've learned today

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actually is God is not in the way of our happiness God is actually providing a

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way for our happiness Jesus death restores our relationship with God and

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then transforms our relationship with ourself and then enables us to live in

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right relationships with other people and those are the very three things we

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need to be happy so I'm going to end there this morning and I think that

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leaves us with a lot to think about as we you know continue next week let me

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just say I think there's four four things here today there's some surprising

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news there's some good news or some bad news and there's some great news

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surprising news we learned was this we don't always know how to be happy it's

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it's strange but we spend time and money on things that we think will make us

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happy but they don't but the good news is there is a way to be happy our

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happiness comes from the who's in our lives not the what's in our lives and so

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we can be happy especially if we pursue great relationships with ourselves and

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with others and with God but here's the bad news relationships are hard and

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often they break down over time our relationships with others our

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relationship with God and if they're broken then how can we be happy and then

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the great news Jesus came to heal all those broken relationships with God with

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ourselves and with others which means that if you want to be happy and we all

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do Jesus knows the way and he can lead us in that way because he made the way

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so I hope you come back next week as we continue this series I think you'll be

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happy if you do but for now

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thank you so much for joining us today and we hope that you found the sermon

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positive and inspiring and come back next week for our next sermon take care

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today's sermon was taken from the September 17th 2023 service at Trinity

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Church streetsville in Mississauga Ontario