A Secret to Happiness

A Secret to Happiness

Good morning everyone!

I hope these words find you safe and healthy and, above all, in awe of our Almighty God who will never leave us nor forsake us!!! 

I want to share with you today the secret to happiness! But before I tell you what the secret to happiness is, I want to tell you what it is not!

The secret to happiness is not wealth.

The secret to happiness is not health.

The secret to happiness is not family.

The secret to happiness is not success.

The secret to happiness is not knowledge. 

The secret to happiness is not safety. 

The secret to happiness is not perfection. 

Here’s what I want to say to you today, You can be happy in any situation if you are grateful.

Why is this? Because, in our gratitude, we forsake a sense of entitlement, we stop worrying about what we need or don’t have. In gratitude we find that we want for nothing because we are already overwhelmed with what we have! 

In 2 Corinthians Paul talks about gratitude in a unique way:

2 Corinthians 4:15, “For it is all for your sake, so that as grace extends to more and more people it may increase thanksgiving, to the glory of God.”

2 Corinthians 9:11-12, “You will be enriched in every way to be generous in every way, which through us will produce thanksgiving to God. ¹² For the ministry of this service is not only supplying the needs of the saints but is also overflowing in many thanksgivings to God.”

Paul seems to be saying, “The goal here is not necessarily to provide for needs as much as it is to produce thanksgiving to God!” We are called to be thankful to God and help others to be thankful to God! 

Why? Perhaps an example will help us understand. I have done a lot of funerals. And one of the things that is often said at funerals is something like “The world is a little bit darker without this person.” Or “there is a hole left where this person was”. While I certainly understand this sentiment I have, in recent years, changed that language. One of the things I often says is “The world is not darker because this person is gone, it is brighter because he or she was here.” “The world is not less full but fuller because of the life they lived.” In other words, lets be grateful! Do you see how it changes everything?

This past year Christian singer/song writer Toby Mac and his wife lost their 21 year old son. He wrote a moving song called “21 Years” about his son Jordan. The last few lines of which go like this: 

21 years makes a man full-grown
21 years, what a beautiful loan
21 years, I loved every one
Thank you, Lord, for my beautiful son

Do you see how gratitude can change even the darkest of moments?

Political commentator Dennis Prager writes

''There is a ‘secret’ to happiness, and it is gratitude. All happy people are grateful, and ungrateful people cannot be happy. We tend to think that it is being unhappy that leads people to complain, but it is truer to say that it is complaining that leads to people becoming unhappy. Become grateful and you will become a much happier person.''

So today my friends choose to be grateful! For your home, your family, your friends, the internet, that our church can still meet virtually and proclaim the Gospel. Be thankful that you have unprecedented access to the Word of God. 

But most importantly please, be grateful for the Gospel. If you can find a way to be constantly grateful for the Gospel of Jesus Christ it will change your life – worry and fear will disappear. 

God bless you and we’ll see you tomorrow!