Things Jesus Didn’t Say, week two: Do What Makes You Happy
John 13:34-35
“If You’re Happy and You Know It” - we all grew up singing it, but it begs an interesting question, do we know what makes us happy? Do we know when we are happy? Is happiness a final state of achievement or does it come and go? All of this from a childhood song.
Things Jesus Didn’t Say - Do What Makes You Happy
*chances are high that none of you actually thought Jesus said that, but somehow it became a very popular cultural mantra
Let’s debunk -
What makes us feel good now is an unreliable indicator of how it will make us feel later.
“Because predictions about the future are made in the present, they are inevitably influenced by the present. The way we feel right now (‘I’m so hungry’) and the way we think right now (‘The big speakers sound better than the little ones.’) exert an unusually strong influence on how we think we’ll feel later.” —(Daniel Gilbert, Harvard professor, Stumbling on Happiness)
-What makes you happy now is not the same as what may make you happy later; in fact, what makes you happy now may work in direct contradiction to what will make you happy later.
Logic fails, so why do we pass along this advice?
- knee jerk reaction to being controlled by someone else
- supports our immediate desires
- we have an unlimited bias toward hearing what supports our most immediate desire for comfort
- we mix up happiness with pleasure on one end, and joy on the other - pleasure is incredibly temporary and small. joy is that feeling of living into who we are and how we were actually made. joy is a gift of the Spirit that does not depend on our circumstances
Jesus did say -
- Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for a friend (John 15:13)
- Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you (Matthew 5:44)
- Act justly, love mercy, walk humbly with your God (not Jesus, but still) - (Micah 6:8)
And then there was this - after washing feet, after calling out the one who would betray him, and right before he predicts the denial of one of his closest friends…
“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. 35 By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” —John 13:34
a reminder of what love is:
4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
8 Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. 11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. 12 For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love. —1 Corinthians 13: 4-13
We only know in part. We reason like children who don’t yet know what’s best or what we really want. And so, we focus on loving one another because it is the greater thing.
Bob Goff - Love Does
*after he wrote it and it became a bestseller, he gave away all of the profits to help change the lives of children around the world, particularly in areas of conflict
Don’t do what makes you happy - that’s so very small. Do what love does - love will take us on the wildest adventure we could never have imagined.