Our Founding Values: The Pursuit of Happiness

John 15:9-11, Matthew 28:1-8

"What does the Lord require of you but to do justice and to love kindness and to walk humbly with your God?" - Micah 6:8b

“So I commend the enjoyment of life, because there is nothing better for a person under the sun than to eat, drink, and be glad.” - Ecclesiastes 8:15

Despite dealing with a tremendous number of weighty topics—such as sin, war, greed, and more—the Bible surprisingly has a great deal to say about a life of happiness. There are stories of grand feasts in heaven, and the table will be overflowing with incredible foods. But even more, the beauty of creation, the thrill of physical attraction, even the labor of our hands—all are gifts God gave for our joy.

It is the life we were meant for. Perhaps my favorite single notion in all of literature outside of the Bible comes from the Westminster Catechism, and it’s the very first question: “What is the chief end of humankind?” And the answer: “To glorify God and enjoy God forever!”

Even the simple pleasures, as Ecclesiastes points out—eating and drinking—are highly commended by God and lived out by Jesus Himself!

Jesus’ reputation for being overly serious is not well founded. We only have accounts of the last few years of his life. Due to the profoundly important and compacted mission he had, naturally a great deal of it was very difficult. And yet, the Bible uses precious ink to tell us something important about Him.

Unlike John the Baptist, who deprived himself of earthly pleasures, Jesus is accused of being a drunkard and a glutton! Clearly, He enjoyed eating and drinking with strangers and friends alike.

So first, we can see that God wants us to be happy. God wants us to enjoy the physical world we have been placed in. And for this, we can be truly thankful.

But of course, things are not quite so simple.

It was not an infrequent occurrence that on Saturday nights in high school, when my mom made me be in by 9:00 p.m. while all my friends were out having a night on the town, my brother Matthew and I would have great fun eating—between the two of us—a one-pound bag of Doritos, a pound of Reese’s Cups, a 12-pack of Coca-Cola, and half a dozen donuts, all while watching Fantasy Island and The Love Boat.

As you can tell, we were the cool people.

Inevitably, after such a Saturday night, my mom would wake us up at something like 6:30 a.m. on Sunday to get us ready for church, and we were moaning and groaning—sick as dogs. I guess it’s true; you can’t have too much of a good thing!

This is the pitfall of the prodigal son that Jesus talked about. He took his father’s inheritance and squandered it in endless pleasure. For him, it was the goal of life… but then he found himself so destitute that he was hungry enough to eat the food given to pigs.

In some ways, perhaps our society has gotten lost like the prodigal son, but we’re not only chasing physical pleasure—we’re chasing everything in a desperate attempt to fill an emptiness. And because of this, we are missing the purpose of this life. We are distracted by social media, beset by the news, brought low by cynicism, and so we have become willing to settle.

We try to eke out moments of happiness here and happiness there, but have lost the grander view. We are meant for something more than fleeting moments of pleasure.

For the past several weeks, we have been looking at the founding values of our country. Two weeks ago, we looked at the God-given rights of life and liberty. And so this week, we are going to dive deeper into our country’s founding value, the pursuit of happiness—and we shall quickly see it was never about chasing pleasure.

Thomas Jefferson wrote these words, borrowing much from the philosopher John Locke. Locke spoke about life, liberty, and property. But Jefferson replaced property with the pursuit of happiness—immediately recognizing that life has a grander purpose than the accumulation of things.

What Jefferson meant by happiness is grounded in Enlightenment philosophy. Rather than mere pleasure, Jeffrey Rosen, author of The Pursuit of Happiness, wrote, “The Founders understood happiness not as pleasure, but as virtue,” and “happiness meant being good, not feeling good.” Furthermore, because we could easily be swayed by momentary passions, self-control was essential to happiness. Here the founders relied on ancient Greek philosophers such as Epictetus, who wrote, “No one is free who is not master of himself.”

This is where Christianity diverges from the founders. As Martin Luther so powerfully wrote in that thunderingly good hymn, A Mighty Fortress Is Our God: “For still our ancient foe does seek to work us woe; his craft and power are great, and armed with cruel hate, on earth is not his equal.”

In other words, the Enlightenment notion of self-mastery is a myth. Our own strength is not enough. Furthermore, happiness through political freedom only gets us so far when we are still left with the weakness of the human condition—as Jesus’ followers discovered.

They were understandably looking for earthly happiness—through political freedom, physical healing, and an abundance of food. Who isn’t? But these are fleeting and temporal. They are subject to famine, to the next illness, and to the next totalitarian regime. Most of history’s acts of political freedom quickly turned around and became their own acts of terror.

So we cannot rely on society to bring us happiness, nor can we rely on ourselves.

But there is good news. Again, from Martin Luther: “Did we in our own strength confide, our striving would be losing.” There is another source of strength!

Scottish common-sense philosopher Francis Hutcheson, who heavily influenced not only the founders of Presbyterianism in this country but our Founding Fathers, wrote:“…there can be no other stable foundation of tranquility and joy than a constant trust in the goodness, wisdom, and power of God.”

Listen to what trust in God offers us:

The angels tell us: “I bring you good news of a great joy… for all people.” (Luke 2:10)

Paul reveals: “The fruit of the Spirit is (among other things) … joy!”

And two from Jesus himself: “I have said these things… so your joy may be complete.”and “I have come that you might have life, and have it abundantly.” (John 10:10)

Jesus offers something much grander than the pursuit of happiness could ever give us: abundant life!

On that Resurrection morning, when the women came to the empty tomb and encountered the risen Christ, they suddenly knew everything that Jesus said was true. True life was here. And “abundant” did not mean a little bit extra, something a little bit better; the word that Jesus used meant overflowing, excessive, extreme. An incredible, unbelievable destiny is what is meant for us.

The women at that empty tomb realized that he was giving them more than they could even conceive of hoping for—a life, a joy, that cannot be erased by politics; a happiness that cannot be dimmed by hunger; and a peace that not even death can destroy.

And so they ran. I imagine they ran as fast as they could. The Bible tells us: “They left the tomb quickly with fear and great joy and ran to tell his disciples.”

I imagine they ran with the giddiness of children. When was the last time you ran with great joy? It is the thrill of knowing the deepest truth that Archbishop Desmond Tutu told us so well: “Goodness is stronger than evil, and victory is ours through him who loved us!!!!!”

Speaking of victory, I want to share with you a story that tells us how to run with great joy—so that the truth that the world is a beautiful place, that people are really loving on the inside, and that sometimes we run to win and other times we run for something much deeper.

In 1976 at the Seattle Special Olympics, nine contestants, all physically or mentally disabled, assembled at the starting line for the 100-yard dash. At the gun, they all started out—not exactly in a dash, but with a relish to run the race to the finish and win. All that is except one boy who stumbled on the asphalt tumbled over a couple of times and began to cry. The other eight heard the boy cry. They slowed down and looked back. They all turned and went back. Every one of them. One girl with down’s syndrome bent down and kissed him and said, ‘This will make it better.’ All nine linked arms and walked across the finish line- together. Everyone in the stadium stood and the cheering went on for several minutes.

The pursuit of happiness is a great gift we have in this land. But even it cannot compare to the abundant life that Jesus intends for us all. Amen.