You Call This Happy? | What Makes Us Happy

Welcome today to Trinity Sermons. We are so happy that you've decided to join us for

our sermon here at Trinity Church, Streetsville. Our reading for today is from Matthew chapter

Matthew 5:1–12

5 verses 1 to 12, and we are now on our final sermon of the series that we've been calling,

What Makes Us Happy? Today for our sermon, we are pleased to have Michael Messenger,

President of World Vision Canada, with us to explore poverty and how this relates to

happiness. We hope you enjoy the sermon today, and God bless.

Good morning. A reading from the Gospel of Matthew chapter 5 verse 1 to 12. Now when

Matthew 5:1–12

Jesus saw the crowds, He went up on a mountainside and sat down. His disciples came to Him, and

He began to teach them. He said, Happy are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom

of heaven. Happy are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. Happy are the meek,

for they will inherit the earth. Happy are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,

for they will be filled. Happy are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy. Happy are the

pure in heart, for they will see God. Happy are the peacemakers, for they will be called

children of God. Happy are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the

kingdom of heaven. Happy are you when people insult you, persecute you, and falsely say

all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your

reward in heaven, for in the same way they prosecuted the prophets who were before you.

This is the word of the Lord. Good morning, Trinity. It's great to be with

you. Today is the last sermon of this amazing preaching series that Rob has been leading

us through since September. I know it says October 29th, but actually today is the last

day. I need to tell you, there is a lot of pressure to see if a series all about being

happy actually has a happy ending. So the question is going to be, will you feel like

it's a happily ever after moment at the end of today? Well, frankly, that may be a bit

tricky when we look at the unusual ingredients for the recipe of happiness that Jesus sets

out, Jesus shared, and what that means for each of us as citizens of this upside down

kingdom. But before we get started, I wonder if you remember the TV series from the mid-2000s

called Mythbusters. It was definitely a favourite of my kids. In fact, at the height of its

popularity, the hosts, Jamie and Adam, you see on the screen there, actually did a live

show in Toronto at the Sony Centre. We took the kids down and we had a chance to experience

that. The idea of the show was simple. The host and their team would look at various

urban legends or common myths to figure out if they are true or not. You know, critically

important topics like is it actually easy to shoot fish in a barrel? It's not, by the

way. Are yawns contagious? They are. You get the idea. I want to share a statement that

I hear all the time and we can decide maybe if it's confirmed or busted as they would

do in the show. You may know that I lead World Vision Canada and I travel around the world

to some pretty tough places. And one of the statements that I hear all the time is something

like this, despite their lack of things, poor people just seem so happy. So we want to give

the Mythbusters treatment to this potential myth today. The poor are happier than the

wealthy. Is that true? This is a common perspective, by the way, shared by some really thoughtful,

smart people, including people from this very platform. Take a look.

Or let's go a little further. Some of you like me, you've been to maybe a developing

country and you've been to those countries and you see people who do not have enough

what. They need more stuff. They need more resources. They need more education. They

need more support. And that's all true. But when you come back, one of the things you're

often struck with is, man, they still seemed happy.

Rob, the internet is forever, my friend. But the question is, you know, in the work that

I do and going around the world and I see the work, I look at places and in a little

while I'll show a video from my time in northern Ethiopia. In those places, children and families

are suffering. They're suffering from lack of food, lack of clean water. They're in conflict.

They're in shelter. None of those things are an ingredient for happiness. So I would say,

actually, as a starting point that from my perspective, this myth is, as the show would

say, busted. But what's really fascinating is that even in these tough places where poverty

is the theme, we actually do see glimpses of happiness. We're going to explore what

does that look like? Is it about an attitude? Is it something behind the scenes? What we

can say is the poor are not happy because they are poor. There's something more to it.

Well this morning, we're going to talk about poverty and its link to happiness using Jesus's

own words in the amazing piece of scripture that Annie read for us. We may have to do

a little myth busting along the way. But here's today's big idea. When we embrace our spiritual

poverty, that's when we are at the starting line of a journey of experiencing the true

happiness that comes from Jesus. And then as citizens of God's upside down kingdom,

we get to follow our King to share his peace, his love, his justice, his hope. And that

includes tackling all kinds of poverty that others may face. Well the scripture we read

this morning from Matthew is the beginning of what we can think of as maybe the most

important sermon ever preached. This is at the beginning of Jesus' ministry. You can

read the whole thing in Matthew chapter 5, 6, and 7. It's sometimes called the Sermon

Matthew 5 · chapter mention

on the Mount because Jesus preached it on a hillside near the Lake of Galilee. Now the

sermon starts where we picked it up this morning where Jesus has settled in, he sat down to

teach and he begins with a beautiful section that I would say is half poetry and half manifesto.

Jesus starts with eight phrases that point to the character and circumstances of Jesus

and his followers. And I'm going to just read a portion of those again. They're on the screen

here. Happy are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Happy are those

who mourn for they will be comforted. Happy are the meek for they will inherit the earth.

Happy are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness for they'll be filled. Happy

are the merciful for they will be shown mercy. Happy are the poor pure in heart for they

will see God. Happy are the peacemakers for they'll be called the children of God. Happy

are those who are persecuted because of their righteousness for theirs is the kingdom of

heaven. I recently had the opportunity to consider these a bit more and you know what

these are familiar words for those of us who have been around the church for a long time.

You may be more familiar with these same words but instead of happy are you might think of

blessed are you familiar with that? And sometimes actually this section of the Sermon on the

Mount is called the Beatitudes which really just means the blessed. So but actually the

Greek and most versions of the gospel can also be translated as happy. Now when we're

talking about happy in this context just to kind of set the stage for us Jesus isn't just

reflecting how we should be feeling in a particular moment. Blessed or happy it's meant to capture

a description of the highest type of well-being that a human can experience in relationship

with God. We are indeed happy when we enjoy God's approval and the fullness of life that

can flow from him. In fact frankly happy or blessed may be even too small a word here.

These short statements altogether point to what Jesus is saying will make us happy but

the values that he lists are pretty countercultural. I want to show you a sign that I came across

a little while ago outside of a coffee shop. Recipe for happiness, smile sharing, a little

bit of positivity, good humor, self-esteem, simplicity, goodwill, easygoing and one packet

of life loving. Doesn't that sound delightful? But imagine if Jesus was the barista or the

owner of the coffee shop it looks like it may be something more like this. Recipe for

happiness, poverty, grief, hunger, thirst, persecution and a sprinkling of virtues that

may seem impossible to achieve. Let's not let our familiarity with these verses help

us you know make us lose sight of just how unusual this list is and imagine hearing these

for the first time. Jesus is not saying blessed are the powerful, the self-reliant, the strong,

the rich, the virtuous, the important. Rather they are statements right from God's mouth

about how he sees us hopeless, grieving, hungry, humble, thirsty and you might ask you call

this happy? But hang on because with this different approach these lines are actually

Jesus powerful recipe for a full and faithful Christian life in God's kingdom. Where are

we define reality in such a way that the world's usual order of things is turned completely

upside down. Now each one of these beatitudes or happy ingredients I might call them today

is worthy of a sermon but we're going to do a deep dive in the very first one in verse

three where it says blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

I want to start with this one because it is linked to this idea of poverty that we talked

about right from the outset. But this happy ingredient many scholars say is first for

a reason. These list these these virtues these this list in the beatitudes is put there in

order because if we can't find the happiness in the first one we can't just skip to the

next. Both the happy ingredient and its result the kingdom of heaven are needed for everything

else to flow. Well what is what is poor in spirit actually mean? Let's take a few minutes

and just unpack that a bit. The word in Greek for poor actually means being in the position

of a beggar. That's the language that's there. Beggars rely completely on someone else or

something else other than themselves. It's a pretty hopeless situation. In fact there

are some translations of the Bible that actually instead of saying poor in spirit translated

to hopeless. I can't think help but think that poor in spirit doesn't exactly play very

well in lots of our society's expectations right. Being in business or maybe on the sports

field or politics in setting like these coming across cross being needy or helpless or hopeless

dependent and desperate is about the last thing usually we want the world to see or

we want to be. But Jesus seems to be saying here that until we are the kingdom of heaven

isn't available to us. What should we take from this? Well first being poor in spirit

means that we have to understand and embrace the idea that there is nothing that we can

do to earn or learn our way into God's kingdom. Nothing that we can do. Jesus is driving home

a point here that is key to the gospel story for everyone. God's happiness is only available

to those of us who admit that we are dependent and desperate for God. Like a beggar we have

to be completely reliant on God to meet and fill all of our needs. And in this unexpected

contradiction happiness begins when we are honest about our condition, that condition,

that we're all spiritually poor. To be poor in spirit is to cry out to God for mercy and

being willing to say God I've got nothing. I've got nothing without you. On our own we

don't have enough faith. We don't have enough strength. We don't have enough understanding.

When we're poor in spirit we want to have hope but it seems like all we have is fear.

We want to do the right thing but we consistently fail. The poor in spirit are needy and they

know it. They need God. We need God. Second I think it is important for us to think about

the nature of what that poverty actually is. I mean when you think about poor in spirit

is this Jesus talking about how pious a person is? Or is it related to something like just

a person with no money? Scholars actually think it may be a little bit of both. In fact

in Luke chapter six there's a version of this same sermon that's retold by Luke and when

he gives this first one he kind of skips the whole in spirit part. He just says blessed

are the poor which is interesting. But what's true I would suggest is that God values the

poor and hopeless in all situations. I do want to take a couple of minutes and explore

this because this may be a twist. It's certainly something that was new to me as I went through

this. In some ways it comes right back to the myth that we were exploring in the beginning.

There's hopeless or poverty in situations of inward spiritual poverty or outward material

poverty and of course if you look across the Bible in so many references you see that God

holds the poor, materially poor and spiritually poor close to his heart. He's present with

the hopeless. There's so many places. I mean one example Psalm 138 verse six. God is close

to the lowly or close to those who lack influence but he's far from the self-sufficient and

the proud. Professor Bryant Myers in his book Walking with the Poor makes some really important

observations about poverty. He starts by saying that poverty we should understand is complex.

It's multifaceted and there's nothing simple about it. And yet even though it is complex

there are two fundamental realities that I think are important for us. And remember this

is about poverty in all of its forms. First he says that the nature of poverty is fundamentally

relationship relational and it means the presence of broken relationships. We're poor when we

don't have relationships that work, relationships that are unjust, that don't last, that aren't

harmonious or enjoyable. Those could be relationships with each other, with God, with creation.

It's the lack of the true peace that God offers. What the Bible often talks about is shalom

which is not just the absence of conflict but the existence of right relationships.

I'm carrying lots here. But second, and this is important, so it's about broken relationships.

Professor Myers goes on to say that poverty needs to be understood as fundamentally spiritual.

So no matter what kind of poverty it's poverty of spirit. We can ask what causes the injustice

in our relationships, in our world. What divides us? Why do we abuse creation? What stands

between us and God? What leads to brokenness and hurt? What is it that works against true

peace? Each one of these questions has to be understood as spiritual questions. Now

why am I going down this path? Why is this important? Well I think it makes the link

between the idea of being poor in spirit to both those who are materially poor or materially

rich or non-poor. It immediately breaks down this idea of us and them or that there's just

spiritual poverty, materially poverty. Any place that poverty shows up there is spiritual

brokenness at its core. And it's key for us in our dependent posture to see this connection.

When we're spiritually impoverished not only does this lead to a need for us to rely on

God but also it makes a profound connection to everyone no matter their circumstance.

We all face the desperate need of hopeless poverty. We all need to let the good news

of Jesus help us find our way out of sin, deception and lies and point us to God. As

a pastor Brian Wilkinson has said, being poor in spirit means I don't simply come to the

end of my rope, I come to the end of myself. But here's the great news. When we recognize

that we're poor in spirit Jesus invites us down an unexpected path of happiness to experience

God's peace, joy, love, life and what Jesus calls the kingdom of heaven. And that takes

us to the second part of our verse. For theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Sometimes it says

the poor in spirit shall inherit the kingdom of heaven. What is this kingdom? Well we've

got to start of course with the clear fact that if there's a kingdom there's a king.

And our king is Jesus. Jesus is the one that we follow, that we worship, that we imitate,

we learn from. But his kingdom is not a political entity or a physical place. It's not limited

in time or space. Essentially we should think of the kingdom of heaven as a place wherever

God rules. Where God rules the kingdom of heaven is. Jesus himself often talked about

the kingdom of heaven. There are so many examples of where he tries to get around this idea

about using metaphors. Just a couple of examples. In Matthew he calls it a hidden treasure or

he uses the idea of a pearl of great price. Which highlights the idea that this kingdom

that he's talking about is priceless. It's something for which we should be willing to

give up everything including ourselves to be part to possess. And the kingdom of course

is both now and yet to come. As followers of Jesus we have the opportunity to enter

into the grace and abundance that the kingdom provides. We can experience God's transformative

power because of the victory over sin and death here today. But it's also a kingdom

that still looks toward the future. We're still living in a broken world. The events

of the past couple of weeks have certainly shown us that if we didn't need to be reminded.

So the ultimate realization of God's kingdom is still to come. So we know that the kingdom

is meant to be but here's the other element. When we recognize that we're poor in spirit

and we're dependent on God. We are offered to participate as citizens of that kingdom.

To be part of Jesus ongoing life and ministry here in this world. And we get to align ourselves

with the values perspectives and mission of our king. I pretty much carry my passport

with me all the time. I just never know exactly when I'm going to get have to get onto an

airplane. And this is a symbol of the fact that I am a citizen of it may not be a kingdom

but we certainly have a king. In fact it says the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Canada

requests in the name of his majesty the king all those who are they concern allow me safe

passage says in the beginning of this by carrying this it signals that I'm connected to something

here in Canada. It's laws its values things that we need to hold dear. There are rights

that go with this and also responsibilities. But as followers of Jesus then with citizen

ship in this kingdom our mission then is to think about what are God's values Jesus's

values. How do we advance this kingdom on earth reflecting those values of love and

grace and mercy especially in a broken world. I mean Jesus told us to do this. We'll be

having this prayer in just a few minutes the key moments says your kingdom come your will

be done on earth as it is in heaven. But we are more than just merely citizens I want

to suggest as well. We enjoy the benefits of citizenship but we also get to be ambassadors

for that kingdom. We should maybe be carrying one of those red diplomatic passports really

when we think about the kingdom. Because as his ambassadors God invites us he wants us

to bring hope and happiness to others. So how do we do that work. Well we've as we've

explored a little bit today it starts by understanding our own poverty busting down some of those

myths of the difference between material or spiritual poverty recognizing that no matter

our circumstances only God can meet our needs. Through Jesus in the spirit our needs aren't

only only met but God actually gives us more than we need. He gives us abundance and overflow

and out of that overflow we're then given the opportunity to serve others and share

with others. A little bit later in the Sermon on the Mount Jesus goes on to talk about how

we should be salt and light in the world if we want to follow him influencing the world

for good spreading the message of God's love and salvation. And through our actions our

words our deeds we can help live out the values of God's kingdom on earth today and invite

others to experience God's amazing gift. And to care for others who are not just spiritually

poor but to care for those in line with the heart of the king that we serve including

those who lack justice lack the basis basic necessities of life they face material need

to help people who may be marginalized or broken hearted to share the fullness of the

good news of the gospel. My organization at World Vision is certainly fueled by the idea

of the kingdom of God. Our calling starts by trying to follow that be citizens and ambassadors

of that kingdom to help meet the needs specifically our slice of kingdom mission is to help meet

the needs of children and families and communities who are facing poverty and injustice around

the world. It's a calling that is grounded in our understanding that it's only through

Jesus that true healing and hope can ultimately be brought. And we're certainly grateful for

the ongoing partnership of Trinity and in Honduras with World Vision where you're walking

with us and with communities. I mentioned a couple of minutes ago I had the opportunity

to travel to one of the most challenging parts of the world which is northern Ethiopia Tigray.

If you want to look for a place in the world think of it as almost a cafeteria a buffet

of crisis conflict climate economic uncertainty terrible violence it's ongoing displacement

World Vision. It's only been since last November that there's been even any peace in this area

of the world allowing us to respond. I had a chance to record a short video for our team

at World Vision. We have a day of prayer every year recognizing that we have to be dependent

on God in our ministry. Our whole World Vision world stops and prays for a full day. The

theme this year was strength and courage in Christ. I had a chance to reflect on that

this was a message for our team but I think it's relevant to the conversation that we

have today. But what does it mean to reach out and seek happiness even in challenging

contexts. Let's take a look. I'm here in an internally displaced people's camp in Shire

in Tigray Ethiopia. 10,000 people live here they fled from conflict and violence. They've

been living here for as many as three years separate from their families their friends

their communities and education. But in the midst of all of this we're here in what is

an oasis of hope and encouragement and excitement because we're in a child-friendly space. This

is a place where children can come together to play to heal together. We've talked about

home we've drawn we've played it's been just really encouraging and we just hope that through

this moment where kids can escape the reality of the hardship of the day-to-day life living

in this camp away from their friends and family they can experience togetherness hope and

healing. This is a special place for little Hadesh. We met him and his family earlier

today nine of them living in a space about 10 feet by 10 feet here in this camp. I know

from talking to his family the horrendous violence that they've experienced and that

he has witnessed things that no child could see. And so to see him with a smile on his

face drawing expressing himself this is so encouraging. So we know that's the beginning

of the healing that's necessary and the hope that's going to cause the situation for him

to to be in a place where when peace comes he and his family can come back hopefully

resume their education resume their lives and he can live up to his full potential.

But we also met Hadesh's sister's baby daughter and one of the things that I think is so was

so meaningful for me this morning is her name in the local language translates to glimpse.

And I like to think that in this moment as these kids come together as we experience

the potential here that it's a glimpse of hope as we gather for our day of prayer of

course we want to remember what we're praying for. Our vision statement says our vision

for every child life in all its fullness our prayer for every heart the will to make it

so as I think about the every child there that includes these children in this child-friendly

space in an IDP camp in remote Ethiopia these children have experienced all of the things

that we talk about COVID climate of course conflict most recently the cost of food the

lack and scarcity of so much and so today we also think about those other three C's

that we want to ensure for these kids courage care and compassion. Let's pray that God will

intervene miraculously and bring peace to this region including every child here that

they may experience a life that is free of need but one that is full of promise. That's

our commitment that's our calling it's our staff here in World Vision Ethiopia in Africa

around the world and in Canada too. We pray that we will experience God's strength and

courage in Christ. A world that is free of need and full of promise that kind of describes

the kingdom of God and each one of us in this room has something deeply in common with those

families that we saw in the video in Ethiopia with Hadesh and little glimpse poverty we're

experiencing spiritual and material we are all desperate for God we're called to love

each other to help each other and to serve each other's needs. So even as we think about

whether we've busted their Mr. not myth or not I'm not sure we needed to think about

that because going back to our big idea the first steps in Jesus recipe for happiness

leads to amazing transformation in our own lives in the lives of others as we serve.

We need to be desperate for God to reverse our position our thinking of who we are knowing

that he loves us but that we are called to be totally dependent on him and then as part

of the kingdom as citizens and ambassadors we have a chance to help others to wrestle

with their own poverty of spirit and move to a place of joy. We don't do this alone.

Jesus is with us the author and finisher of our faith. I guess my challenge or question

or invitation to you today is are you ready to be ambassadors for this kingdom. Will you

join me in recognizing our poverty of spirit and invite God in to fill it. And will you

let Jesus work through you here together and on our own to help that kingdom come and transform

our world. As we close I've asked Libby to come up to lead us in a worship song during

which we can reflect on our dependence of God on God. I've talked about this upside

down kingdom and we're going to do the same in this song. This actually was approach was

first shared by the late Rick Tobias who was at the Yonge Street Mission in a challenging

talk some years ago. You're going to be familiar with the song that we sing it talks about

being thankful and showing gratitude to God but instead of the usual words we're going

to reverse them. Pay attention to the chorus where we are going together to put ourselves

even in worship in a posture of dependence on God letting go and inviting God into our

need. The words are going to say this let the rich say I am poor at the strong say I

am weak because those are the lyrics that are sung by people who are poor in spirit.

I wondered at the outset whether we'd actually have an happy ending to this sermon on happiness

and I'm not sure about that but my challenge is in our dependence on God let's see this

message maybe less of a happy ending and more of a happy beginning of something amazing

with Jesus and his kingdom. Thank you so much for joining us today and we hope that you

enjoyed what you heard today. If you enjoyed the message please take some time to rate

and review our podcast we would really appreciate it. Today's sermon was taken from the October

22nd 2023 service at Trinity Church Streetsville in Mississauga Ontario.