Can’t Buy Happiness? | What Makes Us Happy

Hello and welcome to Trinity Sermons.

Here at Trinity Church, Streetsville, we want to share with you biblically based messages

that not only teach, but also inspire you in your faith journey as we learn together

to love Jesus, live like Jesus, and lead other people to Jesus.

Today we are continuing our sermon series, What Makes Us Happy, and Rob Hirkmans will

be exploring the age-old question about the connection between money and happiness.

And before we begin, we'd like to invite you to follow our podcast.

Check us out on social media and visit our website at trinitiestreetsville.org.

Thanks for listening and we hope you enjoy.

God bless.

Good morning Trinity.

Our reading this morning is from the book of Luke, chapter 16, beginning at the 10th

Luke 16 · chapter mention

verse.

Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with very much.

And whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much.

So if you have not been trustworthy in handling worldly wealth, who will trust you with true

riches?

And if you have not been trustworthy with someone else's property, who will give you

property of your own?

No one can serve two masters.

Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and

despise the other.

You cannot serve both God and money.

This is the word of the Lord.

Well good morning everyone.

And yes, it's true.

Today we are going to be talking a little bit about money.

I mean, we're doing this whole teaching series on what makes us happy.

And so you probably knew it was coming.

You knew there was going to be a sermon that had to do with money.

But I thought before we got into it, I would tell you, you know what really makes me happy

when I think about money and happiness?

And that is just how generous the people of Trinity's streetsville are.

I was thinking back to last Christmas when we did this big Christmas push, this big Christmas

appeal.

You guys raised like over $25,000 during that month to give away to people in need in our

community and in our world.

That makes me really, really happy.

And then in the spring when we partnered with World Vision to help kids down in Nueva Frontera,

in Honduras, again, something like 70 of you, 70 families here in Trinity stepped up and

became sponsors for these children.

That was a big financial commitment.

That just makes me happy.

Not to mention the way that you guys continue to support Trinity as a church week in and

week out.

I just want to say thank you.

Thank you for your generosity.

Thank you for the way you give.

That truly is something that makes me happy and should make us all happy, actually.

I want to say, though, that as now as we're going to talk, we're going to have a little

sermon about money.

And I felt like I should say, listen, I am not a financial whiz at all when it comes

to financial advice.

I need as much financial advice as anybody does.

And so I'm preaching to myself this morning.

OK?

I'm preaching to myself this morning.

You guys just kind of get to listen in to what I'm saying to myself.

And so please, I want you to know that just about everything I'm going to be sharing with

you today is stuff that I've read or listened to or learned or Googled over the past few

weeks in getting ready for this.

So I just want you to take everything I say with a grain of salt.

I'm definitely not the expert here.

But there are a few different possible sermons on money that you maybe have heard before.

There's of course this sermon, the one where it's how you can get more money.

If you were to pray more or give more or serve more or read your Bible more, God will give

you more money.

You probably heard that from a preacher on TV maybe late at night when nothing else was

on.

That is not what today's sermon is going to be about.

Or maybe you've heard this sermon.

It's not that God will give you more money, but how can we get your money?

We have a big building campaign.

We need a new boiler.

We need a new furnace.

We need a new roof.

We have a new vision and we're running a financial campaign.

We need your money.

I think there's a time and a place for a sermon like that, but that's not what today's sermon

is about.

Or you probably maybe have put it together in your head and now you're thinking, well,

I know what today is about.

Today, because we're talking about happiness, Rob is going to talk to us about is how money

can't buy happiness.

That would be a really good guess because lots of us have heard people say, especially

preachers say, money can't buy happiness or money is not the key to happiness.

And that's not the sermon we're going to be hearing today either.

Partly because I don't think any of us really believe that that's true.

I think deep down, whenever we hear a preacher say, money can't buy you happiness, we kind

of nod our heads, but on the inside we're like, I'm not so sure I believe that personally.

I'm not sure I believe that.

I found a quote online and it says, whoever said money can't buy happiness just did not

know where to go shopping.

So yeah, you could say, oh, money won't make me happy, Rob, or money can't buy me happiness,

Rob, but I'd really like to see for myself.

That's really a lesson that I would like to learn for myself.

Just try it out.

I'll learn the hard way, right?

Deep down, we all believe, I think, that there really is a connection between our money and

our happiness.

And so today I'm going to come at this different angle.

I'm not going to preach the money can't buy you happiness sermon.

Instead I'm going to show you or talk to you about the money can make you happy sermon

and that there actually is a connection between your money and your happiness.

But the thing we get wrong is what that connection is and how money and happiness are connected.

See, I think we assume that money and happiness are connected by this word.

The word is more, more.

If I had more money, I would be more happy.

More money equals more happiness.

If I'm honest, there's lots of times that's what I tell myself.

Maybe that's what you tell yourself too.

If I just had more, I would be happy.

So if that's true, if that's what we think, then I just want to give you a little quiz,

a little thought experiment here.

If it's true that more money makes us more happy, then my question for you is how much

more money would make you more happy?

How much?

Just I want to take 10 seconds, just to give it a little thought.

How much money would make you happier?

So now, I am going to actually, you don't need to tell me your answer, because I think

I've got the very same answer as you do.

Let me see what I put down here on Jeopardy.

Yes, oh, you know what?

I think we put down the same amount of money.

So here's the thing.

We all answer this question the same way.

Whether you have very little money or whether you have a lot of money or whether you're

somewhere in the middle and you look at the people that have a lot of money and you're

like, how on earth did they make so much money?

I think we all answer it the same.

And the answer is this.

I would be happy if I just had a little more than I have right now.

No matter who we are, no matter what our house looks like, no matter what our car looks like

or what we wear, we all feel like, and we'll probably for the rest of our lives feel like,

the answer to this question is the same.

How much more money do I need to be happy?

I just need more, more than I have right now.

Most of us think this way.

Most of us live this way.

But when you stop and think about it, this can't actually be true because we all know

people who have more money than us and they don't appear to be very happy.

And we also know people who have less money than us and they appear to be very happy.

In fact, sitting here today, there's probably someone who's making half as much money as

you make, and yet they're just as happy as you are and maybe they're even happier.

And same tune here.

Someone sitting here today who makes twice as much money as you do.

And you know what?

They're not as happy as you are.

So how can it be that some people who have less money have more happiness and some people

who have more money have less happiness?

And I think the answer is because we've got the connection between money and happiness

is wrong.

It is not true, primarily, that more money is going to make you happier.

That is not the connecting word.

But the experts tell us there's another connecting word.

And actually, even Jesus this morning is going to tell us there's another connecting word.

What is the relationship between our money and our happiness?

It's not that more money would make us happier.

But again, the experts tell us it's that managed money would make us happier.

The connection is about managing our money.

It's not that more money makes me happier, but managed money makes me happier.

Happiness isn't about how much money that you have, so much as it is about how you manage

the money that you do have.

And that I want to suggest to you actually determine your happiness more than the amount

of money that you actually have.

Now here's a big, big disclaimer.

This is I'm oversimplifying things.

Even if I stand up here and I'm talking to you, I know I'm oversimplifying this.

This is because there are some people who just don't have enough money.

And it doesn't matter how they manage it.

They still are having a hard time putting food on the table.

They're having a hard time buying medicine for their kids.

So I would say that, yeah, this is not true 100% of the time.

Poverty is a real thing, and it can actually make it really hard for us to be happy, even

when we manage our money really well.

The good news is that next week, Mike Messenger is going to be preaching.

And Mike is actually going to be talking about that connection between poverty and happiness.

So don't miss that.

But for today, for most of us here today, I want to suggest that our happiness, our

happiness depends less on the amount of money that we have and more on how we manage that

money.

So here's another question for you.

I want you to actually here's what I want you to do.

I'm going to ask you in a second to turn to someone beside you and have this little conversation.

Where did you learn to manage your money?

Was it a person?

Was it a book?

Was it a seminar you went to?

What did some good advice from a parent?

Where did you learn to manage your money?

And if you haven't learned to manage your money, you can say that too.

But take 10 seconds, turn to the person beside you.

Where did you learn to manage your money?

Well...

Okay.

Let's stop it there for a moment.

You know, this is one of those conversations that can totally keep on going.

And we actually, at the end of the service, I'm going to tell you how you can keep this

conversation going.

There are lots of ways you can learn to manage your money, lots of programs, lots of programs

out there.

I found a program that's quite helpful.

I thought I'd show you the commercial just to let you in on it.

Here it is.

Oh, I just can't get these numbers to add up.

Like we're never going to get out of this hole.

Credit card debt, does it ever end?

Maybe I can help.

We sure could use it.

We've tried debt consolidation companies.

We've even taken out loans to help make payments.

Well, you're not the only ones.

Did you know millions of Americans live with debt they cannot control?

That's why I developed this unique new program for managing your debt.

It's called Don't Buy Stuff You Cannot Afford.

Oh, let me see that.

If you don't have any money, you should not buy anything.

Hmm, sounds interesting.

Sounds confusing.

I don't know, honey.

This makes a lot of sense.

There's a whole section here on how to buy expensive things using money you save.

Give me that.

And where would you get this saved money?

I tell you where and how in chapter three.

OK, but what if I want something but I don't have any money?

You don't buy it.

Well, let's say I don't have enough money to buy something.

Should I buy it anyway?

No.

Now I'm really confused.

It's a little confusing at first.

Well, what if you have the money?

Can you buy something?

Yes.

Now take the money away.

Same story?

Nope.

You shouldn't buy stuff when you don't have the money.

I think I got it.

I buy something I want and then hope that I can pay for it, right?

No.

You make sure you have money, then you buy it.

Oh, then you buy it.

But shouldn't you buy it before you have the money?

No.

Why not?

It's in the book.

It's only one page long.

The advice is priceless and the book is free.

Wow, I like the sound of that.

Yeah, we can put it on our credit card.

So get out of debt now.

Write for your free copy of Don't Buy Stuff You Cannot Afford.

So I think what that video is trying to teach us is that there's two approaches to money

management.

One is that you can manage your money.

The other is that your money can actually manage you.

And when you manage your money, what I want to suggest is that's a key to happiness.

But when your money manages you, well, then that actually results in a lot of unhappiness.

But you don't need to run out and buy that book.

You can actually find this financial plan in the Gospel of Luke.

Jesus provides us with this one page long plan.

And let's take a look at it here.

It's in Luke 16 verse 13.

Luke 16:13

Jesus begins by saying, no one can serve two masters.

And we would all probably stop right away and say, OK, Jesus, we don't live 2,000 years

ago.

We're not slaves and masters here.

This seems a little antiquated.

And what does that have to do with money anyways?

And Jesus will say, well, let me just keep on going.

Just pay attention.

And he goes and he says, you will either hate the one and you will love the other or you

will despise the one and be devoted to the other.

And again, we would say, OK, sure, Jesus, the next time I'm a slave, I'll remember what

you said.

I'll make a note of it.

Thank you very much.

And Jesus says, I'm not finished.

He's coming to the punch line now.

He's coming to the application point.

And so he says, you cannot serve both God and, and this is very interesting, because

he's just said that you're going to be you're going to love one and hate the other.

You'll be devoted to one and you'll despise the other.

There's these two things in conflict.

And so now you can't serve both God and so what is the opposite of God?

It seems like that's the natural choice to fill in this blank.

The opposite of God is you can't serve God and sin.

You can't serve God and evil.

You can't serve God and the devil, whatever is the opposite.

But then Jesus comes along and he throws the answer in.

And he says, you cannot serve God and money and we're all like, what are you talking about?

And it's a tricky one.

The Greek word for money here is mammon, which actually means stuff.

And it's all the stuff that you buy with your money.

It's all the stuff that you want to buy with your money.

So it refers to money, but it also refers to the stuff that money gets us.

And Jesus says, you can't have two masters.

You either serve God or you serve your stuff.

You either serve God or you serve your money.

I find this really, really fascinating that according to Jesus, and again, you don't have

to agree with Jesus, but he is Jesus.

So probably a good idea to listen to what he has to say.

But according to Jesus, the biggest competitor for your relationship with God, the biggest

competitor for your devotion to God is not sin or evil or the devil or lust or whatever.

The biggest competitor for your devotion to God is your stuff.

It's your money.

I mean, that's what was written 2000 years ago.

It could have been written yesterday.

There's so much there for us to think about.

Jesus knows that when our money masters us instead of us mastering our money, when our

money manages us instead of us managing our money, then that is a recipe for unhappiness

because it separates us from God.

It separates us from our relationship with God.

There's actually three kind of key ingredients, I think, to this recipe for unhappiness when

it comes to money.

Here's the first part.

Unchecked desire.

When you hear Jesus say that you can't have two masters and you're going to love one and

hate the other, love is a desire word.

When you hear him say you'll be devoted to one and you'll despise the other, devotion

is a desire word.

If you love something, you're devoted to it.

If you devoted to something, you have a desire for it, a strong attachment.

Now you might say, Rob, I'm not attached to my stuff and I don't love money.

But if you're constantly thinking about it and if you find yourself worrying about it

and if you find yourself attached to it, then those are all signs that there is this unchecked

desire in you.

Better not to even go in a store if that's what you want because you'll see things and

you'll start to desire it right away.

We have to check that desire.

And if that desire is unchecked, it is the first step to unhappiness, especially when

you add the second ingredient in, which is uncontrolled spending.

Research shows, this is shocking, research shows that impulse buying accounts for between

40 and 80% of all purchases.

40 to 80% of all purchases were things that we didn't even mean to go buy, but we just

bought them because of why?

Because that unchecked desire led to uncontrolled spending.

And that is why we have that pair of shoes in our closet when we already had 10 pairs

of shoes.

And that's why we have the new car in the driveway when the old car actually worked

perfectly fine.

It was our unchecked desire that led to this uncontrolled spending.

And it's kind of like greed.

Most of us don't like to think of ourselves as greedy, but when we can't stop spending

on ourselves, that's kind of what greed is.

It gets the better of us.

And that can lead to the third un, which really, really will make us unhappy, and that's unmanageable

debt.

Pretty soon, you've got a lease payment you can't afford, and you've got credit card bills

that are sky high, and you've got a line of credit that keeps getting bigger and bigger

and bigger.

And again, it doesn't matter how much you have.

I found a statistic.

Just take this in.

20% of people making over $100,000 a year are living paycheck to paycheck.

20% of people making over $100,000 a year don't know where they would come up with $400

if they needed it in a pinch.

Why is that?

How can that be?

It's because it's not about how much money you have.

It's about how you manage the money that you do have.

And if our desire is unchecked and our spending is uncontrolled and our debt is unmanageable,

then pretty soon we will realize Jesus was right.

Our money's managing us.

We've been mastered.

We're enslaved.

And when you're enslaved, there's no possible way you can be happy.

It's a recipe for an unhappy life.

Now, there is good news.

There is really good news.

There is a way for you to submit your finances to God.

There is a way for you to say, God, actually, God, I don't want my money to manage me.

God, I want you to manage me.

I want you to be in control so that I can be in control of my money.

And I want to share with you.

This is really, really simple.

Again, I'm not the expert, but I want to share with you something really simple.

When our kids were young, we got each of them one of these things.

It's like a piggy bank, but it's actually got three piggy banks in one.

It's pretty cool.

And on each of these piggy banks, there is a word.

The first one says share.

The second one says save.

And the third one says spend.

And the idea was when the kids got their allowance or when they got a paycheck from a part-time

job or whatever the case may be, they would come and they would split their money up into

these jars.

They would first put a certain amount of money in the share piggy bank.

And that was money that they were intending to give away to somebody or some need or some

charity, someone else.

They were going to share their money.

The second bank, the blue one, was for saving.

Now that was money that they were going to put aside for something down the road.

And then the third spot where they put their money was the spend piggy bank.

And that meant that they could spend that money however they wanted.

It was simple.

Share, save, and spend.

And I know it seems juvenile.

I know it seems like just really, really, really basic.

But actually, there's a lot of wisdom there.

And it's actually not a lot different than what the Bible encourages us to do when it

comes to our money either.

For example, the Bible teaches us to share our money.

And it's not just that we're supposed to share it or find some money left over to share.

The first thing we're supposed to do is give our money.

The first thing we're supposed to do is set aside some money for others.

Honor the Lord with your wealth, with the first fruits, the first fruits, not what's

left over, not what's left behind, not as an afterthought, but as a top financial priority.

The first thing you should do to manage your money, it seems counterintuitive, but wait

for it.

We want you to be happy is to share some of it first.

Second thing that we do with our money after we have given some away is to save some secondly.

Now remember, in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus told us, he said, saving your money

in this world is always a crap shoot.

No one can predict what investments will do, but still it's a good idea to save some money,

to put some aside for a rainy day.

Think of what Joseph did when Joseph knew there was a famine coming in Egypt.

What did he say?

He said, take 20% of the harvest during the seven good years and hold it in reserve.

Why?

Because a rainy day is coming and you're going to need to use some of that stuff that you

save to help get through the famine when it comes.

And that means the third step is you give first, you save second, and then you can spend

third.

We live on the rest of that money.

And again, I'm oversimplifying and you're going to say, Rob, how is that even possible?

Look at with the rents going up and housing prices going up and inflation going up and

cost of living going up, how can we possibly live on less than everything that we get?

And again, I'm just saying, I don't know the answer, but I want us to take to heart words

like Paul.

When Paul says this to us, God will generously provide for all you need.

And then you will always have everything you need and plenty left over to share with others.

So there you have these three simple things.

Give first, save second, and spend third.

Can it be that simple?

Could it possibly be true, as simple as that?

That simply by intentionally, intentionally deciding that I'm going to share some of my

money and then save some of my money and then spend it, that we are actually pushing back

against money that's trying to manage us.

We're managing our money.

And we know what we're saying.

We're saying, hey, money, guess what?

You're not my master anymore.

You know why?

Because I'm actually going to give some of you away right away.

See, I'm not connected.

I'm not devoted to you.

I don't love you.

I'm giving some away right away.

And every time you share first and every time you save second, every time you spend third,

it's a way of you managing your money and showing that money's not actually in charge

of you.

And you say, Rob, I hear what you're saying.

I hear what you're saying, but that doesn't sound like it's going to make me happy.

I think keeping all my money for myself would probably make me feel more happy, but that's

where you're wrong.

Because if you look at the studies, it is very clear in the studies that giving makes

you happy.

Study after study, including a 2008 Harvard study shows that giving money away to someone

else made people feel happier than when they spent it on themselves, even though they predicted

that they'd feel better if they spent it on themselves.

There's something about giving that actually makes us happy.

And secondly, saving also makes us feel happy.

Another study from the University of Arizona.

They interviewed a thousand millennials, right?

Some of you are millennials, and they discovered that, quote, people who save money report

better overall well-being, included less psychological distress.

Saving makes you happy.

And even spending can make you happy.

When your money is managing you and controlling you, spending always feels like guilty and

shameful and, oh, am I overspending?

Am I, do I even have this money?

But when we manage it and we know we're not spending money that we don't have, then actually

the spending of it can actually be very freeing and can also make us happy.

So if giving can make us happy and actually saving can make us happy and even spending

can make us happy, again, I'm not a financial whiz, but happy plus happy plus happy equals

happy, right?

This is how you can be happy.

This is how money can make us happy.

So let me just kind of summarize this in a nutshell.

When money manages us, we have unchecked desires, uncontrolled spending, and eventually unmanageable

debt, and that is a recipe for unhappiness.

But when we manage our money, when we share first, when we save second, and when we spend

and live on the rest third, then money no longer masters us, but we're mastering it,

and we can be truly happy.

So I'm not a financial planner.

You need to talk to somebody who knows more than me if you have financial problems.

I really encourage you to do that.

I encourage you to keep having conversations among yourselves.

In fact, we've created some questions to kind of go along with today's sermon.

You can access those questions by going to our website and clicking on the sermon and

services link.

They're right there for you.

Why not use them in your life group this week?

If you're not in a life group, then grab somebody for a coffee this week and say, hey, let's

talk about some of these things because this is important stuff.

There is lots that we can learn.

But for today, I think maybe there was at least two things that we did learn.

And here's the first one.

Your money can make you happy if you manage it well.

And the second thing, second thing, maybe even more important, the best decision you

can make in your life is to invite God, to invite your heavenly father to be the one

who manages your life.

No one can serve two masters.

So, make sure you're serving the one true God and him alone.

Because as God manages your life, then you'll be able to manage everything else, including

your money.

And that will lead you to joy and that will lead you to happiness.

Thanks be to God.

Amen.

Thank you so much for joining us today.

And we hope that you found the sermon informative, challenging and inspiring.

Come back next week for our next sermon in this series.

Take care.

Today's sermon was taken from the October 15th, 2023 service at Trinity Church Streetsville

in Mississauga, Ontario.