From His Heart

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Today on From His Heart, we'll ask and answer this question. Is true happiness really possible? Here's Pastor Jeff Shreve.

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So many people are not happy. They have everything that we think we need to be happy, and they're so unhappy. Could it be because they are looking for happiness in all the wrong places?

You know, we just kind of go through life and we're just thinking, well, something else is going to make me happy because I'm not very happy right now. Sometimes we can wonder, I mean, is true happiness really even possible?

He can heal every scar with real truth, real love, real hope from his heart.

Speaker 1

Thank you for joining us today on From His Heart with Pastor Jeff Shreve, where today we're going to learn the truth about finding long-lasting true happiness. Is it possible? No doubt it is. But you have to be wise to discover how to appropriate that happiness into your life.

This is From His Heart with Pastor Jeff Shreve and the lesson today from the series Life's Big Questions. You can find out more about the series online at fromhisheart.org, where it is also our gift of thanks to you for your support to From His Heart this month of any amount. And it's available in multiple formats.

But right now, open your Bible to Ecclesiastes chapter one. Here's Pastor Jeff to answer this question: Is true happiness really possible?

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Nobody wants to go through life unhappy. Everybody. Under the sound of my voice, we would say, you know, that's what we want in life. We want to be happy in life. I mean, from the time you're little and you hear stories, you are introduced to the phrase "and they lived happily ever after," you say, that's right. That's what I want. And you know, in our preamble to the Constitution, we have the pursuit of happiness, and we have happiness put in there. And we're like, yeah, happiness. That's what we want. But so many people are not happy. As a matter of fact, many, many, many people are unhappy, very unhappy. Single people are unhappy. They want to be married. Married people are unhappy. They want to be single. If somebody said, what is marriage? It's like a window pane. You had flies on the inside wanting to get out and flies on the outside wanting to get in. And, you know, we just kind of go through life and we're just thinking, well, something else is gonna make me happy because I'm not very happy right now.

Sometimes we can wonder, I mean, is true happiness really even possible? Is it possible to live happily ever? I was listening to an interview this morning, Pat O'Brien. He was talking about celebrities, and he said, of all the celebrities I know, he said, there aren't more than 10 who are really happy. They have everything that we think we need to be happy, and they're so unhappy. Many, many people are unhappy. Why is that? Could it be because they are looking for happiness in all the wrong places? I think so. We're in a series called Life's Big Questions, and today we want to talk about the question of happiness. Is true happiness really possible? And we're going to look at the person, King Solomon, who was an unhappy camper. Unhappy camper. I like what Jim Gaffigan says about camping. He doesn't like camping. He said, you know, camping must be pretty bad because we always talk about unhappy campers. We never talk about happy campers. There aren't any happy campers. He said, you want to know who's happy? The guy leaving the campsite, he's happy.

But King Solomon, we would call him an unhappy camper. And the reason he was unhappy is in the book of Ecclesiastes, which is a strange book. It's one of the wisdom books. You know, that's the way the Bible is divided up. You got history, and then you run into Wisdom: Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon. And Solomon, the king in Israel, the son of David, who was king in the 10th century B.C., wrote most of the Proverbs, the Song of Solomon, and Ecclesiastes. Ecclesiastes is one of those books where people are like, I don't understand why that's in the Bible. It just seems so dismal and depressing. "Vanity of vanity," says the preacher. "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity." And people would say, well, that shouldn't be in there. But it should. And God put it in there because Solomon is going to be the poster child, the one that goes on an expedition, and his expedition is this: I am going to try and find true happiness, but here's how I'm going to find it. I'm going to try and find it under the sun.

That phrase "under the sun" in the New American Standard Bible is used 29 times in the book of Ecclesiastes. What does that mean, under the sun? Solomon says, I'm gonna keep God out. I'm gonna keep heaven out. I'm just gonna look at everything that you can do in life and see where is the source of satisfaction, where is happiness to be found? And we're gonna find, as we go on the search with Solomon, that he was looking for happiness in all the wrong places in Ecclesiastes chapter one. A lot of these verses today I'm going to use the easy-to-read version because I like the way it puts it. But Solomon gives us his executive summary right in chapter one. He says this: "I, the teacher, was king over Israel in Jerusalem. I decided to study and use my wisdom to learn about everything that is done in this life. I learned that it is a very hard thing that God has given us to do. I looked at everything done on earth, and I saw that it is all a waste of time. It is like trying to catch the wind." Vanity of vanities, says the preacher. Vanity of vanities. All is vanity. Trying to find happiness. Didn't find it under the sun.

So here's the question. Well, Solomon, where'd you look? Where'd you look to find happiness? Because maybe I've found it in a place you didn't find it. Maybe I'm gonna look in a place where you didn't look. Now remember this: when God sends Solomon on a search for happiness, Solomon is much smarter than you are. He's much smarter than I am. He's really probably the smartest guy who ever lived outside of mortal man. Obviously, Jesus is not included. But Solomon. God had blessed Solomon with wisdom and discernment and breadth of mind, the scripture says, like the sand of the seashore. And Solomon had resources that you and I don't have. So when Solomon searches out something, he searches it out from top to bottom. He searches it out completely to see, is there happiness here? Can I find the source of happiness here?

And he looks in six areas where people are looking today. In these same six areas, he lived 3,000 years ago. And yet people today are still doing what he did and ending up empty, just like he ended up. So let's look at these areas. Area number one is the area of wisdom and knowledge. And Solomon concluded that true happiness is not found in wisdom and in knowledge and in learning. He says in Ecclesiastes 1:17-18, "I decided to learn how wisdom and knowledge are better than thinking foolish thoughts. But I learned that trying to become wise is like trying to catch the wind. With much wisdom comes frustration. The one who gains more wisdom also gains more sorrow."

Now, Solomon put his mind to the books. He began to study and study and study and learn and learn and learn. And he said, it's like trying to chase the wind. It's pointless. It's meaningless. I mean, he knew so much about so many things. If you could sit down with Solomon, if I could sit down with Solomon, I don't care what your field of expertise is, he'd be able to talk to you about it and talk intelligently about it because he knew so many things about so many subjects. He knew about chemistry, and he knew about biology, he knew about botany, he knew about philosophy. He knew all these things. And he said, that's not making me happy. That's not the source of happiness. Knowing things, learning, and education. Now, I think it's good to educate yourself. I think it's good to learn. I think it's good to have an understanding of things. But you're not going. That's not gonna make you happy. As a matter of fact, he says in the New American Standard Bible, "In much wisdom there is much grief, and increasing knowledge results in increasing pain." Did you know in America, we know more now than we've ever known? I mean, we're in a technological explosion, and knowledge is increasing so fast, and it's hard to keep up. Man, when I was graduating from high school, I mean, we were just starting in with the computers in 1980, and now, I mean, everybody's got a computer in your pocket, in your smartphone.

I used to watch Star Trek, the original series with Kirk and Spock and McCoy. And I thought, man, how cool if you had a communicator like Captain Kirk had. How cool if you could be in the bridge and go ship to ship and see the person's face. And we do that today, just like was depicted in Star Trek in the 60s. That is commonplace today. And we know so much, and so many people are so unhappy, more unhappy than ever before. We have more people than ever before taking antidepressants.

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Why?

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Because they're so happy? No, because they're so unhappy. Happy. True happiness is not found in wisdom and knowledge. So Solomon said, okay, well, let me switch gears. I'm going to go in a totally opposite direction. I've been hitting the book so hard. Now I'm going to switch gears and I'm going to quit learning and I'm going to start laughing. And he said, I'm going to look for happiness in fun and games, in laughter and frivolity. But he found out the true happiness is not found in fun and games.

So it's not found in wisdom and in knowledge and in education. It's also not found, number two, in fun and games. And that's what he says in Ecclesiastes 2, beginning in verse 1: I said to myself, I should have fun. I should enjoy everything as much as I can. But I learned that this also is useless. It is foolish to laugh all the time. Having fun does not do any good.

Now, I think having fun is important. Hey, it's very important that families have fun together. And it's important for, I think, for dads to bring the fun, even if they're not naturally very fun. They need to somehow learn how to make the house fun. And if the wife is more fun than the husband, then he needs to really employ her help in making it fun. But home needs to be fun, and we need to have fun in life. But fun and laughter and games, that's not the source of happiness. And if you seek after that, you know, it's one comedy movie after another, one comedy show after another, trying to find the source of happiness. You're not gonna find it in there. Because it doesn't exist there. Solomon tried that, and he said, no, that's not where it's at. You're not gonna find it.

You know, the scripture says in Proverbs 14:13, written by Solomon, "Even in laughter, the heart may be in pain, and the end of joy may be grief." Perhaps you heard the story Billy Graham used to tell about a man who was just so down and discouraged and miserable. He goes to the psychiatrist and he says, "Can you help me? I need help. I am so down and I am so depressed and I am so miserable in life, and I'm so lethargic." The doctor examined him and he said, "Well, sir, there's nothing physically wrong with you. But you obviously have a heavy heart. I have a prescription for you. The circus is in town. I went last night, and it's great. There's a man at the circus. A clown at the circus. He's hilarious. He's the funniest guy I've ever seen. You go to the circus tonight. You listen to that clown, and he'll be the cure for your heavy heart."

And the man looked at him and said, "You don't understand. I am that clown." Even in laughter, the heart may be in pain, and the end of joy may be grief. We were all shocked and saddened when Robin Williams took his own life. He was so funny, yet he took his own life. Back in the 70s, there was a rising star of a comedian named Freddie Prinz Sr. He took his own life. We laughed at him on TV, and he was dying inside. Other big funny guys, John Belushi. He didn't take his own life, but he kind of did with drugs and alcohol. Chris Farley walked in his footsteps, followed his footsteps and did basically the same thing.

Hey, true happiness is not found in fun and games and in laughter and frivolity. So then Solomon said, all right, I haven't found it in wisdom and in learning. I haven't found it in laughter and fun and games. So now I'm going to try a third area. And the third area, drugs and alcohol. Maybe I can find satisfaction and happiness in drugs and alcohol. But he found out that true happiness is not found in drugs and alcohol. He says in Ecclesiastes 2:3, "So I decided to fill my body with wine while I filled my mind with wisdom. I tried this foolishness because I wanted to find a way to be happy."

He's looking for happiness. Maybe I can find happiness in a bottle. Maybe I can find it in a pill. Maybe there's something external that I can bring inside of me that will make me happy. But he didn't find happiness in drugs and alcohol. He didn't find happiness in any stimulant. And as it relates to wine, he was the one who said in Proverbs 21, "Wine is a mocker, strong drink, a brawler. And whoever is intoxicated by it is not wise." Don't do that. Don't go there with wine. Don't go there with strong drink. Don't go there with drugs, because you're not going to find happiness there.

And as we know, if you go down that road of alcohol and drugs, what you find is instant heaven that leads to everlasting hell. It will wreck and ruin your life. I tell people all the time. I've had some people challenge me on this and say, "Well, you know, Jeff, I don't understand why you tell people not to drink. Because Jesus obviously drank. He turned water into wine." And, you know, I don't want to get into that with them as much as just to say, look at it this way. "Wine is a mocker. Strong drink, a brawler. And whoever is intoxicated by it is not wise."

Scripture says, "Do not look on the wine when it is red, when it sparkles in the cup. At last, it goes down like a serpent and it stings like a viper." I think the Bible is saying, hey, you know, wine was just a word used in the Bible, kind of like drink. Drink is. We use that today. Drink could be alcoholic or it could be iced tea. It's just a drink. Well, they had wine. That's what they drank was wine. Sometimes it was alcoholic, sometimes it wasn't. And I think the scripture is saying, hey, when it starts to sparkle in the cup, when it's fermented, stay away from that. Why? Because your mind will see strange things. You'll start to see perverse things. You'll get drunk, and that's not a good thing.

Wine is a mocker. Strong drink, a brawler. And whoever is intoxicated by it is not wise. I look at alcohol this way: What's the upside if I drink? What's the downside if I drink? The downside is huge.

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Huge.

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I've talked to people who've wrecked and ruined their life with drugs and alcohol. Alcohol especially. And they say, well, you know, I just started drinking and then I couldn't stop. F. Scott Fitzgerald was the one who said this: first you take a drink, then the drink takes a drink, then the drink takes you.

I had a friend of mine one time, years ago, his name was Vic. He wanted to go out to breakfast. We went out to breakfast, and he said, I really need to talk to you. He was in my Sunday school class, and he said to me, he's in his 20s. He said to me, I gotta tell you something. I said, what's that? He said, I'm an alcoholic. And he said, that stuff is ruining my life, and I wish I had never been introduced to it. I've never forgotten that.

I think it is so much wiser for people to say that stuff is bad news. I don't wanna have anything to do with that. I'm just gonna leave that alone. You know who never becomes an alcoholic? Those who never start drinking. You know who never has a drug problem? Those who never take drugs. You know who never gets addicted to cigarettes? Those who never start smoking. The people that don't have trouble with gambling? Those who never start. You just don't open the door in those areas. Because on the other side of that door is a 500-pound gorilla that can get on your back. True happiness is not found in drugs and alcohol. Most of us know that, but many of us struggle with that.

Number four, true happiness is not found in money and possessions. Solomon learned that now. Solomon had more money than anyone has ever had. We talk about the people today, like Bill Gates and Warren Buffet and some of these guys. I mean, Bill Gates has so much. Listen, compared to King Solomon, Bill Gates was a street beggar. Solomon had anything and everything. It was phenomenal, all the riches that King Solomon had.

When the Queen of Sheba came to see Solomon's kingdom and to hear from Solomon, she said, man, I heard these stories about you, and I thought, no way. And then I come and hear you, and I come and see your kingdom. And not the half was told to me. Your greatness exceeds even the stories I heard, which I thought were embellished. Solomon had so much. He says in verse eight of chapter two, I also collected for myself silver and gold and the treasure of kings and provinces. He had so much silver that the Bible says during the reign of Solomon, silver was as common as stones. They didn't really think silver was very valuable during the reign of Solomon. Why? Because gold was it.

Solomon covered everything in gold when he made the temple of God and when he made his palace. It's just gold, gold, gold, gold. He would bring in 666 talents of gold every year, the scripture says. He was so rich. And most of us think that's what will make me happy. I think there are lots of people in this room today, lots of people watching on television, listening, who say, I think the problems in my life would be solved if I just had more money. So many people think that, man, if I just had more money, then I would be happy. Then I would be satisfied.

Ecclesiastes 5:10 says, he who loves money, Solomon says, will not be satisfied with money. It's impossible, because money can't do it. Money is like salt water. You're thirsty, and you can't drink salt water because salt water can't quench your thirst. Money is like that. That's why Pat O'Brien said he knows very few celebrities, very wealthy people who are happy. Why? Because they think that their celebrity status, all that stuff, is supposed to make them happy. All their money is supposed to make them happy. And it doesn't, because it can't. It's like drinking salt water, and it won't do the job.

Money can't do it. And so many people long for it, scheme for it, dream for it. They sell their souls for money. And then what happens? As billionaire Ted Turner said, money is like a paper bag. Everybody wants the paper bag, and when you finally get the paper bag, you open it up and find out it's empty. It's empty. He who loves money will not be satisfied with money. And Solomon, who had more money than anyone, said, hey, that's not the source of satisfaction.

Speaker 1

Well, then what is the source of real happiness? We're discovering that in this lesson today from Pastor Jeff, and it's called "Is True Happiness Really Possible?" As we've learned, King Solomon had everything this world has to offer, and yet he was an unhappy camper to the nth degree. He eventually discovered you're never going to find happiness in any of this world's things. Why? Because happiness isn't found under the sun. It's only found in the sun—the Son of the living God.

Hey, you and I can experience some passing pleasures in the things that we listed above, but they're not the source of satisfaction. And that is really the overarching theme of Pastor Jeff's timeless series. We're in "Life's Big Questions," a six-lesson series that addresses the most profound questions we can ask. It's also our thank you gift for your support this month to Promise Heart of any amount. The series is available on CDs, DVDs, MP3 download, or on a USB flash drive. To get this, just go online to promisheart.org and make your gift today. Or you can call 866-40-BIBLE. That's 866-40-BIBLE.

With that gift, we'll send you the bonus booklet from Pastor Jeff designed to help you understand the foundational principles of a life in Christ. It's called "The ABCs of the Christian Life." The booklet and the series are available for your gift today. If you want to live a happy life, the Bible gives us the answer in Proverbs 9:10: "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding." Furthermore, the Bible tells us the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. So be wise and get these resources in your hands and into your hearts today.

Again, you can call 866-40-BIBLE or go to promisheart.org for the series "Life's Big Questions" and the booklet "The ABCs of the Christian Life." God bless you. Thank you for being here today on From His Heart. I'm Larry Nobles, inviting you to be right back here tomorrow for part two of the fourth message in Pastor Jeff's series, "Life's Big Questions." Here's a preview of the broadcast tomorrow.

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We think that if we just achieve, if we get that next promotion, if we get the next rung on the ladder, if we get that degree, if we achieve something, then we'll be happy. Hey, you're never going to find happiness in any of these things.

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Join us Friday when we'll continue to learn that true happiness is possible through Christ next time.

Here on From His Heart, we welcome you to the Listener Supported Broadcast Ministry of Dr. Jeff Shreve, speaking the truth in love to a lost and hurting world.

Remember that no matter what, God loves you and He has a wonderful plan for your life. Find out more about that when you go to fromhisheart.org.