Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness

Pastor Heath Wilson
Toms Creek United Methodist Church

(6/29) A worldwide pandemic has a way of getting us to think about life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. When life so completely changes and things that we used to take for granted like going to the gym, or visiting grandparents, or going to church, no longer can happen we often take time to think about what is vital and truly important in life. Events like pandemics help remind us that we really are not in control. We as humans have this funny way of thinking we are more in control of things than we really are. If we ever start to realize how little control we have over things, it can be very scary. Honestly, it is long overdue for people in our nation to realize that we don’t have much control over most things. And if we really don’t control things then we need to figure out, WHO does?? Yes there is really only one answer, the Creator of the Universe, the Life Giver, the Sustainer, the Great I AM, the list could go on and on but really we are talking about God.

When our nation was founded, we believed there were certain rights that were so vital that they were God given rights that everyone should be able to attain like life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Yet, while people are given freedom to pursue them in this nation we don’t really have control over them. Life? The days of our life are numbered and in God’s hands and not ours. Liberty? We have liberty to do what we want but we will be held accountable for actions that caused hurt and harm when our numbered days are up. Pursuit of happiness?

We have a great many things that are available to us and we may pursue the claim that they will bring us happiness but happiness is not guaranteed. We go around thinking we are in control because God lets us have this freedom to choose what we are going to do and how we are going to live. Yet, just because we have the freedom to do something, just because we have many things we can choose to do to bring us happiness, does not mean we should do them all. We are blessed to live in a nation where we are mostly free to pursue what we want. We forget to think about whether these choices are the ones that God would have us pursue. We are a rich nation but we often fail to realize all that we have is from God and can be gone in a blink of an eye! Many thins we have can be gone in a flash with a global pandemic, or other events both great and small, that we have little or no control over!! God let’s have the freedom instead of forcing our hand.

I know some church people and pastors who have said they believe the pandemic is a wake up call from God. A wake up call, yes. That the pandemic was sent by God, no. I think COVID-19, cancer, disasters, and the like, are Satan at work in the world trying to have us lose faith and give up. Don’t get me wrong, I think Satan also uses things we tend to think are positive like great wealth or power to try to take us away from God. Yet, all of these things that Satan does, both those that appear to be good and that which brings hurt and pain, can be opportunities for us to instead come together, to deepen our relationship with God, for us to realize that we are not ultimately in control. God uses the painful things that Satan puts out into the world and thwarts Satan by trying to make something good and beautiful come from it. Yes, Satan is busy trying to bring us down, to divide us, for us to lose focus on what is truly important. And yes, I believe we are in one of those moments where God can help us to find real strength, real hope, real liberty, real happiness.

Jesus Christ was sent to walk upon the earth with humanity so that we might leave the paths of individualism, paths of hate, paths of sin and brokenness and instead journey on paths that are filled with love and grace and wholeness. Through faith and belief in Jesus Christ. we can make it through anything that Satan tries to throw against us, even pandemics and race tensions.

When confronted with a worldwide pandemic you are not paralyzed by fear if you have faith in Jesus Christ. That’s right, with Jesus Christ you can put your life in God’s hands and even if today is your last, there is more to the story, there is more to your story! You know that you have life but also have eternal life, and if your days on earth are over, through faith in Jesus Christ, you know that you have life eternal! So in Christ you truly do have life!!

Through Christ, you can have great liberty that no nation can guarantee. You have liberty to fail and make mistakes and know that through Christ you will be forgiven. You have liberty to know that you can trust in God to ultimately catch you and provide for you in ways that no one else, nor any government, can. Our justice system and law enforcement may not be perfect and they might at times unfairly infringe on your liberty, but with God, there is always ultimate justice. The liberty we have to truly love, care, and reach out to others is great when we know that God will not leave us. When we know to whom we belong and that there is more to life than just our current flesh and bones, we have great liberty to reach out into the world in bold ways.

And yes, in and through Christ, you will experience true happiness. Most of the things people think will bring happiness fall short and the happiness is fleeting. We might say money can’t buy happiness but the way we live our lives shows that many of us think lots of things that we buy with money will bring us happiness. There are acts that people pursue that fulfill cravings, some of them very vile and immoral acts, because they think it will bring them happiness. Yes, often there is a momentary happiness when the act is committed, or the item bought, or the food is eaten but that happiness is fleeting.

Christ shares with us how we can achieve true happiness, true contentment, true inner peace. If it has anything to do with items you can buy, it is often when you give those items to others. True happiness is when you share what God has blessed you with and being willing to offer to others in need. True happiness is when you spend time with God and realize that the Creator of the world loves you and longs to be in relationship with you. You can travel this world and take in all the glorious sites, you can take in everything in this world that is supposed to give you joy and happiness, but if you do not have Christ, it is all worthless.

Let me explain why this is true. If there is not a God, then there is no heaven, no afterlife, there is just nothingness when you breathe your last breath. That means any experiences of happiness, any great memories, anything and everything meant nothing because there is nothing after you are done. And when the world passes away, which it will whether there is a God or not, all will be nothingness. It is like a computer where the hard drive is wiped clean, it is all gone, and the work comes to nothingness!! Yet, if there is a God, every choice we make has great value.

If there is a God, even when we live in a nation where you are able to pursue life, liberty, and happiness, we have constraints on how we should live our lives and use each day we are given. We are to use our lives here to share about the love of God, the gift of Christ, so that others may experience and see true life, liberty, and happiness that comes from God. Through actions of love and grace, we share about the glorious cross and the resurrection. We share about us all being broken and flawed but through God’s grace through the sacrifice of Jesus, we can be forgiven. We can free those that have made mistakes, that through Christ they can still find true life, liberty, and happiness.

The value of the freedoms and how we use our days to fulfill life, liberty, and happiness is magnified if there is a God. For if there is a God, we will have more than we experience here and now. We will have an eternity to see how the choices we had the freedom to make had an impact on the lives of others. We will see that when we used our life and liberty to share about Jesus and the grace and forgiveness that comes from faith in him, that we helped others to fully experience true life, liberty, and happiness. We will see that we who knew of God’s Good News, were able to let people know that even in the face of a pandemic that makes them feel that the world is out of control, there is an eternal hope that they can have. That through all the chaos in the world, they can truly experience the God given gifts of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Happy 4th of July!