Humility, The way to Happiness.

Refinery Life Radio

Episode • Jan 6, 2020 • 11m

Hey everyone I’m Pastor Gary Hoban and welcome to Refinery Life Australia.

This year our goal is to release a new video / Podcast every Monday Wednesday and Friday.

To begin the new year we are starting on Sundays with “The Way to Happiness”.

Everyone wants to be happy, and the New Testament is the greatest authority on happiness.

Jesus gives is the key that will unlock the door to happiness.

This key is found in the eight Beatitudes.

Did you know the word “Blessed” is sometimes translated as “Happy”.

Today we are going to start with Humility, The way to Happiness.

Text

Matthew 5:3 (ESV)

3 “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Name the eight things that would make you happy.

If God said to you today, the first Sunday of 2020, “Choose eight things that you feel that would make you happy this year and I will give them to you,” what would you choose?

Would you choose to be poor in spirit?

Would you choose things like mourning, meekness, hunger and thirst, being merciful, being pure of heart, being a peace maker, or experiencing persecution?

Do you think these eight things would make you happy?

Jesus seems to think so.

Before you decide that Jesus is wrong, consider the opposite of these qualities.

Characteristics like pride, pleasure seeking, aggressiveness, compromising, impurity, cruelty, and hatred.

You couldn’t be happy with these characteristics could you?

Of course not!

So we need to consider the eight beatitudes as eight steps to happiness.

Humility is the way to happiness.

In Matthew 5;3 when Jesus spoke of being “poor in spirit,” He was referring to our recognition of both our spiritual neediness and the means that can supply our need.

This poverty of spirit, being poor in spirit, results in the discovery of God’s kingdom.

People who are poor in spirit do not boast of their attainments or talents because they know that they have nothing that has not been given to them.

Why is humility the way to happiness?