THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS

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Pastor John Piper responds to a viral social media post by Jordan Peterson stating that life’s purpose is meaning rather than happiness. Piper insists believers glorify God by finding true joy in Him even amid suffering. I agree with Piper’s view.

‘In your presence [O God] there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore’ Psalm 16:11

In a Nov. 12, 2024, post on X that garnered 2.1 million views and 31,000 likes​, Peterson, a Canadian psychologist, wrote, “Life is suffering. The purpose of life is not to be happy, but to find something that sustains you in spite of suffering.”

In response to a reader who asked the pastor to share his thoughts on the topic, Piper, founder of Desiring God, acknowledged a core truth in Peterson’s message: chasing superficial, momentary pleasure is futile. 

Peterson is “right that for most people, happiness is experienced as fleeting, superficial, unpredictable, and impulsive” when pursued as an end in itself, Piper said in a recent episode of his “Ask Pastor John” podcast.

He also agreed that life should indeed be “profoundly meaningful” rather than spent in pursuit of empty pleasures. “I want people to have lives that are profoundly meaningful. So, amen, yes,” Piper noted.

However, the author of Don’t Waste Your Life diverges from Peterson on the role of happiness in life’s purpose. Piper stressed that the concept of happiness shouldn’t be discarded but redeemed. 

In contrast to Peterson’s approach of abandoning “happiness” as a life goal, Piper contended that true, deep happiness “rooted in God” is not only legitimate but essential​. 

The Minnesota-based pastor cautioned that even “meaning” can become an empty concept if divorced from God.

“I’ve been pursuing a different strategy than Jordan Peterson in the hope of rescuing people from the pursuit of fleeting, unpredictable, impulsive, superficial and (I would add) God-dishonoring, Christ-diminishing, Bible-ignoring, damning happiness,” he said. 

Drawing from biblical teaching, Piper laid out five key points to explain why joy in God stands at the heart of creation and the Christian life. First, Piper said God created the world to display His glory.​

“Creation is the overflow of God’s exuberance in being God,” he explained, meaning the universe exists to showcase God’s greatness, beauty and worth​.

“You might say that creation is the overflow of God’s exuberance in being God, in being great and beautiful and valuable, supremely so — so much so that He means to go public with His glory and communicate it,” he said.

Second, human beings are made in God’s image (Genesis 1:27) and designed to reflect that glory​, Piper said, adding: “That’s what images are for; they image forth what they are images of.”

Third, Piper addressed the reality of sin and suffering, emphasizing that no one lives out God’s purpose perfectly; in fact, humanity has turned away and become “enemies of God.”​

Fourth, Piper stressed that being “supremely happy” in God is crucial to honouring Him, a principle that lies at the heart of his perspective. The pastor defined the term in a 2015 piece as “God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him.”

“Being supremely happy in God […] is essential to glorifying God and showing that He’s supremely valuable,” he said, “and this is true especially in our suffering.”

When believers continue to delight in God amid trials, it demonstrates that God is more precious than health, comfort or any earthly gain, he said. “If we can maintain a deep and unshaken happiness in God through suffering, we make Him look as precious as He really is,” Piper explained​.

Finally, Piper noted that if God is most glorified when His creation is satisfied in Him, then pursuing joy in God is not optional but commanded​.

“Happiness, joy, pleasure — they’re not optional for the Christian,” he said, pointing to the Bible’s many calls to rejoice. Scripture repeatedly instructs believers to “Delight yourself in the Lord” and “Rejoice in the Lord always.”

“Enjoying Him is not a by-product of something greater. It is the essence of human greatness. It is the essence of worship.”

John Piper should have included the most important aspect of living out the Christian life: Jesus made it possible for our Heavenly Father to send the third person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit, to indwell our spirit so we can live a new life in Christ. He is our counsellor, teacher, comforter and helper. He produces the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23) in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, faithfulness, goodness, gentleness, kindness, and self-control. He also provides the nine gifts of the Spirit for ministry. (1 Corinthians 12:4-11). Our responsibility is to allow Him to direct our steps each day by saying, “not my will but your will be done” today.

WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF THIS LIFE?

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“So I (Solomon) became great and surpassed all who were before me in Jerusalem. Also, my wisdom remained with me. And whatever my eyes desired I did not keep from them. I kept my heart from no pleasure, for my heart found pleasure in all my toil, and this was my reward for all my toil. Then I considered all that my hands had done and the toil I had expended in doing it, and behold, all was vanity and a striving after wind, and there was nothing to be gained under the sun.” Ecclesiastes 2:9-11

Solomon tells us that he had tried every earthly pursuit and pleasure and all were found wanting. Yes, this life does have its pleasures and satisfactions, and we should thank God for them (Ecclesiastes 2:24–25; 5:18–19; 8:15). But in the final chapters, he points to the ultimate answer once we have learned that nothing under the sun can completely and permanently satisfy. That can be the only reason, why this book is in the Bible.

The author puts himself—and his readers—in the shoes of the secularist, one who gives little thought to God. He wants us to look closely at the visible world and the answers it seems to give before he will do more than drop hints of where he is taking us.

In Ecclesiastes chapter 3, verse 11, he drops another hint of where he is going. He writes: “He [God] has made everything beautiful in its time.” This is an indirect reference to Genesis 1:31: “God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good.” He continues, saying God “has put eternity into man’s heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.” Here is the implicit recognition that we have been created in God’s image (Genesis 1:27), with the capacity to relate to Him personally. But from our creaturely position “under the sun”, without biblical insight and with an evolutionary mindset, this life looks like an untidy chaotic mess, with no apparent rhyme or reason. We never have the satisfaction of fully understanding what God is doing (Eccl.:16–17).

We need God’s revelation, this is the author’s whole point: we cannot plumb the mystery of life without God’s help. We have arrived in the middle of life’s drama, not knowing the plot. Without the backdrop revealed to us in the early chapters of Genesis, the truth about our beginnings, and why the world is now broken, will remain a mystery to us. The book of Ecclesiastes ends with the call to acknowledge the limits of our perspective and our understanding, and to accept our status as creatures under the dominion of our Creator. (Ecclesiastes. 12:1).

Throughout the book, the author continues his demolition of false hope and self-sufficiency. He notes the harshness of life (Eccl. 3:16; 4:1) and the breakdown of law and order (Eccl. 8:11) as part of the evidence of humankind’s bias toward evil. His observations are summed up in Eccl. 7: 29: “See, this alone I found, that God made man upright, but they have sought out many schemes.” This is another indirect reference to Genesis, this time to Adam and Eve, created originally “upright” before their disobedience in the Garden of Eden (Genesis 3:1–6). In seeking to be “like God, knowing good and evil”, they chose to deny their creaturely status by reaching for more than God had granted them. Ever since mankind has had a propensity to evil, and the originally perfect world has become harsh and chaotic. G.S. Hendry comments: The eyes of Ecclesiastes are fully open to the vanity and the corruption to which the creation is subject (Romans 8:20 ff), and the whole book has been aptly described as an exposition of the curse of the Fall (Genesis 3:17–19).

By the end of chapter 10, the author’s work of demolition is complete; the site has been cleared. Chapters 11 and 12 point us to “the end of the matter” (Eccl. 12:13). These two chapters fall into three sections which can be summed up in three crisp commands:

Be Bold (Eccl. 11:1-6): We are here warned against being overly cautious: “He who observes the wind will not sow, and he who regards the clouds will not reap” (v. 4). Few great enterprises have waited for ideal conditions; no more should we. “Cast your bread upon the waters, for you will find it after many days” (v. 1). There is an element of risk in any enterprise, he says, but it is better to launch out and fail than to keep our resources to ourselves.

Be joyful (Eccl. 11:7-10): Verse 7 captures the bliss of being alive, but this is balanced by the knowledge that life’s pleasures will give way to “the days of darkness” (Eccl. 11:8). We are warned against letting life’s gifts beguile us into living for them alone. Verse 9 puts us on the right path: “Rejoice, O young man, in your youth … Walk in the ways of your heart and the sight of your eyes. But know that for all these things God will bring you into judgment.” The prospect of divine praise or blame makes every detail of life significant. To know this is to be reminded that we reap what we plant.

Be Godly! Eccl. 12:1-8, 13-14. The final chapter speaks of honouring God with our lives while we can do so and before our strength fades and our bodies return to the dust. To “remember … [our] Creator” (v. 1) is to drop all pretense of self-sufficiency and to commit ourselves to Him. Verses 2–7 use rich imagery to remind us that death is inevitable.

In verse 2, the chill of winter is in the air as the rains persist, and the clouds turn daylight into gloom. In the verses that follow, the various members and faculties of the body are pictured as a household that has suffered the ravages of time. The scene in these verses brings home to us the fading of physical and mental powers that will always accompany advancing age. One by one, old friends disappear, familiar customs change, and hopes long-held must be laid aside.

One’s youth, then, is the best time to face this stark reality: “Remember … your Creator in the days of your youth, before the days of trouble come and the years draw near when you will say, ‘I have no pleasure in them’” (Eccl. 12:1).

He has brought us at last to “the end of the matter” (Eccl. 12:13). Here finally is the goal for which we were made: the eternal God toward whom the eternity in our hearts (Eccl. 3:11) was meant to lead us. When this world has given us its finest things, there is still a hunger in us that only God Himself can satisfy. These souls of ours cannot live on the wretched husks of a purely materialistic philosophy. Sooner or later a famine sets in. That immaterial part of us that we call the soul or the spirit can never quite delude itself that the atmosphere of a secular society is its native air. We were made for eternity, and nothing “under the sun” can fully or permanently satisfy us.

Centuries after this book was written, One greater than Solomon said to a lonely Samaritan woman standing beside a well:

“Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life” John 4:13–14

THE MEANING OF ANYTHING DEPENDS UPON ITS ORIGINS

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The ORIGIN of anything can only be from one of two sources: GOD or MAN. From our CREATOR or from the CREATED. You need to get that right or you can expect chaos.

To believe that this world with all of its complexity and finite laws could come into existence by random chance is foolishness in its extreme and yet our prestigious universities promote it as science. Science according to them cannot countenance the supernatural, despite the fact that all of the Cosmos evidence screams intelligent design.

God’s Word, Genesis 1–11, tells us the origin of all the basic entities of life and the universe. And the meaning of anything is dependent on its origin.

Take any topic. For instance:

  • Abortion. We need to start with Genesis and the information found there. God created life, and humans were made in God’s image. Humans are not to murder other humans. This is the foundation to begin to deal with abortion.
  • Marriage. God created the first marriage when he created the first man and woman, as related in Genesis 1 and 2. “He answered, “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’?” Matthew 19:4–5
  • Fossils. In Genesis 6–9, we are told about the catastrophic global flood. This would have caused massive fossil formation all over the earth including fossil fuels from buried vegetation.
  • Age of the Earth. We start at the beginning of history in Genesis 1:1, where God began to create the space-mass-time universe. He tells us He created all things in six days and why: man is to work six days and have one rest day. It was the pattern for mankind. The first man, Adam, was made on day six. We are told when Adam had a son and when that son had a son and so on. The Bible gives us the history so we can add up the dates and determine when the universe and life came into existence.
  • The Fall. We learn that because of the rebellion of Adam and Eve, God cursed the initial perfect World. Man’s rebellion against God is the reason we have death, pain, suffering, and evil in this world.
  • Nations. God confused the language, he had given Adam and Eve, at the Tower of Babel and created many languages to force people to populate all of the earth. God created the nations and He created one nation, Israel, to represent Him. Sadly, as prophesied in God’s Word, they would not do as God commanded and He scattered them all over the Earth. However, this is extremely important, God also prophesied that He would re-gather them back to the land He gave them and that Jesus Christ would return to Earth and rule and reign the nations from Israel. Israel was miraculously re-established as a nation in 1948 so the first major sign of Jesus’ second coming to Earth has taken place and many of the rest of the end times prophesied signs are playing out now as well.
  • Spiritual Warfare. We are told in Genesis that God created spiritual beings called Angels. Just as Adam and Eve rebelled against God we learn that one-third of the angels that God created rebelled against God due to the rebellion of the Prince of Angels, Lucifer now called Satan. His minions are now called demons. We are also told that a battle is raging over the hearts and minds of men and women. “Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.” Ephesians 6:11-12

Genesis 1–11 is the foundation for everything! God’s Word, the Bible is largely prophecy. Fulfilled prophecies prove that God exists and His Bible is inerrant. God is in control of everything that happens in His Cosmos.

Praise God that He sent His Son, Jesus Christ to provide the way for mankind to get back into a right relationship with Him. Jesus died to pay the price for our redemption. If we repent of our rebellion/sin and are prepared to submit to Jesus Christ as our Lord and Saviour then we are restored to God’s family and our Heavenly Father sends the Holy Spirit to indwell our spirit to be our counselor, teacher, and comforter thus enabling us to live as a child of God, as a Christian. We have a good God but we must submit to His authority, and His commandments to be part of His family. That means dying to self and being prepared to say not my will but your will be done, Lord. Sadly, most of mankind, like Satan, wants to be the God of their own lives. God gave us free will so the choice is ours but we will suffer the consequences of our decision. All will stand before God on judgment day, for those that reject Jesus Christ will suffer punishment and second death. “But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.” Revelation 21:8

UNLESS YOU REPENT YOU WILL PERISH

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“And Jesus answered them, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered in this way? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. Or those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them: do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others who lived in Jerusalem? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.” Luke 13:2-5

Twice in this verse, Jesus makes it clear that ALL who do not repent and realize that Jesus is the only way back into a relationship with our Heavenly Father will perish.

“I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” John 14:6

Paul’s conversion is a good example of true repentance, a complete change of heart from a man who was persecuting Christians to proclaiming and proving Jesus was the Jews prophesied Christ, the Son of God.

“For some days he (Paul) was with the disciples at Damascus. And immediately he proclaimed Jesus in the synagogues, saying, “He is the Son of God.” And all who heard him were amazed and said, “Is not this the man who made havoc in Jerusalem of those who called upon this name? And has he not come here for this purpose, to bring them bound before the chief priests?” But Saul increased all the more in strength and confounded the Jews who lived in Damascus by proving that Jesus was the Christ.” Acts 9:19-22

The next verse is amazing: when we repent and accept Jesus Christ as our Lord and Saviour, God the Father sends the third person of the Trinity to indwell our Spirit to be our Counsellor, Teacher, and Comforter. We are thereby a new creation in Christ Jesus enabled by the Holy Spirit.

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, to be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” 2 Corinthians 5:17-21

David got it right when he repented after he had committed a grievous sin with Bathsheba and killed her husband Uriah.

“Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from your presence, and take not your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit. Then I will teach transgressors your ways, and sinners will return to you. Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God, O God of my salvation, and my tongue will sing aloud of your righteousness. O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth will declare your praise. For you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it; you will not be pleased with a burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise. ” Psalms 51:10-17

David was punished by God for his sin and He did so threefold. David would never again have peace in his house, he would be publicly shamed for his private sin, and, at the apex, his son would die. Although God did not kill David for his evil deeds, the punishments he received caused him to live in shame. David did not get off easy. Remember that.

“‘Now, therefore, the sword will never depart from your house, because you despised me and took the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your own.’ This is what the Lord says: ‘Out of your own household I am going to bring calamity on you. Before your very eyes, I will take your wives and give them to one who is close to you, and he will sleep with your wives in broad daylight. You did it in secret, but I will do this thing in broad daylight before all Israel. . . . The Lord has taken away your sin. You are not going to die. But because by doing this you have shown utter contempt for the Lord, the son born to you will die.’” 2 Samuel 12:10-14

DO ALL TO THE GLORY OF GOD

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Where do I come from? Where am I going? What is the meaning of life?

Science takes things apart to see how they work. Religion puts them together to see what they mean.

I love listening to John Lennox. He is an evangelist extraordinaire. He makes it so simple and at the same time exciting as he reveals God’s truth about the universe He created. Christians will enjoy this video immensely and want to share it with others. Non-Christians will hate it as it challenges their faith to the core.