I heard about this minister who was known to be rather long-winded.  When he got up to preach he could speak for quite a while, which would have been okay if it were interesting, but it wasn’t, I guess.  One day while this minister was preaching, a man got up from the congregation and left right in the middle of the sermon, and he didn’t come back.  Sometime later during the week, the minister happened to run into this man, at the grocery store or some place, and he asked him, “What happened to you on Sunday?  Where did you go in the middle of the sermon?”  And the man said, “I went out to get a haircut.”  And the minister said, “You went out to get a haircut?  How could you do that right in the middle of the sermon?  Why didn’t you get your haircut before the service, before the sermon started?”  And the man said, “You preach so long, before the sermon started I didn’t need a haircut.” 

I told that story one Sunday at my former church, and there I would on rare occasions mention someone by name in the congregation, I might simply refer to a person, for whatever reason, usually for some silly reason, in the middle of my sermon.  And I would only do this if the person was actually sitting there.  Well on the Sunday I used this story, I later made a reference to this one man who sang in the choir, he was a tenor, I said something about this man Jim.  And the choir was behind me in that church, and so as I made reference to Jim, I turned around to look at Jim, and Jim wasn’t there.  I know he had been there before, I saw him singing in the choir, but he wasn’t there now, and so I asked, “Where’s Jim?”  And someone said, “He went out to get a haircut.”

We preachers can get a little long-winded, especially, as I mentioned last week, when we’re meddling in your affairs, giving you advice you haven’t really asked for, on things we don’t really know very much about.  Last Sunday I made two points on how to live a new life that I want to reiterate.  The first is that change is going to happen; no matter how we may try to deny it or prevent it, change is going to come.  The only thing permanent in life is change.  If you do not change, you will be changed.  So maybe the thing to do is to take the initiative, go in search of those things that will help create for you good and positive and lasting change. 

The second point from last Sunday is that the one thing that will make the biggest positive change in your life is your attitude.  We are and we become what we think about all day long.  I heard someone say that the single most significant decision he makes on a daily basis is his choice of attitude.  If you want to live a new life, begin with a new attitude. 

Now the idea for today is “How to live a happy life.”  And it will come as no surprise to anyone after last Sunday to hear me say that whether or not you are happy will depend to some extent, to a large extent, to a larger extent than we may really want to admit, on your attitude.  I heard about a customer at a restaurant who you could just tell was used to getting his own way all the time, and he told the waiter, “It’s chilly in here.  Will you please turn down the air conditioner?”  And the waiter said, “Right away sir.”  And he went off to the next room.  A few minutes later, the man flagged the waiter down again and said, “Now I’m too warm, could you turn the air conditioner up a little?”  “All right sir,” said the waiter, and off he went, but a couple of minutes later the man was chilly again, and then later he was too hot.  This went on for a while.  Finally a customer at a nearby table whispered to the waiter, “I really want to commend you for your patience.  That guy is certainly keeping you busy.”  But the waiter said, “No, not really he’s not.  You see, we don’t have an air conditioner in this restaurant.  It’s all in his head.” 

It’s all in his mind.  It’s all in his attitude.  Whether or not you are happy in this New Year will largely depend on whether or not you expect to be happy, whether it’s what you anticipate, whether happiness is what you see coming your way.  As I heard someone say, you’re going to be thinking anyway, most of you, not everyone will be thinking probably, but most of you will be thinking anyway, so why not think positively.

But happiness depends on other things, too.  I’m not sure that those who are the happiest in life are those who actually go in search of happiness, those who go in a selfish, self-centered way in search of the things that they think will make them happy. 

You know that I like history, and I’ve been reading recently about the end of the Roman Republic, and the beginning of the Roman Empire.  During this critical time in history right before the life of Jesus when some were still trying to hold on to the semblance of a democracy for Rome, three men, a triumvirate, three power hungry men came to power: Julius Caesar, Pompey, and Crassus.  Let me focus in on Crassus, maybe you know about him from that movie “Spartacus”, the old, Kirk Douglas version of “Spartacus”, Lawrence Olivier played Crassus.  Long after the time of Spartacus, as an older man, Crassus had achieved all the power and glory that a man could ever want, but still he was hungry for more, and so he forced what was left of the Senate to appoint him as the general of the Roman legions in Syria.  So off he went to the province of Syria to fight the Parthians, thinking this would be an easy victory that would bring him still more glory and power.  But the Parthians were smarter than Crassus, and they led him out into the desert, and when his legions were at their most tired and hungry and weakest point, it was then that they attacked and destroyed the Roman army, and killed Crassus.  What he thought would bring him what he wanted, power and glory, the happiness of having those things, led instead ultimately to his destruction. 

This is so often the way, isn’t it?  We get exactly what we want in life sometimes, thinking it will make us happy, only to discover so often that it will not.  We know, for example, that money will not buy us happiness, and yet what do we do?  We set off in pursuit of it every day, in one way or another.  I remember hearing someone who obviously didn’t have a lot of money say as kind of a joke, “All I ask is the chance to prove that money can’t buy me happiness.” 

What is it then, what is it, that will, that might, bring us happiness?  Albert Schweitzer gave us an answer.  What an accomplished man was Albert Schweitzer.  He was a medical doctor and a Biblical scholar, among other things.  He finally determined that his calling was to be a medical missionary to Africa.  Once when he was in England he was the graduation speaker at a boys’ school.  He told the boys that they had great futures ahead of them; some would be statesmen and doctors and lawyers, people of great wealth and influence.  “I don’t know what your destiny will be,” he said.  “But there is one thing that I do know, and it is that the only ones among you who will be truly happy are those who have sought and found how to serve others.”  The only ones among you who will be truly happy are those who have sought and found how to serve others. 

I heard about a man who went to see his doctor.  He wasn’t feeling quite right, he was depressed, he had little aches and pains here and there; he thought maybe he was having heart palpitations.  He was just very focused on every little thing that might be happening to him, and every little thing that might go wrong.  So the doctor examined him, and then wrote out a prescription for him, this happened some years ago, the doctor would be sued for malpractice today, but the prescription said, “At least once a day, find some way to be of help to someone else.  If you do this every day, if you help someone else, in two or three weeks you’ll be just fine.” 

Stop thinking about yourself all the time, in other words; stop being so self-centered for once.  That’s the only sure way I know of to guarantee that you will never be happy, by being so focused on yourself.  Oh, I know, our culture will tell you what will make you happy.  Usually it’s all very self-centered.  Get rich!  Get skinny!  Get plastic surgery!  Win the lottery!  Annihilate your brain for a while by playing the slot machines.  But this doctor said that if you want to be happy go out and help someone else.  He went on to say that some of the most miserable people he knows, some of the unhappiest patients he sees, some of the most suicidal, are those with their pictures all over the society page, those who seemingly have spent every waking moment thinking about themselves. 

You don’t find happiness that way.  You find happiness by going in search of other things, true things, noble things.  What’s that they say about making friends?  You can make more friends in one month by being interested in other people than you can make in ten years by trying to get other people interested in you.  It’s the same with happiness.  Work on your relationships with other people.  Work on your relationship with God.  Search for ways to help other people.  Do something that will outlive you.  Encourage someone.  Inspire someone.  And you will not only gain all these things yourself most likely, but you may just find happiness as well.  You may find something even beyond happiness; you may find contentment, serenity, blessedness. 

There’s an old Chinese proverb, “If you want happiness for an hour, take a nap.  If you want happiness for a day, go fishing.  If you want happiness for a month, get married.  (I don’t write this stuff, I just repeat it – if you want happiness for a month, get married.)  If you want happiness for a year, inherit a fortune.  But if you want happiness for a lifetime, help other people.”  If you want happiness for a lifetime, help other people.  Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these other things will be added unto you, is the way Jesus said it in the Gospels. 

I’m haunted sometimes by this image of Jesus coming up out of this river of water, after he has been baptized.  There is a symbol here for us of something.  We rightfully regard Jesus as our Savior and Lord, the Son of God.  But we also need to be reminded sometimes that Jesus is a model for us, he is an example.  Whenever we are uncertain about what we should do, or how we should be in this world, one place we should look is to the example of Jesus.  We can never, of course, be pure as he is pure.  But here is Jesus, coming up out of the River Jordan, putting the face for us of what a new life might look like.  Here is Jesus, naked, vulnerable, before John the Baptist, before the whole world, before generations to come, before God.  When is the last time we have stood so vulnerable before God, willing to place ourselves truly, totally into the hands of God, our lives, our futures, our happiness, into the hands of God?  Here we are Lord, we can only find our holiness, we can only find our happiness, in allowing you to do with us as you will.