This post is written by Andrew Hall as a companion for Unit 23, Session 1 of The Gospel Project for Adults, Volume 8: From Wonder to Rejection (Summer 2023).
What is the good life? Fitness centers promise that you can get the body you want and feel good about yourself. Listen to people talk and they will express the desire to be happy. Do a search online and you will come across life hacks and wiki tips on what you can do to live a good life. Forget regret. Minimize. Be content. Be yourself. Be kind. Seize the day.
Casual conversations with people reveal how much discontentment exists in life, work, and relationships. Everyone wants to be happy, but no one seems to know how to get there. People want to avoid pain and be happy. Even as they acquire more stuff, happiness seems elusive. It just seems out of our grasp. And this sounds like all of us. Everyone wants the good life, but it seems so difficult to attain. It feels like Ecclesiastes is so true—life is a vapor, a mist.
But Jesus comes and says that there is a way to a happy, blessed life. In the Beatitudes, Jesus tells us that those who are poor in spirit, who mourn over sin, who hunger and thirst for righteousness, who are pure in heart, who seek peace, and even who endure persecution for doing what is right will be blessed (Matt. 5:3-12). This doesn’t sound like the American dream of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
So often, people want to know what to do for the Christian life. They hear about how they need rest for their souls by trusting in what Christ has done for them, not what they have to do. Yet they still ask, “What do I need to do?” Jesus tells us what to do—look to the values of the kingdom that He not only teaches but also embodies. For Jesus has come as the Messiah to fulfill what was promised to Abraham, that all the world would be blessed through one of his descendants (Gen. 12:3). And now, in Jesus, the promise has come true: the blessed life, the happy life, is available for all who trust in Him. It is the life that is happy not because circumstances are ideal but because the future is secure. And this fullest life has been secured by Christ who forgives sin and enables us to live to keep evil from spreading and show that there is a new and better day as we live in ways that glorify God (Matt. 5:13-16).
Do you want to know what to do? What will bring about the good life? Look to Jesus, the One who has come to bring the blessed life that had been foretold to Abraham. Trust Him. He offers you life and life to the full in the kingdom of heaven. All you have to do is follow Him.
Andrew Hall is the Lead Pastor of Community Bible Church, located in Ilderton, Ontario, Canada. He is a graduate from The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. He and his wife, Melanie, have four children.
