Hank Smith: 00:05 Hello, my friends. Welcome to another followHIM Favorites. My name is Hank Smith. I’m here with the incredible John Bytheway. Welcome, John.

John Bytheway: 00:12 Thanks, Hank.

Hank Smith: 00:13 This is where we do a short clip with this week’s lesson.

  00:16 John, we’re in Matthew chapter 5, and I think a good question from Matthew chapter 5 that Matthew chapter 5 answers is, how can I find lasting happiness? So John, let’s use Matthew 5 and answer this question. Where do I find lasting happiness? It may not come from what we think it’s going to come from. When it comes from the Savior, it may come from a backwards point-of-view.

John Bytheway: 00:39 Yeah, the beatitudes have been called the happy attitudes because blessed are the… Could have been translated.

Hank Smith: 00:45 Happy are they.

John Bytheway: 00:46 Yeah. I just wonder if the people that were there were like, “What? Blessed are the poor in spirit? Blessed are they that mourn? How’s that blessed?”

Hank Smith: 00:53 Yeah. How am I happy? Yeah.

John Bytheway: 00:55 One of the things that I’ve heard you talk about so beautifully, Hank, is the idea of happiness is a mode of travel. It’s not a destination. So the Book of Mormon says we lived after the manner of happiness. How do we discover what that manner is? And something that I’ve loved that you’ve done, Hank, is talking about people who put a deadline on it. As soon as this, then I’ll be happy.

Hank Smith: 01:16 Yeah. We do that so often. Soon as I graduate from high school, I’ll be happy. As soon as I’m out of college, I’ll be happy. As soon as I’m married. Soon as I have kids. Soon as the kids move out. Right? Soon as I’m retired. It just keeps going. The happiness is out there somewhere else. And I’ve always thought that unless happiness is where you are, it’s never going to be somewhere else. You’ve got to find it in the situation you are currently in.

  01:40 The Come, Follow Me manual says this. “Everybody wants to be happy, but not everyone looks for happiness in the same places. Some search for it in worldly power and position. Others in wealth or in satisfying physical appetites. Jesus Christ came to teach the way to lasting happiness, to teach what it truly means to be blessed or to be happy.”

  01:59 So what you can do is you can go into Matthew chapter 5 and you can kind of grade yourself on what the Savior outlines here, being poor in spirit, mourning, being meek. Hungering and thirsting after righteousness. Being merciful to other people. Being pure in heart, not having any ulterior motives. Being a peacemaker in your home and maybe you’re persecuted for Jesus’s sake.

  02:24 He says that’s going to lead to long-term happiness for you, lasting happiness. And being a light to the world, trying to be an uplifting influence to the people around you. Not being angry. Not letting anger enter your heart.

  02:38 “The law of Moses says, Don’t kill. I say to you, don’t get angry. To root out lust out of your life is to be happier.” Jesus comes at this a little differently than maybe a psychologist would, or someone who’s really saying you got to get a lot of money and you got to be able to shop at these certain stores and you got to drive this kind of car. Jesus is saying, “Love your enemies. Bless them that curse you. Do good to them that hate you.”

  03:02 So again, a little bit backwards from what other people might teach is the happy way of life. And the big question here is, who are you going to believe?

John Bytheway: 03:10 Yeah, exactly. That’s a good way to put that is who are you going to believe? And I think we get to a point, Hank, when we get older, maybe happiness if we think of that as I’m giggling all the time. But I think really what we want is peace, peace of mind, peace of conscience. And as we get older, it’s not so much that happiness is peace, it’s a peace of conscience. Things are going to be okay. And that’s what we really want.

Hank Smith: 03:33 And that’s what the Savior’s offering here in the Sermon on the Mount is peace inside your heart. Maybe not the wealth or the sin that supposedly brings happiness, but not lasting happiness. He’s offering us something enduring. We hope you’ll join us on our full podcast. We’re with Dr. Lincoln Blumell this week studying this one chapter in the Sermon on the Mount. Come join us there. It’s called followHIM and then come back next week for another followHIM Favorites.