Why Christians are Happier - Easter - April 5th, 2026 (Sermon Transcript)

Over the years, I've heard a number of people comment on the differences between Christians and non-Christians, specifically how happy they are.

Thinking of a couple of occasions where I've heard non-Christians mention, usually with a bit of annoyance or disdain, they've mentioned how Christians are just so happy. Like they're always smiling. Maybe it gets on people's nerves.

So I looked it up. Is it actually true? Are Christians, generally speaking, happier than non-Christians?

And the answer is yes. It is absolutely statistically true. Christians report far higher levels of happiness and contentment in life satisfaction.

But there's one caveat. It's only true for committed, active Christians. If you just call yourself a Christian and go to church once in a while, you will experience no difference in happiness whatsoever.

But if you are committed and engaged, in fact, the more committed you are to your church, the more engaged you are with your church and with Bible reading and prayer and things like that, the more happiness you will experience.

Also really interesting, this is especially true for younger people like Gen Z and Millennials. In these generations, Christians are almost twice as likely to report being very happy compared to their non-Christian peers. So it's a real thing.

And this morning, I want to talk about why. We're going to be reading this passage from 1 Peter to help us understand these things and answer these questions. Really, the question is this.

What is the fuel for the fire of Christian joy that so many people experience? Why are Christians so happy all the time? Why are they always smiling?

Well, the answer in part is the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. Jesus rising from the dead is one of the keys to Christian happiness. So that's what we're going to be looking at this morning.

Please stand for the reading of God's word. I'll read the text for us. 1 Peter chapter 1 verses 3 through 9.

Blessed be the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled and unfading kept in heaven for you, who by God's power are

being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith, more precious

than gold that parishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. Though you have not seen him, you love him.

Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls. This is the word of the Lord.

You may be seated and please join me as I pray for us. Father, we thank you for your word. We thank you for this truth.

It's not just my truth or our truth. It is the truth, the objective reality about the universe, about life, about you. I pray that your spirit would guide us into the truth this morning.

We pray in the name of Jesus. Amen.

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Peterʼs Revelation

So did you notice how much the apostle Peter is focused on joy and rejoicing? He's listing all of these blessings that God gives to his people, and he keeps using the same words over and over again.

In verse 8, he talks about, rejoicing with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory.

And I know there could be significant differences between joy and happiness, but I want you to notice how these words are just overflowing, and it's almost like he's saying that we are happy with happiness. Rejoicing with joy, happy with happiness.

And in verse 6, he talks about rejoicing and the fact that God has an inheritance prepared for us. And in verse 3, he ties it all back to the resurrection.

How God has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.

When Peter first heard that Jesus had risen from the dead, he literally sprinted to the tomb to see for himself. Zoe read that passage for us earlier talking about how Peter ran to the tomb.

And then in the Gospel of John, John gives his account of what happened that morning. He mentions a detail that Luke doesn't mention, namely the fact that Peter outran him to the tomb.

He was that excited as it says in the Gospel of Luke, Peter rose and ran to the tomb, stooping and looking in, he saw the linen cloths by themselves, and he went home marveling at what had happened. He went home marveling at what had happened.

You see the resurrection brought him great joy. But it's really interesting because at that point in time, he may have been excited, he may have been marveling at the fact that the tomb was empty, but he didn't know the half of it.

He did not yet understand the joyful, monumental implications of the resurrection, but now here in our passage, it seems that he does.

He wrote these words that we're reading this morning, that we're studying this morning, he wrote these words around 30 years after the resurrection.

So now he's speaking from experience, three decades of pondering and reflecting and experiencing the joyful results of the resurrection of Jesus.

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New Birth

In our passage, he lays out five of them, five resurrection blessings. The first one that he mentions is the new birth.

As he wrote in verse three, God has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Now, what does it mean to be born again? What does it mean to be born again?

Well, it means a lot of things. It means a lot of stuff that we could spend a whole sermon or a whole series of sermons talking about, but we're going to try to summarize it very quickly this morning.

Jesus talks about it in John chapter 3, and I think the essence of his message there is that you must be born again in order to enter the kingdom of God. In other words, in order to be a Christian, you must be born again.

And of course, that means that being born again, it's not a certain type of Christian.

I think sometimes people get that impression where there's like, you know, there's Presbyterians, and there's Episcopalians, and there's born again Christians, and there's Baptists, and there's so on.

No, no, no, to be a Christian at all, you must be born again, period. All Christians are born again Christians. It's not a Christian who is especially excited or passionate or committed.

It's just a Christian, period. And it means that you have started a new spiritual life. If you start to think about the logic of it, the pieces fall in place.

To be born again is to begin your life, and to be born again is to begin your new life in Christ. Speaking in biblical terms, it means that you are dead in your sins and trespasses.

All people in this world are born into this state according to the Bible. You know, there's a big debate about, are people born good? Are people born bad?

Are people born somewhere in the middle like a blank slate, and then they're formed by their environment? Well, the Bible teaches, Jesus taught, that all people are born dead in their sins and trespasses.

All people are born blind to the truth, but when a person is born again, that's when God opens their eyes to the truth about Jesus. That's when God gives them the gift of faith and gives them this new life, a second birth and awakening.

And that is a reason to be happy. That is a reason to rejoice, to get a second life, a new life. As many people can tell you, before Jesus, they had no hope.

Think of many people in this room who can testify to these truths. Before Jesus, they had no hope. They knew life was messed up.

They didn't know how to fix it. They knew they were messed up, but they had no idea how to become the people that they wanted to be. As my kids get older, more and more, I feel the weight of that truth.

Like getting married and having kids and starting to raise kids, I start to realize like there's a certain kind of man that I want to be. A certain kind of person that I want to be for the sake of my wife and for the sake of my kids.

And I know that without Jesus, I would have no hope of being that man. I would be just utterly lost and utterly enslaved to sin. But with Jesus, we have hope that we can be the people that we want to be, that we are called to be, that we can change.

With Jesus, when God causes you to be born again, you can actually change. I know many people will claim, there's sort of this universal claim made at times, that people don't change. Anybody ever heard that, in the sense of a cliché or a maxim?

People don't change. But the reality is, with Jesus, you can change. And so many people in this room can testify to that, because they're born again.

And this new life, this new birth that I'm talking about, is made possible by the new life of Jesus. You see, when Jesus rose from the dead, it unlocked the possibility that we could rise from the dead too, both spiritually and physically.

So let me summarize this just really quickly and simply. Everybody in this world is spiritually dead. We are slaves to sin and death.

But when Jesus rose from the dead, he defeated sin and death. And by putting our faith in him, we can be born again. We can experience the new life that he experienced when he rose from the dead.

The key to that is simply faith or trust in Jesus. Heartfelt trust that says, Jesus, I know that you died for me. I know that you rose again.

Would you raise me to new life? Would you make me a new person? That kind of faith, that kind of trust in Jesus, is what unlocks that reality for us.

So by his power, we can overcome sin and death and start a new life in him. And that is a reason to rejoice. That kind of hope is a reason to rejoice.

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Living Hope

Another reason to rejoice is that we have a living hope, not a dead hope, a living hope. Why is that? Well, because Jesus is living, because he rose from the dead.

Jesus is our hope, and Jesus is alive. When I was a kid, I really loved baseball cards. And in fourth grade, my mom got me a collection of classic cards, like Babe Ruth and Mickey Mantle and Lou Gehrig, and all these classic, famous players.

And they were reprints of old cards, so they weren't worth a ton of money or anything. If you know baseball cards, if your mom gets you a collection of Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig and Mickey Mantle, that's worth a fortune.

But these were just reprints, so they weren't worth a fortune. But to me, as a kid, they were worth a fortune to me. They meant a lot to me.

And the Mickey Mantle card was my absolute favorite. And I had this friend that I was really close with at the time. And one day, as an act of love towards this friend, I decided to give him my prized Mickey Mantle baseball card.

For us, this was a really big deal. It was a great expression of affection and friendship for us fourth graders. It was a valuable gift, except the next day, I changed my mind.

I was filled with regret and I wanted my card back. So I asked my friend to give me the card back. And he was very upset by this, understandably so.

And I think in the end, there was a bit of drama, a bit of friction that occurred. But in the end, I got the card back and I learned a valuable lesson. When you give somebody a gift, you shouldn't take it back.

Well, Jesus is the greatest gift that humanity has ever received. Just think about it for a minute. Jesus comes into the world with love and wisdom and knowledge, unlike anything the world has ever seen.

He comes into the world to bring us back into relationship with God, to set us free from sin and death and everything that is wrong with this world. But then he gets crucified. And when he died on the cross, his disciples gave up completely.

Like they lost all hope. Jesus was their treasure, their prized possession, and he was taken away. But when Jesus rose from the dead, that meant that he was back.

Their treasure was not taken away. He was alive and he would be with them forever. That's what it means to have a living hope.

Jesus is the greatest gift and he is ours forever. I think of this passage, these words from Jesus in John 14, verse 23.

Jesus said this, If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. Let me read that again. I want you to reflect upon these words.

I want you to feel these words. They are just so incredibly beautiful and sweet and rich, and they're made even more so by the fact that they're true, that this is real. So listen carefully.

Jesus said, If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.

This idea that Jesus and the father would make their home with us or within us is such a beautiful picture, but it's not just a picture for the Christian. It's a reality. It is a life-giving, joy-producing reality.

That's our living hope, that Jesus would come with the father and live in us.

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Eternal Inheritance

We see another joy-producing reality in verse 4. The new life we have in Christ includes an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled and unfading, kept in heaven for you.

The Bible talks often about this inheritance that is stored up for Christians.

For example, in Ephesians chapter 1, the Apostle Paul talks about this inheritance and how we are sealed with the Holy Spirit in a way that is like we are stamped by the Holy Spirit to receive this inheritance when we die.

And the Bible doesn't give a ton of details about exactly what makes up the inheritance, but the reality is every earthly inheritance pales in comparison.

And I know that's hard to believe because we can imagine some pretty sweet inheritances to receive, like getting a letter one day with a check for $10 million from that uncle you didn't even know existed, right?

Like we can imagine a great inheritance and that sounds really awesome. And it may feel more real and it may seem even more beneficial than this vague heavenly inheritance, but it's not. It's not more real.

It's not more beneficial. And that's what Peter is trying to communicate to us here because $10 million is perishable. It's perishable.

Whereas our heavenly inheritance is unperishable. The reality is that money runs out, that money becomes less valuable over time. The reality is that the thrill of it will inevitably fade away.

The pleasure of money or the things money can buy is a fleeting and fading pleasure.

So many of the things that we enjoy in this world, whether it's money or a new house or a big beautiful custom home that you build yourself on this gorgeous piece of land that you dreamed about owning, all of that stuff parishes and fades.

It doesn't last. And it's sometimes defiled. Peter talks about this heavenly inheritance being undefiled.

Well, what does it mean to be defiled? It means that there's some element of moral wrongness to something. So, we might find pleasure, to give you an example.

We might find pleasure in talking about the latest drama in the neighborhood with one of our neighbors. Like, did you hear so-and-so did this? And then, oh, they did that, and they said this.

Or you talk about the latest drama at work, and it can be really pleasurable and fun to have those conversations. But they are defiled by the fact that they're gossip.

Or you might think it would be really wonderful and fun to drive a $150,000 car and to take six vacations per year.

But when you live in a world where people are starving or dying from preventable diseases, indulging in that kind of luxury, it's probably wrong. It's defiled.

So these things, I mean, we could go down the list of dozens, if not hundreds or thousands of things in this world that we might enjoy and take pleasure in and value and put our hope in.

And item after item after items is going to be fading and perishable and sometimes defiled. But the inheritance we have in Christ is undefiled. There is absolutely nothing that could spoil the enjoyment of it.

It will never decrease in value. It will never run out. And because we have an eternal life in Christ, we will be able to enjoy it for all of eternity.

All the stuff we work so hard to obtain in this world, we can't take it with us. Everybody knows that. Even if you were to obtain something in this world that's not going to fade away and it's not going to run out, well, you're going to fade away.

You're going to run out. You can't take it with you, but this is an inheritance that we will be able to enjoy forever. And why will we be able to enjoy it forever?

Because through Christ, we have eternal life. You see, Jesus rose from the dead, defeating death and obtaining eternal life. He will never die again.

And by faith in Jesus and his resurrection, we too can have eternal life. We can live forever with him, and we can enjoy our inheritance forever with him. That is a reason for joy.

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Godʼs Guarding Power

Another reason for joy is that God is watching over us to guarantee that we make it to heaven. It would be a terrible thing to start following Jesus but fail to endure to the end.

The Bible talks about this repeatedly, about people who get excited about Jesus for a little while, and then they just fade away, and they walk away from Jesus, and they no longer follow him. They no longer love him. They no longer obey him.

The Bible warns us about that, and it is a terrible, terrible thing. So, how does a person put their faith in Jesus and keep their faith in Jesus?

Like, when trials come, sometimes people get the impression that, like, if I become a Christian, all my problems are going to go away.

Like, you know, I've heard about this Jesus, and I went to church, and it was really cool, and I think if I just, if I do this Jesus thing, I'm going to be happy, and I'm going to be healed, and I'm going to be whole, and I'm not going to have any

problems anymore, and everything is going to be just awesome for the rest of my life. That's not how it works.

So how do you follow Jesus and keep following Jesus when everything is not awesome for the rest of your life, when you still have problems, when you still have trials and disappointments, when life does not go how you want it to go, when you

experience immense pain and suffering and disappointment and loss, how do you keep trusting in Jesus? By the power of God. The only way that anybody ever trusts in Jesus in the first place is by the power of God.

Faith, saving faith is a gift from God. And the ability to hold on to that faith is also a gift from God. We see that here in verse 5.

It says, we are being guarded by God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. So how exactly does God guard us and guard our faith? He does it with the same power that he used to raise Jesus from the dead.

Ephesians chapter 1 verses 19 through 20. The Apostle Paul talks about the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe.

The immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might, that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead, and sealed him at his right hand in the heavenly places. Think about that.

Think about the incredible miraculous power that hit the earth when God raised Jesus from the dead. That's what we're celebrating today. Like Peter walking home from the empty tomb.

That's what we're marveling at, the spiritual electricity of that moment. Maybe you can picture it in your mind.

A dead man in a cave sealed with a rock, and spiritual power hits the earth that raises that man from the dead, rolls away the rock, and he walks out of that tomb.

When you think about the supernatural force that must have went to work in the lifeless body of Jesus, what Paul is telling us here, what Peter is getting at, is that same force. If you're a Christian, that same force is at work in you.

It's at work to change you and help you and keep you. That's a reason for joy. Sometimes life can make you feel so powerless.

Sometimes trying to go on a diet can make you feel powerless, right? Like just not eating chips for one day and you can't even do it. There are so many things in this world that make us feel powerless and hopeless.

But the resurrection, God channels that resurrection power to us and through us and for us, so that we can trust in Jesus and follow Jesus until the very end.

That's the promise that God has saved you and God will keep you until you obtain the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls. The salvation of your souls.

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Salvation from Sin

Christians often talk about being saved, but it's very important to understand what we're saved from. Last year, my dad and I were out on the golf course when my dad got a text message out of the blue.

It was informing him that his old friend, Butch Melton, had passed away. Butch was one of my dad's best friends for many years when I was growing up, and our families were really close for a long time.

I remember as a kid going over to their house all the time and skateboarding with their son Jesse and swimming in their pool. That's where I learned to swim. That's where I learned a lot of things, and we spent a lot of time with that family.

So it was very sad news. And I will always remember the time when I was a kid when Butch Melton saved me. The significance of that statement depends entirely on what he saved me from.

Like, did he save me from hitting a bad shot on the golf course? Did he save me from forgetting to put sunscreen on before going fishing on the lake? No, he saved me from drowning.

Long story short, I was teaching his son Jesse how to surf, and we only had one board at the time, so Jesse paddled, and I pushed him into waves.

So I'd push him into a wave, and I'd kind of swim around, waiting for him to come back out for the next wave. And we were having a good time, and our dads were hanging out on the beach, but then it started to get dark.

We were like, okay, it's about time to go in. So Jesse took a wave in on the board, and he assumed that I would swim in after him. So I started swimming, and swimming, and swimming.

And eventually, I realized that no matter how much I swam, I wasn't getting any closer to the beach, because I had gotten stuck in a rip current, and it was getting dark, and I didn't have a board to float on, and the tide was getting higher and

higher, and wave after wave broke over my head, and it got to the point, despite the fact that I had been in the ocean since I was a little kid, and I was a good swimmer and a surfer, it got to the point where I could barely keep my head above water.

But next thing I know, Butch came sprinting down the beach, and he threw himself into the water and he swam out to get me. He was a big guy, he was in super good shape, and he managed to get me to the beach. He saved me.

And when I tell that story, it is very clear what he saved me from. He saved me from drowning, and because of that, I will always be grateful to him.

So as we tell the story of Jesus this morning, I want to be very clear about what Jesus saves us from. He saves us from the just and righteous wrath of God, the just and righteous anger of God against us for our sins.

I know nobody likes to think of themselves as a sinner, and many people really don't like to think of God as the kind of God who gets angry about sin, but whether we like it or not, it's the truth. Whether we like it or not, it's real.

We really are sinners. CS. Lewis used this analogy of hanging a tape recorder around your neck.

We don't have tape recorders anymore, so maybe an old iPhone, hang it around your neck and hit the record button. And imagine that it records every single moral statement that you make. Like every time you say something like, that's not fair.

Like, I can't believe they did that. They're such a jerk or that was so selfish or that was greedy. Or that person wronged me in this way or in that way.

Every single moral statement you ever make gets recorded and gets put in a book. And it's your very own code of ethics, out of your very own mouth. Now imagine you get graded according to that code of ethics, the one that you spoke yourself.

How would you do? How would you measure up to all of the moral statements that you've ever made? The reality is that all of us would be miserable failures.

All of us would be miserable failures, and God doesn't grade on a curve. If you come to church here, you know that I have been saying that regularly, but I just can't get past it. Like God doesn't grade on a curve.

If all of us are miserable failures, that doesn't make all of us not failures, just because we all are failures. It means we're all failures. God doesn't say, well, you know, the next guy was actually a little bit worse, so they get off scot-free.

Imagine if a judge did that. Imagine if a judge let a guy go for murder because there was somebody in the other courtroom who had committed four murders. That would be unjust.

But God is just and righteous and holy, and he punishes people according to what they have done. And what I'm trying to say is we all deserve to be punished. But Jesus saves us from that punishment.

He saves us from paying the penalty for our sins. That's what happened when he died on the cross. He was paying the penalty for your sins and for my sins.

That's the central message of the Christian faith, and there's no debate about that.

This is not like, oh, at Penngrove, they say that Christianity means this, and you go to this other church, and they say that Christianity means that, and this preacher thinks this, and he said it this way, and that preacher and my friend believes

that Christianity means this. There's no debate. This is what it means. This is what it is.

This is what Jesus said it was. This is what Jesus' followers said it was. There is no other kind of Christianity.

It's not a matter of opinion. It's a matter of fact. When Jesus died on the cross, he died as a payment for our sins because God is a just God and he can't just let sin go like some corrupt judge.

So that means that all of my selfishness, all of my greed, all of my foolishness, all of your anger, all of your pride, we deserve to be punished for all of those things, but Jesus took the punishment for us.

He died the death that you and I deserve to die. And how do we know that it worked? How do we know that Jesus really did pay for our sins?

The resurrection is how. Easter is how we know. It's a simple logical conclusion.

The Bible says that the penalty of sin is death. The Bible says that the penalty of sin is death. So when Jesus rose from the dead, it was proof that the penalty had been paid.

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Rejoice in Resurrection

Do you see how the resurrection is so essential for the blessings that we have in Christ? Imagine if Jesus had never risen from the dead. Think for a moment.

Do you think any of us would believe in Jesus if he had never risen from the dead? Maybe there would be a few lines about him in the history books.

A lot of people don't know this, but there were actually quite a number of Jewish rabbis in the first century and around the first century who claimed to be the Messiah.

If you read the history books, quite a number of people who went around doing some teaching, gained a following, said that they were the Messiah, and got killed by the Romans. Do you know any of their names? No, nobody does.

And if Jesus hadn't risen from the dead, that would be him too. The historians like Tacitus and Josephus, they would have written a few words about the Jewish rabbi who went around teaching, and people said that he did some miracles.

He came to prominence. He found some disciples. The movement really took off for a while.

His teachings were pretty profound. But then the Jewish leaders got jealous and scared, and the Romans felt threatened, so they got together and they had him crucified.

This brilliant ethical teacher, this man of wisdom and love, this man who everybody said was doing miracles. He was a bright star for a period of time, but then he was killed, and that was that. If that was the story of Jesus, would we be here today?

Would you be trusting in him as your one and only hope for salvation? Absolutely not. We wouldn't even know his name.

You are here, Christian or non-Christian, you are here today because Jesus rose from the dead. If you're a Christian, you have faith in him because his resurrection inspired his followers to take his message to the ends of the earth.

And you will obtain the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your soul, because his resurrection power guarantees it. So let us rejoice. We have so many reasons to rejoice today.