Oct 07 2009
What Makes You Happy? Part One
Our church is going through a transition time. Our pastor moved on, and we are still in the seeking process. Thus our pulpit has been filled with a variety of ministers and teachers over the last several weeks - some ordained ministers, some lay persons.
This week, my husband, a lay person, was asked to bring the message. His passage: Psalm 1. Thus my question: What makes you happy?
As Jeremiah Burroughs said in his book, The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment, if he were to place an advertisement in the local paper: “Local Pastor To Reveal Key To A Happy Life,” his church would be packed the coming Sunday.
We all want to be happy. Whether we realize it or not, we spend our lives pursuing happiness. We flee what makes us sad. We seek to build our self-esteem so we feel ‘good’ about ourselves. We avoid people who ‘bug’ us. We look for the perfect mate - the soul match who will fulfill us and make us perpetually happy. We strive for success. Wealth. Prominence. Importance. All with an underlying goal to be happy. And, we miss the mark every time!
Why? Why do these things not make us happy? Why are we constantly seeking and never filled? Why do we buy the lie that just a little more or just a slightly different location or just another mate or another job or another lifestyle - will make us happy?
We have bought Satan’s lie. We are right back in the garden with Eve. Do you remember why Satan was able, ultimately, to tempt Eve and bring mankind under sin’s control? Because she questioned God’s goodness - which, ultimately is believing He is withholding something or someone which will fulfill my life and make me truly happy.
This is the oldest lie, and we buy into it every day! Yet, as Psalm 1 points out, there is only ONE way to happiness - and it isn’t found in any human or any possession or even within yourself.
Psalm 1:1-2 tells us the way to happiness. “Blessed is the man Who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, Nor stands in the path of sinners, Nor sits in the seat of the scornful; But his delight is in the law of the LORD, And in His law he meditates day and night.”
Adam Clarke, in his commentary, says, “The word ashrey, which we translate blessed, is properly in the plural form, blessednesses; or may be considered as an exclamation produced by contemplating the state of the man who has taken God for his portion; O the blessedness of the man! And the word haish, is emphatic: THAT man; that one among a thousand who lives for the accomplishment of the end for which God created him.”
At its most basic form, blessed means happy. It is that simple. You want to be happy? The Psalmist has laid it out. True happiness consists of avoiding something and pursuing something else.
We know that. We practice it every day. We avoid that which makes us feel bad and pursue that which we think will make us feel good. However, our eyes are so often blinded by sin. Our minds and hearts have been taken in by Satan’s lies and the way of the world. Most of the time we are pursuing the wrong things!
What does the Psalmist say? First, he tells us to avoid three classes of people - the ungodly, the sinners, and the scornful. Aren’t they all the same? Yes and no.
If you look at the list, you will see it goes from bad to worse to worse yet. The ungodly, reshaim, means to be unjust. This speaks of the one who renders to no one their due. He withholds from God, from society, and from himself what is just and right.
Ephesians 2:12-14 says this is where we were before Christ. “Therefore remember that you, once Gentiles in the flesh––who are called Uncircumcision by what is called the Circumcision made in the flesh by hands––that at that time you were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.” (italics mine)
The Psalmist begins with telling us to avoid the counsel of the ungodly. This is not an injunction to withdraw from the world, set up a commune back in the woods somewhere, and avoid contact with anyone who does not hold to our beliefs. In other words, the Psalmist does not say to avoid the ungodly - we cannot do that and bring the good news of Christ which, as we saw in Eph 2, was the element which changed us from being ungodly and brought us into the household of faith.
We are told to avoid the ‘counsel of the ungodly’. In other words, we should not be taking the advice of a man or woman who does not render unto God the honor and glory due His name. Adam Clarke says, “The ungodly man is unconcerned about religion; he is neither zealous for his own salvation, nor for that of others: and he counsels and advises those with whom he converses to adopt his plan, and not trouble themselves about praying, reading, repenting, live an honest life, make no fuss about religion, and you will fare well enough at last.”
THAT sounds like most of the people we rub shoulders with every day. They have little or no concern about anything but what makes them feel happy at the moment. However, we are not to buy into their lies. We are called to live as the godly, as children of the King. We are to have different priorities and a different goal in life. Thus we must not take their counsel!
Having warned us of the ungodly, the Psalmist moves on down the ladder to an even more dangerous counselor. He warns us of the sinner. The word translated sinners, chattaim, speaks of those who ‘miss the mark’, those who proceed beyond the prohibited limits, those who transgress. Adam Clarke says, “This man not only does no good, but he does evil. The former was without God, but not desperately wicked. The latter adds outward transgression to the sinfulness of his heart.”
We are not to ‘stand in the way’ of a person who is practicing sin. To stand in the way means we tarry, we stop, we remain, we spend some time, in today’s jargon - we hang out - with a person who is practicing sin. How often have you heard it? Bad company corrupts good morals! This is speaking to this situation.
The word interpreted ‘way’ here means more than just walking down the sidewalk with sinners. This has to do with spending time hanging out in areas where we are rubbing shoulders with, doing things with, and therefore being influenced by those who practice sin.
Again we can take this too far. Most of us work with sinners every day. Furthermore, we are called to shed the light of the gospel upon their sinful acts in the hope God will grant them repentance. In other words, we live in a world of sinners. We are called to bring the good news to sinners. We will spend some time with sinners. BUT, we are not to dwell in their presence. We are not to make our decisions based on what they are doing. We are not to put our priorities where they put their priorities. We are to, if you will, walk to the tune of a different drummer.
Finally, the Psalmist comes to an even lower character, the scorner. The word we interpret scornful, letsim, speaks of one who mock’s and derides God’s law. He hates God. He has set himself against heaven and makes sure everyone knows it. He is the atheist - he says there is no God and he hates Him!
Adam Clarke defines him thus: “He who has no religion; lives in the open breach of God’s laws, and turns revelation, the immortality of the soul, and the existence of an invisible world, into ridicule. He is at least a deist, and endeavors to dissolve, as much as he can, the bonds of moral obligation in civil society.”
Just as we are not to ‘hang out’ with sinners, we are not to ‘sit’ with the scornful. We are not to spend time where scorners hang out. We don’t go to their house. We don’t eat at their restaurant. We don’t attend their meetings.
While there are some who are gifted in speaking to and debating with those who hate and deride God, they are the few. Most of us would do well, when we meet a God hater, to turn and walk the other way. These are those who are in open defiance of heaven. Thus, in reality, they are diametrically opposed to everything we love!
We do well to take Solomon’s advise from Prov 4:14-15. “Do not enter the path of the wicked, And do not walk in the way of evil. Avoid it, do not travel on it; Turn away from it and pass on.”
Furthermore, we need to heed the Psalmist’s warning and realize how easily taking the counsel of the ungodly can lead us to sitting down with scorners. Again I turn to the wise words of Adam Clarke, “See the correspondent relations in this account. 1. He who walks according to the counsel of the ungodly will soon, 2. Stand to look on the way of sinners; and thus, being off his guard, he will soon be a partaker in their evil deeds. 3. He who has abandoned himself to transgression will, in all probability, soon become hardened by the deceitfulness of sin; and sit down with the scorner, and endeavor to turn religion into ridicule.”
So we have seen what we are to avoid. However, the Christian life is not all about ‘do not do’. It is just as much, possibly more, about ‘do’. What then are we to do if we want to be truly happy? Well, that will have to wait until the next post.
