Psalm 1
"Were You Happy in 1998?"
Old Year's Service - 1998
Introduction
Were you happy in 1998? If so, why? If not, why not?
Of course, both your answer and my answer depends on how we define happiness. What does it take to make you happy? What do you need? You adults in the congregation, is happiness a big raise in pay, a full freezer, a large bank account, a home on the coast? Boys and girls, how do you define happiness: a Nintendo game cartridge, a new baseball glove, a new bike, a straight A on a test, a Furby? Young people and single adults, what do you need for happiness: a flashy sports car or pickup truck, a friend of the opposite sex, a winning basketball or volley-ball season? Again I ask, what does it take to make you happy; what do you need?
This evening, the psalmist tells us the stuff of true happiness. "Blessed," he says, "is the man who ..." Or, another way of saying the same thing: "Happy is the man who ..."
This evening we are called upon to look back on the past year. In view of Psalm 1, can you say that you were happy in 1998? Can you say that you were happy, not as the world defines it, but as the psalmist defines it?
I The Way of Happiness
A What is the way of blessedness? What is the way to happiness? The psalmist first tells us what the blessed or happy person does not do:
(Ps 1:1) Blessed (or, "happy") is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers.
In the Hebrew, the wicked are those who actively seek evil. Theirs is a life filled with immorality like deceit, adultery, lies, cursing, anger, and drunkenness. The Hebrew word translated as sinners could be better translated as "criminals" – those who commit crimes like theft, rape, and murder. The Hebrew word for mockers has in mind those who make fun of religion, who laugh at people when they pray, who have no use for God and His worship.
The way of blessing and happiness is not the way of the wicked, the sinners, and the mockers.
B The psalmist also describes what the blessed or happy person does do:
(Ps 1:2) But his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night.
The happy or blessed person is someone who delights in the law of the Lord. The law is not to be understood as only the Ten Commandments; nor is the law just those rules and regulations given by God to control all aspects of Israelite society and religion. Rather, the law refers to God's Word in its entirety; in other words, to the Bible. The happy or blessed man is he who delights in God's Word. He does not look at the Word as something that must be read, but as something that he wants to read. He takes pleasure in the Word. He desires to read the Word. The Word of God is a joy to him. This person is happy when he can spend time with the Word of the Lord.
In 1998 did we delight in the Word of God? With Bibles all around us – 5 or 6 Bibles in each of our homes, Bibles in our pews, Bibles in our meeting rooms – it is far too easy for us to take Scripture for granted.
In the U.S.S.R. there is a real shortage of Bibles. In spite of the opening of Russian borders and the best efforts of organizations like The Bible League, it is estimated that less than 20% of all Soviet believers have access to a Bible. Those believers who have a Bible, can you imagine how they treat it? They treat it like a treasure. They reverently turn its pages. They delight in having the Word and in reading the Word.
The happy or blessed person not only delights in the Word but he also meditates upon it day and night. To meditate on Scripture is not just to read your Bible and put it away. Rather, you study your Bible, search through it, and memorize texts.
I think here of Jerome. He was born around A.D. 345, and died 75 years later. In a Bethlehem monastery he spent 34 years in seclusion. What did he do? He studied Scripture full time. I think also of the monastery of Cluny. In Cluny the emphasis fell on the study of and meditation on Scripture: during the summer, 3 hours of every day were devoted to this; during the winter, 10 hours of every day were spent on this.
I know that none of us can be like Jerome or the monks of Cluny. After all, we have jobs, school, children, and other day-to-day responsibilities. Yet, the blessed or happy person is he who delights in and meditates upon the Word.
Were you blessed, were you happy, during 1998? Did you delight in and meditate upon Scripture? Were you and are you part of one of our many Bible study groups?
C Why is it so important to read and study the Word, to delight in it and meditate upon it? The psalmist tells us in verse 3:
(Ps 1:3) He is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither. Whatever he does prospers.
The blessed or happy person who reads and studies the Word is like that tree. He draws nourishment unto life everlasting from the Word. His faith never withers and dries and falls away. He produces plentiful fruit – the fruit of repentance, obedience, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. The blessed or happy person who delights in and meditates upon the Word becomes mature in the faith, and more and more like Christ (cf Eph 4:13-15). Then, as Paul puts it,
(Eph 4:13) ... we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming.
D The psalmist tells us that for happiness, true happiness, we must go to the Word. In his Gospel, John tells us that "The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us" (Jn 1:14). So, in the final analysis, to be happy we must go to the Word become flesh, even Jesus Christ. Only in Christ are we like that tree planted by the water. Remember the words of Jesus,
(Jn 6:35) "I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty."
Only in Christ can we have the faith and produce the fruit that God desires. If you have a relationship with Jesus Christ, you know the stuff of true happiness.
Unfortunately, not all Christians are happy people. As a matter of fact, there are many unhappy Christians. Some walk around with frowns and long and gloomy faces. Some have real struggles and trials. Some are weighed down by heavy burdens. These are real problems that we have to deal with. We can't just brush them away and put plastic smiles on our faces. But yet, as Christians, we know the secret of true happiness, of true blessedness: a living relationship with the Lord Jesus.
Our relationship with Jesus doesn't make our problems disappear. But it does make our problems manageable. I think here of the words of the psalmist in verse 6: "For the Lord watches over the way of the righteous." That word "watch" means "to know, to care, to love, to own and identify with." The Lord watches over us. He never leaves us or forsakes us. He is with us every step of the way, holding us up, encouraging us, standing by us.
E Where, then, is happiness? What does it take to make you happy? What do you need?
Topic: Happiness
Subtopic:
Index: 1937-1938
Date: 11/1986.28
Title: Where is Happiness?
Not money - Jay Gould, the American millionaire, had an enormous fortune. When dying, he said, "I suppose I am the most miserable man on earth." Not pleasure - Lord Byron lived a life of pleasure and ease. He wrote: "The worm, the canker and grief are mine alone." Not military glory - Alexander the Great conquered the known world in his day. Then he wept, "There are no more worlds to conquer." Not political power - William Tweed became the brilliant boss of Tammany Hall and ruled New York City. He said: "My life has been a failure in everything." Not unbelief - Voltaire was an infidel of the most pronounced type. He wrote: "I wish I had never been born." Not position and fame - Lord Beaconsfield enjoyed more than his share of both. He wrote: "Youth is a mistake; manhood a struggle; old age a regret."
Where, then, is happiness? What does it take to make you happy? What do you need? Only one thing: Jesus Christ and a living relationship with Him. So, let me ask you again: were you happy in 1998? Was and is yours a living relationship with Jesus?
II The Way of Unhappiness
A The psalmist also devotes a few lines to the way or state of the wicked. He says, "Not so the wicked!" The wicked are not like the righteous of the first 3 verses: in other words, they are not blessed, they are not happy, they are not like a deep-rooted tree planted by water.
"They are like chaff that the wind blows away." Chaff is the husks, the shell, within which is the kernel of grain. During the time of the psalmist, farmers would put their grain in a blanket and would bounce it up and down while there was a light breeze blowing. The heavy kernels of grain would fall in the blanket but the light chaff would be blown away. Chaff is worthless stuff. Chaff has no root below, no fruit or foliage above. It is dead. It has no vigor or freshness of life. After the harvest the chaff is burned in a fire.
"They are like chaff that the wind blows away." The wicked are like chaff. This means they are worthless and are of no account. Why is this so? Because, before God only one thing counts: a living relationship with Christ. Without that relationship you are but worthless chaff.
B It is in this light that we are to view the words of the psalmist in verse 5:
(Ps 1:5) Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous.
We would say, to use our phrase, that the wicked do not have a leg to stand on when they are before the judge. Neither do they have a place among the people of the Lord. The Lord rejects and punishes them. Their end, like the chaff, is to be burned in the fire. As the psalmist puts it in the last verse, "the way of the wicked will perish."
The psalmist is talking here, of course, about the Final Judgment. He reminds us that in hell there are no happy people. Rather, there is only weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth, there is only everlasting pain, there is fire that never goes out, and there is a thirst which is never quenched.
Conclusion
My brothers and sisters, there are two ways, two paths, two styles, two walks of life: a life with Christ and a life without Christ, a life rooted on the Word become flesh and a life without that Word.
The psalmist tells us that only a life with Christ brings happiness, true happiness. And a life without Christ, it brings only everlasting punishment.
Topic: Death
Subtopic: Of the Righteous
Index: 2160
Date: 12/1998.101
Title: Leaving Home or Going Home?
A prominent citizen in town was dying. As he lay in his lovely home, the best doctors surrounding him, he whispered, with a note of despair, "I'm leaving home, I'm leaving home."
Across town there lay dying a solitary figure in bare surroundings. Her modest home contained only the most threadbare of life's essentials. In her eye was a gleam. Before she died she was heard to say, "I'm going home, I'm going home."
The person who looks for happiness in Christ will find it. The person who looks for happiness in this world will lose it.