Happiness According to God | Psalms 1

Well, good morning, St. City.

For those of you who are here often, you're like, Oh my gosh,

Brandon is in a shirt that's not black.

Yeah, I was like, hey, it's summertime.

It's finally here. That old ballpark man is back in

gear and I'm in blue and pink because my 4 year old really

like this shirt. And she's like, daddy, can you

wear that shirt? I said, you know what, baby

girl, if you want it, I can do it.

We're going to be in Psalm chapter 1.

Psalms 1 · chapter mention

If you don't have a Bible, there's one in the seat nearby

in front of you. You can have that Bible.

If you don't have one for yourself, Psalms is in the

middle of your Bible. We're starting a new series

today looking at this book of songs and praises to God.

So we're going to spend the better half of our summer

talking through and thinking about and considering what God

has to say to you and I through this incredibly long but

incredibly great book called the Book of Psalms.

We're in the very first one called Psalm 1.

You know, years years ago, Tom Brady, the Hall of Fame,

incredible quarterback after he won his third Super Bowl, He's

being interviewed on 60 minutes. He's won three Super Bowls,

which is the pinnacle at that point of success in the NFL.

He redefines it later on in his career, but he's got 3 Super

Bowls to his name. He is as accomplished as it

gets. He is already going to be a Hall

of Fame quarterback at this point in his career.

He's recounting that moment when they win the third Super Bowl

with the interviewer and he's like, man, I did it again.

The confetti's following. The fans are cheering.

He's getting an MVP trophy, He said.

He had this sinking, empty feeling in his gut.

There's got to be more than this.

How could someone who's supposed to be so happy, who's supposed

to be so thrilled and exhilarated?

I mean, he did it. He the goal that he and his

teammates set out to do was achieved.

But why was he so disappointed in that moment?

Why was it that happiness wasn't actually the finish line?

I think we asked a similar question.

We're not at the we're not, you know, on the 50 yard line

getting a Super Bowl MVP trophy. But I think many of us here

today ask it like this. We, we've got the family that

we've always wanted or we got the grades that we always prayed

for. We got to the place that we

always wanted to live in, the home that we always wanted to

establish, that we've had moments in this in our life

where we've reached the apex mountain of happiness and yet we

get to the top of it and we're just like, what now?

What now? I got to the thing that I

thought would fulfill me. But why doesn't it?

Why does the bank account number not feel as good as I thought it

would feel? Why does this relationship not

give me the joy I thought it would?

Why is it that I'm not actually ultimately happy?

Now we're in this message today called happiness according to

God. And what I want to start on the

outset is say that happiness isn't a bad thing.

Not at all. Like it's good to be happy with

a great cup of coffee to go and get some delicious tacos or go

to a concert or watch your team win the Super Bowl, have family

moments and vacations. Like God is about your

happiness. He's actually excited for you to

be happy. It's an idea he came up with.

But here's the problem is happiness, more often than not,

gets overvalued. Overvalued.

Now we live in a world that says clear eyes, full hearts are

happy hearts. They can't lose, right?

But behind every picture, behind the smiles and the laughter,

there's tantrums, there's stress, there's tension.

If I were to look at my life and see the pictures of my family, I

would be happy in that moment. But I know behind that picture

are the people that make my life feel so full but also the most

frustrating. Maybe you're like me that at

times you over value happiness because my mood is often it not

only adjusts, but it's enslaved to the thing I'm putting my

happiness in that my family. If my family is going good, my

happiness is going good. If my work is going good, my

happiness is going good. If my relationships are going

good, so is my happiness. It rises and falls.

It's enslaved to what I'm putting my happiness in.

And here's the sobering reality for all of us here today is that

happiness is too small of a thing to live for.

But what's God's role in happiness if he invented it, if

he wants us to have it, but he doesn't want us to live for it.

Ultimately, how do we actually experience happiness?

How do we experience what's even in our founding documents as a

country? Like, hey, life, liberty and the

pursuit of happiness. Like it's there, it's in our

culture, it's in the water here. God wants you to experience

happiness. He wants you to have it.

He wants you to know it. He wants you to be a happy

person. We're going to learn in this

Psalm, but that does not mean you are entitled to it.

GK Chesterton, the famous philosopher, he said, hey,

modern people think this, that happiness is a right.

That is why he is so miserable. Happiness is not something we're

owed. It is something we are given.

It's a grace. It's a gift, not a paycheck.

And yet most of us here today are chasing happiness down like

it's a the one thing in life that we are owed, will pursue it

in every arena of our life. And deep down we think to

ourselves, if happiness, if being happy is right, then

anything that makes me unhappy is wrong.

There's a problem with that. That's just because there's pain

doesn't mean something is wrong. And so you're like, wait a

second, if being happy is wrong, do I even want to be right?

Like Pharrell wrote that song and I feel like he's on to

something, you know, second, I'm just happy.

Sometimes pain doesn't mean something's wrong.

It means that something went right, that God's actually doing

something in the pain, in the difficulty, in the trial, that's

actually for good. It's for your ultimate

happiness. Because if you are chasing

happiness as your ultimate reality, if you're chasing

happiness overvaluing it, if it becomes the goal, then suffering

will feel like failure, waiting will feel like punishment, and

holiness will feel like a burden.

And in the end, it leaves us miserable, drinking from what

the Bible calls a broken cistern.

It's a well that doesn't actually satisfy your quench for

true happiness. And that's why so many people we

know are deeply unhappy with their life.

But what if? What if Psalm one's about to

teach us something incredible, That happiness is not a God to

live for, but it is something rather that the God we live for

gives? What if God wants to give you

happiness, but he's designed life in a way that actually

gives you true, lasting, ultimate happiness?

That is what Psalm 1 is going to teach us today.

Welcome to Summer in the Psalms, where we're going to be hanging

out with Moses and with Asaph and with King David who wrote a

bunch of the book. We're going to be talking about

all about the happiness dilemma. We talk about what God wants to

talk about week after week. And I think here's the first

thing we're going to discover today.

Jot down this big idea if you'd like to take notes that God

gives us a happy life through a righteous life.

How do we have a happy life? How do we acquire it through a

righteous life? Every single person this morning

has a choice. The way of blessing or the way

of ruin, the way of delight or the way of detachment from God.

That Psalm one's going to lay before us two options, the way

of the wicked or the way of the righteous.

Charles Spurgeon, the famous preacher, said this, that Psalm

1 is the gate to the temple of the entire book of Psalms.

If you're going to understand this whole book, you got to get

Psalm one right. You have to understand what it's

getting at. It's like a meta Psalm about the

entire book of Psalms. So if you're ready, we're going

to step through that gate together and discover how God

gives us a happy life. So how does God give us a happy

life through a righteous life? Well, first jot down this that

God makes me happiest when I discover the pleasure of God's

ways. When I discover the pleasure of

God's ways, that's when I'll be happiest.

Look at verse one with me. Blessed is the man.

Now you're like, where is he talking about happiness?

I don't see that word in my Bible anywhere.

That word blessed, it could actually be translated as happy.

That that word in the original language is talking about the

good life, the happy life, the blessed life that you enjoy your

life and the person who is blessed is what it talks about.

Blessed is the man. That word blessed, it's, it's in

your Bible at the beginning in Genesis when it's talking about

Adam and Eve. It's talking about Mary when she

finds out that she's pregnant with Jesus.

It's talking about Revelation at the marriage supper of the Lamb.

That word blessed is used all of there and it's used right here

smack dab in the middle of your Bible to talk about, hey, here's

how to have a good life, a life where you're satisfied and

happy. Blessed is the one who does a

few things first, who walks down the counsel of the wicked, nor

stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of

scoffers. Another way to read this verse

is to invert it. So another way to read this is

like this. Look at your Bible.

It would be like miserable is the person who walks with the

wicked, who stands with the sinners and sits with the

scoffers. That's a way to read your Bible.

There. It's to go wait a second.

If happiness is what God wants to give me through this, then

misery is the inversion of that. And he says that we do three

things. The miserable person walks.

This just means walking with the wicked is the idea that your

worldview comes from the wicked. It doesn't come from God's word.

It comes from the ways of the world, the ways of the wicked.

So they don't take advice or their purpose from God's people

or God's Word, but rather they get it from just whatever they

grew up believing the second word there.

They don't just walk in the counsel of the wicked.

They stand in the way of sinners, that this is a

progression. Not only do they have the

worldview, but now they are among the world and they are

advocating for what the world advocates.

They stand for the way that sinners choose to live, join

them going to sinful places for sinful reasons.

They stand in the way of sinners, and then ultimately

that path leads to a place of ruin where they sit in the seat

of scoffers. Scoffers are the people who mock

God. They're hecklers of God sitting

in the grandstands saying how awful God is, how judgmental God

is, how angry God is, without any actual understanding of who

God has revealed himself to be. All that awaits this person

ultimately from ignoring and disobeying God's ways is misery.

God is saying that chasing what the world is after isn't where

you actually discover happiness, but actually your heart.

You were born to want things, to chase things, to pursue things

that ultimately lead to misery and pain and hurts.

Ultimately, not immediately. We'll get to that later in the

Psalm, but if you are marked by the world, you are marked

ultimately for disappointment, for unmet expectations.

Here's where God is kind to us and loving to us this morning.

Here's what he says. He says, wait a second.

I want to tell you the truth. That path leads you to nowhere

good. Let me show you the path that

actually leads you to what you want to enjoy your life.

I want to show you that God saying it's wildly loving of

God. He's saying pursuing happiness

in anything contrary to his ways will hurt you because that's not

what you were made for. You were not made for chasing

things that God didn't make. It's discovered by delighting in

God's ways because you were made for God.

Now, if you were to go over the Grand Canyon later this

afternoon, just take a nice little 3 hour drive up north and

over on those on the trails that you'd be hiking, you'd see signs

that say, hey, be careful, do not cross this because it's

dangerous to you. Would you interpret those signs

as judgmental of people who like walking on the other side of the

trail? Would you interpret that sign as

man, that sign, that sign, they don't know me, I could handle

it. That signs doesn't like people

like me. They don't like the people who

live life on the edge. Would you really give the sign

that kind of like motive? No, you'd be like, hey, that

signs there because it's saying, hey, don't hurt yourself.

Some of us read the Bible. We're like, whatever God says,

don't do something. We're like, hey, he's coming

across judgmental here. He's coming across angry here.

He's coming across in a way that says, hey, I don't want you to

have any fun. But what if every command God

gives isn't for your misery, it's for your protection?

What if every command God gives isn't so that you would be

disappointed in this life, but so that you'd be happy in this

life? That every command in this book

is ultimately so that you could experience life as God intended

it to be lived? God's commands are a loving,

kind, and good thing for us. And happy is the person who

walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of

sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers.

Because we believe in the pleasure of God's ways, we've

discovered it together. God wants us to be happy and to

flourish, but we have to discover the pleasure of God's

ways 1st, and then we'll get to what He says next.

Verse 2, God makes me happy. He's not just when I discover

the pleasure of His ways, but verse 2, His delight.

Where's His happiness found? See that word in?

I want you to circle it in your Bible.

Where is the person who's happy? Where is their delight found in

the law of the Lord? And on His law He meditates day

and night. So I want you to jot down this

second point, that God makes me happiest when I fill my brain

with God's thoughts. Your life will be better, your

life will be happier when it is filled with God's thoughts, not

the world's thoughts. Now that word law there, his

delight is in the law of the Lord.

You see that there in verse 2. It's not saying law like a law

book or a book of regulations. It's not your, your company's HR

policy. That's not what it's talking

about here. It's talking about the Bible.

It's talking about Scripture. It's talking about God breathed

very inspired words of God. And like I said, it's a meta

verse. It's a meta chapter talking

about all of the Bible here. It's saying, hey, the person who

is happy is their delight is found not in what they think,

not what others think, but rather what does God say that

when the word and the world disagree, they bend to the word,

they fill their brain with God's thoughts.

You will never delight in God's ways unless you delight in God's

Book. You just won't.

If this isn't a delight to you, if is, this isn't pleasurable to

you. If this isn't sweet to you, you

won't ultimately appreciate God's ways.

That's what we're called to live as is people who delight in

God's ways and the person who delights in God, God's ways.

Here's what they do with the Word on the Bible, on his law.

What do they do? What's the verb there in the

sentence? That person does something.

They meditate on the law day and night, meaning all the time.

It's saying God's word is filling your mind, not just on

Sunday mornings from 10:30 to 11:10 when a guy in a bright

blue and pink shirt is talking to you.

That's not when. That's not just when you're

thinking about God's words. God's words are on your mind and

on your heart. When you rise, when you go to

lunch, when you commute, when you're parenting all the time.

Your brain is filled with what does God say about that?

Your brain is filled with God's words.

We're no stranger to filling our minds with things.

A doom scrolling is a term for a reason.

It's 'cause we're filling our brains with things.

The algorithm is actually a great feeder of thoughts for us.

That it's holding up a mirror to you.

Anytime you go on any social media profile, it's reading you

as you're engaging with it. It's showing you the things that

you care about, whether it's landscaping or golf, whether

it's like Marie Kondo organizing your house, whether it's

parenting tips or study hacks, whatever the thing you are

caring about, whether the thing that you delight and guess what,

the algorithm's going to show it to you.

It wants to fill your brain with thoughts and capture your

attention. John Piper, the famous preacher

from Minnesota, says that when we get to the end of the line,

when glory happens, when Jesus comes back, that social media

will be proved positive that we weren't in our Bible.

Not because we didn't have time, but because we lacked love for

it. It'll be evidence that the

amount of time we spend in our Bible isn't because we didn't

have the time, it's because we didn't make the time to fill our

brain with God's thoughts. The happy person let's God shape

their mind rather than the world.

But the world will also tell you another thing.

It'll also tell you to empty your mind.

That meditation in 2026 is more often not correlated with

filling your mind, but emptying it.

To just go to a space and to meditate.

That's not what this word means here.

It means to fill it. God is not asking you to

completely empty your mind all the time.

That's not what meditation is. Because if you look deeper

inside of yourself, you're going to be disappointed.

So the deeper you go inside the human heart, the more anxiety

you find. The deeper you go into the human

heart, the more anger you discover.

The deeper you go, the more selfishness, the more sin you

will find. So that's why therapy in in and

of itself is not a gospel. It is not good news to just go

and empty your mind because guess what?

You will just keep discovering you're a bottomless well of

sinfulness. You need another antidote.

You need another solution. You need something better.

You need Psalm one, verse 2, that the person who's happiest,

who's living a righteous life, is meditating on God's words.

They are filling their brain because ultimate happiness can't

be located inside of us. The hope isn't in us, it's in

him and what he's done for us. God says the person who's happy

fills their mind with his words, which never return empty or

void. They always deliver on what they

say they're going to do. And that is how your life can be

filled with delight and pleasure and flourishing and happiness.

So what do you do? How do you fill your mind?

Let's get real practical here. First, you fill your mind daily,

daily filling your mind with this book daily.

Go after God's word and just fill your mind with it.

Sometimes it starts with just having a verse a day.

Take that verse and just think about it all day.

Perhaps some of you this week are just going to you know what

I'm going to think about Psalm one, one and two for the whole

week. Great, That's great meditation.

Do that fill your mind daily. I was talking to somebody this

week and we were, we were just chatting about our whole life

and I was like, hey, live, live life one week at a time. 7 like

A7 game series in sports. If you're winning four out of

seven, you're in a good spot that like don't hold yourself to

the perfection standard. Just grow.

Take one step at a time, but strive for daily meditation in

God's Word, but also weekly. Congratulations, you're doing

that today. You're here at church.

That's one of the reasons we need church.

It's 'cause we need God's Word to be preached over us.

We need God's Word to be remind us of the things in this life

that matter most. That's why church exists on a

weekly basis. It's because we believe that

God's words are the most important words.

So we come up underneath them and we say, God, speak to me

again. Because this week I've wandered

a bit. This week I've strayed a bit.

This week I've been discouraged a bit or disappointed.

I need to be reminded of who you are and what you've done.

So not just daily and weekly, but also deeply, deeply meditate

on God's words in, in an attention culture that we're in,

I think we sometimes just skirt past the scriptures too fast.

We just stay on the surface. Like we bring a rake to God's

words and we're on the surface. We're we're actually being with

God's word. We're actually meditating on

them. But God, today he's handing you

a shovel and he's saying, Hey, go deeper in my word.

Come understand me more. Come discover the treasure

that's lying underneath the surface.

Go deep in meditation, which just means think about it

longer. Don't just have a 5 or a 10

minute time with God. Spend more time and just grow in

that. Not perfectly, but increasingly.

And guess what? The more you meditate on the

Word, the more you fill your brain with God's thoughts, the

happier you will be. God makes me happy through a

righteous life. Third thing he does, He makes me

happiest when I thrive inside of His placement.

We're just marching through this Psalm verse by verse, and what

does it say in verse three that we're going to thrive inside of

God's placement? He's going to give a metaphor

for us. The person who meditates on the

law day and night, what are they like?

He's going to use a simile. He is like a tree planted by

streams of water that yields its fruit in its season and its leaf

does not wither and all that he does, he prospers.

God says the happy person is like a tree next to a stream of

living water. Now this is your Bible

hyperlinking not just to other parts of your Bible, but

specifically the Garden of Eden. It's like the blue part on

Wikipedia. It's saying, hey, go to this

link, we're back to a Garden of Eden.

You want to be planted by a stream of living water.

And the person who's like a tree, I think it's intentional

by God because he wants us to see four things that a tree is

like, follow along like this, that he, we are like a tree in

that God is telling us to be sturdy.

Now, middle schoolers in the room, He's not telling you to

get sturdy, He's telling you to be sturdy.

OK, be sturdy. Trees don't move, they plant.

It'd be a bad tree if it was moving all the time, unless it's

from Lord of the Rings. OK, we need to stay still, be

still, be sturdy, be strong with deep roots, be sturdy like a

tree, but also be fruitful. You see that next verb?

It's not just that we are planted, but it the tree yields

its fruit in its season. Trees don't bear fruit from

themselves, they bear fruit for others.

That we're being fruitful. That part of the intention of

God planting you beside Himself isn't just so that you would

bear fruit for your joy, but for others.

Joy that the happiest people in this world aren't about

themselves, they are about others.

We are like a tree, but we're also told like a tree, that

we're to be dependent. Do you see that it says that

it's planted, that it yields its fruit in its season, in its

season is telling us that hey, trees bear fruit.

When it's time to bear fruit, there's a time for that tree to

bear fruit. The seed is planted.

It grows in the way that the sun and the atmosphere work.

Guess what? There's a time where it is

harvested. So be dependent on the living

water, be dependent on the atmosphere of being in God's

Word. And guess what?

You will see that as you abide in Jesus, you will bear fruit.

You will change, you will grow, but you have to be dependent on

God's process and the cycle of transformation.

We're like a tree in that were sturdy, fruitful, dependent, but

also we're like a tree in that were to be growing slowly,

growing slowly. Do you see that in your text?

In all that it's done? Its leaf does not wither in all

that he does, He prospers. He prospers.

Trees change not immediately, but incrementally.

A tree doesn't grow overnight, it takes a lot of time.

Some of you would just be encouraged to remember that that

the slow motion miracle of sanctification will take time,

but also your happiness. The thing God's calling you to.

It might not be delivered to you with Amazon Prime level speed.

It's going to be like a tree where it's going to come slow

and maybe a bit boring, but it's going to grow strong.

What I find fascinating is there's no such thing as a tree

growing show. I mean by this, like, hey, if

there's going to be a huge storm, guess what happens?

Like especially in the Midwest, there's these huge storms.

Or even here we get the big haboos and the lightning is

going. People will go outside on their

porch like, oh, let's go look at the lightning, right?

It's flashy, it's powerful, it's loud, and it's instant.

But nobody goes. Outside and goes hey, let me

watch my tree grow for the afternoon.

You are going to grow. But.

It's going to be much. Slower than you think.

So to be happy. In God's work in you, you have

to have the right expectation of the speed with which He changes

you. Otherwise.

Guess what? We'll be disappointed.

Like the wicked, the wicked are not so.

They are not planted by streams of water.

They don't yield fruit in its season, but rather they are like

chaff. Chaff is like a corn husk.

It's the part of the vegetation that just does not matter.

RIP to all of us who live here. Corn is just not as good here as

it is in the Midwest where I grew up.

OK, on the 4th of July I will be eating corn, but it won't be the

corn I want, so it'll just be corn.

That is something else. The thing about chaff that you

have to note that the the author's getting at is that

chaff is rootless, useless, and weightless.

The thing about chaff the. Corn husk, what is it?

It is rootless. It is not attached to anything.

You could just RIP it right off. It is useless.

It does nothing after you have the fruit.

But it also is weightless. It has no density.

It has nothing to. It.

It's not sturdy, not. Productive, not growing, not

dependent. But sometimes we find ourselves

here on Earth and we get like chaff envy.

We look at the things happening us in the world and we look at

the chaff and we're like, man, they just got it so much better

than we do. We're like Dang it, why is it

their life so much better than mine?

Why can't I be like? Her Why can't I be like him?

Why can't I look like him? Why can't I have their life?

And we want the chaff. What if God was inviting?

You to thrive not inside of somebody else's placement, but

your very own. That where God has you.

Exactly where He intends to use you.

That the life that you have right now is the placement of

God Himself. He's picked the.

Place that you live, he's picked the job that you have, he's

picked the relationships that you have.

And he says, hey, thrive here, not there, wherever there is,

but right here, right now with these kids, with this family on

this street, in this apartment, thriving inside of God's

placement. A friend of mine, his name is.

Clem He was a legendary leader for me in student ministry back

in Illinois. He was a student ministry

leader, meaning 6th grade through 12th grade for 15 years.

There's a crown awaiting. This man in heaven, I promise

you, because if you've ever done middle school or high school

ministry, you know that that is one of the most difficult jobs

in the entire church. And he not did.

He not only did seven years with one group, he did it again.

And now he's starting over for 1/3 lap around the track.

I mean, this guy is a student ministry legend.

He's a volunteer. He wasn't the flashiest.

He wasn't the loudest. But he was faithful and 15

years. Into disciple making.

I look back at those students who are in Klim's group and

guess what? I find disciples.

I find people with lives change because he was faithful.

Just do the thing right in front of him again and again and again

every Sunday night. Just showing up again and loving

the students in front of him again.

Loving his wife again. Loving his two kids again.

He thrived inside of the. Placement of God John 1511 The

reason God tells us to abide in him, to depend on him, like we

just saying, is this, that your joy may be full.

God wants you to experience full and lasting joy, but you won't

have it if you're constantly looking at another person's

life. You have to look at where God

has placed you and cling to Him. And guess what?

You will thrive inside of God's placement and ultimately have a

happy life forth and finally we're.

Trying to have a happy. Life through a righteous life,

righteous in our expectations, righteous in our attitudes,

righteous in what fills our mind.

But also we need this. God makes me happiest when I

forth hope for his better tomorrow, hope for his better

tomorrow. See, if happiness is just here

on earth, right here, right now, then we actually can't have it.

Because what happens after we die?

What happens with our grief? What happens with our

disappointment? What happens in the ultimate

sense? And I think that.

Many of us as we're navigating life, examining others, we ask

ourselves, why do they seem just as happy as I do, even though

I'm living the way of the righteous and they're living the

way of the wicked? Because look at what verse 5

says. It says, therefore the wicked

aren't going to stand in the judgement day, nor the sinners

are going to be in the congregation of the righteous.

For the Lord knows the way of the righteous, but the way of

the wicked will perish, and. What God is telling.

Us right there in verses 5 and 6 is something critical for us to

having true ultimate happiness. He's saying that this.

Life ain't it. The next life is really what

matters most. That if you live for.

Today and reject eternity. You will regret it forever.

That if you live for. Happiness only in this life and

not the joy of being in relationship with Jesus.

You won't just regret that for 5 minutes, you will regret that

forever. Because that's a.

Place spent under his discipline and God's wrath perpetually.

The way of the wicked. The Way of the Wicked.

Results in eternity spent apart from God's grace that they.

Are judged for. Their sin based off their

righteousness, not Jesus. And you don't want to be judged

off your righteousness, you want to be judged off His, because

the standard for God. His entry ticket into.

Heaven is perfection, perfect righteousness.

And you don't have. That So what's your hope?

Is it to just bring? Your life to God and say hey,

let me in. Hey, I had a happy.

Life. But I didn't care about you.

I didn't care about your ways. I didn't live for you.

I disobeyed you at every turn. I rebelled against you.

So here's my. Somewhat righteous life you're.

Going to be turned away because here's what the.

Lord knows. Look, the Lord knows that Lord

loves. The Lord welcomes into

relationship with him the way of the righteous, but the way of

the wicked will perish. The Lord knows the righteous.

He knows you, He sees you, He cares about you.

So believer who is here today and struggling like man, if I

could just do my business like that guy runs his business,

guess what? I'd be happy because I might

have more money. I'd have the bigger boat.

I'd have the bigger house. I'd have the better career, the

better friend circle, the better looks, the vacations, the

wardrobe, the influence. If you look at your life and

you're comparing it to other people, guess what?

Your joy will be stolen from you.

But if? Rather you get.

Vertical with and you go wait a second.

I can be happiest. I can hope for better tomorrow

because Jesus Christ knows me. He.

Knows me. And he sees everything I'm going

through. He sees the difficulty to make

ends meet. He sees the difficulty of

relationships you have. He sees it all.

He's saying, guess what? If you would just endure.

If you would just wait. And remain.

In me and trust that I see you know you care about you.

And hope for better tomorrow. That happiness is accessible.

It's not just a concept. It's your reality.

You get to live as. A person who experiences joy.

Because you have the joy of knowing.

Him and you can hope for better tomorrow and so.

As we descend. As people, we're humble people

who sink lower and lower on earth because we're emulating

our Savior who came not to be a servant, not to serve, but to be

a servant for everybody else. That we are consistently and

continually putting others before ourselves, putting the

Kingdom before ourselves. Guess what that is us saying

with our lives, That we believe in the next life more than this

one. That we put others more than

ourselves. That we have what the Bible

calls a blessed hope. I think it's.

Interesting that that's the word.

That the Bible uses because guess what, we have a blessed

hope because Jesus Christ lived the perfect life.

He died the death we should have died.

He rose over death itself. Why?

So that we could experience the joy of being in a relationship

with God just as he always intended for us to have.

That the happy life is through the righteous life we too can

experience the. Flourishing of being in

relationship. With God, that happy is the one

who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor.

Stands nor sits. But rather, their delight is in

the law of the Lord, and because the Lord knows the way of the

righteous. So let me close with this

question for you. What?

Could you do this summer? What choice would you make that

would make your life 10 times more righteous and therefore

therefore 10 times more happy? What choice could you make?

This week and this summer, that with 10X your happiness because

it's 10X more righteous. What choice could you make this?

Summer, I'd venture to guess that you would fall on the lines

of what Henry Nowen said. I'll close with this quote.

Henry Nowen says this. That I saw more clearly than

ever that the first great primary business to which I

ought to attend to every day, was to have my soul happy in the

Lord. Not how much.

I might serve the Lord, but how I might get my soul into a happy

state, How my inner man might be nourished.

For I might seek to. Set the truth before the

unconverted. I might seek to benefit

believers. And yet, if I'm not happy in the

Lord, not being nourished and strengthened in my inner self

day by day, all this, all the good things God invites me to,

might not be done in a right spirit.

Now I saw. That the most important thing

that I had to do was to give myself to the reading of the

Word of God, and to meditation upon it.

That thus my heart might be comforted, encouraged, warned,

reproved, instructed, and that thus, by means of the Word of

God, while meditating on it, my heart might be brought into

experimental communion with the Lord.

What's he saying? That being with God is supposed

to be the happiest place you are.

Is everywhere. The difference isn't not whether

he is drawing near to you, it's whether or not you're drawing

near to him. So I'll invite you to just take

a moment to sing, to draw near to God.

To worship him. That.

As we March this summer. Toward a righteous life that St.

City will be marked by some of the happiest people in these

valley because we live a righteous life.