Heavenly Happiness

Good morning.

Once again we are in a summer series on what the Bible teaches about how to be happy, and if you'd like a sermon outline and didn't get one yet, our ushers would be happy to hand you one.

Just lift your hand and they'll get you one.

I decided to make this sermon a little longer so you guys could stay in our cooling center.

In many ways, we are guilty of shortchanging ourselves when it comes to being really happy.

We settle for less than what God intends us to experience.

I recently read a story about a soldier who was in Alexander the Great's army, and when Alexander the Great's army conquered the Persian empire, the soldiers began looting the palace of Darius the king.

One soldier came upon a leather bag and he opens it.

He didn't realize it, but it was all the crown jewels of Persia.

The soldiers, not realizing what they were, dumped the rocks out and kept the leather pouch and then went around the camp bragging about the nice new leather pouch he had to carry his food in, food in.

He was happy, but not as happy as he could be.

The same is true, I believe, for us spiritually.

Sometimes we're carrying around leather bags and missing the precious jewels that God has for us.

What are these jewels?

We can find them tucked away in God's word.

As I started this series, the word of God is filled with clues leading to God's jewels of what I've called heavenly happiness, signaled by the phrase blessed is the one the word blessed is the word happy heavenly happiness.

And what I want to do is look at Psalm chapter 1.

Psalms 1 · chapter mention

Today, if you brought a Bible, you may want to go there or just follow along.

In the outline Psalm 1, we find a jewel we do not want to throw away.

Let me read the Psalm Six verses want to throw away.

Let me read the psalm Six verses.

How blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, nor stand in the path of sinners, nor sit in the seat of scoffers, but his delight is in the law of the Lord and on his law he meditates day and night.

He will be like a tree, planted firmly by the streams of water, which yields its fruit in its season and its leaf does not wither, and whatever he does, he prospers.

The wicked are not so.

They are like chaff which the wind drives away.

Therefore, the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous, for the Lord knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish To experience one of God's richest blessings.

Psalm 1 encourages us to learn to delight in God's word.

That's what we're going to talk about today.

Psalm 1 is written in such a way it's hard to miss the point, because the jewel is hidden in this psalm.

By way of contrast, what it might seem unusual to many of you regulars who are here, I just have three points to this sermon Somewhat unusual, I know.

First, a contrast of delights, verses 1 and 2.

Then a contrast of desserts, verses 3 to 5.

And a contrast of destinies, verse 6.

Let's look at the contrast of delights I love about this psalm.

Like I said, it's full of contrast.

When my wife Linda and I decided to get married, we went to look for rings.

It was a long time ago, okay.

The jeweler we went to pulled out a huge bag of diamonds of various sizes and I asked if he had a magnifying glass so I could see the ones we could afford.

Just kidding, okay, no, when he showed us the diamonds, you know what he did?

He took the bag of diamonds and poured them all out on a piece of stark black velvet.

Whoa, the diamonds came alive.

They look startling.

Why?

Because against that dark, black background, the real beauty of the diamonds was magnified and intensified.

Many times when God wants to show us something absolutely wonderful in his word, he helps picture it against a dark background.

So it stands out.

That's what he's doing in Psalm 1.

Heavenly happiness, or blessedness, in this psalm is found, contrasted with the black background of sin.

Blessed is the man who does not.

You will not experience God's heavenly happiness, blessedness, by walking in the counsel of the ungodly or by standing in the way of sinners or by sitting in the seat of scoffers.

You won't Notice that in this dark contrast of how not to experience God's blessedness, there's a progression downward, downward of intensity.

There's a progression of sins downward.

Ungodly, we start there.

That's a general term for not caring whatsoever what God thinks.

Then we go to sinners, a term describing willful disobedience to God.

It's progressively getting worse.

And then finally scoffers, a specific term describing relishing people who relish being against God and his moral law.

Second, there's a downward progression of the person's spiritual life.

First, the person's walking.

It's kind of a casual involvement in sin, involvement in sin.

Then that moves to standing.

We get comfortable with it.

We're going to keep doing it, and then sitting.

Finally, we are so entrenched in our sin, in our contempt of God, we refuse to believe that we need to stop.

We're sitting down, we're sitting down.

There's also, I think, a downward progression in the individual's actions.

First there's walking.

We just start to follow the counsel and advice philosophy of the ungodly people who don't know God.

That progresses to standing.

We not only follow their advice, we adopt their advice.

Now we're going to stand with it.

Finally, again, we progress to sitting.

We become an agent promoting the attitudes, actions thinking of people who don't know God.

Please note, though the last verse gives us the whole message of the psalm, which is having an intimate relationship with God.

The psalm is explaining how to do that.

1.6, for the Lord knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish.

Having a relationship with God is really the key in everything we're going to talk about this summer, to having heavenly happiness, doing life God's way.

We'll see all these places where he promises blessedness, in that this is one of them.

He promises blessedness in that this is one of them.

It's explaining how we can have an intimate relationship with God and thus enjoy a heavenly happiness.

Basically, having an intimate relationship with God is not possible.

The psalm's telling us it's not possible, apart from a desire to delight in God's word.

Impossible.

And John 14, 21,.

Jesus kind of highlights that point when he says he who has my commandments, his word, and keeps them, it's the one who loves me.

Intimate relationship and he who loves me will be loved by my father and I'll love him and I'll disclose myself to him.

An intimate relationship tied to how we respond to his word, the jewel of God's heavenly happiness.

Set against these contracting background.

It's set against a contrasting background of finding delight in a life opposed to God.

The same word delight is used for delighting in sin or ungodliness rather than God's word.

Take, for instance, proverbs, chapter 1, verse 22.

Proverbs 1:22

How long, o naive ones, will you love being simple-minded?

And scoffers delight themselves in same word.

That's what they're delighting in.

Delight themselves in scoffing, and fools hate knowledge.

If you're delighting in your sin or sitting in the scoffer's seat, you have traded heavenly jewels for a leather bag.

In contrast to the ungodly sinners and scoffers is the person who delights in God's word.

It's the real core and heart of this psalm, they will experience God's blessedness.

But I got to talk.

Let's dive in a little deeper.

What does it mean to delight in something, in anything?

He's talking about delighting in God's word.

What does the word delight mean?

The Hebrew word delight means a lot more than liking something.

The word is hafatz and it describes things in life we must have to live to be happy, to be fulfilled.

The word delight, hafas, is sometimes translated same word, sometimes translated desire.

It means we view something as absolutely essential for us to live, like a poor man's desire for food, clothing, shelter.

That Job refers to in Job 31.16.

He's saying I've been righteous in all my dealings If I've withheld anything that the poor desired hafaz food, clothing, shelter, as he's talking about their basic essential needs.

He's talking about their basic essential needs.

That's hafaz.

To delight in something means we view it as an urgent need.

We must do this to be happy, like King David's desire.

He must number Israel to be happy and he's kind of rebuked by Joab in 2 Samuel 24.3 for doing that.

Joab said to the king Now may the Lord, your God, add to the people a hundred times as many as they are, while the eyes of my lord, the king, still see.

But why does my lord the king delight in this thing?

Why do you have to have it?

See that's desire delight.

Third, to delight in something means we view it worth any sacrifice to get it.

That's how strong the delight is.

I'll give you an example.

Like Shechem in the Old Testament, genesis, who agrees to go through the painful rite of being circumcised in order to marry the love of his life, Jacob's daughter Dinah, he was required to do that.

I will do it, genesis 34, 19.

The young man did not delay to do this thing circumcision because he was delighted with Jacob's daughter.

He had to have her as his wife Must.

Essential.

Urgent Got to have this.

That's the word delight, hafatz.

But his delight is in the law of the Lord, in contrast to the delight of sinners who are delighting in their sin, living in their sin and staying in their sin.

Well, what does it mean to delight in God's Word?

Well, as I try to say, it means we view God's Word as a must in our life.

In our life, it means we view God's Word as something we've got to have to be happy and fulfilled and to have intimacy with the Lord.

It means we view God's word as something greater than any other priority in our life.

It's hard for us to think about that.

Get our head around that, but it's true.

Let me give you some examples.

Listen to the end of Moses' last sermon to the people of Israel before they went into the promised land, from the book of Deuteronomy, deuteronomy 32, 45 to 47.

When Moses had finished speaking all these words to all Israel, he said to them Take to your heart all the words which I am warning you today, which you shall command to your sons, to observe carefully, even all the words of this law, for it is not an idle word for you, it's your life.

It's your life.

Or listen to Job who, while in the midst of all of his suffering, he says I have not departed from the command of his lips, god's lips, his word.

You know what I've done.

I've treasured hafatz, treasured the words of his mouth more than more than my necessary food even.

Well, that's a pretty great priority.

We need food, we've got to have food.

He said I need this more than my food.

He treasured it.

Or listen to what Jesus said in response to one of the devil's temptations in Matthew 4.4.

Jesus said it is written man shall not live on bread alone.

Here's a higher priority.

Man shall live by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.

That's the highest priority.

I'll go without bread.

Or the psalmist Psalm 119.16 says I shall hafatz your statutes.

I will delight in your statutes.

I will not forget your word.

Are you picking this up?

The word of God, that's the jewel To find heavenly happiness.

God introduces the whole Psalms right there.

Well, here's the next question how, how can we delight in God's Word?

Well, I would suggest, first, by examining the reasons we may not be delighting in.

It.

Could be a whole lot of reasons.

For example, we may be delighting in something else instead.

Something means more to us, something of greater high priority.

And the psalmist 119.37, says Turn my eyes from looking at worthless things.

Give me life in your ways.

Or second, we may not be delighting because we're just not used to it.

It's new to us, or we don't get it, we don't understand it.

Well then, make it your ambition to start to understand it, to study it, to have come along somebody to help you.

Psalm 119.34 says give me understanding that I may observe your law.

Sometimes we just need the basics.

How do we get into this and understand it, and learn from it and make it part of our life.

If that's, you talk to Dennis or I or any of the deaconesses or elders, we could give you some help.

If that's the reason you're not delighting in God's word.

Third, we may be just slowly drifting away from the Lord ourselves, and the word is not a priority.

We lose interest in it.

We've got other priorities.

The writer to the Hebrews rebukes his readers when he says you know, I got a lot to say to you.

I'm just getting started.

Concerning him, meaning Melchizedek, we have much to say.

It's hard to explain, since you've become dull of hearing.

For, though, by this time you ought to be teachers.

You have need for someone to teach you the elementary principles of God's oracles.

Come to need milk, not solid food.

Everyone who partakes only of milk he's referring to the word of God is not accustomed to the word of righteousness.

He's a baby.

Solid foods for the mature who, because of practice, have their senses trained to discern good and evil.

Don't lose interest, don't drift away, or we may be under God's conviction of some sin in our life, and we don't want God hitting us over the head here.

I'm just going to stay away, continue to walk in my sins so I don't have to face the.

The Scripture said, said you know James, very blunt James, talking to his readers that they're not going to be blessed, continuing their sin.

He says in James 4, 4 to 10 you adulterous people, don't you know that friendship with the world means enmity with God?

Therefore, anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.

He's talking to believers.

Do you think Scripture says without reason that God jealously longs for the spirit he has caused to dwell in us?

In other words, what he's saying is God is passionate and passionately desires to have a close, intimate relationship with us.

And here we are fooling around, not making that a priority.

In a sense we're committing spiritual adultery.

James says you got another lover.

Don't do that.

You're missing heavenly blessing.

He gives more grace.

That's why the scripture says God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble, favor to the humble.

Submit yourselves, then, to God.

Resist the devil, he'll flee from you.

Come near to God, he'll come near to you.

Wash your hands, you sinners.

Purify your hearts.

You double-minded, grieve, mourn and wail.

Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom.

So as you humble yourselves before the Lord, he'll lift you up.

The Lord, he'll lift you up.

Psalm 1 points us to the key of delighting in the Word of God.

How to do that?

We do it by the discipline of meditating on God's Word.

This may be new to some of you Listen, but his delight is in the law of the Lord and in his law.

He meditates day and night in the law of the Lord and in his law.

He meditates day and night.

Now, biblical meditation is not transcendental meditation.

Transcendental meditation, you empty your mind, get to zero and nothingness.

In biblical meditation, you're filling your mind with God's word and dwelling in it and on it over and over again.

Biblical meditation is taking God's word in our mind, our will, our emotions, deep in our soul, making it part of us, part of our thinking, part of our feeling, part of our choosing, part of our thinking, part of our feeling, part of our choosing.

Jeremiah 15, 16 talks about his relationship with the Word of God.

I love this.

He says your words were found and I ate them.

You know what your words became for me a joy and delight of my heart.

That's right on a solid one.

Delight, heavenly blessedness.

Joy, for I've been called by your name, o, lord of hosts.

Okay, and I'm going to take off on what Jeremiah says.

You know, meditation is, I think, a lot like sitting down to a meal.

Now you can start out, you can smell the good food in the air.

Oh, that smells delicious, but that's not delighting in the food or enjoying it yet.

That would be just like reading or hearing God's word oh yeah, that sounds really good, but that's not delighting in it yet.

You haven't gone deep enough.

Or you could cook the food, but you're still not delighting and enjoying it yet You're putting the ingredients together, you're seeing it all mapped out and measured out and all the parts.

That's like studying the Bible.

You're not there yet.

You're enjoying what you're doing, but you're not experiencing the joy and delight in it yet.

You can even put some of the food on your plate.

You can.

Okay, this is your food, you're owning it, and that's like memorizing God's word.

I have brought it in sitting in my plate.

This is my food, nobody else's.

But when you actually eat the food and internalize it and absorb it into your being, now you're delighting in it.

Oh, I say sometimes when I'm eating a fantastic dish that's got to be at the marriage.

Supper of the Lamb man.

That's good.

Oh yeah, now you're delighting in it and you know what that is.

That's meditation.

I'm not saying smell the food, read it, hear it, cook the food, study it, break it apart, understand the parts, how they put together, memorize it, put it on your plate, your plate.

But don't stop there.

Someone says here it is, you want to delight, you want heavenly happiness.

Bless it, meditate on his word and do it day and night.

Whoa, the biblical word.

Here's an interesting truth.

Thank you for that.

It's funny because the biblical word for meditation.

You'll love this.

It's funny because the biblical word for meditation, you'll love this.

The biblical word means rumination.

It does.

It's the word for rumination in the Bible.

What does that mean?

It's like a cow chomps on some grass, starts chewing his cud Ball of grass in his mouth, chews it, chews it, chews it, chews it.

Her I should say her Chews it over and over again.

The cow swallows it, regurgitates it back up, chews some more on it.

What's the cow doing?

Grabbing more nourishment out of it.

He's not giving up.

Over and over and over again, he's chewing it up.

Okay, you take the food in, you chew on it, you extract some nutrients.

You swallow it, you absorb it, then you regurgitate it back up and you repeat over and over again, a passage at a time.

That's meditation you continue to think about a passage, you set it aside, you look at it again, over and over, until you feel like I never saw that before.

I see things and it's becoming part of you.

You've now just eaten it.

At the elders' meeting.

I think it was interesting because one of the elders was saying how the elders this year are memorizing together several verses tied to our six church key values, and every meeting we have we review those verses together, how we're doing on memorizing.

Well, one of the elders said you know, we've been through this several times now and wow, I'm seeing things I've never seen before.

I said that's meditation, my friend.

That's it over and over and over until.

Wow, you're literally drawing nutrients to your soul in it and that God's saying is how to be blessed, want a little heavenly happiness.

It's connected to this.

When we begin to delight in God's word by meditating on it, one of the things that happens to us.

You may not even be aware of it, but one thing that happens to us is we begin to think and act according to the word that's just been absorbed in us.

We do, we do, and that's when we will experience his blessing.

Listen to what God said to Joshua before he led Israel into the promised land.

He said you've got to remember one thing it's key to everything.

Joshua, this book of the law, my word, shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night.

Same words in Psalm 1.

So that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it, and then you will make your way prosperous.

Then, then you will have good success.

You will have good success.

You see, notice in Joshua 1.8 that meditation comes before being careful to do it.

There's something that happens to us when we begin to absorb God's word in the process of meditation, we begin to think and act like God would want us to.

This is kind of amazing to me.

It just becomes.

That's when it becomes part of you.

You've just eaten the meal.

Now, to demonstrate the effects of what we choose to delight in, psalm 1 uses another contrast, a contrast of what I call desserts, consequences of what we're delighting in.

First, the blessed person who delights in God's word is described as a tree planted by streams of water.

They're planted by streams, they're planted by streams.

That water's always there for them.

It's living water.

The word of God is like that stream, filling us up with his life every time we start to take it in.

And because of the constant intake of God's water, of his word, we're firmly planted, we're stable spiritually, we're not going to wither when it gets hot, like today.

We're going to actually bear fruit in our life because we're next to that stream.

Referring to the word, in contrast, the wicked person is like chaff which the wind blows away.

The wicked will not walk anymore, they're going to be driven.

Sinners will not stand in the judgment and they will not sit in the assembly.

Just the reverse of the first part.

Contrast of desserts leads to a contrast of destinies.

Finally, psalm 1 speaks of those who know the Lord and are meditating on God's word and those who don't know the Lord and are meditating on God's word and those who don't know the Lord.

Psalm 1, 6, for the Lord knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish.

When it says the Lord knows the way of the righteous, it implies a personal relationship, the word know and experiencing a personal relationship with God now, through delighting in his word, is the key to this psalm's jewel of heavenly happiness.

In contrast, the way of the wicked will not be planted.

They're being driven, they're not stable, there's no fruit spiritual fruit and ultimately they will perish.

Jesus, you know, said to us he came to give us abundant life.

John 10, 10.

Thief comes only to steal, kill and destroy.

I came that they might have life and have it abundantly.

You know what?

He also told us, how we can have everlasting life and not perish.

John 3.16,.

God so loved the world, he gave his only begotten son that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

When we believe in Jesus, god promises to give us eternal life as a gift of grace.

Now here's the amazing, amazing thing.

I think it's tied directly to Psalm 1, verse 6.

Psalms 1:6

The Lord knows intimate relationship, knows those who take refuge in him, and for us that means taking refuge in Jesus, believing in him as our Savior.

The Lord knows those who take refuge in him.

It's a stronghold day of trouble.

It's a stronghold day of trouble.

Nahum 1.7.

But if he knows you, if he knows us, we will never perish.

Psalm 1.6.

John 10, 27-28, jesus said my sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me and I give them eternal life and they will never perish and no one will snatch them out of my hand.

Well, here's the question Do you know him?

Have you put your trust and faith in Jesus Christ as your Savior to receive eternal life?

That's the point I want to leave you with.

If you do know Jesus, god's heavenly happiness is found when you grow in your relationship with God by delighting in and meditating on God's word.

You'll see it.

If you want a little taste of heaven, develop a hunger for God's word, just like you have hunger for food.

Begin meditating on it.

Go after God's word like a baby after milk.

Peter says 1 Peter 2.

Therefore, putting aside all malice and deceit, hypocrisy, envy and slander, like newborn babies, long for the pure milk of the word so that you may grow in respect to salvation.

If you've tasted the kindness of the Lord, let me say something to those of you who've lost your appetite for God's word.

There have been times in my life as a Christian where I lost some appetite for God's Word.

I'll tell you what helped me.

When I know that that's somehow in my mindset, I say it to myself, I don't have time to read the Word today, or I just can't memorize anything, or no.

I've seen that verse over.

You know what helps me when I detect that I start fasting and praying.

And I got to tell you I'm backing his word quicker than you can.

Snap your fingers, fast and pray, humble yourself.

James says Draw near to him, he'll draw near to you, to him, he'll draw near to you.

Let's pray, father.

Thank you that you've given us your word, not just to instruct us but to richly bless us as we encounter you in it, respond to your voice in it.

Thank you that Jesus took our sin and perished so that we would not perish but live forever with you.

Help us, lord, to experience the heavenly blessings of your word, like the prophet Jeremiah did, who said he took your word in.

It was like eating and delighting in a wonderful meal and brought him much joy.

Would you give us that sense, lord, together as a church family?

I pray in Jesus' name, amen.