Series: Be Happy
Title: Happiness Through…
Text: Psalm 103
Truth: Happiness is the product of practicing certain disciplines that make us like Christ.
Aim: To encourage the church to practice these disciplines to experience God’s happiness.
INTRODUCTION
Ruth Graham, the wife of evangelist Billy Graham, told the story of Alexander Grigolia, a brilliant but unhappy immigrant to the United States from Soviet Georgia. He was struck by the demeanor of the man who shined his shoes. One day, looking down at this man who worked cheerfully and enthusiastically, and considering his own misery, Grigolia asked, “Why are you always so happy?”
Surprised, the man said, “Jesus. He loves me. He died so God could forgive me my badness. He makes me happy.”
Grigolia said nothing in response but could not escape those simple words. Eventually he came to faith in Christ, became a college professor, and had a strong influence on his students, one being future evangelist Billy Graham. We could not imagine the impact that one shoeshine man, happy in Jesus, has had for the kingdom of God.
There’s a wealth of truth in the shoeshine man’s response to being happy. He found the true source of happiness—Jesus. The man believed he was loved by God and forgiven of sin. For this he was grateful. This brings me to the third message on happiness.
Previously I’ve said the Bible teaches that God is a happy God and we’re called to be godly. Therefore the followers of the true God are to be happy. Next we talked about the reality of the power to choose. Abraham Lincoln was right: we are as happy as we choose to be. At no time have I said it is easy or quick, but it is possible with the power of the Holy Spirit. Today I want to talk about the means through which we can become happy followers of the joyful God.
I thought about pointing to the Bible’s teaching on basic spiritual practices which connect us to God: Bible study, prayer, regular church attendance, witnessing, etc. The joy of the Lord is impossible if we are not finding our way into God’s presence through these basic spiritual disciplines; it starts there. But there are other spiritual disciplines that are important, too. Happiness is the result of practicing the spiritual disciplines of truthful self-talk, forgiveness, and gratitude.
I. HAPPINESS THROUGH TRUTHFUL SELF-TALK (PSALM 103:1-2)
The Great Commandment in Matthew 22:37 says we are to love God with our heart, soul, MIND, and strength. Our spiritual lives and intellectual lives are not separate. With estimates of 10,000 thoughts passing through the human brain each day, 70,000 thoughts per week, and 3.65 million peryear, of course our thoughts have a powerful influence on our happiness. Jesus knew the power of the mind. He insisted that what you are on the inside is what you become on the outside.
The Bible is filled with examples of good, godly, and truthful self-talk and sinful and destructive self-talk. An example is found in Psalm 103 which says, (1)My soul, praise the LORD, and all that is within me, praise His holy name. (2) My soul, praise the LORD, and do not forget all His benefits.”
The entire psalm is a conversation the psalmist had with himself. He was advising and urging himself to believe certain truths and act on those truths. It is an example of truthful self-talk. This is a spiritual discipline that results in happiness.
Six times in the opening and closing verses the psalmist encouraged and instructed himself to worship God. He concluded his conversation with himself in v. 22 by saying, “My soul, praise the LORD.”
Self-talk is frequent in the Psalms. In Psalms 42 and 43 the psalmist asked himself why he was depressed. In Psalms 62 and 116 he instructed himself to rest in the Lord. In Psalm 146:7 he encouraged himself to praise God. The Bible assumes we have the capacity to argue with ourselves and stir ourselves to fulfill our obligations.
The word “praise” speaks of a bodily action. John Goldingay says it implies kneeling before God, and the phrase “all that is within me” specifically speaks of the inner man of mind, will, and emotions. Why was the psalmist calling upon himself to get on his knees physically and bow his mind, will, and emotion? He reminded himself who he was worshiping—the LORD. The psalmist used the name of God which refers to the great promise-keeping God who rescued the Israelites from slavery, dwelt in their presence, and would one day bring them a Messiah who removes forever the curse of sin. This is no localized deity of the hills or valleys. Their God is the God of the universe! This is the truth that filled his thoughts.
But that was not the end of his exhorting himself to worship God. He called himself to reflect on the “benefits” of how God had dealt with His people. We are sinners: He is the holy God. What would you expect to be the response of a holy God toward sinners? Judgment, condemnation, and punishment are what you would expect a sinner to receive from a holy God. The psalmist would go on to speak to himself of God’s amazing, massive, incomprehensible forgiveness. But the benefits are just getting started when we think of God’s forgiveness of our sin. There is His presence, power, provision, protection, and promise of eternal restoration. This is what filled this man’s mind and stirred him to say to himself, “Get on your knees, man, and praise God!” This kind of truthful self-talk had made him a happy, rejoicing man.
Some time back I suspected squirrels in my attic. I had heard that mothballs would cause them to evacuate, so I bought a box of mothballs. It didn’t occur to me to ask how many mothballs would be needed, so I figured half a box would do the job. The smell was so pungent it knocked you over. It not only drove out any squirrels in my attic, it drove my family out as well: Carol and Sarah slept a night or two elsewhere. It took a week of summer heat to eventually dissolve the moth balls, but once they were gone so was the smell.
For us to be the joyful, peaceful, loving followers of Christ, we have to get rid of some ways of thinking that are stinking up our lives and the lives of others around us. Our thought patterns are nothing more than a habit like brushing our teeth; it’s just the way we think. We get so used to bitter, anxious, or selfish thoughts that we don’t even notice that is who we are.
The psalmist knew his thoughts, and he confronted those thoughts that led him away from living a life of joy and praise. He chose good and great thoughts that led him to be a joyful worshiper of the true God.
The fact that there are so few people like this is proof of how difficult this habit is to form. Without a dependence on the Holy Spirit we will not have the desire or the perseverance to develop the habit of truthful self-talk. Every day you come to this fork in the road: will you be a person of truth and joy, or will you be a person who chooses negativity, pouting, or perversion?
A place to begin for many would be simply tuning in to your inward talk. The next time you are upset with someone or something, take a napkin and jot down what you told yourself that caused you to be angry or fearful. If you were giving counsel, how would you advise a person to think and act so they experienced peace or love? Based on the truth, David gave himself a directive on how to act that would be honoring to God. He rehearsed the reasons why he should be joyful.
God can change the way we think. Changing the way we think is one of the most powerful spiritual disciplines to produce happiness in our lives.
II. HAPPINESS THROUGH FORGIVENESS (PSALM 103:3-5, 10-14)
Randy Alcorn writes,
“These two premises—that God is the source of all happiness and that sin separates us from God—lead to this conclusion: sin separates us from happiness…To sin is to break relationship with God. Therefore, sin is the biggest enemy of happiness, and forgiveness its greatest friend. Confession reunites us with the God of happiness. ”
One of the arguments the psalmist used to call himself to praise God was the joy of being forgiven of all his sin:
(3) He forgives all your sin; He heals all your diseases. (4) He redeems your life from the Pit;
He crowns you with faithful love and compassion. (5) He satisfies you with goodness; your youth is renewed like the eagle.
The reason we rejoice is we don’t get what we deserve:
(10) He has not dealt with us as our sins deserve or repaid us according to our offenses. (11) For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is His faithful love toward those who fear Him. (12) As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us. (13) As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear Him. (14) For He knows what we are made of, remembering that we are dust.
The particular word the psalmist used that is translated “forgive” is rare in Psalms. It suggests the forgiveness of a person in a position of authority rather than someone who is a peer. Perhaps he was saying that all forgiveness and healing that ever happens ultimately comes from God; there is no other source. He may also be saying that often sin ushers in sickness.
We must never become Job’s counselors and conclude that someone’s sickness is due to sin in their life, though the Bible does acknowledge that sometimes a person’s sickness may have sin behind it. I had a phone call from an acquaintance and the person was asking if the sickness they were experiencing was because of their support and participation in a sin that was a serious violation of their value system. We concluded it very well could be because it put them in such emotional turmoil. The person wanted to know if God would forgive their sin; yes, yes, He will.
Like the psalmist, this person felt that their sin had taken them to the gates of hell. But God did more than rescue the psalmist from hell. He “crowns” him with faithful love and compassion. He “satisfies” goodness. He went from imminent death to the strength of a young man. That was quite a turn around.
This translation uses the word “satisfies”, but it is too weak. It’s more like “overflow” or “stuff full with goodness”. “Goodness” refers back to God’s faithful love and compassion. Though we often fail God because our commitment to Him is weak, He never fails to love and be compassionate toward us. That truth put new life in a man who felt almost dead.
This leads the psalmist to say in verse 10 that God doesn’t deal with us the way we deal with Him. Look at the great contrast between what we deserve and the way He treats us. What do people deserve whose sin and rebellion killed the Son of God? Yet what does He do? He forgives!
This is no mild forgiveness. The psalmist used the strongest picture he could imagine to show the depth and breadth and greatness of God’s forgiveness. For the ancient reader the greatest distance he could imagine was the sky from the earth or the east from the west. It’s even more powerful for the modern reader: we know today that these are infinite dimensions that will never be joined again. God permanently removes your sin in forgiveness, never to be remembered or held against you ever again!
The word “compassion” in verse 13 comes from the word “womb.” Just like a mother loves the baby beneath her heart so God loves us His children. A father, too, loves his children with a motherly love. He knows we are frail creatures who are here on earth briefly and then return to the dust; therefore He doesn’t treat us too harshly.
One of the means to happiness is repentance of sin, confessing sin, and asking for the forgiveness of sin. This is how we are restored in our relationship with our joyful God. The only thing that may stand between you and the joy of your salvation is to sincerely repent of the sin God’s Spirit is convicting you about and receive God’s forgiveness.
One of the best-known photographs from the Vietnam War is a Pulitzer Prize-winning picture of a young burn victim running in terror, arms outstretched, after a napalm bomb was dropped on her village. After months of hospitalization and multiple surgeries, nine-year-old Phan Thi Kim Phuc returned to her family.
What doctors couldn’t heal, Kim Phuc says, was her heart: “The anger inside me was like a hatred high as a mountain.”
But God reached out to Kim Phuc. She found a Bible and talked with a believer who invited her to church, where Kim Phuc chose to trust Christ: “Jesus helped me learn to forgive my enemies.”
Fourteen years later, while speaking in Washington, D.C., she met John Plummer, who had helped coordinate the air strike on her childhood village.
John wrote of their meeting, “She held out her arms to me and embraced me. All I could say was, ‘I’m sorry; I’m so sorry,’ over and over again. At the same time she was saying, ‘It’s all right; it’s all right; I forgive; I forgive.’”
Today, Kim Phuc heads up the KIM Foundation International. Its mission is “to help heal the wounds suffered by innocent children and to restore hope and happiness to their lives.”
Kim found happiness when she dealt seriously with her sin and received God’s forgiveness. Remember: sin separates us from happiness. A secular web site sympathetic to the gay and lesbian lifestyle gives these facts:
• The risk of suicide among gay and lesbian youth is fourteen times higher than for heterosexual youth.
• Between 30 and 45 percent of transgenders report having attempted suicide.
This is at a time when America has never been more friendly and supportive of the homosexual/transgender lifestyle. Every addict of alcohol, drugs, and pornography is a living billboard that the next high is less satisfying than the last. Sin and Satan are liars. We keep falling for their lies over and over again. Sin will not bring happiness. It will separate you from happiness. Ultimately, this hinges on whom we choose to believe is telling us the truth. Kim found happiness when she dealt seriously with her sin and received God’s forgiveness.
Kim found happiness when she gave forgiveness to those who harmed her. Every one of us has a catalog of grievances done to us by spouses, children, parents, friends, employers, neighbors, churches, and the IRS! Some are real and very serious; others are imaginary and exaggerated, but all can undermine happiness…unless you extend some of the enormous forgiveness you have received from the Lord Jesus.
Happiness is the product of practicing certain disciplines. One of those disciplines is happiness through truthful self-talk. Another discipline is happiness through forgiveness of our sin and others sin. A final discipline is happiness through gratitude.
III. HAPPINESS THROUGH GRATITUDE (1 THESS. 5:16-18; PS. 30:11-12; 35:18)
What is sensed but unexpressed in words in this psalm is elsewhere abundantly stated:
1 Thess. 5:16-18: (16) Rejoice always! (17) Pray constantly. (18) Give thanks in everything, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus.
Ps. 30:11-12: (11) You turned my lament into dancing; You removed my sackcloth and clothed me with gladness, (12) so that I can sing to You and not be silent. Lord my God, I will praise You forever.
Ps. 35:18: I will praise You in the great congregation; I will exalt You among many people.
Listen to this. Has this always been in the Bible? Paul writes in 1 Cor. 11:23-24, (23)“For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you: on the night when He was betrayed, the Lord Jesus took bread, 24 gave thanks, broke it, and said, ‘This is My body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of Me.’”(emphasis mine)
Alexander Maclaren (1826-1910) was one of the great Scottish preachers. His sermons are still read today by preachers. He advised, “Seek…to cultivate a buoyant, joyous sense of the crowded kindnesses of God in your daily life.” What a beautiful thought: our lives are crowded with the kindnesses of God. Every day and throughout the day we bump into the kindnesses of God. If we fail to see this kindness it is not because it was lacking but because we were blind.
This is not a denial of evil and suffering and pain; it knows that evil and suffering and pain are unnatural and temporary. God has acted to solve the problems of evil and suffering, and He is going to use them to bring so much good to pass one day that it will be as if they never existed. This is why people fighting cancer or unjust treatment can have hearts full of gratitude toward God. This week ask God to help you be aware of the hundreds of reasons to be grateful.
CONCLUSION
Leonard Sweet tells the story of his mother’s death and the beautiful kindness of God for her. His memory of his mother includes her Bible, which was more like an appendage to her body. As she lay dying in the hospital bed, he sat at her bed in the emergency room holding her hand that wasn’t holding her Bible. He said to her, “Mother, I’ve got to make a decision. You remember that preacher from Atlanta you liked so much? I’m supposed to preach for him tomorrow. I don’t want to leave you. Yet I don’t want to disappoint him, especially since the evening event is part of his doctoral project. I’ll only be gone twenty-four hours. Unless you tell me otherwise, I’ll keep the appointment.”
She flicked her hand, which meant he was to go. He bent over her body, stroked her hair, whispered a short prayer in her ear, and kissed her on the forehead goodbye.
He got as far as the nurses station when something pulled him back to his mother’s room. He wasn’t sure she understood he would only be gone twenty-four hours.
As he returned to her cubicle, a nurse arrived to take his mother to her room. Leonard introduced himself and explained his dilemma. He asked if he could call the nurses station every couple of hours to keep track of her condition. “Sure you can,” said the nurse. “Why don’t you ask to speak to me. I’m working a double shift tomorrow and I’ll be with your mother for the bulk of the time you’re gone.”
“Wow. What a godsend. What a gift. To whom should I ask to speak?” said Leonard.
“Just ask for Joy,” said the nurse.
“Your name is Joy?” he asked incredulously. “Mother, did you hear that? God sent you a nurse named Joy to help you make it through the night. That’s a word we both need to hear right now because neither of us is feeling a lot of joy right now.
“Mother, isn’t it wonderful that God has sent you an angel named Joy to guard over you through the night. Isn’t that so providential? Shouldn’t we praise God for that? You remember, Mother, it was you who taught us three boys the ‘Nehemiah Principle.’ You taught us never to forget the ‘Nehemiah Principle’:” ‘The joy of the Lord is your…’”
He paused for a second. Then his mother, as if suddenly plugged into an invisible source of mega wattage, lit up and finished the verse with cut-glass clarity: “…strength.” She smiled. Her son kissed her and walked out into the night.
This was the last word his mother ever spoke. On the way to her hospital room, she went into a coma from which she never emerged, and died the next day. Leonard’s mother was escorted into eternity on the wings of “…the joy of the Lord is your strength” (Neh. 8:10).
The happiest Being in the universe is the Lord God. We have been given a new nature, one like His. We connect with the joyful God in Jesus by practicing spiritual disciplines. Those include truthful self-talk, confession and forgiveness of sin, and the habit of gratitude. Amen.
PRAYER
INVITATION
Do you remember the first time someone looked you square in the eye and said, “I love you”? Do you remember the last time? Isn’t that not a golden moment? This week I explained the gospel to little Juliana Vasquez (6 years old). I said, “Juliana, don’t ever forget this as long as you live: ‘God loves you.’ There is nothing you can ever do to make Him love you less. There is nothing you can do to make Him love you more. He loves you with His whole heart.” I cannot think of a better reason for you to confess you are a sinner and you want His forgiveness. I cannot think of a better reason that you give all you know of yourself to all you know of God. For some that would mean salvation. For others of you it would mean a renewed commitment to God in Christ. Let the church and me help you.
1. Randy Alcorn, Happiness, p. 325.
2. Leonard Sweet, The Jesus Prescription for a Healthy Life, p. 89.
3. Psalms, vol. 3: Psalms 90-150, John Goldingay, p. 166.
4. Alcorn, p. 310.
5. Ibid, p. 326.
6. Ibid, p. 330-331.
7. Ibid, p. 327.
