All people want to be happy. I have spent a lot of time with people as a pastor, and the majority of couples and individuals who met with me over the years did so because they longed to be happy. It is also true that the motivation for couples seeking marriage or divorce, the desire for a new job or the determination to quit a job, what led to substance abuse or a willingness to break an addiction is all the same: the desire to be happy. In fact, there have been people who claimed to be Christians who sought marriage, divorce, drugs, freedom from addiction, debt, and freedom from debt out of the belief that God wanted them to be happy.
How about you? Do you believe God wants you to be happy? Do you believe that the ends justify the means to achieve and experience the happiness you believe God wants for you? Maybe you are asking any one of the following questions:
“I am unhappy where I live, if I have the means to do so, can I move so that I can be happier?”
“I am tired of driving the same old car, should I buy a new one that will make me happier?”
“I feel unfulfilled where I work, can I look for a new job that will fill my day with a little more joy?”
“I feel ignored and taken for granted in my marriage, my spouse does not meet my needs, I am unhappy, our children are miserable because we are miserable... something needs to change so that we can be happy.”
So here is what I want to do with the time we have left. I want to show you from the Bible three things:
- God expects you to seek happiness.
- God commands you to pursue your joy.
- Finding your joy/happiness is possible.
By answering the above three questions, I hope that you will have a clear and biblical understanding as to whether God wants you to be happy.
God Expects You to Seek Happiness (vv. 1-5)
Let me begin by stating that in Psalm 95 alone, the word joy is repeated three times in the first two verses: “sing for joy...”, “shout joyfully to the rock of our salvation”, “shout joyfully to Him in songs with instruments.” But Psalm 95 is not the only place where such language is used; consider the language from the Bible:
“Delight yourself...” (Ps. 37:4)
“Rejoice...” (Phil. 4:4)
“Rejoice always...” (1 Thess. 5:16)
“Let us rejoice and be glad...” (Ps. 118:24)
But where is it that God expects us to find our joy? Again, consider the same above verses:
“Delight yourself in the Lord...” (Ps. 37:4)
“Rejoice in the Lord always...” (Phil. 4:4)
“Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God for you in Christ Jesus.” (1 Thess. 5:16-18)
“This is the day which the Lord has made, let’s us rejoice and be glad in it.” (Ps. 118:24)
Is our happiness only to be found in God? What about verses like Ecclesiastes 9:9, does it not tell us to enjoy life while we have it? “Enjoy life with the wife whom you love all the days of your futile life which He has given you under the sun, all the days of your futility; for this is your reward in life and in your work which you have labored under the sun.” Yes and no. Consider the first two verses of Psalm 19 and what it says about creation: “The heavens tell of the glory of God; and their expanse declares the work of His hands. Day to day pours forth speech, and night to night reveals knowledge.” The heavens are what God created, and like your wife whom you love, like the life you enjoy, and everything else... it all points to the glory of the Creator!
The reason why Psalm 95 begins with these words: “Come, let’s sing for joy to the Lord, let’s shout joyfully to the rock of our salvation. Let’s come before His presence with a song of thanksgiving, let’s shout joyfully to Him in songs with instruments” is because He is the giver of all good things! Why should we worship Yahweh? Because Psalm 95:3-5 is true of only Him: “For the Lord is a great God and a great King above all gods, in whose hand are the depths of the earth, the peaks of the mountains are also His. The sea is His, for it was He who made it, and His hands formed the dry land.” This is why, of the Ten Commandments, Jesus summed up the first four: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind” (Matt. 22:37; see also Deut. 6:5; Exod. 20:1-11).
Listen, God expects us to seek our joy, but not ultimately in His good gifts but in the giver who gave those good gifts... namely God Himself. In fact C.S. Lewis rightfully observed from reading his Bible that, “Joy is the serious business of heaven.”[1]
God Commands You to Pursue Your Joy (vv. 6-7)
Psalm 95 begins with an imperative, which is a command: “Come, let’s sing for joy...” Why does He command us to pursue our joy? Because we exist for something greater than the good gifts of His creation. We exist because of Him and for Him! The second imperative in Psalm 95 begins with verse 6, “Come, let’s worship and bow down, let’s kneel before the Lord our Maker.” Why are we commanded to bow before God? Because “He is our God, and we are the people of His pasture and the sheep of His hand” (v. 7).
The command to pursue our joy is not that we find it in anything, but in the One who made all things. He is God, and by definition there is nothing and no one that is greater than He is. To look for or expect our happiness or joy to be primarily found in anything or anyone else will not only leave you empty and disappointed, but is to worship the gift over the Giver! To worship the gift over the Giver is to expect from the gift the thing that only the Giver, God, can provide.
C.S. Lewis wrote in his book, Reflections on the Psalms, something that I have found helpful, so I will share it with you:
“I think we delight to praise what we enjoy because the praise not merely expresses but completes the enjoyment; it is its appointed consummation. It is not out of compliment that lovers keep on telling one another how beautiful they are; the delight is incomplete till it is expressed. It is frustrating to have discovered a new author and not to be able to tell anyone how good he is; to come suddenly, at the turn of the road, upon some mountain valley of unexpected grandeur and then to have to keep silent because the people with you care for it no more than for a tin can in the ditch; to hear a good joke and find no one to share it with.
Do you hear what C.S. Lewis is saying? We praise what we value and care about and our delight is not complete until our delight is expressed. If it is true, that there is no greater beauty, reality, or person than the God who created all that is beautiful and good, true worship cannot be experienced unless it is directed at Him. This is why the Westminster Catechism is right to begin with these words: “The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.” But even on this point, C.S. Lewis made the following observation that helps us get a little closer to answering the question as to what kind of happiness God wants for us; here is what Lewis wrote: “The Scotch catechism says that man’s chief end is ‘to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.’ But we shall then know that these are the same thing. To fully enjoy is to glorify. In commanding us to glorify Him, God is inviting us to enjoy Him.” John Piper took it one step further by swapping out the word “and” in the Westminster Catechism of Faith with the word “by”: “The chief end of man is to glorify God byenjoying Him forever.”
God does expect us to seek our happiness, and He does command us to pursue our joy, but a happiness and a joy that is rooted in Him. If our happiness and joy is sought in anything other than God, it will not satisfy. However, if the pursuit of our happiness and joy is sought in Him, there will be a joy and happiness that will be rooted in a contentment in Him. This is how and why James 1:2-3 is only true for those who find their joy in Jesus Christ: “Consider it all joy, my brothers and sisters, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.”
Finding Your Joy/Happiness is Possible (vv. 8-10)
So, does God want you to be happy? Yes, He wants you to be happy in Him! Does that mean that He wants you to leave your marriage because it does not make you happy? No! Does that mean you should leave your job because it does not make you happy? No. Does that mean you should get a new car because it does not make you happy? No, not necessarily. Why? Because your happiness and joy cannot ultimately be found in anything or anyone except the God who is your Maker.
When we come to Psalm 95:8, there is a shift from the command to find your joy in God to Israel’s rebellion while they were in the wilderness, and more specifically, the Psalm refers to something that happened in Exodus 17:1-7 not long after God saved Israel from Pharoh and his army by parting the Red Sea. While in Egypt, Israel witnessed their God and Maker do mighty deeds that should have left little room to doubt His goodness and love for His people. Even though they had no reason to doubt God’s faithfulness to them, they still struggled to believe His faithfulness to them, so they complained: “So the people quarreled with Moses and said, ‘Give us water so that we may drink” (Exod. 17:2)! Moses’ response gives us a glimpse into 40 years of Israel in the wilderness: “Moses said to them, ‘Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you test the Lord?”
Throughout Israel’s existence, they were known for complaining and faithlessness towards God. Even after 40 years in the wilderness, God said of His people: “‘Be appalled at this, you heavens, And shudder, be very desolate,’ declares the Lord. ‘For My people have committed two evils: They have abandoned Me, the fountain of living waters, to carve out for themselves cisterns, broken cisterns that do not hold water’” (Jer. 2:12-13). The great evil that Israel was guilty of was that She traded God for idols that could not satisfy. Consider another example from Isaiah 55:1-3 when God invited His people to turn away from the things that could not satisfy what they really needed:
You there! Everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and you who have no money come, buy and eat. Come, buy wine and milk Without money and without cost. “Why do you spend money for what is not bread, and your wages for what does not satisfy? Listen carefully to Me, and eat what is good, and delight yourself in abundance. “Incline your ear and come to Me. Listen, that you may live; and I will make an everlasting covenant with you, according to the faithful mercies shown to David.
So what happened in Exodus 17? Moses immediately brought Israel’s complaint before God out of a fear that they might eventually stone him to death. Moses asked, “What am I to do with this people?” (v. 4). Listen to the way God responded to Israel’s lack of faith and sin: “Then the Lord said to Moses, ‘Pass before the people and take with you some of the elders of Israel; and take in your hand your staff with which you struck the Nile, and go. Behold, I will stand before you there on the rock at Horeb; and you shall strike the rock, and water will come out of it, so that the people may drink.’ And Moses did so in the sight of the elders of Israel” (17:5-6). In other words, God said to Moses: “Moses, take your staff that ought to be used to strike Israel for their sins, and take your rod and strike the rock I will be standing on so that Israel will not die of thirst.”
In 1 Corinthians 10:1-4, the apostle Paul said that the rock Moses struck was a picture and example of what God would do to satisfy the thirst of all who desire to be satisfied. The rod of God’s judgment for our sin came down upon Jesus as the rock of our salvation! Paul said of the rock Moses struck: “for they were drinking from a spiritual rock which followed them; and the rock was Christ” (v. 4). Now, listen to what Jesus said in John 7:37-38, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink. The one who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, ‘From his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.’”
Psalm 95 begins with these words: “Come, let’s sing for joy to the Lord, let’s shout joyfully to the rock of our salvation.” Jesus is the “rock of our salvation”! Again, Psalm 95 continues, “Come, let’s worship and bow down, let’s kneel before the Lord our Maker” (v. 6). Of Jesus, the Bible testifies, “...for by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones, or dominions, or rulers, or authorities—all things have been created through Him and for Him” (Col. 1:16). Because the rod of God’s holy wrath came upon Jesus in our place, we are told:
And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death: death on a cross. For this reason also God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Phil. 2:8-11)
The Psalmist then reminds us that not only is God our Maker, but that He is our God, “and we are the people of His pasture and the sheep of His hand. Today if you will hear His voice, do not harden your hearts as at Meribah, as on the day of Massah in the wilderness...” (v. 7). Can you not hear the words of Jesus in Psalm 95:7, did He not say: “I am the good shepherd; the good shepherd lays down His life for the sheep.... I am the good shepherd, and I know My own, and My own know Me.... And I have other sheep that are not of this fold; I must bring them also, and they will listen to My voice; and they will become one flock, with one shepherd” (John 10:11, 14, 16).
Conclusion
Is joy and happiness possible for you? The answer is Yes! But it will not come from your car, through your job, or from any other person, but your Maker and the Great Shepherd of His sheep... namely Jesus! If you are seeking your happiness and joy in anything other than Jesus, then C.S. Lewis’ words serve as a fitting conclusion to this sermon: “It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”
God wants you to be happy and He wants you to experience joy, but it is a happiness and a joy that can only be found in Him. The joy and happiness that can only be found in God is the kind of joy and happiness that does not dissolve through suffering but sustains the sufferer because of the One from Whom true happiness and joy comes from. Amen.
[1] C.S. Lewis, Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer (San Diego: Harvest, 1964), p. 93.
