INTRODUCTION

Do you want to be happy? Are you tired of being sad? Are you weary of being frustrated and discontent? Are you worn out from being disappointed by people? Are you just fed up with being all excited about going on a vacation only to sink back into your despair when you get home? Is the superficial thrill of new things getting old to you? Do you ever look at your life and think, "I ought to be happy, but I’m not." Why is that? I mean really. When you look at our lives and all we have not just in the way of possessions but also of health and relationships and food and shelter and stable government, why are we not more happy?

I remember reading the comic strip "For Better or For Worse" a number of years ago. The strip is about a family that lives in Canada. There’s a mom and a dad and three children and a dog and Grandpa. The dad is a dentist. He has a bad day at work and then he goes out into the frigid Canadian winter night to start his car at the end of the day and the car won’t start. So he goes back into the office, muttering all the way, and calls a cab. He engages the cab driver in conversation on the way home. He is a black man with an accent and so he asks him where he is from and what he is doing in Canada. The cab driver tells the dentist that his government was trying to kill him for his political views. He had seen his brother killed and knew that he was next on the list and so he fled to Canada. He hasn’t seen his wife and children for 3 years and has no idea what has happened to them. He lives alone in a one bedroom apartment and has no friends. They pull up at the dentist’s house as he finishes his story and he tells the dentist to have a good night as he leaves. The last frame shows the dentist enter his home and hug his wife. He is obviously very happy about his life, for the moment. But we all know that it won’t last. There are going to be more disappointments and the memory of the contrast between his life and the life of the cab driver will grow dim. He won’t remain happy with his life, it’s a given. Again, why is that and is there anything we can do about it?

Could I suggest that the main reason we are not happy is because we are seeking our happiness in the wrong things? God wants you to be happy. He made us with a desire to be happy. It is not wrong to want to be happy. However, the reason we are not happy or that happiness is such a fleeting experience in our lives is because we are pursuing our happiness in the wrong things. We expect created things to make us happy and they can’t. We were made for God. We were made to find our happiness in him. But how do we do that? That is the question we are trying to answer in the series we are currently engaged in. We are in the third part of a six part series entitled, "Pursuing Your Pleasure in God". Two weeks ago we looked at the place of prayer in pursuing our pleasure in God. Nobody is ever going to be happy in God if they are not praying. Today we are examining the necessity of God’s word, the Bible in pursuing our pleasure in God. In Psalm 119: 1-16 we are told…

MAIN POINT

Psalm 119 is the longest chapter in the Bible. It has 176 verses. It is also the most unique chapter in the Bible because of how it is arranged. The entire Psalm is arranged around the Hebrew alphabet. There are 22 stanzas, the number of letters in the Hebrew alphabet, of eight lines each. In each stanza every line begins with the same letter of the Hebrew alphabet, which you can’t see in translation but is really cool in the Hebrew text. In most of the English translations you will notice that there is a strange letter with a strange word next to it at the top of each of the stanzas. These are the Hebrew alphabet. You may have noticed even from the 16 verses that were just read for us that there are a lot of words used for God’s word. Actually there are 8 synonyms used for God’s word in this Psalm. That is why each stanza has 8 lines. This Psalm is an extended meditation on the power of God revealed in his word to his people and prayer for God’s help to know and obey this word.

The psalmist begins his prayer by remembering who are the happiest people in the world. This word "blessed" is an awesome word. It means to be in an enviable state. It is to be in the condition of being happy because you are the recipient of God’s favor and experiencing all the goodness of God towards you. (NOTE: I’ve listed all the occurrences of this word in the OT on the back of your notes. Let me encourage you to look them up and note all the things God says makes up a blessed life.) It’s like what an avid skier says when you show him your pictures of the ski trip you took to Vale, CO. It’s like what football fans say about the person who wins the "all expenses paid" trip to the Super Bowl. It’s like what another parent says when you tell him your son just graduated from Harvard and is going to work for Microsoft after he serves two years with the Peace Corp. The happiest people in the world are the people whom God has blessed. They are the people I most want to be like. Now notice, how does he describe the people who are the happiest people in the world?

He says there are six things true of those whose lives are blessed by God. It’s very important that you understand that these six things are not the cause of God’s blessing. Rather they are the result of God’s blessing. These are the things that make life happy. Let’s just list the six things.

1. Their ways are blameless
2. They walk according to the law of the Lord
3. They keep his statutes
4. They seek him with all their heart
5. They do nothing wrong
6. They walk in his ways

Does that sound like a happy life to you? Honestly, if we just stop right here and you look at your heart, your longings, can you say that the person you are most envious of is the person who most consistently obeys God’s word? If you could be like any person you know, is the person you would most want to be the one who is most obeying God’s word? Do you wish for no greater happiness than to be holy? This is the chief and greatest desire of all those who belong to God. If you are a Christian, then you are saying in your heart, "Oh that I could be this blessed, that all my ways were blameless. Nothing would make me happier. What ecstasy it would be to conduct my life in full accord with the laws of God. To give my whole heart to seeking him each day and doing nothing wrong, ah, what joy it would be." Every Christian without exception has this as their aim and their ambition. I say this because it is what the New Testament says. Listen to Ephesians 2: 8-10, "For it is by grace that you have been saved through faith and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God, not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s workmanship created in Christ Jesus to do good works which God prepared in advance for us to do." What are the good works God has created every Christian to do? They are the works of obedience to God’s word.

The psalmist is convinced that these are the happiest people in the world because God says these are the happiest people in the world. That’s the force behind the word blessed. C. H. Surgeon says it this way, "The psalmist is so enraptured with the word of God that he regards it as his highest ideal of happiness to be conformed to it." I don’t care what you are struggling with right now. You can be happy if you will believe the promise of God and make this your aim. It doesn’t matter if you’re sick or you’ve lost your job or your spouse won’t talk with you. It doesn’t matter if you’re flunking out of school or have no friends or have a bad case of acne. You can be happy right now if you will determine that this is what you must have. There is nothing and no one in all creation that can keep you from this and God himself will make sure you get there, if that is what you want.

My guess is that most of us would say we know we ought to want this kind of life above all others. We intellectually know that a blameless, seeking life is the best kind of life but we also know that there are a lot of other things that seem to be more immediate in their gratification. It’s like one of you wives having your husband say to you, "Honey, you’ll really like watching the Super Bowl this afternoon. It’s going to be a great game. I’ll make a bunch of great munchies and we’ll snuggle up on the couch together. There’s a great half-time show and the commercials are out of this world. You’re going to so enjoy this." You might think there are parts of the proposal that are attractive but the idea of watching football for three hours is just not appealing. Something has to happen to your value system, to your affections if you are going to whole-heartedly enjoy the game and not just tolerate it. The psalmist knows this is the best kind of life but he also knows that he’s not going to get there by his own will power as we will see in the next point.

Notice that in v. 4 he directly addresses God. He has set forth the ideal to which he aspires but now he begins the work of getting there by prayer. He tells God that he knows that he has given commands and he expects those commands to be fully obeyed. It is important to note that God isn’t giving commands like an employer who needs his employees to work so that he can make money. His commands are not given so that we will give him a hand in running the universe. Rather, we need to put vv. 1-3 with v. 4. God expects humans to fully obey his commands so that they can enjoy the happiness for which they were created, fellowship with him. These four verses together are saying the same thing God said through Moses in Deut. 10: 12. "And now, O Israel, what does the Lord your God ask of you but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul and to observe the Lord’s commands and decrees that I am giving you today (get this!) for your own good." Obedience is for our good, not to meet some need in God. He gives us commands because he loves us and he wants us to obey them because he loves us.

But now see in v. 5 what he prays. "Oh that my ways were steadfast in obeying your decrees!" This is a prayer of yearning. He’s not praying that God would make him healthy and wealthy. What he desperately yearns for is that his life would correspond to God’s word. This isn’t just a statement of his desire however. It is also a declaration of his hope. The verb "were steadfast" is better translated, "might be established". While expressing his desire he is also calling upon God to establish him in obeying this word. He knows that he does not have the ability to obey. God must give it to him. This verb is used a couple other times in this Psalm. Look at v. 73, "Your hands made me and established me" and v. 90, "You established the earth and it endures." What he is asking for is that God would exercise that same power that he exercised in creating both the psalmist and the world to move his will to obey the will of God. 2 Cor 4: 6 says, "For God who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness’, has made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God." The OT and the NT say the same thing. There is no way that human beings have the ability to love God’s law or to do God’s law. God must work this in us and that is exactly what the psalmist prays. When a sinner loves God’s laws and obeys them it is as much of a miracle as creation itself. It requires the same power from God to create a universe or to give us new hearts.

When God establishes a person in obedience what happens? Look at vv. 6 & 7. First, the law of God ceases to condemn. It no longer is a source of shame to the sinner but rather a source of joy and praise to God. When God gives you a desire to obey God’s word and when you actually find yourself obeying it, then you love to read it and look at it and discover new ways to obey because you’re so happy to obey. You praise God for his word and all that it tells you about him and his ways. God’s word is not boring or a source of pain but a source of joy. One of my sons, when he was 8 years old was shooting baskets in our driveway. But, he was sobbing while he was shooting baskets. I asked him what was wrong. He told me that he couldn’t make any baskets. He knew he’d never be able to make a basket. Shooting baskets was a source of shame and discouragement to him at that time because he could barely hit the rim. I signed him up to play basketball at the YMCA. They kids in his age group got to play on 8 foot rims, instead of 10 foot rims. He was a scoring machine on the 8 foot rims. What was once a source of shame and frustration became a source of joy when he actually succeeded in doing what he so desperately wanted to do. This is exactly the experience of the psalmist only his ability to obey is not his own but given to him by God. He wants to live the blessed life, i.e., living in accord with God’s law. He can’t do it and this is a source of shame. So he calls out to God to establish him in obedience. As God does that in him the word of God ceases to be a source of shame and despair but turns into a source of joy and praise.

Then he ends by declaring his intention to obey but again, note the dependence, "O God, do not utterly forsake me." He wants to obey but he knows that if God doesn’t work, if God forsakes him, all his good intentions will amount to nothing. So he cries out for God to not abandon him but to stay close to him. There’s a song by Margaret Becker that I first heard at a conference in the early 1990’s. It was during that time you’ve heard me talk about when I was discovering that knowing and loving and obeying God was the greatest joy in the universe. It’s a great song. The chorus says this, "This is my passion, holiness, holiness. This is my cry, mercy, mercy." That’s verse 8. "O God to obey your decrees is my greatest desire. Have mercy on me, don’t leave me alone or I will fail. I will not be ashamed, I will praise and I will obey as long as you establish me in obedience and don’t forsake me." Do you pray like this? If you could wave a magic wand and have life go exactly as you want it to go, is this what you would wish for? If this is not your ambition, if you must have something else to be happy, then I promise you that you will never be happy, you’ll never be at peace. But if this is your highest ambition and that for which you pray, then God will make sure that you get what you seek.

Is there nothing we can do to attain this blessed life? Is it all God and nothing of us? That’s the question that the psalmist now raises. In these next 8 verses he shows us the relationship between God’s work, our obedient lives and his word. He begins by asking the question, "How can a young man keep his way pure?" He is simply asking how can a young man live a blessed life, a life that is happy because it is obedient to God? Why does he say "young man"? Why not "How can a man or person keep his way pure?" I think it is because most of us know that purity and youth don’t go together. Young men with their raging hormones and need to test their strength are the least likely candidates for living a pure, blameless life. In fact, if a young man wants to live this way and does live this way it is a remarkable evidence of the transforming power of God’s grace. Young men buy the most pornography. Young men make up the majority of the violent, criminal population. Young men consume the largest proportion of drugs in our country. Young men drop out of school at a much higher rate than young women. The psalmist is posing the most difficult case for us to consider. If young men can be pure than anyone can be pure.

So how does a young man or any man or woman live a pure life? The short answer is by living in accord with God’s word. But what does that mean? The first thing I want you to see is that the pronoun "you" or "your" shows up 13 times in these 8 verses. The #1 thing that must be settled in your heart if you’re ever going to live a blessed life is that God matters more to you than anyone or anything else in the universe. See v. 10, "I seek you with all my heart." This is where it all starts. You have to believe and know that to have God is the greatest thing in the whole world. Then you have to engage your whole being in seeking him. This is no different than the athlete seeking the gold medal, the shopper seeking the best deal, the wife seeking the affection of her husband, the student seeking an "A" in the class, the hunter seeking his game, the artist seeking to create a piece of art. You only seek that which you believe in finding will make you happy. You can only seek by expending effort. When you are pursuing what you love, even the pursuing is joy.

He declares his intention to seek God and then he asks God to not let him stray from God’s commands. Seeking God and obeying his word are one and the same thing. No one can do either unless God enables. He is the one who must keep us on the track. But there is something we can do, in fact, must do. He asks God to keep him seeking but then he says that he has hidden God’s word in his heart so that he will not stop seeking or as he says, "so that he will not sin against God". What he wants most is God. What he fears most is offending God. The word for hiding is actually the word for storing up treasure, hiding treasure. There are two things this tells me. First, God’s word is extremely valuable to the person who is seeking God, who wants to live a blessed life. If you say you love God and want to know him but you do not treasure this word, you are lying. It’s like the husband who says, "I love my wife. I just can’t stand listening to her talk." Second, this tells me that the person who is seeking God is storing up God’s word in their lives. We do this by hearing his word preached, by reading his word, by studying his word privately and with others. But v. 11 is saying more than that. This verse is telling us to memorize and meditate on God’s word. If you will memorize God’s word because it is a treasure to you, because you want to live a pure life, because you don’t want to sin against God then that word will be a source of strength and joy in you.

See how verses 12 & 13 repeat the same basic idea as 10-11? He praises God because God is the one who makes him happy above all things and then asks him to teach him his word. Then in v. 13 he tells about what he does. He speaks the words of God out loud. He recites God’s words out loud. 10-11 and 12-13 reveal a pattern of how it is that God gives us a blessed life. It’s like the farmer who plants the seed in the ground and then the rain falls and the seed grows. If the farmer doesn’t plant the seed, there will be no crop no matter how much rain falls. But, if the farmer plants the seed and no rain falls, then there will be no crop. So we plant the seed of God’s word in our lives by memorizing Scripture and reciting it out loud. Then we ask God to send the rain and he does and the result is that we find God, we live pure lives, we don’t sin against God.

I’m going to get real practical right here. My intention isn’t to make you feel guilty but to motivate you to do what will make you really happy. Verses 11, 13, & 15 are all referring to an intense ingesting of God’s word. We are to devour this book if we intend to know God and live the blessed life of obedient faith. These verses teach that we are to memorize God’s word and then recite it and to think much about it as we do so. This is Christian meditation. We put God’s word in our mind by memorizing it. Then we recite it and think about it while we ask God to teach us what it means and how we should live in light of what it says. The catechism is an excellent way to do exactly what these verses are talking about. If you’ll just turn off the TV for a half hour on Sunday evening. Read the question and answer. Talk about it. Read the Scripture. Then help each other memorize the question, the answer and the Scripture. Then ask each other to recite it throughout the week. Then do the same thing the next week.

I have told you of how God had mercy on me in 1991 when he rescued me from despair by showing me that life is about God, not about doing God’s work. The internal change in my life was that knowing God became my passion. But the two things that changed in my behavior were I began to get up at 6 am so I could read and meditate on the Scriptures and I began to memorize the Scriptures. I have memorized 2-3 new verses of Scripture every week for at least 8 years and I recite, out loud, passages I have memorized almost every day. I have asked God to teach me his decrees and to not let me stray from them as I have memorized them and recited them. God has kept me from sinning against him through his word. I have grown to delight in God and his word above all things. You all know that I am a sinner. I have on more than one occasion told of my sin from this pulpit. But I want you to know that I have tasted of the joy of the blessed life of obedience by doing what we are told to do here.

Then, finally see vv. 14-16. This process is not some doleful, boring, sad process. It is a process that is full of joy. In fact, when you live like this you discover that knowing God’s word is more joyful than winning the million dollars on "Who wants to be a Millionaire?" Your mind is full of God’s word all the time in the same way that the stock brokers mind is full of stock prices. The way the two coaches of the Super Bowl teams minds are full of plays and strategies right now as they prepare for the game. "I delight in your decrees, I will not neglect your word." How can you neglect what you delight in? The psalmist and all who want to be happy in God cannot neglect his word anymore than an alcoholic can neglect his beer. Anymore than a football fan can neglect the Super Bowl. Anymore than a fan of E.R. can neglect watching TV on Thursday night. Anymore than a race fan can neglect the Indy 500.

You can be happy right now, whatever the circumstances of your life. All you have to do is determine that what you need to be happy is God and a life lived seeking him, obeying his commands. You don’t need your spouse to be nice to you, you don’t need more money, you don’t need a wife, you don’t need sex, you don’t need good grades, you don’t need friends. You need God. If you will determine that and then seek him by devouring his word and crying out for mercy while you do so, you will get what you are looking for, an obedient life that is full of God. You will be happy in God.

© Copyright 2001 John Swanson.
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