Ep. 39 - God Wants You to be Happy | Psalm 1

God is very interested in our happiness and flourishing. Psalm 1 talks about how and where we can find the good life and true happiness.

God Wants You to be Happy | Psalm 1

[00:00:00] JC Schroeder: Check out this beautiful blooming tree that I'm standing next to. I, I absolutely love how beautiful this tree is. And I think this is a beautiful picture of what the Lord wants to do in our lives. You're probably familiar with the Psalm, Psalm one, which creates this picture and contrast of the person who is righteous, the person who orients their life, towards the Lord and the ungodly, the one that resists and goes against the Lord. In, in Psalm chapter one, Psalm one, verse three, the Bible says this, the, the righteous person, he, the righteous person, is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season and its leaf does not wither. In all that he or she does prospers. So here we have [00:01:00] this picture of what the Lord desires to do in your life and in my life. He wants to make us, like this, this beautiful tree. And he wants to bring happiness, flourishing, blessing, into our life. This is what he says at the beginning of that Psalm in verse one, Psalm one, verse one.

[00:01:23] He says this, blessed is the man, or blessed is the person who walks not in the council of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers. This is the negative aspect of this blessing. This not walking the way of the world, but in verse two, it brings the positive aspect of walking the way of the Lord. I love that very first word, blessed is the man, or blessed is the person. You could also translate this word as happy [00:02:00] is the person or flourishing is this person. Now, when we think of this word blessing, or even with happiness, we can kind of think of it as if I do X, Y, Z I will get lots of stuff.

[00:02:14] And that's not really the emphasis of this word here in this passage. It is an analysis. It is an evaluation of this way of life. See how good it is? See the type of prospering of flourishing that it brings. That's the emphasis here. It's an invitation into a way of life. This is a sort of wisdom sort of perspective of let us look at this life, see that this is the best life.

[00:02:43] And let's live in it. I love how this Psalm describes this person, this righteous person, as not just doing certain actions, but their heart is oriented towards the Lord. It says verse two, but his delight is in the law [00:03:00] of the Lord and on his law, he meditates day and night. This is the positive aspect of this relationship to the Lord.

[00:03:10] This type of person delights in the instruction of God. It's not a list of rules. No one ever delights in rules or laws. I don't delight in doing my taxes. I don't delight in doing those types of things, and I don't think any anyone else really does. But we delight in the instruction, the teaching, the path that the Lord lays out for us because we have this beautiful all knowing God who knows all that is good, all that is evil. And he knows that is not the way of flourishing, that is not the way of blessing. This way is the way of blessing. This is the instruction, the way of life that I lay out before you. Walk in that, think on that, meditate on that, delight in [00:04:00] that.

[00:04:00] And then he says in verse three, the person that delights, that rejects the, the world that delights in his law, that meditates on it. The result of this is that you're like a tree. I, we would be like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season. The Lord desires for you to be happy. He desires for me to be happy. He desires that we would flourish, but what he means by here is not that we're always just happy all the time, but that we have this true happiness, that we are living the life that God desires for us to live. When we orient our hearts to the Lord, he brings flourishing in our lives.

[00:04:43] He's not promising lots of stuff. He's not promising no problems whatsoever. But he is promising this wonderful life, this wonderful relationship with him, and find where true happiness and true flourishing is [00:05:00] found. Now, I also love in this passage where it talks about this tree yields its fruit in its season.

[00:05:07] Like I love this tree. But it's only looks like this for like a week. It's been like almost there for the last, I don't know, week or so. And then just a couple of days ago, it's really just popped and bloomed. But I know it's not always gonna look like this. And I think sometimes in our spiritual lives, we want our lives to look something like this or the human equivalent to something like this.

[00:05:31] Beautiful. No problems just bursting with energy, color, all that right? And we look at our lives and go, well, I'm reading my Bible, I'm praying. I'm trying to obey the Lord, but I don't look like that, or I don't feel like that. God gives us this promise here that it gives the fruit in its own season.

[00:05:52] Sometimes that is, that happens very quickly. Sometimes there's a long process of developing the Lord, [00:06:00] developing our character of developing our lives, and working in us to become like his son. And we long and we wait for that full and final day when we will be totally and completely like, the Lord. And that's our hope for resurrection, that this world is not all that there is. The point that I'm trying to get at here is no matter how wonderful and beautiful this world is and how wonderful and beautiful the Lord can make our lives right now, and he can do that and he does do that, but sometimes he, that doesn't always happen in our lives. There.

[00:06:34] We live in a fallen and broken world, but however wonderful or however corrupted this world in our lives are. The Lord can and will redeem them when he returns. There is hope because this is not all that there is, and we long for that day for the full and final blooming and flourishing of our lives with the Lord.

[00:06:59] So [00:07:00] we have this beautiful picture of the right now and of the future as well for us and our lives as believers. Now he doesn't just leave it at, look at this tree, don't you want this tree? He gives you the negative side and he uses this in verse four when he says, but the ungodly are not so, but are like chaff, which the wind drives away.

[00:07:27] Now, this is not chaff but it flies in the wind. And he says, just as that tree is rooted, brings flourishing, blooms is just beautiful and chaff, which just, it just floats in the air, does nothing. He wants us to evaluate our lives to see are we like the chaff that floats in the wind, or are we like a tree that is planted and rooted in the Lord?

[00:07:55] The psalmist here ends this chapter with this contrast of describing the [00:08:00] wicked, the ungodly against the Lord. And those that are resting in the Lord. Therefore, the wicked will not stand in the judgment nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous. For the Lord knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish.

[00:08:17] He invites us to evaluate, to analyze these two modes of life, to see which path are we on, which way are we living into? Are we delighting in the Lord, in his instruction, in his life? Are we indulging in our own sinful self? He desires to show us what the true flourishing life is so that we may be truly flourishing, truly happy.

[00:08:48] As he desires us to be.