The Secret of True Happiness

A Sermon

Rev. S. Randall Toms, Ph.D.

Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. (Psalm 1:1

Living in a time when most of us are anxious and troubled, we often think that people of our day are unique in the history of the world. We tend to think that, with all the pressures and struggles that we face in the modern era, people in earlier ages of the world’s history must have been free from such cares and concerns. But if we look in the book of Psalms, we find that people have always had the same fears, worries, and problems that we face. Whether we are reading a psalm of David or one of the other inspired psalmists, we see that they experienced the same gamut of emotions that run through our hearts and minds.

All of us want to be happy and live with a sense of inner peace and security. We all want to live the blessed life. If you look through any bookstore or browse the Internet, you will find many books that are devoted to helping us find the key to happiness. Yet, in spite of all the books, magazine articles, and trips to professional counselors, many of us still struggle to be genuinely happy.

But if we want to know the secret to true happiness, not just a superficial feeling that comes and goes based on the circumstances of our lives, but a real, abiding joy that remains with us even in our darkest times, we need to go to the pages of Holy Scripture, and in particular, the Psalms, for in the Psalms we find people who are often angry, sad, and perplexed. They often look to God with questions about how he was dealing with them. We find them in bitter disputes with other people and very often in perilous danger. And yet, through all these difficulties, we find them worshiping God, and though sometimes filled with doubt, finally resting in a God whom they trust.

So, the book of Psalms, this ancient hymnbook of the people of God, begins with a recipe for happiness, or blessedness, for it begins, “Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful.” Isn’t it wonderful that this beautiful book of praise and worship begins with a description of how we can enter into a life of true and abiding happiness! The Hebrew word that is translated as “blessed” is a word that means “happy.” As a matter of fact, the King James Version sometimes translates it as “happy,” as we find in Deut. 33:29: “Happy art thou, O Israel: who is like unto thee, O people saved by the LORD, the shield of thy help, and who is the sword of thy excellency!” The word that is translated there as “happy” is the same word for “blessed” here in the first Psalm. Israel was a blessed, happy people because they were saved by the Lord and had him as their glorious Savior and Defender. The Queen of Sheba also used this word when she visited Solomon and was so impressed by his wisdom. She said, “Happy are thy men, happy are these thy servants, which stand continually before thee, and that hear thy wisdom” (I Kings 10:8). Again, the word translated “happy” is this word for “blessed” in the first Psalm. Though we find this word used in other books of the Bible, we find it most often in the book of Psalms, where it is used 25 times. While “happy” seems to be a good translation of this word for “blessed,” somehow the word “happy” just doesn’t seem to catch the richness of this word in the Hebrews language and the condition of life that it describes, especially when you consider what normally comes to our minds when we think of being happy. For us, the word “happy” can simply mean a good feeling that causes us to smile. But the blessedness, the happiness described in the book of Psalms, is one that is present even when a person is weeping--even when one is feeling outcast and deserted.

Isn’t it interesting that one of the most popular sections of the New Testament, that teaching of our Lord Jesus that we often refer to as “the Sermon on the Mount,” also begins with a description of blessedness? And yet, the people whom our Lord describes as “blessed” or “happy” in the Beatitudes are people whom we consider least likely to be happy. “Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth” (Matt. 5:3–5). The Greek word that is used in the Sermon on the Mount is also a word that carries the meaning of “happy” and was used to convey the meaning of this Hebrew word that we are looking at in the first Psalm.

When we look at the people in the Sermon on the Mount and in the book of Psalms who are described as “blessed,” we come quickly to the conclusion that this blessedness, this happiness, is not an emotion but a condition of life. The life of this person is so filled with blessings that, even when rough times come, he realizes that he is still in a wonderful condition. Some scholars have pointed out that the word “blessed” in Psalm 1:1 is actually in the plural, so that we could say, “O the blessednesses. . . .” This person’s life is filled with so many different kinds of blessings that he leads an enviable life. If you looked at this blessed person, you would say that you want the kind of life that this person lives; you would want the peace, serenity, and joy that he possesses, along with all the other blessings that he enjoys. If someone asked one of your acquaintances, “Can you show me someone who is living the truly blessed, happy life, in all of its richness and fullness?” could they point to you, saying, “There is the blessed life. O the blessedness of that person”?

The word of God, especially the book of Psalms, leads you to find this kind of life. Throughout the Psalms we find this word used to describe those who put their trust in the Lord, those who dwell in the house of the Lord, those who live in obedience to God’s word, and those who fear the Lord. So, the Bible is very concerned that we enter into and experience this kind of blessed, happy life.

All of us, whether we like to admit it or not, are pursuing a happy life. We make most decisions in our lives based on whether we think the choices we make will cause us to be happy. In his commentary on the first Psalm, Adam Clarke gives us a wonderful outline on the theme of this Psalm and, actually, the whole book of Psalms in general:

God made man for happiness.
Every man feels a desire to be happy.
All human beings abhor misery.
Happiness is the grand object of pursuit among all men.
But so perverted is the human heart, that it seeks happiness where it cannot be found; and in things which are naturally and morally unfit to communicate it.
The true way of obtaining it is here laid down.

We need to pay close attention to Clarke’s outline. God did make us to be happy. He put man in a Garden Paradise where he would never know a moment of sorrow. But when man sinned, sorrow and misery came into the world, but the desire to be happy was not taken away from us. We desire to be free from sorrow and pain, so we are constantly looking for the blessed, happy life. Unfortunately, even when we sin against God, we do so because we think that those sinful actions, even if only for a moment, will make us happy. But as Clarke says, because we are sinners, we are always looking for happiness in those things that can never provide it.

Knowing that we desire happiness, the media constantly bombard us with images of those things that we are told will most surely make us happy. In the United States, we have come to believe that material possessions are the key to the truly blessed life. So, advertisers constantly lead us to expect that the next new possession will make us happy. Advocates of different kinds of lifestyles, especially sexually permissive ones, tell us that the key to happiness lies in the delight of our physical senses. Then there are advocates of countless religions and philosophies that promise to help us to find this blessed life. But in spite of all the promises of those religions and philosophies that will make us happy, our happiness, our sense of blessedness, evaporates quite quickly. During the early days of the pandemic in 2020, only 14% of Americans could say that they were very happy. Is there a condition of life out there somewhere that could cause us to feel that we are in a state of blessedness even when things are at their worst? Such a life is possible, and the way to enter into that life and continue in it is found in the Holy Scriptures, especially in the book of Psalms.

I hope you will join us in this intense, detailed study of the book of Psalms. It is interesting that this book of 150 chapters, 150 songs, begins with a description of the blessed life. Some scholars have suggested that this Psalm is not really a song like many of the others. This first Psalm fits more into the category of wisdom literature, contrasting the life of the godly and the ungodly, showing how the godly person truly lives the blessed life. As a matter of fact, in some ancient medieval manuscripts, this first Psalm is not even numbered. In other words, it is not given the title “Psalm 1.” Instead, it seems to function as a kind of preface to the whole book of Psalms. The first Psalm sets the tone for the rest of the book, as we will see the writers going through the various trials of life and yet still rejoicing in the Lord, worshiping the God who proves himself faithful to us throughout our lives.

As William Plummer writes, “However tried and afflicted, every servant of God has vast treasures of good things in possession and in prospect” (27). Wouldn’t it be wonderful if the condition of your life were such that, even in difficult times, you felt that you were still in possession of an abundant life, with an even more abundant life in the future? The Christian endures a great many trials in this life, but still, when he counts all his blessings, especially those of a spiritual nature, he realizes that he truly is living the blessed life.

Then think of those things God has prepared for those who love him, things which it has not entered into our hearts to conceive. The future of our eternal life in Christ beckons us with the sight of an even greater blessedness of life in the world to come. The book of Psalms will teach you how to attain this life of constant blessing. The book of Psalms graphically portrays for us the kind of life you want to avoid and the kind of life that you must diligently pursue. And, of course, it tells us that the truly blessed person is the person who walks with God.

Join us in this study of the Psalms as we see how to attain the truly blessed life. In a world of such turmoil and distress, it may seem an impossibility that such a life could be yours, but it is possible. As David Dickson wrote, “Though sin and misery abound among men, yet blessedness may be attained; for God here pronounceth some to be blessed” (1). You can be one of the blessed. You can be the person described in Psalm 1.

Of course, this life begins with knowing God through Jesus Christ our Lord. When you come to know Christ, you come to the source of all true joy and blessedness. True happiness is impossible apart from knowing Jesus Christr, God in the flesh, as our Lord and Savior. In John 17:13, our Lord prayed to his Father, “And now come I to thee; and these things I speak in the world, that they might have my joy fulfilled in themselves” (John 17:13). Our Lord prayed that his disciples would have his joy. What kind of joy did our Lord possess? Was it the kind of joy that was characterized by constant smiling and pleasant feelings? No, we are told that he was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, and yet he was, at the same time, full of joy.

This blessed life described in the Scriptures is a life of blessing, a life of bliss, a life of happiness that remains whatever we may be called upon to face in this life. Alexander MacLaren put it like this:

“He who wrote this psalm would preface the whole book by words into which the spirit of the book is distilled. It will have much to say of sorrow and pain. It will touch many a low note of wailing and of grief. There will be complaints and penitence, and sighs almost of despair before it closes. But this which he puts first is the note of the whole. So it is in our histories. They will run through many a dark and desert place. We shall have bitterness and trials in abundance, there will be many an hour of sadness caused by my own evil, and many a hard struggle with it. But high above all these mists and clouds will rise the hope that seeks the skies, and deep beneath all the surface agitations of storms and currents there will be the unmoved stillness of the central ocean of peace in our hearts. In the ‘valley of weeping’ we may still be ‘blessed’ if ‘the ways’ are in our hearts, and if we make of the very tears ‘a well,’ drawing refreshment from the very trials. With all its sorrows and pains, its fightings and fears, its tribulations in the world, and its chastenings from a Father’s hand, the life of a Christian is a happy life, and ‘the joy of the Lord’ remains with His servants.”

There is a horrible teaching that is abundant in the church today that if you only have enough faith, if you only live a life that is holy enough, you will never know what it is to experience sorrow, pain, grief, bitter sighs, hours of sadness, tribulations, or trials. That is a very cruel gospel, for it makes people think that they have no faith or that they are guilty of some terrible sin if they experience sadness or hardship. There has never been, and never will be, a saint of God who did not experience the trials and tribulations of life.

God does not promise that he will keep you from those dark moments, but he does teach us how to be in this blessed, happy condition even when those trials and dangers beset us. Wouldn’t you love to possess this life? Come to Christ, and he will give you this joy, this blessedness that no one can take from you. He will be your constant guide and companion to instruct you in the way of a rich and joyful life and give you the strength to pursue it. Then you will be amazed at the blessedness of such a life. Amen.