1. Title Doesn’t God Want Me Happy?
2. Text: 2 Corinthians 7:8-11 et al
3. Audience: Villa Heights Christian Church, AM crowd., February 19, 2006, #5 in the series “A Clear and Present Danger”
4. Objectives:
-for the people to understand that God is more concerned with our holiness and with genuine joy than with our happiness; that the pursuit of happiness is neither a God-given right nor something at which anyone can truly succeed; that the world’s presuppositions about what brings “happiness” are wrong; that joy is a fruit of the Spirit, not circumstances
-for the people to feel OK about not being 100% happy all the time; that they don’t have to spend all their energy just pursuing happiness
-for the people to stop making the pursuit of happiness a priority over other items that deserve a higher place
5. When I finish my sermon I want my audience to develop a biblical attitude toward happiness and to leave with the greatest reason to be truly happy
6. Type: topical / textual
7. Dominant Thought: God wants our pursuit of holiness to outshine our pursuit of “being happy”
8. Outline:
Intro: We hold these truths to be self evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness…
I doubt we can fully discuss in such a short time the significance and impact of the Declaration of Independence on world history. I believe that far more wisdom was poured into it than will ever pass through my lips. I appreciate so much the boldness and clarity and self-sacrifice with which these 56 signers pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor. It set the course for the freedom that you and I have received as a priceless inheritance to preserve and pass along to our children too. With that said…I want to question it. Is it true that the Creator has given everyone the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness?
Our nation seems to not understand why the unborn have the right to life. We certainly know that we all want the right to liberty. In fact, we’re willing to fight around the world for it for ourselves and others. But what about this pursuit of happiness thing? Is that really a God-given right of every person? Is it really your right to pursue happiness, as much as you would pursue the ability to live or to be free?
Doesn’t God want me to be happy? No. God does not have your happiness as a great priority.
Please, find me the verse in the Bible that says that!
I’ve heard or seen that very reasoning used to justify all kinds of things: sexual sins, unjustified divorce, wrong marriage, materialism and huge debt. “I know that’s what God says, but leaving my wife to go live with this woman will make me happy.” “I know we can’t afford it, but having this thing will make me really happy.” “I know he’s not a believer, but he makes me happy.” People may not always say it out loud, but it’s amazing how many will even say it out loud: “Doesn’t God want me to be happy?”
It is the job of grandparents to make their grandkids happy. That’s what they do. Then they send them home so that they can become dissatisfied again! But there are several people who we’d never want to make that their #1 job. Policeman, President, parents, or church leadership, to name a few. We wouldn’t want them to have making people happy as their first goal. Still there are many of us who are willing to live like one of the highest goals in our life is the pursuit of personal happiness.
Doesn’t God want me to be happy? No! Please, find me where He included that in the Bible. Find for me where it says that God wants your happiness. I’ll find for you what God does say He wants:
1 Thessalonians 4:3
It is God’s will that you should be sanctified: that you should avoid sexual immorality…
What does God want for you?
I. God Wants You to be Holy, Because He is Holy
If we were to put in front of us every word from God that we have about what He wants for us, we’d find most of them pointing to this: Holiness. God wants us to have a lifestyle that has set aside the world and that has been set aside for God’s personal use. He wants you holy.
God is a whole lot more concerned about your holiness than He is about your happiness.
But doesn’t God want me happy? Well, let’s try this. Let’s take some of the verses where God speaks about our holiness and try seeing how well happiness fits them.
Leviticus 11:44-45
I am the LORD your God; consecrate yourselves and be holy, because I am holy. Do not make yourselves unclean by any creature that moves about on the ground. I am the LORD who brought you up out of Egypt to be your God; therefore be holy, because I am holy.
Leviticus 20:26
You are to be holy to me because I, the LORD, am holy, and I have set you apart from the nations to be my own.
1 Corinthians 1:2
To the church of God in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus and called to be holy, together with all those everywhere who call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ--their Lord and ours:
Ephesians 1:4
For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight.
1 Peter 1:15-16
But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; for it is written: "Be holy, because I am holy."
I think you get it. Somehow, it just doesn’t sound like Scripture when we try to make God say that His great goal for us is happiness. God is far more concerned with our holiness. Why? Look again at the reason God gives: Because it’s an attribute of God, a quality of God, and God won’t tolerate anything unholy in His presence. If we’re going to have fellowship with God, if we’re going to hang around in God’s presence, if we’re going to live in heaven, we’re going to have to be holy, because God is holy. John is describing heaven in Revelation 21 and he says,
Revelation 21:27a Nothing impure will ever enter it, nor will anyone who does what is shameful or deceitful…
Hebrews 12:14 - Make every effort to live in peace with all men and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord.
Many people have been willing to jettison this idea of being holy in the name of pursuing happiness. Haven’t you? Haven’t you ever decided to do something unholy because you thought, at least for that moment, that doing what makes you happy was more important?; that God wants you to be happy, so that must be what you’re supposed to do?
The NT name for the people of God is “the holy ones.” The NT uses always it to refer to all Christ-followers. We sometimes translate that word “saints.” You’re either a “holy one” or you don’t belong to God. God wants you to be holy.
1 Thessalonians 4:3 It is God’s will that you should be sanctified.
Wait, maybe there’s hope! At least holiness and happiness aren’t opposites of each other! Maybe there’s at least some hope that God wants me to be happy! Maybe? Here, let me remove all hope of that with this next point. What does God want?
II. He Wants You to Be Sorry When You Need to Be
There are times when God wants you to not be happy. Paul describes such a time in II Co. He had previously written to this straying church family, and some of it had been some pretty strong words. Paul loved those people. How could he do such a thing?
Proverbs 27:5-6 Better is open rebuke than hidden love. The wounds of a friend can be trusted, but an enemy multiplies kisses.
When a rebuke is needed, the person who loves someone goes to him or her, in love, and issues it. What I said, we don’t do enough of here. I know that it’s not comfortable, but I can sit and hear the rebuke of a friend, and heed what needs to be heeded, and discuss what needs to be discussed. I can apologize where I need to, I can set facts straight if they’re not, and my friend who loves me will be as close to me or closer to me because he has treated me this way. The wounds of a friend can be trusted. But if someone instead is telling me how great a person I am, and in the back of his mind he’s harboring some ill feelings toward me, or speaks them behind my back, that’s not being my friend. That’s treating me like an enemy.
Paul loved the Corinthians. He wrote to them out of love what they needed to hear, and some of it really didn’t make them happy. In fact, it made them just the opposite…
2 Corinthians 7:8-11
Even if I caused you sorrow by my letter, I do not regret it. Though I did regret it--I see that my letter hurt you, but only for a little while--yet now I am happy, not because you were made sorry, but because your sorrow led you to repentance. For you became sorrowful as God intended and so were not harmed in any way by us. Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death. See what this godly sorrow has produced in you: what earnestness, what eagerness to clear yourselves, what indignation, what alarm, what longing, what concern, what readiness to see justice done. At every point you have proved yourselves to be innocent in this matter.
A. God wants us to be sorry over the right things.
There’s some difference between worldly sorrow and “godly sorrow.” Worldly sorrow brings death. Worldly sorrow is like that of the rich young ruler, who had an interest in heaven, but he was attached to worldly things, and Jesus told him he had to make a choice between the 2. Then
Mark 10:22 At this the man’s face fell. He went away sad, because he had great wealth.
Jesus wasn’t trying to make him sorry – just free. But he was so caught up in trying to be happy by having stuff that the whole thing made him sad.
Jesus said,
Matthew 5:4 Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
Tears are the road to comfort? Yes, when they’re tears over the right things.
What makes you cry? Is it the thought of giving up something that you own? Is it the way that life has dealt you a blow that seems to take away all your chances for happiness? Is it the way that you don’t get your way?
What about tears over the pain that our own mess-ups have caused God? What about tears for the way that we so often run off from the Father Who loves us so much? What about crying over the way that we seem to be tripped up by Satan when we know we’re called to be something else? What about tears over the lost condition of millions of people who haven’t even heard the good news about Jesus? When was the last time you cried over those things?
Philippians 3:18-19
For, as I have often told you before and now say again even with tears, many live as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame. Their mind is on earthly things.
If your life is filled with the pursuit of happiness, if you’ve made that your high priority, where in your life is there room for godly sorrow? Where is the room in your world for tears over your own sin, for injustice, and suffering, and the lost state of lost people? When is your heart broken by the things that break the heart of God?
There is a time to be sorry. There is a time when happiness is just wrong.
Friend, if you’re living a double life, if you’re living in sin and fooling everyone around you, I’m confident that God doesn’t want you happy. Not while you’re living like that.
If you’re being unfaithful as a spouse, by your thoughts or the things you view or your physical actions, hear this: God doesn’t want you happy. Not while you’re living like that.
If you’re living your life selfishly, and it puts you right in the middle of things that make you happy, listen: God doesn’t want you happy there. Not while you’re living like that.
If you’re running from the Lord, if you know you need to give your life to Him, but you keep putting it off and fighting it, God doesn’t want you happy with that situation. And I’m praying that you won’t be! Not while you’re living like that.
No, I’m not some masochist. I’m just convinced that when God says we ought to have sorrow over certain things, we ought to have sorrow. The Corinthians “became sorrowful as God intended” and the outcome was good. I trust God on this one. There are some situations where He intends for us to have sorrow, not happiness.
He wants us to have sorrow over the right things, and He also wants us
B. to have growth and repentance from it.
God says that if He loves you, He disciplines you. That’s what a father does. It’s the way He treats His children. And the writer of Heb acknowledges something about discipline you already know: it’s not fun.
Hebrews 12:11
No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.
God wants us to grow and mature. That means some pains along the way. Does that preclude happiness? No, but it certainly means we can’t say, “Doesn’t God want me happy?” because sometimes He doesn’t!
I’m sure that Jesus smiled. Read some of the humorous things He taught and tell me He didn’t speak them with at least a smirk! At the same time, the Spirit describes Him through Isaiah as a man of sorrows, well acquainted with grief. Can you be both? Yes, because life is not just about happiness.
Now, let’s take a different look at this through the eyes of two friends who are wrestling with the same subject…
(Drama about being happy)
What does God want? He wants you holy. He wants you sorry about the right things. And finally this morning I’m sure of this:
III. He Wants You to Understand and Own True Joy and Happiness
I’m sure He wants that because He has told us so much about it in His word. To know how to put all of this into life, we have to understand the nature of happiness, and the difference between joy and happiness.
So, let’s look at the verses that I could come up with that command happiness. First of all, here’s a command to pursue happiness. It’s OT, and it was for Israel, but there must be some application for us here:
Deuteronomy 24:5 If a man has recently married, he must not be sent to war or have any other duty laid on him. For one year he is to be free to stay at home and bring happiness to the wife he has married
OK, so if you’re a man who has recently married, you’re a newlywed, you have a job: have fun! Take a year off from military duty and bring happiness to your wife! That is God’s idea, not one I made up!
Next, I want you to listen to some other verses about being happy, and I want you to consider what all 3 of these passages have in common:
Matthew 5:12
Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
James 1:2-4
Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.
Philippians 3:1
Finally, my brothers, rejoice in the Lord! It is no trouble for me to write the same things to you again, and it is a safeguard for you.
All 3 of these “happy texts” have to do with the way we react to suffering and hardship. All 3 command us to have a certain response to our circumstances, not just to be affected by it. Jesus says to rejoice that you’re being persecuted like the prophets were. James says to count it joy that you face trials. And Paul, who says, “Rejoice in the Lord!” is writing that from prison.
That tells me something about the nature of joy and how it’s different from what we usually call happiness. Happiness is dependent on circumstances. Happiness comes and goes with good fortune. Happiness is an emotion that happens to us from the outside in. It’s humanly fabricated, like a sandcastle, built by a child on the shore, that washes away when the tide comes in.
But joy isn’t dependent on circumstances. It’s something that’s inside that faces all kinds of circumstances. It’s a fruit of the Spirit, not a human fabrication, which means the person who follows Christ has a measure of it that’s greater the world’s share of it. And like the rest of the fruit of the Spirit, it’s not something that just comes and goes, it’s something that’s not just an emotion. It emanates from the inside out to life, rather than counting on life to make it be felt inside.
Real joy won’t come to you through stuff. Just look into the life of people who’ve won the lottery. Find out what it has done to them. Look into the life of rich people. Ask them how much happiness wealth has brought them. Then, look into the life of some dirt-poor, low-caste villager in India who has nearly nothing but who just found life in Jesus Christ. Ask them about joy, real joy. Then, explain to me please how your stuff is going to make you truly happy.
Conclusion:
Here’s the secret formula, which is not really a secret:
Psalm 37:4
Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart.
OK, I guess God does want you happy after all – but not with the phony plastic happiness of the world. God wants you to have happiness that is the byproduct of real joy – the kind that comes from delighting yourself in Him. Do that, and you’ll find yourself very satisfied with life.
Get sorry this morning for all the years you’ve said “No” to Jesus, and get real joy this morning, by giving your life to Him…
