Don’t Worry, Be Happy!
Don’t Worry, Be Happy!
Sermon Summary:
As we embark on a three-year journey exploring human flourishing, we’re challenged to reconsider our understanding of happiness from a biblical perspective. The sermon introduces us to the concept that happiness is not just a fleeting emotion, but a deep spiritual reality rooted in our relationship with God. By examining Psalm 68 and various translations of joy-related words in Scripture, we’re invited to see happiness as a legitimate and desirable experience for believers. This fresh perspective encourages us to embrace happiness as a byproduct of living in obedience to God, even amidst challenging circumstances. As we reflect on this, we’re called to dive deeper into Philippians 4:4-9 and prepare our hearts for an intensive study of the Beatitudes, seeking to discover true pathways to happiness as Jesus taught.
Sermon Points:
Theme for 2025: Flourishing Together: Rooted in Christ
The creation narratives the Scriptures begin with are an important source for discerning God’s intent for the human person. There it seems that God’s intent for each person and for all creation is that all aspects of being should be good. At the completion of the first creation narrative in Genesis, we read, “God saw everything he had made, and indeed, it was very good” (Genesis 1). God’s intent, actualized in creation, was that it would be good.
-Tyler VanderWeele, Theology of Health
Six Domains of Human Flourishing
Happiness and Life Satisfaction
Mental and Physical Health
Meaning and Purpose
Character and Virtue
Close Social Relationships
Material and Financial Stability
Theme for Winter 2025: Happiness Is . . .
Don’t Worry, Be Happy – Bobby McFerrin – Billboard #1 1988
Happiness vs. Joy — in our common vernacular, most people distinguish between the two. Happiness is usually connected to circumstances and joy is often portrayed as a deeper reality that can be experienced regardless of circumstances.
TEXTUAL REALITY: The Hebrew Old Testament and Greek New Testament contain a wide range of terms that are translated as: joy, rejoice, gladness, cheer, laughter, happy, blessed, exultation, merriment, pleasure, enjoy, and delight. This is how semantic domains work.
In the Bible, happiness is serious business!
Ecclesiastes 9:7
(NIV) Go, eat your food with gladness, and drink your wine with a joyful heart . . .
(NASB) Eat your bread in happiness and drink your wine with a cheerful heart . . .
(KJV) Eat thy bread with joy, and drink thy wine with a merry heart . . .
(NLT) Eat your food with joy and drink your wine with a happy heart . . .
Psalm 68:3
(NIV) But may the righteous be glad and rejoice before God; may they be happy and joyful.
(NASB) But the righteous will be joyful; they will rejoice before God; Yes, they will rejoice with gladness.
(KJV) But let the righteous be glad; let them rejoice before God: Yea, let them exceedingly rejoice.
(NLT) But let the godly rejoice. Let them be glad in God’s presence. Let them be filled with joy.
The wellspring of human happiness is God Himself! Within His eternal holiness and purity, God is happy and joyful.
1 Timothy 1:11
. . . the gospel concerning the glory of the blessed God, which he entrusted to me.
1 Timothy 6:15
God, the blessed and only Ruler, the King of kings and Lord of lords.
Isaiah 65:17-19
See, I will create new heavens and a new earth.
The former things will not be remembered, nor will they come to mind.
But be glad and rejoice forever in what I create, for I will create Jerusalem to be a delight and its people a joy.
I will rejoice over Jerusalem and take delight in my people;
The sound of weeping and of crying will be heard in it no more.
Jesus was happy and joyful!
Luke 7:33-34
For John the Baptist came neither eating bread nor drinking wine, and you say, “He has a demon.” The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and you say, “Here is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.”
Neither joy nor happiness are portrayed in the Bible as glib, surface realities. Happiness and joy are both exhibited in the lives of faithful people who serve God with humility, faithfulness, and obedience regardless of the situation. (For example, Paul and Silas in jail)
According to the Bible, joy and happiness are deeply connected to righteousness, obedience to God’s Word, godliness, living according to God’s purposes, aligning one’s life with God’s will, exercising faith in God, and rejoicing in both the presence and goodness of God.
“The end of life is not to be happy, nor to achieve pleasure and avoid pain, but to do the will of God, come what may.”
― Martin Luther King, Jr.
“Those who are not looking for happiness are the most likely to find it, because those who are searching forget that the surest way to be happy is to seek happiness for others.”
― Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
THIS WEEK: Read and meditate on Philippians 4:4-9. Put it into practice. Don’t worry, be happy!
GLIMPSE AHEAD: The Beatitudes!
Key Takeaways:
- Introduction to a three-year church journey on human flourishing
- Examination of biblical concepts of happiness and joy
- Challenging the traditional separation of happiness and joy in Christian teaching
- God and Jesus as sources and examples of true happiness
- Happiness as a byproduct of a life lived in obedience to God
- The connection between happiness, righteousness, and godly living
- The sturdiness and depth of biblical happiness even in difficult circumstance
Scripture References:
- Psalm 68:3-6
- Ecclesiastes 9:7
- 1 Timothy 1:11, 6:15
- Isaiah 65:17-19
- Luke 7:33-34
- Philippians 4:4-9 (assigned for further study)
Stories:
- The pastor’s recent mission trip to Sierra Leone and the flourishing ministries there
- Ryan Chandler and his wife Amy’s experience with the flourishing assessment
- References to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s life and teachings on happiness and purpose
- Brief mention of Paul and Silas singing hymns while in jail (Acts 16)
Transcript
It is good to see you here today, and I bring you greetings today from your brothers and your sisters in Sierra Leone, West Africa.
Obviously, I’ve just returned from there, and it was one of the most significant and meaningful trips of my life, along with seven other fellow church members.
We met Cindy there in Sierra Leone, and we spent an amazing 10 days touring our work there in Sierra Leone.
From the densest urban setting you could possibly imagine to the most remote rural African village setting you can imagine, we encountered vibrant and dynamic and what I would call flourishing believers and ministries that are truly changing the lives of thousands of people in Sierra Leone.
And it’s you that are making so much of it happen.
And I want to report that to you.
It’s your generosity, your financial support, your prayer, your personal investment, our mission strategy, our partnerships, and it is bearing spiritual fruit. all over the country of Sierra Leone.
And so I can testify to what we just saw.
Between the strategies of First Baptist Arlington and our main missional partner, Restore Hope, thousands of people have become followers of Jesus.
Churches are being planted.
Vulnerable children are being rescued every day.
Orphans are finding their way to stable homes.
Thousands of children are being educated in Christian schools and thousands of rural Africans are receiving quality medical and dental care. hygiene training that we can document.
It is extending their life expectancy, it’s increasing their quality of life, and it is relieving pain and suffering.
Praise God.
Praise God.
Cool thing is, I just saw it all.
And our medical and dental and church planting team is hard at work there right now.
A whole new First Baptist Arlington team arrived Friday night after we left to come home, and they are serving there the rest of this week.
And over these next few days, over 1,000 unreached Africans will receive the love of Jesus through the work of the team that’s there this very week.
And what I want you to know is it’s working.
Our strategy of taking medical dental teams into a community is opening the door for the gospel.
We’ve been going and doing that very thing since 2018.
Just, I want you to know, the medical trip that went to this very region last year, there are now six new churches planted in that region, and they’ve baptized 95 new believers there since we were there last year.
Isn’t that awesome?
And, yeah, that’s awesome.
And…
Just last month, our two main church planting partners through First Baptist, Arlington and Restore Hope, Pastor Emanuel and Pastor Abdul, they work in two different parts of the country and they had baptism services in the last little bit.
Pastor Emanuel and his church planters in the month of December baptized 200 more new believers in the month of December.
Pastor Abdul and his church planters in another part of the country baptized 120 new believers in December.
And next weekend, they’re baptizing 200 more new believers.
So, can we just say praise God and give him some praise?
So, and the good news is we saw it with our own eyes.
And this morning as I was entering in the sanctuary, I
Our team right now, I can’t even tell y’all how remote they are right now.
You pass the uttermost sign on the way to where they are.
And Cindy sent me a text.
And she said, we’ve set up an internet service here in the village.
I’m just testing to see if it works.
And I said, you have got to be kidding me.
And anyway, it’s crazy.
So, here’s what I want us to do.
Let’s just stop and pray right now for these new believers, for the work, and our team that’s on the ground.
They’ll be there all week.
Can we do that?
Let’s stop and pray.
So, Lord, we want to thank you for these new believers.
Hundreds of them.
And we pray you’ll help them to be strong in their faith.
To grow in spite of the persecution many of them will face.
And be good, bold witnesses.
We pray for our leaders that are at work across Sierra Leone.
Strong leaders.
Anoint them with your spirit.
And our team that’s there, our medical team from our church.
May they be the hands and reflect the heart of Jesus this week.
And we pray in Jesus’ name.
Amen.
I also want to say a word of thanks to Brother Oza for preaching last Sunday.
What did y’all think?
Not bad, right?
You know, that man can preach.
So, believe it or not, I love Oza.
We were upcountry in a rural village, and I was getting out of the vehicle that I was in, turned on my phone, and I had cell service.
Surprised me.
And so, I just flipped on the broadcast of our service, and we actually stood around in one of the most rural, remote villages you can possibly imagine, and we watched the introduction to his sermon here.
It was kind of crazy here from First Baptist.
And not only that, he preached a sermon from Psalm 1 here in our church, and I preached a sermon from Psalm 1 in a remote African village church on the same day.
Pretty cool, y’all.
And I watched his sermon, and it was actually better than mine, so I’m glad you got to hear that one.
Rather than having to hear mine.
So here we are, 2025.
Looking forward to this year.
Our theme is flourishing together rooted in Christ.
Now I want to go ahead and warn you about what I’m about to do today.
I’m really, today I’m not really going to preach a sermon.
I’m actually going to do more teaching today.
So if you’re new with us today, and I would tell you if you want to hear me preach a sermon, come back next Sunday.
Today I’m going to teach.
Now,
At the end, a sermon might break out because that does, it’s kind of like the guy that went to a fight and a hockey game broke out.
Y’all remember that story?
So, it’s possible that a sermon may break out, but I’m primarily going to be teaching
This morning.
So, over a decade ago, our church truly began to embrace Psalm 1 as the core text for our identity as followers of the Jesus Way.
Again, if you’re new to our church, you can discover this psalm inscribed along the walls of our church, all the way around this sacred room.
I remain convinced that the Psalm 1 tree… as an abiding image for us as believers.
It offers an accessible metaphor for the abundant life that Jesus offers us.
Deeply rooted people, connected to our main resource for life, being transformed by truth, and engaging in real life on the Jesus way, and living fully in the presence of God.
I’m convinced that that leads to lives that are overflowing with fruit and productivity.
In other words, flourishing.
When I think of flourishing, I think of the abundant life that Jesus offers us.
So, if we can go back in time a little bit, back in July, I was researching and praying about our future, and I felt led by the Spirit of God to lead our church on a multi-year journey of truly deepening our understanding of the abundant life and the experiencing of the abundant life that’s offered to us by Jesus, and I believe is represented in the imagery of Psalm 1.
Now, as I was researching, I recalled that Baylor University had launched a study of human flourishing.
It actually launched while I was still on the Board of Regents at Baylor.
So I contacted Dr. Byron Johnson at Baylor to just ask him about the research and connect me to it.
He introduced me to the work of Dr. Tyler Vanderwill, who’s at Harvard, and he leads the human flourishing program that’s housed at Harvard.
He also introduced me to a part of the project that focused on the church.
So after hours of research on my own part, much prayer, conversations, interactions with that material that was already available that I could access, I felt led to engage us in this project more deeply.
So here we are.
Now, since July, a lot has happened.
For example, Tyler Vanderwill has published his massive work.
It’s entitled The Theology of Health.
I highly recommend it to people who enjoy reading academic material.
But in his book, The Theology of Health, he shares a word about the whole concept of flourishing that’s actually woven into the very fabric of God’s creation.
Let me show you a quote from that book.
Here’s what he has written.
He says, The creation narratives the Scriptures begin with are an important source for discerning God’s intent for the human person.
There it seems that God’s intent for each person and for all creation is that all aspects of being should be good.
At the completion of the first creation narrative in Genesis we read, God saw everything He had made, and indeed it was very good.
God’s intent, actualized in creation, was that it would be good.
I could not agree more.
God’s creation is designed to flourish.
Think about it.
It is a reflection of His glory.
It’s a reflection of His majesty.
Everything that exists is a reflection of His will.
So in the universe, God created everything that is.
So we’re beginning a three-year journey together.
We’re going to learn more about God’s design, about God’s desire, about God’s provision for us as individuals, and also together in community as a church.
So we’re going to launch it officially today.
Next weekend, the Flourishing Together launch weekend.
I hope you’ll be here for it.
It starts Friday night.
This weekend, we’ve invited two of the researchers who are part of the Global Flourishing Study.
Reverend Scott Hare.
Scott is a pastor.
He’s a church planter.
He’s a Christian community leader from San Antonio.
Scott and I had a great visit yesterday and talking about this entire study.
We had a very sweet time of prayer as he prayed over me, prayed over us for this weekend.
I’m excited for you to meet him.
And then Kate Long will be here.
Kate is a mother of three young children.
Her oldest child is six and goes down from there.
So some of you young moms can already envision what that is.
She is a professor of public health at Harvard, but she actually lives in San Francisco.
And she’s involved in a significant movement of God among churches in San Francisco.
She works alongside Nancy Ortberg, if you’re familiar with Nancy’s work in that ministry.
And so here’s what’s about to happen for us this weekend.
It’s just a mere introduction. to a three-year journey.
It’ll be meaningful.
I believe it’s going to be important for us.
It’ll introduce all of us to the concepts and the vocabulary that are going to assist us in this next season of ministry at First Baptist Arlington.
Now, our ministerial staff, our leadership staff, we spent our fall retreat this year, this past fall, exploring the whole concept of human flourishing.
From a spiritual perspective, Harvard has produced a simple human flourishing measure.
It is a simple, understandable survey to assist anybody in just beginning an assessment of their own sense of well-being.
So our ministerial staff, we all took the survey. and then discussed our responses to it.
We divided up into small groups, and we talked about our responses to the survey.
It led to some significant conversations.
In fact, some of those conversations made their way home for many of us as we talked to our spouses about our sense of our own well-being in response to the survey that we took.
In fact, one of our ministers, Ryan Chandler, who is our minister to young adults, he and his wife Amy have had some significant conversation in response to that survey.
Let me just let you hear it from them in their own words.
I took the flourishing assessment back in October and the results weren’t what I thought they were going to be.
And I went home and I told Amy, hey, I did this assessment.
I don’t feel like I’m flourishing in life when it comes to these six domains.
Amy said, well, I wanna take the assessment too.
So she took it and said something similar.
I don’t think I’m flourishing when it comes to these six areas of life.
All we’ve done is take this assessment
And here’s what it’s done for us.
It has forced us to have some meaningful conversations in our life that I don’t think we would have had without doing it.
We started really talking about who we were, what we wanted to be, what God was calling us to be, what the next five years of our life we wanted them to look like, and beyond, really.
And we started… making some changes.
We talked about our finances honestly and have been trying to be more intentional about where we put our money.
We have been doing a family devotional during dinner time when our kids listen anyway.
And for the first time in our lives, Amy and I started reading the Bible together.
That’s a practice that we haven’t really done before, but a lot of that resulted by just looking at ourselves in the mirror through this assessment and trying to figure out
Where do we really want to flourish in life?
Well, the survey that we took, it’s actually very simple.
It’s available online.
We’re going to have paper copies of it here this weekend to hand out to all of you.
It’s grown out of, however, a much deeper and comprehensive evaluation of what it means to flourish as a human being.
The researchers at the Global Flourishing Study, they’ve come up with what they call the six domains of human flourishing.
Let me just put them on the screen for you.
They have isolated these six areas and what they’ve said is this is not a comprehensive evaluation really of flourishing because there’s more to flourishing as a human than just what’s listed here.
However, the reason they chose these is because they have the ability to empirically analyze each one of these domains and actually gather some scientific evidence. to determine how people are doing in these various arenas, and realizing that there’s much more to flourishing than this.
But here’s what I want you to know.
The research team, beyond the survey that we will see, they’ve actually put together a set of some 60 questions that have been rigorously researched, scientifically tested, to research what does it mean to flourish as a human being.
Now, when you and I gather here for the weekend, we don’t have access to those 60 questions.
We’re just going to have this simple introductory survey.
But these social scientists are researching topics like loneliness and depression, forgiveness, parenting, political freedom. expressions of religious faith, spirituality, prayer, marriage.
The questions have been adapted to various cultural settings so it can be a truly global study.
So the simple survey we will be using this weekend is only a gateway for these researchers for their much deeper inquiry.
In fact, this study began over a year ago.
There are over 200,000 people who were in the survey from 22 different countries.
And they’re being interviewed systematically, scientifically, and anonymously.
This project’s going to be a five-year-long longitudinal study.
So I want to clear something up for some of us because I’ve had a couple questions about it.
To be clear, we are not a part of the actual study.
Does that make sense?
It’s already been going for a year.
We’re not a part of the 200 and something thousand people that are being asked these 60 some odd questions.
That’s scientific research that’s being done.
Those participants are in the interview process.
The researchers are looking for empirical data from the perspective of human flourishing. that they are hoping is going to have impact, the researchers are, from Baylor, from Harvard, in shaping public policy, in forming educational institutions.
But here’s also something they’re hoping, and this should tell you something about the heart of people like Kate and Scott, who we’re going to meet, and Byron and Tyler.
They are hoping that their research will serve as an evangelical witness to the broader scientific community that is overwhelmingly non-Christian.
In other words, they are hoping that this empirical research will have an impact upon the scientific community beyond those who are believers.
Because the leaders of this study are faithful, dynamic Christians.
They love the Lord.
They love their churches.
And I believe you will appreciate the two that we’re going to meet.
So, I hope you’ll be here this weekend.
So sign up and let’s get started.
Now, let me tell you how we do potentially connect to this.
On Friday evening, you’ll hear from Kate Long.
KATE IS CONDUCTING FURTHER AND MORE SPECIFIC RESEARCH ALONGSIDE THE GLOBAL FLORISTING STUDY THAT’S AIMED PARTICULARLY AT CHRISTIANS.
So she’s developed another set of questions, some 40 questions, that’s aimed at Christians and local churches.
And she’s going to share what that means on Friday night.
And I’m particularly interested in what that involves and how we might learn from it and maybe even participate in it as we try to come to a better understanding of what it means for a Christian to flourish in today’s society.
Are y’all still with me?
So that’s what we’re launching.
THIS WEEKEND.
AND I’M LOOKING FORWARD TO IT.
NOW WITH ALL OF THAT SAID, WHEN YOU THINK ABOUT THOSE DOMAINS THAT WERE HIGHLIGHTED BY THE RESEARCHERS, ONE OF THE DOMAINS IS HAPPINESS AND LIFE SATISFACTION.
AND THE QUESTIONS HAVE TO DO WITH YOUR OWN SENSE OF HOW HAPPY
You are.
Your sense of your own well-being.
So, I felt God’s leadership to lead us in a biblical analysis of happiness.
So, here we go.
Our theme for this winter is this.
Happiness is dot, dot, dot.
Okay?
So, if you have your Bibles, Psalm 68 is our text.
I’ve entitled the message today, Don’t Worry, Be Happy.
So, I’ll explain that here in just a minute.
Psalm 68.
I’m not going to exegete the entire psalm.
I’m just going to highlight really one verse, but I want to read a little bit of that to you in context.
Psalm 68, verse 3.
But may the righteous be glad and rejoice before God.
May they be happy and joyful.
Sing to God, sing in praise of his name.
Extol, there’s that word Jeff mentioned, him who rides on the clouds.
Rejoice before him, his name is the Lord.
The father to the fatherless, a defender of widows.
We saw that lived out in Sierra Leone.
The ministry to widows and orphans where we just were.
Is God in his holy dwelling.
God sets the lonely in families.
He leads out the prisoners with singing.
But the rebellious live in a sun scorched land.
So let’s get started on this conversation.
Don’t worry, be happy.
Y’all remember that song?
That is Bobby McFerrin.
It actually made number one on the Billboard 1988.
You know what’s interesting about that song?
It’s the very first acapella song to ever be number one on America’s top 40.
All the sounds in the song Bobby McFerrin makes.
And he actually sings it with a Jamaican accent, even though that’s not the accent he really has.
It’s a fun, lighthearted, playful song.
Robin Williams actually helped make the video that accompanied the song.
But the message of the song has found its way into our pop cultural dictionary in our society.
Even if you don’t know the song, you know the saying.
So that leads me to this.
What does the Bible actually say about happiness?
Now, I will tell you, in the years that I have been engaged in ministry, whenever you talk about happiness, it’s always in the context of a conversation about joy.
So, happiness versus joy.
In our common vernacular, most people distinguish between the two.
Happiness is usually connected to circumstances.
Joy is often portrayed as a deeper reality that can be experienced regardless of circumstances.
Does that make sense?
So, as a Christian, I’ve always been taught it’s okay to want to be joyful.
It’s not okay to want to be happy.
To be happy sounds really flippant.
And so, I will tell you, not only have I been taught that, I’ve actually taught that myself.
And I just want to tell y’all, I’m tired of feeling guilty about being happy.
So this is a personal journey for me.
I have discussed these two realities just like they’ve been represented.
However, in the past few months, I’ve been researching the textual evidence in the Bible itself.
And I’ll be honest with you, it’s been an interesting endeavor.
Let me just share a little bit with you about what I’ve learned.
And I’m just beginning a several-week conversation.
So this is just the introduction.
Here’s the textual reality.
The Hebrew Old Testament…
And the Greek New Testament contain a wide range of terms that are translated as, in the English, as joy, rejoice, gladness, cheer, laughter, happy, blessed, exultation, merriment, pleasure, and joy and delight.
In fact, if you know anything about linguistics, this is how semantic domains work.
Semantic domains are important when we’re trying to understand what words actually mean and how best to translate them.
Dr. Renier Dubois, he works for the United Bible Societies.
He’s the editor of the Semantic Dictionary of Biblical Hebrew.
He’s a linguistic scholar.
Here’s what he says about semantic domains.
You cannot get the meaning of a biblical term without seeing it within the context of the entire semantic domain to which it belongs.
Hebrew has a lot of synonyms.
Because of the abundance of parallelisms and word pairs, many Hebrew terms have counterparts.
In these constructions, there’s relatively little focus on the differences between these words.
It is the repetition that gives extra emphasis to the entire construction.
That’s why you often hear about righteousness and justice, loving kindness and truth, rejoice and be glad.
Well, Hebrew and Greek are not the only languages that have semantic domains.
English has semantic domains.
For example, I could say, yesterday it rained.
Or I could say, it showered yesterday.
Or I could say, yesterday there was a downpour.
Or I could say, yesterday it just sprinkled.
All those words are in the same semantic domain.
Does that make sense?
I could say, today was bright.
Today was sunny.
Today was unclouded.
Those words all have very similar meanings.
They belong to the same semantic domain.
So, what about happiness and joy in the Bible?
Not the common vernacular that we typically have embraced.
I mean, what does the Bible actually say itself about happiness and joy?
Well, here’s what I’ve discovered.
In the Bible, happiness is serious business actually.
The Bible has much to say. about happiness, about cheerfulness, about gladness, merriment, joy.
In fact, if you were to take all the passages in the Scripture that use the various Hebrew and Greek words that are translated into English as happy, joy, pleasure, gladness, blessing, there are over 2,000 examples that you would have to study.
And our English translations of both Hebrew and Greek reflect the quality, or the reality rather, of semantic domains.
There are 18 different Hebrew roots that have to do with happiness and joy.
So let me just show you how it works, okay?
Let’s look at, just look at one verse out of the Bible.
Ecclesiastes.
We’ve got a passage from Ecclesiastes 9.
It’s written in Hebrew, and it’s been translated to English by competent people.
Hebrew scholars.
I want you to notice how it’s translated depending on the translation you read.
The NIV, which is what I normally read from, go eat your food with gladness and drink your wine with a joyful heart.
Now obviously this wasn’t written to Baptists, this is to Episcopalians, but it’s okay.
We can read their verses too, so it’s all good, okay?
Notice in the American Standard Bible, one of the most literal translations there is, eat your bread in happiness and and drink your wine with a cheerful heart.
You see the difference in the translation?
So the first translation, gladness, the second one, happiness.
King James, eat thy bread with joy, drink thy wine with a merry heart.
NLT, the New Living Translation, eat your food with joy, drink your wine with a happy heart.
There’s two Hebrew words translated within the semantic domain of joy and happiness.
Does that make sense?
In other words, it’s not necessarily just that the words are interchangeable.
It just means there’s enough connection between them that they can be used contextually in similar fashion.
Now, I’m not going to go into a Hebrew vocabulary lesson, but you can see there are clear connections between happiness and joy.
So, let’s look at the text we read this morning, Psalm 68.
Let me just show you verse 3.
I read from the NIV.
Do you notice it says, “‘Be glad, rejoice, be happy, be joyful.'”
The New American Standard Bible says be joyful.
Rejoice before God.
Rejoice with gladness.
The King James says be glad.
Rejoice.
Exceedingly rejoice.
The New Living says rejoice.
Be glad.
Be filled with joy.
We’re in the same domain, if you will, as we put these words into English.
And let me tell you why I’m doing this.
I’m sharing this with you because I want to rehabilitate the concept of happiness.
I want you and I to see it as it’s represented biblically, not in the common vernacular.
Because here’s what I think.
I think happiness has been undersold.
In fact, it almost feels unspiritual for a Christian to say they would like to be happy, when actually the biblical text seems to indicate that happiness is a much deeper reality than we tend to give it credit for being.
So let me ask you a question.
Is God happy?
Y’all think God is happy?
You think he’s happy?
Okay.
Isn’t that interesting?
Well, here’s what I would say.
I think the wellspring of human happiness is God himself.
After the research that I’ve done, I believe within his eternal wholeness and purity, God’s happy and joyful.
I’m convinced of it.
I think he’s joyful.
He rejoices.
Let me show you a couple of other texts, okay?
Let’s look at this passage from 1 Timothy.
There’s two verses in 1 Timothy.
One in verse 6.
Notice how it’s translated into English.
These are both NIV.
The gospel concerning the glory of thee.
You see that word?
What kind of God? blessed god notice verse 15 from chapter 6 god the blessed and only ruler the greek word is makarios makarios is used many times in the new testament do you know that scholars tell us one of the best translations of the word makarios you know what it is in english happy how does this sound to you the gospel concerning the glory of the happy god that sounds weird to our ears it doesn’t it
We don’t usually refer to him as the happy God.
God the happy and only ruler.
But here’s what’s interesting.
More than one New Testament scholar…
And biblical expert believes that a legitimate translation of that word is happy.
The happy in one ruler.
It just sounds strange to our ears.
But you know, there are enough passages in the scripture that seem to suggest that God’s filled with happiness and joy.
He’s a God who rejoices.
Let me show you a passage from Isaiah.
Look at Isaiah 65.
Look at this text.
Obviously, it will be repeated in the book of Revelation.
See, this is God talking.
I’ll create new heavens and a new earth.
The former things will not be remembered, nor will they come to mind.
But be glad and rejoice.
Forever in what I create, for I will create Jerusalem to be a delight and its people as a joy.
And look at what the text says.
I will rejoice over Jerusalem and I will take delight in them.
In other words, God says about himself, I’m going to be happy when this thing is all said and done.
When the end comes and the recreation and the restoration of everything occurs, I’m going to rejoice in it all.
So with that said, let’s just ask this question.
What do y’all think about Jesus?
You think Jesus was happy?
Yeah?
Think Jesus was happy?
Okay.
I’m convinced of it.
I mean, I’ve been watching The Chosen.
He’s happy.
I believe Jesus was happy and joyful.
In fact, I have no doubt about it.
I would argue I think he’s the happiest human who’s ever lived.
It does sound strange to our ears, though, doesn’t it?
Why?
What does the Bible say?
Well, listen to the words of Jesus.
Look at Luke 7.
Verse 33 and 34.
When Jesus says this about himself in Luke 7.
He says, John the Baptist came neither eating bread nor drinking wine.
And you say he has a demon.
The son of man, though, came eating and drinking.
And you say, here’s a glutton. a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.
Jesus said, John the Baptist came as this ascetic.
The Son of Man came eating and drinking.
In other words, he was happy and joyful.
Jesus describes himself as a happy person.
And like I said, you know, it’s interesting.
I do believe that Dallas Jenkins, the way he portrays Jesus in The Chosen, I think it’s important.
I like the way he does it.
Jonathan Rumi, the guy that plays Jesus, he’s talked about the impact it’s had on him because he’s portrayed as a real person.
In fact, I believe Jesus Christ is the most fully human being who’s ever lived.
And he understood happiness and joy.
So let me clean this up in summary, okay?
Like I said, this is just an introduction today.
Here’s my summary.
When you read the Scripture…
Neither joy nor happiness are portrayed in the Bible as glib surface realities.
Happiness and joy are both exhibited in the lives of faithful people who serve God with humility, faithfulness, and obedience regardless of the situation.
For example, Paul and Silas in jail.
You remember what Paul and Silas did while they were in jail?
What does the Bible say?
What did they do?
They were singing hymns, rejoicing.
Confused the jailer, remember? in the book of Acts.
They weren’t in the best of circumstances.
Their future was uncertain.
And it’s not a glib reality.
So, I’m not arguing that there are not some differences between joy and happiness.
I’m just saying that the Bible seems to indicate that happiness is a legitimate and desirable experience for the people of God.
So,
What I would like to do is rehabilitate the whole concept of happiness and rescue it from being viewed as a less than and not a truly spiritual desire.
Now with that said, let me give you my final thought about it.
According to the Bible, joy and happiness are deeply connected to righteousness.
Obedience to God’s Word, godliness, living according to God’s purposes, aligning one’s life with God’s will, exercising faith in God, and rejoicing in both the presence and the goodness of God.
That’s the best I knew how to put it.
Happiness is the byproduct of a life lived in obedience to God.
And I’m convinced it can be experienced even in the midst of our sorrow and our suffering.
Because sometimes, y’all, we’re called upon by God.
I don’t understand God’s sovereignty in this.
But sometimes we are called upon by God to glorify him in our suffering rather than being delivered from it.
Now, so let’s don’t cheapen happiness.
Don’t hem the biblical understanding of happiness in and assume that it can only exist when your life is easy, when you’re smooth sailing.
When the bills are paid.
When the kids are behaving.
And you’re in the best physical shape of your life.
And nothing is happening around you.
I’m here to tell y’all, biblical happiness is sturdier than that.
It’s deeper.
It’s richer.
And you can experience it.
Tomorrow.
In Washington, D.C., the leader of the free world is going to be inaugurated as president of the United States of America.
It’s a pivotal day for our nation and our world.
But also tomorrow, across not just Washington, D.C., but across all of America, we’re going to pause and celebrate the memory of a Baptist preacher from the South.
Tomorrow is the annual Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. holiday.
Tonight, at 6 o’clock, we will be at the MLK Ecumenical Service.
It’s an annual meeting that our churches hold.
We’re meeting at the Greater Community Missionary Baptist Church at 6 o’clock, right down here on Park Road, just east of Center.
I’d love for you to be there.
Jeff Hubbard, one of my good friends in this community, is a pastor of North Davis Church of Christ, is our keynote speaker.
I’ve been invited to offer a few words at the end.
Well, Reverend Dr. King was a Baptist pastor.
He led a pivotal movement that led to substantive change in our society.
His inspiring example has certainly lived on after him.
He called for universal freedoms for all human beings, regardless of race or ethnicity.
Some people reduce his calls by applying it only to black people.
Dr. King did not just call for justice and freedom for black people.
It just so happens that the presenting issue in his lifetime was the systemic application of prejudice and discrimination against black people in this country.
His message, however, was one of freedom.
Just hope for all human beings.
In other words, Martin Luther King Jr. expressed a desire for and he fought for human flourishing for all of humanity.
Now along the way, he was maligned, he was jailed, he was persecuted, and ultimately, tragically, assassinated.
He was a man certainly acquainted with sorrow and suffering.
He knew the reality of pain. and persecution.
However, those who knew him, and I’ve read from those who knew him many interviews, they talk of his buoyancy, his deep joy, his happiness in the midst of such challenging times.
Those who knew Dr. King often refer to his contagious optimism in the face of such struggle.
Well, how did he do it?
How did he stay happy?
Well, maybe a couple of quotes from Dr. King are relevant to our conversation today.
Let me give you two of them.
He said, The end of life is not to be happy, nor to achieve pleasure and avoid pain, but to do the will of God, come what may.
He also said, Those who are not looking for happiness are the most likely to find it, because those who are searching forget that the surest way to be happy is to seek happiness for others.
Wise words. spoken well from a giant in our history.
So, here we go, flourishing together, rooted in Christ.
Here’s what I want you to do this week, okay?
I’m assigning you a reading, Philippians 4, 4 through 9.
I want you to put it into practice.
I want you to live this out.
Don’t worry.
Be happy.
I want you to take some time with this text, Philippians 4.
Read it.
Contemplate it.
Rewrite it in your own words.
Pray through it.
Discuss it as a family.
Talk about it with other believers.
Ask God to help you apply it into your life this week.
Maybe record in your journal how God uses the truths in this text to help you navigate this very week in your life.
And then I want you to get ready for our journey.
Here’s the glimpse ahead, the Beatitudes.
Next Sunday morning, we’re going to start an intensive study of the Beatitudes, which begin in Greek with guess which word?
Makarios.
We’ll take the rest of this series to study the Beatitudes, and we’re going to find and discover a pathway to happiness.
I think you may be surprised by what Jesus will teach us about what it means to be blessed or to be happy.
And so, the journey begins for us.
I’m looking forward to how God is going to use it in our own individual lives and in the life of our church.
Let me pray for us.