God's Roadmap to Happiness!

¹ Blessed is the man
   who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, 
nor stands in the way of sinners, 
   nor sits in the seat of scoffers; 
² but his delight is in the law of the LORD, 
   and on his law he meditates day and night.

 ³ He 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 does, he prospers.
⁴ The wicked are not so,
   but are like chaff that the wind drives away.

 ⁵ Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment,
   nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous;
⁶ for the LORD knows the way of the righteous,
   but the way of the wicked will perish.

Pastor Tom Mercer of Christ Covenant Church surprised and convicted me yesterday. Psalm 1 was his text, and he began by discussing happiness and every man's desire for it. Pastor Mercer took a different approach from other preaching on happiness. Quoting Pascal's Pensees, Jonathan Edwards, and Jeremy Taylor, he built a case for historical Christian leaders being concerned with happiness. After adding the fact that God commands us to be happy 28 times within the Psalms, Mercer moved into his text.

Psalm 1 begins with the attainability of blessing, of happiness. We can reach it, but the question is how? The first step Pastor Mercer outlined was to avoid the wrong path. To live a happy life, we must avoid the world's influences. He asked "Who influences you? From where do draw your understanding of community, life, goodness, truth, beauty?" If your understanding of these things come from the world, happiness is impossible. 

In contrast to worldly influence, Mercer drew a connection I had neverbefore made. When the psalmist writes "his delight is in the law of the LORD," I had always understood this verse to describe detailed descriptive law of the Old Testament. Pastor Mercer explained that the word used for law, Torah, literally means instruction. His delight is found in the instruction of God. We are to meditate, to groan over, to continually ponder, to mull over, the instruction of God. "Day and night" describes the continual nature of meditation.

From these definitions, Mercer built his persuasive case. Happiness is tied to our literally delighting in the instruction of God. Rather than reading the Bible as a duty, or as a means of gathering data, we must literally delight in it. We should draw joy from our study of God's Word. Mercer then asked "how should a New Testament believer read this?" According to Luke 24, all of the law and prophets point forward to Christ. Christ is the fulfillment of God's instruction. Therefore, we draw our delight from studying Christ, from seeing how the Old Testament points forward to Christ. This is the source of our happiness and joy. As we meditate on Christ, on the overwhelming goodness of God, on his holiness, on His coming kingdom, on His indwelling Spirit, our very lives overflow with joy.

He concluded his message by describing what a life rooted in the Word of God looks like as portrayed by the rest of the Psalm. The person who delights in the instruction of God is like a tree well rooted able to withstand the trials and storms of life, bearing fruit for others, filled with perspective and certainty flowing from their meditations on Christ. As we commit to delighting in God's instruction each day, as we nourish the inner man, ministry and grace flow out of us to everyone we encounter.

To live a happy life, we must delight in the instruction of God. Rather than reading the Bible as a dry book out of duty, we should delight in meditating on the richness of God's revelation.