ATTN: Two weeks ago, I mentioned in passing that holiness and happiness are not two different things. As you get holier, you get happier, I said. They go hand in hand. But those of us who grew up in certain kind of churches find that surprising. To you, holiness is something solemn, straitlaced, austere, hushed, organ music, choir-robes, and frankly boring! Whereas, happiness is laughter, dancing, partying, food, drinks, friendship, even a sinful a little. I have to admit that I myself used to think that happiness was separate from holiness. For example, there was a movie called “A walk to remember” that came out 2002. (I realize some of our youths were born after that!)  It starred Mandy Moore as a high school girl, who was a preacher’s daughter. And she started dating a delinquent of a boy and the preacher-father doesn’t like it one bit. So, they were arguing one day – the father and the daughter- and the father finally pulls out the god-card. He asks his daughter, “What do you think God wants you to do?” She says, “I think God wants me to be happy.” Now, I used that line in my sermons and told the teenagers, “No! God doesn’t want you to be happy. Rather, He wants you to be holy!” It is absolutely true that God wants us to be holy. “Be holy as I am holy.” But it is also true that God wants us to be happy. Actually, becoming holy will make us happy, now I realize. The holier we are, the happier we are. God told us to be holy so that we can be maximally happy. How do I know? Because in the sermon on the mount, Jesus starts out His sermon by saying, “Blessed are the…” that could be translated, “Happy are the…” So, it is very obvious that God cares about our happiness. He wants us to be happy and He’s telling us how.

But then, why did some of us give into the thinking that holiness is separate from happiness? Because we’ve been influenced by the worldly way of thinking about happiness. To the world, happiness comes from without – from the outside of ourselves. What is our idea of where happiness comes from? I’d be happier, let’s be honest, if I had more money, a good job, a skinnier body…. all external things. But the biblical idea of happiness is not from without, but from within. The source of happiness is God. Happiness comes to us as God changes us to become the kind of people who would be happy even though our outside circumstances may not be what we want.

And the very first portion of Jesus’ sermon on the Mount, also known as “Beatitudes”, Jesus talks about what brings true happiness. True, lasting happiness…. And Jesus mentions 8 such conditions, 8 beatitudes, and I can summarized them like this: Happy are those who have obtained the conditions of the heart that will lead them to God – the source of happiness.

TRANS: What are the conditions of the heart that will lead you to God? Another way of saying this is: What characteristics would be true of you if you belong to the kingdom of God where true happiness and joy abound? We will cover three such characteristics today.

 

1. “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of God.”

So, the first condition is “Being poor in spirit.” What does it mean to be poor in spirit? In a word, it means to admit our helplessness. It’s throwing up our hands in the air and crying out, “I’m not in control! I can’t do this on my own. I need help!” Like the Apostle Paul in Romans 7 confessed, “[15] For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate…[22] For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, [23] but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. [24] Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? [25] Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord

            I can’t tell you how relieved and thankful I am that the apostle Paul put those verses in the Bible! So often, I had to throw up my hands and say to God, “God, I am a mess! I keep telling the people to live this way and I can’t even do it myself! I am a wretched wretched man! What do I do with myself??!” Jesus is saying that when we do that, we are actually blessed, happy! Why might that be so? For one thing, I don’t get that hurt by people’s comments and/or opinions about me. For example, when the academic dean at the school that I’m teaching at gives me a bad review, I think to myself, “That is far better than what I deserved. Not only did I not deserve this job, what I deserved was death and hell. I deserved to live alone, broken, crippled, lonely, and yet God has given me a family, a house, a way to get around, a job, and this weighty responsibility called Pastor. How truly blessed am I! How happy am I!

Our society says exactly the opposite about being happy in this regard, doesn’t it? It tells us happiness comes from being in control and having everything managed well. It tells us to juggle all the balls, and there are techniques, retreats, seminars on how to manage stress, etc. “Get it together”, “be a super mom or super dad,” “Be in control!” they say. But Jesus says exactly the opposite.

ILL: Every Tuesday, we clean up our house because we have community group meeting. But in the summertime when we are taking a break from the community group, do we do that? Nope. We got toys strewn about everywhere. Sometimes we go weeks without vacuuming the carpet. Our bathroom doesn’t smell anything like lavender that it does on community group days. But the days we have guests over… We want to look like we have it all together. We want to look like we are juggling church, school, and family well. But we don’t. Just about every morning, we are hurrying out the door, yelling at the kids to get their stuff together when we don’t even have our stuff together. Such broken people we are, are we not? Why not just admit it? It’s when we stop pretending, stop acting like we have it all together, and go to God humbly and admit our helplessness, that’s when God confirms to us that we belong to Him and we are His little children that desperately need Him. And we are happy knowing that God accepts us in spite of us!

So, blessed or happy are those who admit their helpless desperation.

 

2. “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.”

“The second condition of the heart that will lead us to God, the ultimate source of happiness, is “mourning.” It’s being broken over our sins and falling short of God’s expectations. The biblical name for this is godly sorrow.  2 cor. 7:10, “For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death” The worldly grief is the grief that does not produce repentance. You are only sorry because something bad happened to you. But the godly grief is the grief that comes from having grieved God. You have let down the One who loved you enough to die for you. But rather than thinking “He will never forgive me” like Judas Iscariot did, you go to him by faith saying, “Even this, he can and will forgive,” like Peter did after denying Him three times. 1 John 1:9, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” How many times? 70 times 7. “But I need to be forgiven more than 490 times, pastor!” Yup, me too. When Jesus said 70 times 7, both considered perfect numbers in the bible, He meant without limit. Every time we come to God asking for forgiveness, He will forgive. Listen, God is never going to tell one of his children, “Oh, it’s you again. Haven’t I forgiven you of that same sin like 20,000 times? No more. I’m all out of forgiveness. Don’t come to me anymore. You are beyond help!” No. Never!

One of the most genuine and endearing prayers to God is, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!” This is the prayer prayed by a tax collector in one of the stories Jesus told. That is the godly sorrow that produced a repentance that leads to salvation – happiness in God.

The world teaches us to find our comfort in being better than others. Just like the Pharisee in the same story Jesus told. Looking at the tax collector who was known as a sinner, the Pharisees prays, “God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector!” So, whenever we compare ourselves to others in order to feel superior or to even console ourselves, we are being like the Pharisee and the world. ”Well, at least I have it better than… or at least I’m not as bad as…” “At least, I don’t do that! That’s really bad… ” What are we doing? We are justifying ourselves by comparing ourselves with those whom we think are not as good as us. We are setting up our own standard and randomly picking people around us who would fall short of our own standard to make ourselves look good in comparison. How wicked is that?

ILL: Why do we read tabloids or watch daytime TV talk shows? Because we get a certain satisfaction out of these people who are so messed up that in comparison, we feel good about ourselves? We may not say it out loud but we think to ourselves, “Oh, I’m not perfect, but as least I don’t do that! Now, those people are really messed up!” We are actually rejoicing at other people’s misfortune. But the people who belong to the kingdom are broken over their own sins. Rather than looking at tabloids and thinking, “Hah, those celebrities are no better than me!”, it’s us looking at the worst kind of sinners and thinking, “I’m no better.”

And where does happiness come from in that condition? Knowing that we deserved the wrath of God, but we got the kingdom of heaven, which we didn’t deserve.

 

3. “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.”

The third condition that will lead us to God and thus become a cause for happiness is “meekness.”  John Piper says, “Meekness means committing your cause to God and not needing to defend yourself.” When we are criticized, judged or misunderstood, it’s acknowledging that God knows the truth and that’s all that matters. Therefore, I don’t need to defend myself or vindicate myself. Since what God thinks is what’s important, as long as He approves me, I don’t need to seek for human approval. We don’t have to defend ourselves. We don’t have to prove ourselves to anyone.

ILL: In a TV drama I watched many years ago, a young girl is accused of stealing her classmate’s watch. Everyone including the teacher thinks she did it. But she vehemently denies it even though no one believes her. However, she looks at her older brother, who meant a world to her, and asks, “You do believe in me when I say that I didn’t steal it, right?” And the brother says, “Yes, I do believe you.” And she says, “Then, that’s all that matters. I don’t care what anyone else thinks…”

Meekness is that attitude, “I don’t care what anyone else thinks of me, as long as God approves me.” It’s this, “If God is for us, who can be against us,” type of attitude. Therefore, we don’t really need to defend ourselves, or explain ourselves. In the midst of criticism, accusation, misunderstandings, we can be calm and be at peace knowing that God knows the truth and that’s all that matters.

Why would a person who is like this be happy? Because she is free! She is free from human approval! She is free from self-preoccupation. She is free from having her heart bruised by every careless word spoken of her by others. She is not so sensitive about what people say or think about Her. Therefore, people around her doesn’t need to tiptoe around this person constantly worried how she might react. She can laugh at herself with others. She is comfortable with herself. And she can be so because she doesn’t give a whip about what people think of her because she finds her security in God.

But the world tells us that if we keep silent, that shows we are weak. We are wimps and doormats and we will be ignored therefore, we need to attack back. If not, they will think they’ve won! And we can’t give them the satisfaction of thinking that they have won over us! Whether it’s a verbal tit-tat or a silly argument. We need to have to last word. We need to be witty. And we need make sure it stings so that they will know not to mess with us!

CONC: Do you know who was poor in spirit, who mourned, and who was meek even though He had no business being any of those because He had no sin? Jesus. Being God, He became poor in spirit by becoming an utterly helpless baby thrust into the hands of a couple of teenagers. And mourned over the sins of Jerusalem that would eventually kill Him too. And finally, before the human authorities displayed meekness by not opening His mouth and defending Himself even though He could’ve called 10,000 angels to destroy the earth! If there was anyone who wasn’t helpless, who didn’t need to be broken over his own sins, who could’ve more than defended Himself, it was Jesus. And yet He didn’t. For your sake and mine. So that by His wounds we would be healed, and by his becoming broken, we would become whole and by his becoming disapproved by God on the cross, we would be approved.

What is the secret to happiness based on these three characteristics studied today? It’s being satisfied with God. It’s being happy in God. It’s seeking for His approval and getting it in the life and death of Jesus Christ. Be that kind of person.