Christianity is meant to be a life of tremendous and abiding joy in God. Why? Because God is infinitely delightful, boundlessly enjoyable, infinitely pleasant, infinitely lovely, infinitely satisfying. The best joys in your life are when you forget about yourself and are enthralled with greatness. The greatest greatness is God’s. Every thing that ever made a man happy is amplified ten thousand times in God.
Is it no wonder why Jonathan Edwards said, “The enjoyment of God is the only happiness with which our souls can be satisfied. To go to heaven, fully to enjoy God, is infinitely better than the most pleasant accommodations here. Fathers and mothers, husbands, wives, or children, or the company of earthly friends, are but shadows; but the enjoyment of God is the substance. These are but scattered beams, but God is the sun. These are but streams. But God is the fountain. These are but drops, but God is the ocean…Why should we labor for, or set our hearts on anything else, but that which is our proper end, and true happiness.”
Oh Christian, God wants us to see Him, to understand Him, and know Him, in order that you might supremely enjoy Him and be satisfied with Him, and truly happy in Him. The great end of all bible study, all teaching, all preaching, is a heart for God and a life of joy. That is why the Westminster Confession writes: “The chief end of man is to know God and enjoy Him forever.” Therefore, we should be blood earnest-deeply serious, about being happy in God! If you don’t. You will be dull to His great worth, and you will not desire for Him. And soon your heart will be tied to lesser things.
Jonathan Edwards challenges us “to be endeavoring by all possible ways to inflame their desires and to obtain more spiritual pleasures. . . . Our hungerings and thirstings after God and Jesus Christ and after holiness can't be too great for the value of these things, for they are things of infinite value.”
The implications every day of your life and every Sunday when we gather is that God’s glory hangs on our being happy in Him. George Mueller exhorts and instructs us,
“above all things see to it that your souls are happy in the Lord. Other things may press upon you, the Lord's work may even have urgent claims upon your attention, but I deliberately repeat, it is of supreme and paramount importance that you should seek above all things to have your souls truly happy in God Himself! Day by day seek to make this the most important business of your life… the secret of all true effectual service is joy in God….But in what way shall we attain to this settled happiness of soul? How shall we learn to enjoy God? How shall we obtain such an all-sufficient soul-satisfying portion in him as shall enable us to let go the things of this world as vain and worthless in comparison? I answer; this happiness is to be obtained through the study of the Holy Scriptures. God has therein revealed Him self unto us in the face of Jesus Christ. In the Scriptures, by the power of the Holy Ghost, He makes Himself known unto our souls. . . . [Therefore] The very earliest portion of the day we can command should be devoted to the meditation on Scriptures. Our souls should feed upon the Word. . . . This intimate experimental acquaintance with Him will make us truly happy. Nothing else will.”
Every Sunday my goal in teaching is to “raise your affections and joy as high as I can with the truth of God.” I desire for my congregation to be set on fire with white hot passion for God and overflowing joy in Christ in the preaching of God’s word with clear and compelling biblical truth. So that as Peter says, “Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory.”(1 Peter 1:8) This is the goal of God in the universe. The ultimate battle in your life is: Are you happy?
Are you happy? Are you praising? Many of us have not been used to finding our joy in God so it doesn’t come easy to praise. That is why we must pray, seek, and begin to go hard after joy. “Resolved, to endeavor to obtain for myself as much happiness, in the other world, as I possibly can, with all the power; might, vigor, and vehemence, yea violence, I am capable of, or can bring myself to exert, in any way that can be thought of.” (Jonathan Edwards)
Will God be your exceeding joy?
Going hard after joy,
Pastor Bill
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