Psalm 34

Happiness has been in the news recently with the government publishing its happiness index. 

Most people are motivated by a desire to be happy in life and accordingly they try and do and achieve things which they think will make them happy.

Many seek happiness in money. If only I could earn more or win the Lottery then I’d be happy. It’s true that a lack of money can cause unhappiness. The trouble however is, that those who do earn lots and win the Lottery frequently find that it doesn’t really make them happy and sometimes in the long run it actually brings them unhappiness.

Many seek happiness through their career or life style – by achieving status and living in a nice 

house, but find that a certain emptiness deep within remains, and lasting happiness eludes them.

And of course many young people today seek happiness in celebrity culture. If only I could be famous and get my picture in Hello magazine then I’d be happy. The trouble is that many celebrities aren’t happy.

As we seek to please ourselves and satisfy our own desires, although we may find temporary pleasure, in the long run we are often disappointed and a deep emptiness and longing for something more fulfilling remains.

The Psalmist has different ideas about where true happiness can be found and that is what I believe today’s Psalm is essentially about.

According to the Psalmist our happiness comes not from leading self-centred lives, but from leading God-centred lives. “Happy are those who take refuge in him,” he says in verse 8.

And in this Psalm I believe the Psalmist presents us with a key. It’s a golden key, a precious key that can unlock happiness and those things which will make us happy.

It’s a key to answered prayer and to deliverance from our fears; it’s a key to lacking no good thing; it’s a key to many days to enjoy good; and it’s a key to being rescued from our troubles and afflictions.

It’s not a key to avoiding trouble or affliction, but it is a key to being delivered from them.

So the question for us is how do we lay hold of this key? What do we have to do to unlock this happiness that the Psalmist describes?

The first thing the Psalmist suggests we should do is to learn to thank and praise God for all the good things he’s done for us and given us.

“I will bless the Lord at all times; his praise shall continually be in my mouth” – that’s verse 1.

We should adopt an attitude of gratitude. Thankyou Lord for my life and for creating me. 

Thankyou for my family and friends. Thankyou for food and shelter. Thankyou for the beauty of the world around me. Thankyou for all the good things you have poured into my life. Thankyou for dying for me on the cross.

Bless you Lord for your love and goodness to me.

Adopting an attitude of gratitude is part of the key to happiness. Being thankful to God builds up our faith – like a tyre being inflated with air – and enables us to receive things from God more easily.

If we moan at God about everything that is wrong with our lives and forget to thank him for the good things it makes it harder for us to receive from him.

Adopting an attitude of gratitude opens our lives to receive blessings from God as an open flower can receive sunshine.

The next thing the Psalmist says we should do is to seek the Lord and look to him - verses 4 and 5.

Nowadays lots of people seek solutions to their problems by reading self help books, by meditating or doing Yoga or by visiting mediums and spiritualists.

They are looking in the wrong place for help. In fact visiting mediums is likely to make our problems worse and open our lives to negative spiritual influences.

No, we should seek the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, the Holy one of Israel, the creator of the Universe.

As God says in the book of Isaiah – “Before me no god was formed, nor will there be one after me. I, even I, am the Lord, and apart from me there is no saviour.”

 We can call him Father or Lord or simply Jesus.  However we address him, He is the only one who can answer our prayers and save and deliver us from all our fears and predicaments.

About 18 years ago I had a nasty lump under my arm which was removed in a 2 hour operation. 

By the grace of God I’d felt  the evil in the lump leave my body before the operation, but the experience rattled me and I was afraid it could happen again, so I sought the Lord and asked Him to deliver me from my fear.

A few months later on Easter Day I walked home from Church alone – as my family had stayed at the Church - and when I got home I felt that God wanted me to read Psalm 41. As I did so, He spoke to me through it.

He told me that he would protect me and preserve my life, that he wouldn’t abandon me to the power of my enemies, and that when I was sick he’d restore me to health.

He removed my fears and like the Psalmist, I rejoiced.

I can think of other occasions in my life where God has delivered me from my fears, not because 

I’m special, I’m most certainly not - but because I sought and looked to Him and because He is loving and gracious and kind and He longs to bless us.

As the Psalmist says in verse 5, “Look to him and be radiant, so your faces shall never be ashamed.”

Look to the one true God, the creator of the universe, because He can save and rescue you and enable you to rejoice and be happy.

The next thing the Psalmist says we should do to find happiness, is to fear the Lord.

“O fear the Lord, you his holy ones, for those who fear him have no want.” (verse 9)

To fear the Lord is to have a healthy respect for Him which leads us to trust in Him and to obey Him.

To fear Him is to realise that everything we do and every thought we have is laid bare before his eyes, and therefore we seek to live in a way that is pleasing to Him, because we know that one day we will have to give an account to Him for how we have lived.

To fear the Lord is to seek to live in a morally upright way that honours God.

As the Psalmist says in verses 11 to 14; “Come O children, listen to me; I will teach you the fear of the Lord. Which of you desires life and covets many days to enjoy good? Keep your tongue from evil and your lips from speaking deceit. Depart from evil and do good; seek peace and pursue it.”

Why should we do this? – because as the Psalmist says in the next verse –“The eyes of the Lord are on the righteous and his ears are open to their cry.”

God’s ears are open to the cry of the righteous.

To be righteous isn’t just to be morally upright however.

Righteousness is a humble openness to God and to his will, to be seeking to walk in obedience to God by faith.

Paul says in his letter to the Romans that righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe.

So if you have placed your faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and are walking with God by faith, He sees you as righteous and his ears are open to your cry.

I wonder what your cry to God is ?

Perhaps you need delivering from a fear or a desperate situation. Perhaps your life is a mess and you are in despair and you want God to reach down from heaven and change your circumstances.

Perhaps you are a poor soul such as one described by the Psalmist in verse 6 – not one who is necessarily materially poor – but one who recognises that you don’t have the resources to bring about your own deliverance

If that’s you and you are walking with God by faith – rejoice because his ears are open to your cry.

He hears the cry of your heart and he will act. He will respond to your prayer.

And it’s OK to cry out to God as the Psalmist puts it.

It’s OK to be honest with Him and to share our hurt and fear and disappointment. It’s OK to let our tears fall before Him.

God responds to that sort of prayer.

Do you remember what the writer to the Hebrews says about Jesus’ prayer life?

“During the days of Jesus' life on earth, he offered up prayers and petitions with loud cries and tears to the one who could save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission.”

Of course as I said at the start of this sermon – the Psalmist doesn’t promise a life without trouble or affliction but he does promise deliverance and rescue from them as we put our faith in God.

As he says in verses 17 and 19; ‘When the righteous cry for help the Lord hears and rescues them from all their troubles... Many are the afflictions of the righteous but the Lord rescues them from them all.’

Sometimes God may rescue us dramatically. He may speak a Word directly into our lives that sets us free from our fear or He may send someone to minister His love and healing to us.

Sometimes He may speak to us through a dream or a vision and then we know in our hearts that all will be well.

Often the rescue is over a period of time – sometimes several years – and then one day we wake up and we realise that those things that once hurt and distressed us are now not nearly so significant in our lives and we realise that God has been acting gently and slowly to heal and deliver us.

However God chooses to rescue us, we become aware that the Creator of the Universe has intervened in our lives and changed our situation and like the Psalmist we can turn to him in and praise and bless him for his deliverance.

And as we go through the afflictions the Psalmist talks about in verse 19, we can be confident that God will enable us to cope with and live through whatever we are experiencing, in the knowledge that He is working for our good.

As Paul says in his letter to the Romans; ‘we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.’

One of my favourite passages in the bible is from Isaiah chapter 43 which speaks of the same deliverance the Psalmist is talking about;

‘But now thus says the Lord, he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine.

When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you;

When you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you.

For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Saviour... (and) you are precious in my sight, ... and I love you.’

We may go through all sorts of difficulties and trouble in life but we will not be overwhelmed or destroyed by them as we put our faith in God.

 As we adopt an attitude of gratitude, as we look to him and seek him, as we fear him and walk in righteousness before him and as we cry out to him, he will rescue and deliver us from our troubles and we will have many days to enjoy good.

Life may throw all sorts of things our way but as we trust and walk humbly and obediently with God with a song of praise on our lips we need fear no evil because the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, the Holy One of Israel will be on our side.

And ultimately we will be happy.

So today I invite you in the Psalmists words to ‘taste and see that the Lord is good.’

 I invite you to take hold of the precious golden key outlined in this Psalm – a key to answered prayer and to deliverance from our fears; a key to lacking no good thing;

a key to many days to enjoy good; and a key to being rescued from your troubles - as you put into practise the advice of the Psalmist.

Just as the disciples managed to weather the storm because Jesus was in the boat with them, so we too can weather the storms of life if Jesus is in the boat with us, if he is in our lives, and we are trusting in him.

Jesus commanded the storm to be still and he can do the same for us.

Ultimately the true place to find lasting happiness is in a relationship with the living God, the Lord Jesus Christ.

Amen.