Christian Happiness: Part One | Tim Henderson+

Thank you Will. We got double Will this morning, that's good. You guys know what Will and Becky and their children are doing? Do you guys know Will? These guys are moving to Cambodia to plant a church so that the people in the jungles of Southeast Asia will know the beauty and transcendence and wonder of God, his love for them and the opportunity they have to live in eternal happiness forever and ever. And we love you guys, we love your family. Not yet, not yet, but in like a year. But the day is coming so ask him about it, it's exciting work.

Okay, listen, how many of you guys have read, actually read the books, Lord of the Rings? Bunch. Whole bunch of hands. How many of you seen the movies? Like more of that. Okay. So I just recently reread the books. I'd read them like a long time ago but I reread them all. I was surprised how long it took man. These things go on and on and on but man there are some incredible passages in these books. Some things are just brilliant and insights and there was something though that this time around caught my attention that if I ever noticed it I just forgot about it because it surprised me when I came to it.

Basic story's probably familiar to many of you. Frodo is a hobbit which is like a little short person, and he accepts responsibility to carry this powerful and evil ring to a volcano to throw it in to destroy it because it's so wicked and so powerful that its very existence threatens the world, threatens the happiness in the world. The creator of the ring—if he finds it, he will have limitless power to subjugate the world under his cruel fist. And so this little small person sets off on a quest to destroy the ring that is all but certain to fail. But he doesn't fail. There's a circle of friends, kind of unlikely allies, who come around him and through them and through his really extraordinary ability to just keep on pushing through suffering, he succeeds. He succeeds and he destroys this thing and this enormous and improbable victory finally basically saves the world, he and his friends, Samwise and all the rest.

And it is this: when the ring is destroyed, there becomes the possibility of relief and happiness and well-being. There's this great scene where Sam wakes up and realizes they've done it, they've succeeded, and he's just so filled with happiness. Then he asks the question, are all the sad things going to come untrue?

And then something happens that surprised me. I don't know. Do you guys remember what happens to Frodo after he destroys the ring? After he wins this great and happy victory. Do you remember? I'd forgotten. Listen to this. He has an encounter with this woman, this elf princess named Arwen. She says this, she says, "a gift that I will give you, if your hurts grieve you still and the memory of your burden is heavy, then you may pass into the West until all your wounds and weariness are healed. But wear this now." And she gives him a gift. And she says, "when the memory of the fear and the darkness troubles you, this will bring you aid."

It's like, wait a minute. I thought we won. I thought it was all happiness from here on out.

And then short while later it says, "at last the hobbits had their faces turned toward home. They were eager now to see the Shire again." That's like the village that they live in. "But at first they rode only slowly for Frodo had been ill at ease. And when they came to the fords of Brunnen, he had halted and he seemed loathe to ride into the stream. And they noted that for a while his eyes appeared not to see them or things about him. And all that day he was silent. It was the October 6."

"Are you in pain Frodo?" said Gandalf quietly, as he rode by Frodo's side.

"Well, yes, I am," said Frodo. "It's my shoulder, the wound aches, and the memory of darkness is heavy upon me. It was a year ago today."

"Alas, there are some wounds that cannot be wholly cured," said Gandalf.

"I fear it may be so with mine," said Frodo. "There is no real going back. Though I may come to the Shire, it will not seem the same, for I shall not be the same. I am wounded with knife, sting, and tooth, and a long burden. Where shall I find rest?"

And Gandalf did not answer.

You guys, Frodo had won a huge victory, overwhelming happiness floods into the world. He saved the world and yet, in some regard, he was unable to enter into the joy that he had made possible. He was haunted by sorrow and weariness and even the great Gandalf had no words to offer to him.

Now I think that Tolkien is on to something here. Something really important, namely that in this weary world, joy can be hard to find. Doubly so when we are bearing yesterday's wounds.

Now I'll tell you something about myself. My deepest and most abiding longing is for durable joy. Like everyone else who has ever lived, I want to be happy. I love being happy and sometimes I am.

Sometimes my life is just filled with happiness, mirth, laughter, joy. A pervading sense of well-being. I mentioned to you guys that a week ago, week and a half ago, I was in Idaho with a bunch of very close friends in this beautiful place doing fun, adventurous things, and it was great. I love being happy. Do you love happiness? But sometimes I'm not. Sometimes I'm like Frodo—I'm not happy. Different days, and sometimes even different seasons, my heart is heavy. It may manifest as sorrow or anger or fear. I'm not always happy, but I love it when I am.

We are allowed to feel a variety of things, particularly as circumstances warrant. There are appropriate emotions to circumstances, but I have sometimes found, often found, that happiness is elusive, fleeting. It comes and then it's gone, and it has caused me to be very attentive to know why. What is the secret of happiness? Paul says he's learned the secret of being content in all circumstances. I would like to know that secret.

I have had a conscious desire for many years to discover a durable and reliable, resilient joy that transcends frightening, frustrating, or painful circumstances. Is this strange? Do you relate to this? Are you aware of the hunt for happiness?

Jonathan Edwards and Christian Happiness

One of my theological mentors is a man who has never met me. He's been dead for two hundred fifty years. His name is Jonathan Edwards. Jonathan Edwards is one of the most brilliant people ever to walk the earth. He's astonishingly insightful, deeply seated in the scriptures. I don't always agree with him, and there are some flaws in his life like there are in everybody's, but I've learned so much from him. I'm so grateful for him.

I came across something that was just incredible and somewhat humiliating. He was a pastor, a theologian, the president of Princeton University—or Princeton College at the time—but he had a very prolific ministry as a pastor. He preached his very first sermon when he was eighteen years old. Like I was eighteen years old thirty-two years ago. He was eighteen years old about this exact thing. When he was eighteen, he had already penetrated the veil on this and he preached a sermon on Christian happiness.

The gist of the sermon was this: that Christians ought to be, can be, have the resources to be, the happiest people on the earth for three irrefutable reasons. Here are his three reasons:

Number one: Our bad things turn out for good.

Number two: Our good things can never be taken away.

Number three: The best is yet to come.

Our bad things turn out for good. Our good things can never be taken away. And the best is yet to come. You guys, that is rock solid. Do you understand how that is a phalanx? That is a protection. That is absolutely true. Every bit of that is true, but taken together, they form a robust structure that gives us access to durable joy.

Processing the Framework

What we're gonna do here in the next couple weeks—today, next week—is I just wanna process that with you. Because these things are real, and I want to spend a couple weeks considering it. I want us, I want me to have this framework. I want this to be locked in, and I hope to flood your mind with something that is sufficient to produce real happiness in a world filled with real pain.

I don't know if you guys have the same habit I do, but I very often will wake up and one of the first things I do is read the news. Folly, I know. But nevertheless, when I read this morning, two things struck me.

Number one, the situation in Afghanistan that is unfolding and has led to, and will lead to, yet more deep pain. That's a train wreck. It is really, really painful. Afghanistan is a rough place to be right now.

Number two—you see the other big news about suffering in the world? Haiti. Oh my goodness. Once again, there's been another earthquake in Haiti. Hundreds dead, maybe a thousand missing. This is a nation that has just suffered so much.

I'm like, man, in a world where there are things like Afghanistan, things like Haiti, and things like whatever burdens you are carrying right now that I don't know about—what kind of relational or vocational pain is in your life? Disappointments or things you're suffering, your physical health, somebody that you love. We need a durable source for joy in this actual world that can sometimes be so, so happy and sometimes can be so, so difficult.

So what we're gonna do in the next couple weeks, we're gonna talk about these things. Our bad things turn out for good. Our good things can never be taken away. And the best is yet to come. We're gonna do just the first two this morning. So let's start with our bad things turn out for good.

This one is terrifically important. Your life is marked by hurts, disappointments, injuries, slights, illnesses, loss. These are real and sometimes quite awful. But for Christians, if you are in Christ, every one of them is going to be converted into joy. This is true. Edwards is not making this up. We're not exegeting Edwards; we want to look at the scriptures.

So can you help me? Prove to me from the Bible: is it true that our bad things turn out for good? Where would you go in God's holy word to demonstrate the truth of that claim?

Romans eight twenty-eight, Carl? Very good. Can you quote that real loud?

Things turn to good for those who love God and are called according to his purposes. — Romans 8:28

Exactly right. All things—write this down, look it up—all things work together for the good of those who love God, who are called according to his purposes. There's something mysterious in that. Romans eight twenty-eight is true. God is brilliant. He is able to take all these things and work them together for our good. This is a long game picture. In the short term, a lot of the things in the "all things" category are really difficult, really painful. We're not minimizing that, but he's going to work them together. He's got a purpose. He's going somewhere with this.

Where else would you go in scriptures to make this case? Is it true, or is that the only one?

The Beatitudes. What about the Beatitudes, Eric? Excellent. So he's quoting Matthew 5, the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus saying, blessed are you when all these terrible things happen. There's a reason. Now, he doesn't necessarily explain the fullness of the reason, but God has a promise that he's going to take all of our suffering, all of our pain, all of our difficulty, and he's going to accomplish good things from it. We see it in Matthew 5, we see it in Romans 8.

Where else? Catherine?

In everything give thanks, for this is the will of God concerning you.

Excellent. So we are able to give thanks in everything, including painful, miserable, dreadful circumstances—yes—because he can bring good things about this.

Now, the person who taught me about this is not Corrie ten Boom. It's her sister, Betsy. Do you guys know the Corrie ten Boom story? She and her family basically hid Jews during World War Two, and then they themselves were sent off to the concentration camps. There was this great scene in her book, The Hiding Place, where Betsy was thanking God for lice. They're living in this miserable situation, they got lice, and her sister says, "Jesus, we praise you. We thank you for the lice." And Corrie's like, "Enough. Stop it. Just shut up about that." But they praise God for the lice.

And Betsy—who Corrie always says is funny because Corrie is this extraordinarily godly woman but she pictures Betsy as being her mentor, even more so. So Erin, what happens? How does God work the lice together for the good of her? Do you remember?

Because of all the lice, the guards refuse to come into their area, which creates this place of safety for them to have Bible studies and to lead people to Jesus.

Praise God for the lice. That's craziness. Thank God for godly women like Corrie and Betsy ten Boom.

Other scripture passages? Is it true? Where would you go to make the case?

Joseph. Okay. Not Jesus' dad, right? We're talking Old Testament Joseph. His brothers sell him into slavery, throw him in a pit, try to kill him, sell him off as a slave. He gets out of that, then he gets accused of assaulting a woman. Everything just descends and descends and descends. He goes to the lowest place, and from there God exalts him to the highest place and puts him second in charge over all of Egypt for the rescue of his people.

And then when his brothers come to him—oh snap, once he's king of Egypt—they come to him and say, "Dad told us to tell you not to kill us." Dad didn't really say that, but dad probably would have liked it if you didn't kill him. But he says, "Hey, don't sweat it. Though you meant it for evil, God meant it for good to accomplish what is now being done."

That's a great example of this thing that God uses all these dreadful, miserable circumstances to accomplish a good end, right? And then maybe, perhaps, the clearest, the most vibrant example of this is Jesus' own death. Jesus' death was the most unjust thing that ever happened. It's among the deepest suffering that anyone has ever endured and yet from that deep and abiding horrible, wicked, painful, miserable thing comes the greatest thing that has ever happened in the history of the world. God has a peculiar ability to turn terrible things into great things.

Second Corinthians four offers another text. Here's what it says:

Therefore, we do not lose heart. Though outwardly, we are wasting away, inwardly, we're being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. — 2 Corinthians 4

Afflictions achieve glory. All the bad stuff, all of it—if you're in Christ it's going to get converted into good. He's going to work it all out. And believe me, I know. I have lived through some of this, and I mean some of you have suffered far more than I have. None of our stories are over yet. And I know what it's like to be like, "Okay Lord, if afflictions achieve glory, I am content with the amount of glory that I will receive." Right? Have you ever made that calculation like, "No more. This is as happy as I want to be. I don't want anymore"? We don't get to. We're not the arbiters of that. We don't get to determine. But whatever misery he brings us through and however dreadful it is in the moment, the scriptures are filled with promises—it's all getting converted. Some of you who have suffered terrible things have unimaginable happiness in the future that will trace directly back to this present moment of pain. Our bad things turn out for good.

There's a lot of things going on behind this that we could try to unpack, but I don't have time for all of them. I just want to share one thing with you that I think is really helpful. Here's how Edwards puts it:

He says the Christian may look down upon the whole army of worldly afflictions under his feet with slight disregard because were they to join their forces together against him and put on their most rueful and dreadful habits, forms, and appearances, and spend all their strength, vigor, and violence with endeavors to do him any real hurt or mischief, it would all be in vain. He can't hurt you. There's a bulletproofness to this, right?

Here's one of the reasons why—and there are multiple reasons, but one of them is that you are being changed. We are being changed into creatures that seek joy in worthwhile places. We're being transformed. We're being made less arrogant and more dependent. We are being weaned from insufficient pleasures. We are being deepened. Your capacity for joy is being increased, even if that process is sometimes just not all that much fun.

C.S. Lewis has a passage in The Problem of Pain—which is an appropriate place to put it—in which he describes this process through an illustration and unpacks this biblical metaphor. When the Bible tries to tell us that God loves us, it doesn't just say God loves us, but it says he loves us like this and he loves us like that. It talks about how he loves us like a husband loves his wife, like a parent loves a child. He loves us like an artist loves his artwork. Lewis picks on that last one.

Here's what he says: Over a sketch made idly to amuse a child, an artist may not take much trouble. He may just be content to let it go even though it's not exactly as he meant it to be. But over the great picture of his life, the work which he loves—though in a different fashion as intensely as a man loves a woman or a mother or a child—he will take endless trouble. And hear this: he would therefore doubtless give endless trouble to the picture if it were sentient. One can imagine a sentient picture after being rubbed and scraped and recommenced for the tenth time, wishing that it were only a thumbnail sketch whose making was over in a minute.

In the same way, it's natural for us to wish that God had designed for us a less glorious and less arduous destiny. But then we are wishing not for more love, but for less.

Your bad things turn out for good because he is doing something. He is shaping us. He is changing us. And therefore whatever things we suffer, as James says:

Consider pure joy when you face trials of many kinds. — James 1:2

Whatever miseries we go through, God is using them for good.

Number one: our bad things turn out for good. What's number two? Good things can never be taken away. Let's talk about what that means.

I don't mean that my Miata will become a permanent feature of my life. I would love that, however, because that thing makes me happy. And in fact, if Edwards knew about small, fast convertibles, he may have had four points to this sermon. I cannot tell you how much pleasure that little blue car gives me. But he is talking about something else.

What Edwards is saying is that our truly good things, the best things, the most delicious things that God gives us are of such a nature that they will never go away. Jesus frames it like this: there are some things that will never rust, that moths will never destroy, that thieves will never break in and steal. They are not transitory in any way. And Edwards is turning our attention to these things that have in their very nature, permanence.

Our bad things turn out for good and our really good things will never be taken away. Now Edwards has a phenomenon in his teaching. He loves to take one thing and then look at it from 75 different vantage points. He loves long lists. I'm going to take a bit of a risk. You can't read Edwards for very long because you know, this sucks, stop listening to you, but I'm going to do that anyway. But I'm not going to read the whole list. I'm going to give you something and I want you to hear what he's going to unpack. What are the good things? What do we have? Just stay with me, but don't worry about keeping it. Don't take notes, okay?

Edwards' approach is what he tries to do: he tries to capture your heart through the vehicle of your mind. Just listen to this. Hear this. Maybe one or two phrases in this thing will capture you. Like, oh, this is the source of happiness. Here's what he says. Here's the good stuff that we have. Just let it wash over you.

How happy it must needs be to a man to have all his sins pardoned and to stand guilty of nothing in God's presence, to be washed clean from all his pollutions. To have the great and eternal and almighty Jehovah who rules and governs the whole universe and does whatsoever he pleases in the armies of heaven and amongst the inhabitants of the earth reconciled to him and at perfect peace with him. He holds nothing against you. How great a pleasure and satisfaction must it be to him to think of it.

And not only that God is reconciled to him or has nothing against him in so much as all is pardoned, but also that the same almighty being who created her and keeps her in being and disposes of her and all other things, every moment loves her, and that with a great and transcendent love. And that he has adopted her and taken her to be his child and has given himself to her to be her father and her portion. And that takes care of her as one that is very dear to him. Continually guides and directs her and will lead her to the fountains of living waters.

And how joyful and how gladsome must the thoughts of Jesus Christ be to him. To think with how great a love Christ has loved him, even to lay down his life and to suffer the most bitter torments for his sake, and who now continually intercedes for him at the throne of grace. And to consider that so great a person is the eternal son of God who also made the worlds is his lord and master and is not ashamed to call us brother, who will come in and dine with him and he with him, and to see his arms expanded to embrace him, and offering himself to be embraced by him.

And beside, what a satisfaction and pleasure must it give to his mind to think that he is now sanctified, made holy, adorned and beautified with all those lovely graces that make him lovely in the sight of God and excellent in the sight of angels and saints. And then Edwards, he shifts perspective and instead of talking about the greatness of God, he begins to speak about us for just a moment more. To reflect on himself and to consider that he acts rationally and he does that which the best of beings has commanded. That he in some measure acts worthy of the nature of man and in some measure answers to the end of his coming into the world and glorifying God and doing good to his fellow creatures that he has not lived altogether in vain.

That's a good list. And that can never be taken away.

I wonder, are you mindful of these things in the midst of a busy, frustrating, frightening, painful day? You guys, Christ will be adoring you, delighting in you, seeking your good, and even approving of you. What? For all of time. He will endlessly make himself available to you so that you can delight in him. And you are invited to the backstage, the front row to see his beauty and his supremacy. You're not some paparazzi that is an annoyance kept at a distance, but you're an up close intimate friend. You're like a child to a father, like a wife to a husband. You are invited to draw near to him and that forever. And I hope that thinking about that might enliven your own imagination.

Maybe even today you'll head home and talk about this with the people in your family. Talk about this with your friends.

Jim Elliot was a missionary, some of you might know his name. He did many extraordinary things but he's perhaps best known for one sentence that he uttered. All the things he did, he has one little phrase that's associated with him. He said:

"He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he can never lose." — Jim Elliot

There are things that you can never lose. Have you ever run an audit of things that you have obtained in Christ that you shall never lose?

Yes. Today is the Lord's day. It's his day. It's a gift that he has given to us that we might reflect on him and ponder him, think about him. We might feed ourselves with happiness. And so I just invite you sometime today, take out a Bible and consider what are those things? Allow your mind to wander, to kind of wrap around these permanent sources of deep happiness.

Because it's my guess that you need ballast in your life. You need some source of joy that is not dependent on circumstances. I hope your circumstances are splendid. But you need an anchor that'll tie you to this future hope of infinite and increasing happiness.

It's really true. If you're in Christ, your bad things will turn out for good. And your good things will never be taken away. And the best is yet to come.

But some of you, like me, may have been caught in your bad things just being bad. And you've seen some good things taken away. It might be that you are like Frodo with a wound that you fear may never heal.

And if that's you, I think it is, perhaps you might take a minute and just come forward. We're gonna pause for a second before we continue. And I wanna give you an invitation to come forward and leave it here. Maybe there's a lost relationship, a lost dream, something that you demand as a condition for your own joy. "I will not be happy until or unless." Maybe it's time just to let it go.

For you have stored up for you, if you are in Christ, infinite increasing happiness. Trade it in for a deeper reflection on the infinite. Literally, actually—not hype, I'm not being hyperbolic here—literally infinite happiness that is yours in Jesus. Because your bad things will turn out for good, your good things will never be taken away, and the best is yet to come.

And I would love it if we experienced that at a deeper level today. So consider coming forward and you can do it alone. We'll have you space here alone. There's folks on the sides if you wanna say it out loud to somebody else. But what is blocking your joy? What's getting in the way? Come forward and let's pray that a more durable source of happiness might replace it.

Ready? Let's pray.

Lord Jesus, you're the key to all of it. You are the happy one. You are the one who for the joy set before you endured the cross. You are the one who gives us. You bought it all. You paid for everything that we could have it. Lord, would you free us from all these other sources that tempt and tease and disappoint and frustrate that we would really build our joy on you. That your great love would be the anchor of our lives. That we would have some rich imagination to anticipate future happiness.

And I pray for those right now that at a particular level are suffering something that just gets in the way. Pray you might free them from it today that we would be a community of happy people believing your promises, experiencing them right now. We love you. Amen.