Happy Is That People

Grace Agenda 2024

“Happy is that people, that is in such a case: yea, happy is that people, whose God is the LORD” (Ps. 144:15).

Introduction
The theme of this year’s conference is “Jolly Warrior,” and my topic is “Happy is that People.” In the midst of the Great War that commenced immediately after our first parents fell into sin and which went into full conquering mode after the resurrection – in the midst of this Great Conflict – we, the people of the High King of the Universe, are to be marked, notoriously, for being happy. 

So this is a talk about why we’re so happy, and hopefully, as you are reminded of some of the chief reasons, it will make you even happier as you go back out into the fray. There are of course many more reasons than we will cover tonight, but here are four reasons why the people of the living God are a happy people. And as it happens, I’m taking most of this from the Psalms. My title is taken from Psalm 144, and most of what I want to unpack will be taken from this and other psalms. And that should be remembered in all of this. A happy people are a singing people. We sing because we are glad. And we sing in order to multiply that gladness.

Four Reasons for Why We Are a Happy People

1. We are a happy people because we are a forgiven people. 

The word in Hebrew for “happy” is the word “ahshray,” and it is often also translated as “blessed.” Ps. 32:1-2 says, “Happy is the man whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sin is covered. Happy is the man unto whom the Lord does not impute iniquity, in whose spirit there is no guile.” All of this goes together. Literally, the word for “forgiven” is “lifted up” or “carried.” Happy is the one who has had his sins lifted off of him, carried away, whose sin is covered. 

The next word we need to define is “impute,” which basically means “charged with.” Happy is the man who is not charged with his iniquity. To be forgiven is to know that you could have been charged with numerous particular sins, you should have been charged with them, and you should have been convicted. But instead, the crime was taken away, lifted off of you, and blotted over on your record, and all the charges were dropped. Happy is the man unto whom the Lord does not charge any iniquity.

Finally, Psalm 32 says we are happy because in our spirits there is no guile. Guile is an old word for lies or deceit. We are happy because we are completely forgiven, and we have nothing to hide: no lies, no backlog of sin, no hypocrisy at all. Everything that needs to be confessed, has been confessed. You can go through our internet history, old love letters and yearbooks, and nothing is a festering lie. Everyone who needs to know, has been told, and it’s been made right. 

But then in Psalm 32 David records what it was like before he confessed his sins. When he kept silent, his bones ached like a burning arthritis, and he groaned all day long with agony. He says it was God’s hand heavy upon him. So this is the case for God’s people who are trying to hide sin or refusing to confess or forgive. You cannot be God’s people and be happy while sin festers in your life. You will either have God’s hand on you heavy with conviction or else you will have God’s hand heavy upon you for blessing and happiness. You can have one or the other, but you cannot have both. 

We are a happy people because we have confessed our sins, and the blood of Jesus Christ has cleansed us, and we are forgiven. 

2. We are a happy people because we have God’s clear Word and by that Word much fruit. 

“Happy is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful. But his delight is in the law of the Lord and in his law doth he meditate day and night. And he shall be like a tree planted by rivers of water, that brings forth his fruit in his season, his leaf also does not wither, and whatsoever he does will prosper” (Ps. 1:1-3).

Christians who choose not to walk in the ways of the ungodly, who turn away from notorious sinners, and do not fellowship with the rebellious scornful, are to be marked by happiness. This would be people who have taken their kids out of government schools, who do no let Netflix or PBS babysit their little ones, and make it a point to fellowship with God’s people regularly. These people, Psalm 1 says, are happy. 

They are not fearful, not in constant angst, not full of anxiety, not stressed out. We are happy. We are happy because we have the counsel of God, the way of God, and we are seated with Christ and His people. The way of transgressors is hard (Prov. 13:15), but the law of God is like finding gold, and it is sweeter than honey. So this is no prideful happiness, no arrogant boasting. This is simply the happiness of goodness. 

The world, the flesh, and the devil offer dinner from the garbage dump. And God in Christ, offers us a feast in His wisdom. Happy are those who turn away from the garbage dump and feast on Christ and His Word. 

Psalm 1 also says that we are happy because we have the law of God and it delights us, as we meditate on it day and night. Unfortunately, we haven’t quite recovered that reputation yet. Theonomy is the doctrine, broadly speaking, that all human laws ought to be based on God’s law. There is plenty of room for debating exactly which laws and how they ought to be applied, but if we agree that God’s law is supreme over all human law, then we’re all theonomists of some stripe. If God’s law is not supreme, then you will have some other law supreme, and wherever that law came from is your god. 

But the point we must underline here is that Psalm 1 says that theonomists ought to be the happiest people in the world. If you are really into God’s law. If you’re constantly chewing on how various verses in Deuteronomy might apply to your life, your family, your church, your city, and all civil governments, it ought to make you really happy. It is our delight. It’s like ice cream with chocolate syrup on top. God’s Words are sweet. Meditating on God’s law should not make you angsty, bitter, or an insufferable troll on social media.  If you think you’re really into God’s law, but you’re only getting more angsty, you aren’t really. 

This happiness of applying God’s Word was actually our Protestant reputation at one point. When the Word of God was being translated and printed and preached openly in the language of the common people, it created a distinctly happy people. And this was one of the chief complaints against our Protestant and Puritan fathers. The center of this happiness was the word of grace, the gospel itself that converted sinners to God. C.S. Lewis says this, “The man who has passed through it feels like one who has waked from nightmare into ecstasy. Like an accepted lover, he feels that he has done nothing, and never could have done anything, to deserve such astonishing happiness… All the initiative has been on God’s side; all has been free, unbounded grace. And all will continue to be free, unbounded grace. His own puny and ridiculous efforts would be as helpless to retain the joy as they would have been to achieve it in the first place. Fortunately, they need not. Bliss is not for sale, cannot be earned… He is not saved because he does works of love: he does works of love because he is saved. It is faith alone that has saved him: faith bestowed by sheer gift. From this buoyant humility, this farewell to the self with all its good resolutions, anxiety, scruples, and motive-scratchings, all the Protestant doctrines originally sprang.” 

When the Word was found, and when the Word was read and proclaimed, this is what it said: Grace. Pure grace. Free grace. Boundless grace. And be done with all your good resolutions, anxiety, scruples, and motive-scratchings. All Protestant doctrine springs from this happy font.   

And thus the early Protestants and Puritans were not known for being sour, gloomy, or severe. Rather, their enemies accused them of being too light, too easy, and too happy. Lewis again: “Protestantism was not too grim, but too glad, to be true.” Calvin and his followers celebrated the goodness of creation, man’s senses, food and drink, colorful clothing, and the delights of the marriage bed.

We are happy because we have God’s clear gospel Word in Christ, and in Him, the whole world has been given back to us as gifts of grace. Happy is that people.

3. We are a happy people because our families are a blast. 

“Happy is everyone who fears the Lord and walks in His ways… your wife will be as a fruitful vine by the sides of your house; your children will be like olive plants around your table… you shall see your children’s children and peace upon Israel” (Ps. 128).

The homes of Christian people should be the happiest places. They are happy because their sins are forgiven, and they are constantly confessing sin and forgiving one another as quickly as sin happens. No backlog of sins. No hidden sins. No grievances. No grudges. They are happy because they have the Word of Christ proclaiming grace in salvation and grace in every good gift. 

But this Psalm 128 specifically underlines the happiness of a fruitful wife, children, grandchildren, and all around a dinner table. 

Children are multipliers. They multiply what you have personally, and what you have with your wife. So, if you want your home to be a happy place, your heart must be a happy place and your marriage must be a happy place. Your heart is a happy place if it is clean and full of light. You can have that if all your sins are forgiven. 

The basic assignments given in Scripture to husbands are to love your wife and to wives to respect your husband. These are not just rules or generic instructions. These are the steps for the dance. This is how to be happy in your marriage. These are the central ingredients to all the best times, beginning with the fact that these instructions tend to go against our natural inclinations. 

Men tend function primarily on respect, and so respect is what we naturally give. But God says that we must love our wife. And women tend to function primarily on love, and so love is what women most naturally give. But God says that you must respect your husband. And God instructs us to give these particular things because they are what your spouse most needs. Which means incidentally that the thing that your spouse most needs to give you, he isn’t very good at (and she isn’t very good at). 

Many marriage bumps and squabbles are a result of these natural differences between men and women. And God thought it would be hilarious. I suspect he motioned to some of the angels when He made the woman and brought her to the man and said something like, “watch this.” So, there should happiness on both sides of this beginning in the hilarious and glorious differences between male and female. And on top of that, there’s happiness in trying to figure out how to love, how to respect, and there’s happiness in the love and the respect. And all of this should underline the necessity of learning what those specific instructions actually mean. Think of like a treasure hunt, the way to happiness. 

There are many ways and places to delight in your kids and grandkids, but this psalm specifically centers on a table. And this fits with the fact that Christ invites His family to celebrate every Lord’s Day at His table. We rejoice in Christ at His table with His people. And so it makes good sense that Christian people rejoice around tables in their own homes. We are happy people because we have a blast at our tables. 

This means many things, and let me just list a few quickly. First, make a point to actually eat together. Have regular meals as a family. And don’t just thank God for the food; thank God for the opportunity to eat together, to be together at a table. Man doesn’t live by bread alone, and when we eat together, we’re not just ingesting nutrition, we’re sharing life. 

Second, eat good food that you all enjoy. Part of the happiness of a family meal is the fact that we’re all together as a family, but part of the happiness is the gift of good food. This need not mean very expensive food all the time. And there’s a real balancing act here because young children need to be taught to learn to eat good food, and parents need to make sure that the food is actually accessible to the young kids. Always remember that is far better to eat hot dogs with joy than filet mignon with bitterness, but that doesn’t mean you can’t be aiming for joy and filet mignon occasionally.  

Third, fill dinner time with fun stories and laughter and singing. Some of you do this without trying, and so good work. But some of you just aren’t good at it. So, check out a joke book from the library. Find a collection of fun short stories. Give the kids an assignment to come to the dinner table with one funny thing they saw or heard that day. Of course when the kids are little, it’s a bit of mosh pit, and sometimes discipline is needed, but really try to focus on the mission, on the goal, and try not to let everything be about what you’re not allowed to do at the dinner table. Herding cats is best done when you have general direction in mind. Play games, sing songs, tell stories, act things out. And dad lead the way. 

Finally, if our happiness is to be a Christian happiness, aim to bring in some Scripture or hymn or psalm. But when the kids are little keep it short and sweet. 

4. We are a happy people because the Lord is our God. 

“Happy is that people, that is in such a case: yea, happy is that people, whose God is the LORD” (Ps. 144:15).

We are happy because we serve the Lord, Jehovah. Who is the Lord? He is our Maker and our Redeemer. He is sovereign over every square inch of creation, and He has planned the salvation of this world. He rules the wind and the waves. He rules cancer and dementia. He rules the nations, and He turns the hearts of Kings like rivers of water. He is the Lord of life and of death. 

When John sees Jesus at the beginning of Revelation, Jesus says, I have the keys of Death and Hades. The Devil is not the Lord of Death anymore. Jesus went down into Death itself and bound it and plundered it. And now He alone rules death. Death is still an enemy, but it is a defanged and thoroughly tamed enemy. We are a happy people because the Lord our God rules heaven and earth and even death itself, and now even death itself serves our Lord. This is why in the New Testament death is so often described as sleep. For believers, death is like falling asleep and waking up to the best day ever.  

No eye has seen, no ear has heard what God has prepared for those who love Him. We are happy because heaven is real, because Jesus is risen from the dead, and we have been given His Holy Spirit, which is His solemn pledge, His personal promise that He will raise us from the dead, and we will reign with Him forever, that every tear will be wiped from every eye, that all will be made right, and all will be made new. We are happy because we are convinced that the best is yet to come. To live is Christ and to die is gain. The sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared to the glory that will be revealed in us (Rom. 8:18). This life is a light affliction, which is but for a moment, and is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory. Jesus refers to our heavenly reward as entering into the joy of the Lord. We are a happy people because have this joy that can never be taken away.

I knew an old man a number of years ago named Jim. Jim had never married, never had any kids of his own, and had very few relatives. Someone in our community visited his nursing home at some point, and invited him to church and so he started coming. Jim had suffered a stroke at some point, and so he always used a walker and he spoke with a fairly significant speech impediment and slur. But with some effort, you could make out what he was saying. And as I got to know him, one of the things he began to say to me was that he used to be very angry and very bitter, but now that he was coming to church regularly and fellowshipping with God’s people, he was happy. He would light up and with a big grin look at me and say, “Toby, I’m so happy.” 

At some point Jim had another stroke and he was bedridden, and within a few days, it became clear that Jim was dying. I would go by his nursing home and talk with him and read Scripture. On the day before Jim died, he was awake and alert, but he couldn’t talk any more. I read some Scripture and talked to him for a bit, and just before I left I looked into Jim’s eyes and asked him, Jim, are you still happy? And without missing a beat, his eyes lit up with crystal clarity and he nodded at me vigorously as he squeezed my hand. And the next day, Jim entered into the joy of His Lord. 

We are a happy people because we belong body and soul, in life and death to our faithful savior Jesus Christ. We are the King’s people. We are His nobility. We are His armies. We are His hosts. We are forgiven; we have His Word; He has put us in families; and He is Lord of all and the best is yet to come. 

He sends us into the fray with many different assignments: family assignments, work assignments, church assignments, political assignments, some to suffer more, some to greater achievements, but all for our crucified and risen King. What a privilege. What a joy. Happy is that people.