How Can I Be Happy - Part 1

On the ninth of if you have served for happiness and determined that it simply can't be proud. Maybe you've just been looking in the wrong places today on Turning Point of the zero washes her God intends for you to find happiness strike from his word. What should you be looking for and not looking for to be happy regarding some ounces is his message. How can I thank you for joining us today is a question people not only asking they spend their whole lives trying to find the answer to it and they go down a lot of debt instruments I can tell you the answer to that question is very simply put, in the very first Psalm. Blessed are those are happy are those you do not want to miss these next two days because it goes right to the core of how you can be okay.

During these days when things are so different than they've ever been.

Psalm one in just a moment will open to that Psalm as we end this week together want to tell you that all of these questions that were answering the material to answer all those questions has been bound together in one study guide 10 lessons by the hundred and 30 pages per earthbound is beautifully done and has all of the outlines all of the information. All of the questions you need to ask about the outlines and the information and you can get this from Turning Point by going to our website. There you will see the study guides.

There you will see the package of CDs that are available and a lot of other information is listed thereto, and all kinds of things to help you know more about Turning Point. I hope you will do that get there today and order your copy of the study guide. God I need some answers.

It's a great small group curriculum.

You have a lot of fun talking about these things in your small group well right now we need to open our Bibles to the first Psalm.

This is one of the first Psalms that I ever memorized and of the truth of the Psalm is overwhelming. Happy is the man and it's the same word that Jesus used in his great sermon we know as the sermon on the Mount used it over and over again. Happy are those who mourn happy are the poor in spirit. Everybody today wants to know how to be happy. The songwriter says don't worry, be happy is if we could in some cavalier way make it happen for us is very evident that people in our culture and in the American brand of our culture have an incredible thirst and appetite for happiness and will try almost anything and go to almost any length to try to find it and incorporated into their life should be evident to us that if lasting happiness could be found in having material things, and in being able to indulge ourselves in whatever we wanted, then most of us in America should be just delirious with joy and happy beyond description.

We should be producing books and poems and art that describes our unparalleled bliss are literature should arrive at that of the ancient Greeks and Romans and the Renaissance craftsman but have you taken note recently of what we have been producing its morbid sad and it's introspective and it's a cultic and it drives us back into our past and back into the curtain back into the pain were giving ourselves away.

By the place we write in the movies we produce in the books we offer were saying to the whole world we've been searching for it, but we just haven't been able to find it has become for many, a journey on a dead-end street. Did you know that a lot of folks think that happiness can be found on easy street and I learned that there really is a street called Vesey Street. It is in Honolulu Hawaii and when I go there if I ever get to go there again. I want to go look for the street. I tell you exactly where it is you take the poly highway northbound travel about 1/3 of the way to poly pass. Turn right on Park Street. Go one block and there is easy street. The problem comes when you turn left and go one block more. There is another sign that says dead-end. That's really true easy street is a dead-end in Honolulu, Hawaii but easy streets, a dead-end for a lot of people isn't happiness. How do we find it well. This Psalm is the Psalm about two ways into destinies.

It's about two rows one that leads toward God and one that leads away from God. The Psalm is divided equally in half. The first three verses talk about the way of the righteous and the last three verses talk about the way of the ungodly and the righteous is the way toward happiness. That's what the psalmist says Blessed is the man and then he goes on his journey to describe the blessedness literally the word blessed in the Hebrew language is in the plural, and if I were translated with the best nuance I could come up with an English language would go like this. How awesome are that happiness as all this man. When the psalmist describes the way toward God.

He does so by telling us what it is not, and then telling us what it is you see because of the readers of this hymn, and obviously because of all of us. In order for us to really get into what it means to be happy. The psalmist has to take his checklist and check off all the things that men try and say it's not any of these things, and as he describes the happy man in verses one through three.

He talks about him in two ways. First of all he talks about the fact that he avoids the downward pull of the evil listen to his words in the first verse, Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the path of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful.

Not as in the verse once, nor is in the verse twice, three times, in essence, the psalmist negates conduct that he says happiness is not going to be here don't get involved here.

Now this is an incredible verse because it is a trilogy of threes. Let me say that again it is a trilogy of threes.

There are three threes in verse one. If you read the verse that way you will understand that what the psalmist is trying to do for us is to paint a picture of the gravitational pull of evil is like a vertex that catches us in it and it always pulls us down is the progressive declining pressure of evil in the life of a person and what the psalmist wants us to understand clearly is this he is saying to us.

Blessed is the man who doesn't get caught up in the downward gravitational pull of evil in his life that if you read the verse carefully, you will notice that the three sets of three are like this.

First of all first set walk stand, sit, you see that the second trilogy counsel path seat and the third ungodly sinners, scornful. All of these progressively move away from God and I want to remind you of something that I think we all know but maybe no one's ever verbalized before, we always talk about momentum and how important momentum is. It sure is important in football and in basketball. It's important in life. We like to have a sense of momentum. It's wonderful to be in a church that's got a sense of momentum, but did you know that evil has momentum to that you can get caught up in evil momentum that you can get so caught up in evil that it carries you along like you were born, along with the wind and that's what the psalmist is talking about here is telling us that you can get involved in evil. In such a way that the momentum of influence begins to capture you. That's the first category, and here he talks about these three words counsel path and seat the counsel of the ungodly, he said, Blessed is the man doesn't get caught up in the counsel of the ungodly counsel of the ungodly is nothing less than the philosophy of the natural man who seeks to understand his existence and lose control without regard to God. You seem to be ungodly is and what some of you think it's not to be a murderer or rapist or a bank robber or a child molester. Whatever you may think of when you think of ungodly. The word doesn't mean anything like that, although it may include those things to be ungodly. Listen to this you can be a good person and be ungodly to be ungodly means to live your life minus God when you get up on Sunday morning and you go to get your cup of coffee at the local convenience store.

You see people all the stuff up to get out of town for the weekend and these are not just the Christian people who take a week and once in a while which is permissible. These are people who take off every week. They haven't have thought about God in all of their lives. God is nonexistent in their thinking process they go to work all week. They spent Saturday working around the house and Sunday is their day and the thought that God might have some claim upon them is not entered their thinking process in years, every day of their life they live as if there is no God. That's what it means to be ungodly is not as bad as you might think. But in essence it's the root problem of everything gets to live life without God. Now the Bible says the counsel of the ungodly is the beginning place in the downward spiral. The philosophy of the ungodly, is the idea that after looking at all the pros and cons and seeking out the key answers to life. You've decided that the best way to deal with this is to deal with it outside of faith outside of God outside of any meaningful spiritual relationship you can do it with your self-help courses you can do it with all the things you get involved which help dilute you to the next level. It's to live your life minus God now the influence of that comes from listening to people who counsel you that way. It's one of the things that strikes terror into the hearts of parents when their children begin to get to the level of sending them off to college. Maybe they've chosen the discipline for their life that is not available in a Christian college where they feel confident they want to send their children so they send them off to state you and they sit in the classroom and all of the dynamics of this process are very focused because this person who stands up in front has got enough degrees to just choke you the things are all over you rose guys it's got so many degrees. He's got no temperature.

You know what I mean is just one of those kind of people and the kids sit in class and they look at this man or this woman and there's so enamored because obviously this person is so smart and is gone so far in their life, and then to begin the listen and innuendos and subtleties of the counsel is counsel minus God and little by little.

That counsel begins to have its impact and then the Scripture says he walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, and he doesn't take the pathway the next thing is after you hear the counsel you translate the information into action. Instead of observing from a distance. You start to walk along behind you start to ask more questions you start to investigate the Council now become something captivated you and you want to know more about it as you move from the counsel and influence to the path in influence and finally the Scripture says you have come to the seat you sit down and that is a picture of not only being a practitioner, but settling into the embracing of this philosophy of life. You are seated in the seat you are settled down into a comfortable lifestyle of ungodliness, and I want to tell you something many women there are thousands of people started out to have some thoughts for God in their head and in their heart but they begin to listen to the counsel of their friends who said you can't work as hard as you do all week and then give Sunday to God. You need some time to re-create yourself. And so it was a Sunday here in the Sunday there God pushed to the side here got pushed to the side there and now they are so settled into this lifestyle. It doesn't even bother them any more. So it's a lifestyle. You see, but it starts listening to the counsel, falling into the pattern and then settling in to the lifestyle that's the downward pull of influence. Notice the second category, the momentum of involvement noticed the three words. First you walk then you stand and then you sit. It's kind of a different way of saying the influence translates into involvement.

You walk along then you stand and then you sent someone has described the walk is a reference to our daily decisions. The things that we decide on the daily basis. The standing is to the making of a commitment and the city is the settled attitude of lifestyle. First we make little decisions that are minus God then we make commitments that submit those decisions and then finally we settle into the attitude of her life without God, it's so easy to do and there are lots of Christian people who could tell me you come back to God having gotten into that all of a sudden you woke up one day and you said my goodness, you know. 20 years ago we used to never miss church and then this happened.

We made this little decision and then out of that decision we made this little commitment made. We bought a place that took us out of the town and all of a sudden we found ourselves in the lifestyle I remember. What is the psalmist saying, Blessed is the man who doesn't get caught up in the gravitational pull of evil is like. Here's the third issue of momentum. First of all, its influence, then it's involvement. And thirdly, there's a momentum of intensity notice he moves from ungodly. That's sort of a person who is passive about spiritual things. He doesn't have time for God. But it's okay if you have time for God. You understand what I mean. Then there's the word sinner. I looked this word up new. The Hebrew word here is the Hebrew word for center is a word which means to make a loud noise or to cause a tumult or to make trouble and it's kind of the word for partying. It's the party animal. First of all, he's kind of minus God is not in the God that much.

But then he gets kinda caught up into the worldly life that he gets into the parties and then the third word is the word scornful.

Now watch this. He's not influenced anymore by the people outside he has himself become an influencer you see what I'm saying he's moving from being passive about God to be involved in practicing anti-God things to now he is an atheist in a sense, and he is scornful of God these curls is lipid God. Somebody says something about going to church. You got to be kidding.

You do what you take. The only day that you can really call your own and you go to church Sunday night to home my work and so he becomes the critic of the Christian scornful you see what happened. It's the downward pull of evil. He's gone from ungodly sinner to scornful and what the psalmist wants us to understand is that man is happy when he stays away from the gravitational pull of sin you say will pastor Jeremiah how the world is a person do that well somewhere in the process between the Council and the path and the seat, and from walking and standing and sitting in from ungodly and sending an scornful son learned that process you get a wake-up call. I promise you you will get a wake-up call from the Holy Spirit. If you're Christian hey Christian, why do I feel uncomfortable when you get that wake-up call.

You kind of scooted over to the edge in your about to get caught in the downdraft and when that happens, you better move away because you are not headed toward happiness.

You are headed toward misery. Miserable is the man who gets caught up in the gravitational pull of sin.

Are there any questions you ever had a down trip for a little bit who could give a witness today that it's more miserable being out of fellowship with God and it is almost not been the question.

Because you know what it's like to really joy in your faith and all of a sudden you got caught in the downdraft and pulled away from God and you feel lousy when you put your feet on the floor in the morning you wake up and you start off the day you have this feeling of guilt in your heart. You can even figure out why. Why do I feel so guilty because God is giving you the automatic set alarm system which is starting to go off and make you uncomfortable because you got pulled into the gravitational thrust of sin.

Blessed is the man happy is the man who doesn't get caught up in the gravitational pull of evil. Amen.

Now here's the positive side, the righteous way not only avoids the downward pull of sin, but the righteous way accepts the decisive place of Scripture in life but his delight, says the psalmist is in the law of the Lord and in his law he meditates day and night, and he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water that brings forth its fruit in its season it's leaf also shall not wither in whatever he does show prosper. The first thing the psalmist says is that the believer who was headed toward happiness. On his way toward God, not away from God. Disbeliever delights in the word of God, knowledge, or what that meant but I want to contrast it for you.

You know a lot of Christians read the Bible. They read the Bible to find out how far they can go before they crossed the line you understand what I mean I've talked to people like this. They don't read the Bible to find out what God wants them to do. They read the Bible to find out what God will let them do or what they can do without getting into a lot of trouble now. The person who delights in the law of God is totally opposite that here's what he does. He comes to the Bible and in this part does this incredible desire that he wants to please God and so he reads the Bible and he reads it like he was a detective trying to find little clues about how he can please God with his life, not trying to find ways that he could get by with the things he wants to do what he opens the book in his prayer in his heart is all God, what I really want to do with my life is I want to please you. I will bless you Lord and I want to read your book today and maybe could you show me one little thing one little nugget that I could mine it would help me please you to read the Bible like that. Did you overcome the gods would like him to take some that's how you delight in God's word because I want you to know something friend if you come to God with that spirit, you will find little nuggets everywhere because God just loves to show his children how they can please him because God's apparent are you with me the most unheard words from children. Is there anything I could do to help you today mom what would you do mom if you heard those words you go over and examine to see is this an imposter. This person get in my house by mistake in kitchen you know if you know to go home and do that made you can give your parents a little time to come get ready and warm up to this because this could be little lethal if you Dragon this straight out if you really knew they meant incredible would truly be incredible if every morning at breakfast, although let me do it today. Yesterday mom.

Well, I know we can all dream right want to tell you something. That's what it means when the Scripture says delight in God's word to come to the word of God with your heart, motivation, being Lord, how can I please you today next week to talk about how can one book changed my life.

How can I face my fears and a will finish up.

How can I be happy on Monday is Friday and were getting ready for the weekend.

As you know we have a television ministry that reaches out around the world on the weekend growing and adding stations every time we turn around we just recently had all of the numbers given to us for the number people who watch during the month of June. It takes a little while to collect all these numbers and was overwhelming, are now 5 million people watching Turning Point every week on television. I hope you're one of them because it's a great way to be encouraged, especially during these days to give you another little encouragement of people asked me are you having church in San Diego.

Yes, we are its most unusual church we've ever had its outdoors. We built a little amphitheater in one of our new parking lots. It starts at 7 PM so that we can stay cool because it gets really hot here in the summertime and in the evening.

It's beautifully cool, and we have two services every weekend. One at 7 o'clock on Saturday night and one at 7 o'clock on Sunday night and you can watch them live by going to shadow Mountain.org and there you will find how to click on and if you want to watch what were doing. As it happens, you're surely welcome to join us. Would love to have you were actually having people watch us from all over the world and the numbers of people who watch this live surface if I didn't know better I would think God has a sense of humor and shut us down so he can turn this on because were talking to more people now than we ever have in the history of this ministry would love to have you join us this weekend and look for you soon. His message originated from the Shadow Mountain Community Church and senior positive. Dr. David Jeremiah would love to hear how Terry is impacting your life like and tell us it is the 38th San Diego, CA 92163 or visit their website at davidjeremiah.org/radio we will help you there. 14 month 2021 calendar colors of creation, highlighting the risk that he had the gift of any amount versus the Jeremiah study Bible and the English standard and international versions of standard or large print in the new King James from over 40 years of study.

Jeremiah visit David Jeremiah thoughtful/ready is the very who join us Monday as we continue. God I need some key Turning Point. Jeremiah, thanks for taking time to listen to the Arlington Friendly's.

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