The Bible’s Top 40
How to Have A Happy New Year
Psalm 1
“Happy New Year!”
How many times have you heard that this week? The teller at the bank, the cashier at the grocery store, the person you work with, your friends from church. And of course, each time you hear it, you respond by repeating that wish back to the one who uttered it.
But for all the hundreds of wishes for a Happy New Year, there are very few people who will tell you how to have a happy new year. In fact, the next time someone says, “Happy New Year” to you, surprise them by responding, “OK, How do I do that?”
There are a lot of people who are anything but happy. They face families in crisis. They just got their hours cut, or laid off from work. The holidays were OK, but now the bills are coming due, along with the taxes. School is a place of torment and ridicule, not fun and learning. Many have watched their retirement nest egg disappear over the past 12 months. There are a number of people who live in fear since September 11.
And in the middle of all that’s going on, we throw out the mindless greeting, “Happy New Year!” without any idea how to have one ourselves, let alone how to guarantee one for anyone else. The Happy New Year wish becomes just that, a wish.
There is a place in the Bible that specifically tells us how to have not just a happy new year, but a happy life. Interested? Turn with me to the first chapter of Psalms. Generally, Psalms is described as in the middle of the Bible. If you open up to the middle of your Bible, chances are you might hit one of the 150 chapters in this longest book of the Bible. If not, you’re close. If you pick up one of the Bibles on the seats around you, turn to page 368.
Please follow along as I read:
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;
But
his delight is in the law of the Lord,
And in His law he meditates
day and night.
He
shall be like a tree
Planted by the rivers of water,
That brings forth its fruit in
its season,
And
whatever He does shall prosper.
The ungodly are not so,
But
are like the chaff
which the wind
drives away.
Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in
the judgment,
Nor
sinners in the congregation of the righteous.
For the Lord knows the way of the
righteous,
But
the way of the ungodly shall perish.
Let me just read those first 3 verses again:
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;
But
his delight is in the law of the Lord,
And in His law he meditates
day and night.
He
shall be like a tree
Planted by the rivers of water,
That brings forth its fruit in
its season,
And whatever He does shall prosper.
Isn’t that just a great passage? It is so lyrical – it’s no wonder that it was written as the introductory song for the Bible’s song-book. But like many of the hymns and choruses we sing, it’s far too easy to read them, or sing them, without really believing or even understanding what they say. So let’s take a closer look for just a few minutes at this formula for a happy new year and happy life.
Let’s focus for a minute on that first word, the word “blessed.” We don’t really hear that word very often outside of church, do we? We hear it when someone quotes the beatitudes during a confirmation ceremony, or someone might occasionally say, “I’ve been so blessed with my wonderful husband.” (Or maybe you haven’t heard anyone say that!) Anyway, we hear it, and we sometimes say it, but do we really know what it means?
The root meaning of the Hebrew word used here is “happy.” And the way that word is used is interesting. In the original Hebrew, the word is in the plural, and is written in a tense that could be translated, “Oh, the happiness of…” or, “The happy life belongs to…” the people about to be described. The Living Bible renders it, “Oh the joys…” If you listen to WNWC radio out of Madison, you might have heard these verses quoted as the passage of the day on Wednesday. They read them from The Living Bible, and it puts the first three verses this way,
Oh the joys of those who do not follow evil men’s advice,
Who do not hang around with sinners,
Scoffing at the things of God:
But they delight in doing everything God wants them to,
And day and night are always meditating
On His laws
And thinking about ways to follow Him
More closely.
So what is it that brings about this intense happiness and joy?
The song-writer first tells us what these happy people don’t do, then he tells us what they do do.
Those who experience this happiness don’t “walk in the counsel of the ungodly.” People who have the joy talked about in this passage don’t follow the advice of ungodly people. Now, the Living Bible says they don’t follow “evil men’s advice.” But I’m not sure that’s the best way to interpret the word “ungodly.” Certainly evil men are ungodly, but I read one theologian this week who made a very good point, he said that the ungodly are, “persons who live their lives as is God does not exist. They may be overtly wicked, or they may be fine, upstanding citizens of their community” You see, it doesn’t mean that they are necessarily evil, but simply people who are ungodly – God has no place in their lives, for them He does not exist, or does not have a role in their day to day lives. “Ungodly” simply implies an absence of God. If God is not in that person’s life, then we need to steer away from their counsel and guidance. Ungodly counsel will lead you to seek joy in all the wrong places – meditation, reflection, diet, self-pleasure, anything but God – because God is absent from their life, and they simply can’t take you where they have never been. Proverbs says, “when we walk with the wise, we become wise.” The opposite is also true. When we walk with the ungodly, we will become ungodly.
The truly happy do not “stand in the path of sinners.” There is a progression here, one in the description of the action, and the other in the description of the companions. Notice the companions. Fist they are simply “ungodly.” As we said just a moment ago, these are not necessarily evil, they simply have nothing to do with God – you may know a number of very nice people, who are “ungodly.” I do. In this second phrase we see that now the companion is a “sinner.” This implies a continual acting out of evil desires. The absence from God has equated itself to action. Sin has become a way of life. If the recognize it at all, it is not a reason for concern, because they have abandoned the presence of God. Thirdly, the companion is scornful. This now shows us a person who has gone from being ungodly, to being active in his godlessness, to now being a scoffer – one who actively hates the things of God – who abuses and has contempt for God, His word, and His followers. I must tell you, I see more and more of this third group in our society today. They are portrayed on television with regularity, they sit in our executive suites, they walk the halls of our schools.
And then there is the progression of action. In the first phrase, the person is walking, in the second, standing, and in the third, sitting. These represent three degrees of subtle departure from God. First accepting the advice of the world, then being party to it’s activities, and then third, adopting a position of permanence, of fellowship, with those who openly scoff at God.[1] In my daily observations at our schools, I see this happening all the time. I see students move from walking in the shadows of those who are ungodly, to the point of joining the crowd, and then finally, openly rejecting and even shaking their fist at God. And why not? They have seen nothing but hypocritical lives from their parents and their churches. We are abandoning our children and our friends to this path unless we show them another way.
A word of caution here. This is not a call for us to separate ourselves from people who are not believers. That’s not what Jesus did. He made a point of hanging out with sinners, but he did not seek their counsel, he did not conform to their ways. He told us that we are to be “in the world, but not of the world.” It is a difficult thing to do, we must be careful, but it is possible, and we will see how as we move to verse 2.
Look at verse 2. It starts with one of my favorite words in the Bible – “but.”
“BUT”
I love it when there is a “but” in Scripture. It means that there is an alternative. There is another way. There is hope! And there is! While we have seen the path to avoid if we want to have a happy new year and beyond, now we are going to see the place to go to guarantee that happiness.
Listen to the verse: “But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in His law he meditates day and night.”
The three negatives we have looked at have cleared the way for the one positive. “You now know what not to do, now here is what you must do.” While there were multiple negatives, and a progression from bad to worse, there is just one answer – one place to go.
Instead of turning to the counsel of the ungodly, the happy, the joyful will turn to the Law of the Lord. Notice that the happy are not under the law, as if they were burdened by it, or condemned by it, but rather they delight in it. CH Spurgeon, the great preacher of the 19th Century, put it this way,
[the happy person] delights to be in [the Word of
God] as his rule of life; he delights, moreover, to meditate on it, to read it
by day, and to think about it by night.
He takes a text and carries it with him all day long; and in the
night-watches, when sleep forsakes his eyelids, he muses on the Word of God, In
the day of his prosperity he sings psalms out of the Word of God, and in the
night of his affliction he comforts himself with promises out of the same
book. The law of the Lord is the daily
bread of the true believer…[2]
Does this mean that the way to happiness is to carry around a copy of the Bible with us everywhere we go, and every moment that we have free, we are to open it and read? No, that is not what is meant – that’s not what Jesus did. Rather, what we are shown here is two contrasting pictures, one, a person who has his life shaped by ungodly counsel, sinful companions, and finally flat rejection of God. The other is of a person whose life is shaped by the counsel of the Word of God, whose entire life is altered by the truth of this Book.
What does it mean to meditate? Does it mean that we take some lotus position and hum mantra until we have cleared our minds? Well, that’s one form of meditation, but the goal of that meditation is to empty the mind of everything, and to try to get to the center of our selves – not what this passage is talking about at all. In fact, that is ungodly counsel. The meditation here is a meditation on the Word of God. It is a word that could be translated “mutters.” Have you ever had a song in your head that you just couldn’t get out? All day long you find yourself singing it or humming it, or playing it in your head. Or have you ever had a sick child, or parent, and while you are able to go about your normal duties at work or home, in the back of your mind, your thoughts are never far from that sick loved one?
That’s the image here. The word of God is a part of the joyful persons life like a song that is always playing in the background of their mind. It is the place where the thoughts run when there is a moment’s rest from activity. I like to think of it as “running in the background.” On computers, you can start one program, maybe you want to download a song, (one that is legally free to download, of course!), and so you begin the download. While that song is being brought in over your phone line, and saved to your computer, you can bring up another program and be writing a letter, or working on paying your bills, or designing next year’s Christmas cards – all while the download is taking place in the background. Whenever you want to check in on the progress of the download, you just click a button, and there it is, still progressing. That’s what meditating on the Word of God is like. It’s taking a verse, or two, that have impressed you, and writing them on a piece of paper, then reading them in the morning, and carrying the paper with you through the day, and rereading it when you get a free minute. It means memorizing it, and thinking on it whenever you get a chance. It means finding the joy of the promise that God has given you.
I think that it’s interesting to note what is NOT listed here. It does not say that the happy person will only hang with other believers. It does not say that they will only gather in godly places. There is not a long list of “do’s” here – only one. The key to it all is just one thing – The Word of God.
It may be that a number of us could claim some type of “negative purity.” We don’t seek ungodly counsel, we don’t hang with sinners, we don’t scoff at God’s law. But how many of us really delight in the Word of God? How many of us have found the overwhelming joy that is described here?
Today we begin a new series that is going to take us through an entire year that I believe will prove to be a happy new year. I am calling it “The Bible’s Top 40.” Each week we are going to look at passages of Scripture that I believe every Christian ought to know – by heart. We are going to supply you with the verses printed out each week, so that you can carry them with you, so that you can meditate on them. I want to encourage you to make these passages the “background music” of your mind for the next year.
You might not think you can do it. You don’t think you can memorize. Let me assure you, that you can. You know your phone number, your address, the address of your parents, or children, or a friend. In fact, we all have amazing abilities to remember. And it is time for us to start filling our minds with the things that matter, the stuff that makes a difference, the key to having a Happy New Year. This first week, we start off with these two lyrical verses, Psalm 1:1&2. You will be handed a print-out of them as you go. I challenge you, if you are wondering just how to have a Happy New Year, to join me on this journey, to see just how happy, and blessed, and joyful God can make us. If we do not, then the promise of these verses is not ours, and we will not know what it is to have a Happy New Year at all.
Father, we take You at Your Word. These verses tell us that when we delight in
Your word, and meditate on it day and night, we will know amazing joy, and
tremendous happiness, even in the middle of hard and difficult times. This morning, we covenant with You to make
this a year of renewed focus on Your word.
By Your Holy Spirit, give us the strength and the will to persevere, and
grant us the blessing described in these verses. We pray these things according to Your will through the name of
Jesus Christ, Your Son. Amen.