Cultivating Christian Happiness
How to have a joy that persists.
Christian joy (happiness) is distinct from all other forms of joy because of its source: God.
The effect of its source results in those qualities that make it so distinct. While happiness which proceeds from the world is dependent on circumstances which are so often out of our control, the happiness of a Christian is made stable by the trust we have in the one who controls all things. Where the happiness that the world offers aims at providing constant stimulation, Christian joy provides stable satisfaction. When the world’s pleasures seem desirable in the moment, God grants the righteous the gift of Himself as the fountain from which all desires come. Truly, the life of a Christian is the happy life. Now, by “happiness” I do not mean superficial cheerfulness or emotional ease, but the deep, settled joy that scripture locates in communion with God. Or, as the Puritans called it: the affection of joy. And while this happiness will not look the same as the world’s idea of happiness, it will both outlast and overcome it because of the beauty and eternality of its source.
To me, Psalm 16 is a narrative from David of the happiness he has experienced in the Lord and a call for God’s protection of it. The chapter is probably most referred to for verse 11, which provides us with the doctrine of God’s blessedness as perfectly happy in himself: “You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.” This displays both the nature of the fountain from which all the streams of joy come (Jer 2:13) and the experience of knowing God (Phil 3:8). Certainly, the knowledge of God and the tasting of his sweetness is the fullness of our pleasure in life, but how do we sustain the experience of it? What is this God-supplied joy reliant on? From this chapter alone, I think David provides three God-given spiritual practices that sustain this experience of joy.
1. We Must Set Ourselves to See the Joy-giver.
David makes several proclamations throughout the text regarding his knowledge of who God is (the fountain of true joy) and the actions he takes to see him as such. In verse 2, he sees God and therefore knows him as his source of happiness, where he states, “I have no good apart from you,” as well as in verse 11. He also remembers the experience of the knowledge of God and its pleasures in verse 6, “The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance”, verse 7, “the Lord who gives me counsel”, and verse 9, “Therefore my heart is glad, and my whole being rejoices; my flesh also dwells secure.” How does David expect his knowledge of God and of the experience of his joy to persist? By setting the Lord before him always. David does not expect his joy to be preserved outside of an active effort to place God before him that he may see and soak up the goodness that has been revealed.
This is certainly the importance of active Bible reading for the Christian today. If God is the fountain of joy, then his word is the cup he has given us to drink from (Psalm 119:103). Christians lose their happiness when they lose their access to the tasting of the fountain. John Owens puts it like this: “By beholding the glory of Christ by faith we shall find rest to our souls. Our minds our apt to be filled with troubles, fears, cares, dangers, distresses, ungoverned passion and lusts. By these, our minds are filled with chaos, darkness and confusion. But where the soul is fixed on the glory of Christ then the mind finds rest and peace for “to be spiritually minded is peace” (The Glory of Christ, 1684).
2. We Must Recall the Sorrow of the Wicked.
Because of our indwelling sin (the sinful pull of the flesh and its desires that affect the Christian even after regeneration), we must remind ourselves of the “sorrows of those who run after another god” as David did in verse 4: “The sorrows of those who run after another god shall multiply; their drink offerings of blood I will not pour out or take their names on my lips.” David preserves this adamant refusal to collaborate with the wicked by not only reminding himself of the true joy of the Lord but also of the sorrow that comes with their life.
One of my favorite tools in the fight against sin’s temptations is the imagination. The imagination is always at work in us when making our decisions about what we will do. When sin approaches, and I feel the urge to give in to the momentary pleasures of it, it seems so attractive because of the pleasure I imagine it will bring me. But then, I am presented with a further step: “Will I imagine the sorrow that comes in its end?” The father in Proverbs 5 and 7 reveals this principle by calling to his son’s imagination, the end of his lust. Scott Hubbard writes, “Before, the son had seen the forbidden woman dressed scantily on the corner, her couch covered with linens, her bed perfumed — lust wearing makeup. Now, he sees her black-robed and holding a sickle, her couch a sinkhole to hell, her bed an open coffin”(Desiring God, 2023). Oh, that we will remind ourselves of the riches of the righteous life and the sorrow of the wicked life! How much more joyful would we be if our happiness did not depend on momentary stimulation but on the satisfaction of the wisdom we employ in the pursuit of God’s promises?
3. We Must Rely on the Sovereign Grace of God.
Finally, David recognizes the provider and protector of this joy, without which there can be no cause for joy to begin with, and there would be no persistence of it in the face of failure. In verse 1, David cries, “Preserve me, O God, for in you I take refuge,” and in verse 8 he states that he has only “set the Lord always before him” on the basis that, “he is at my right hand, [and] I shall not be shaken.” Oh, that we know our need for God to preserve our joy! May we never trust our hearts to remain steadfast to the joy of the Lord by our own willpower, for even David, the man after God’s own heart, knew his heart was not so stable. In Psalm 51, right after David commits his sin with Bathsheeba, he calls on God, saying, “Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit.” As Christians, we should already know God to be the source of our joy as it proceeds from his Spirit (Gal 5:22). How we need to be on our knees like David if we ever expect to feel the happiness we ought to feel in our seeing of God!
Additionally, for the Christian, this happiness is dependent on the bedrock of our justification by Christ’s death. Justification is first and foremost a legal declaration made by God on behalf of a soul. When we are justified before God, we are declared righteous in order to be brought out of our deserved alienation from God. John Piper states, “That’s what the word justify means: not make just, but declare just. We can see this in Luke 7:29 where the people “justified God”! That is, they declared that he was just. They didn’t make him just. The difference [with us] is that we are sinners and do not have righteousness of our own” (When I Don’t Desire God, 2004). David does not claim his joy to be a product of his own righteousness. Rather, David claims his joy to be the product of the righteousness that God has preserved in grace, despite his sin. We see this claim in verses 9 and 10, which state, “Therefore my heart is glad, and my whole being rejoices; my flesh also dwells secure. For you will not abandon my soul to Sheol, or let your holy one see corruption.”
How joyless a people we would be if our justification were based on our own righteousness and not held in place by Christ’s. Rather, we are granted to experience the happiness of Romans 5:1-2: “Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God.” Praise God for the peace he has brought us, which enables our happiness in his grace!
Conclusion:
When God himself is our joy, our soul’s happiness will no longer be fragile or superficial, but rooted and sustained: sustained by our setting ourselves to see his glory, reminding ourselves of the sorrow of sin, and relying on his sustaining of our joy and the security of it he provides through Christ. May we always fight for joy!