I JUST WANT TO BE HAPPYThanksgiving MessageMessage #1303Pastor Keith StewartNovember 21-22, 2015 Happy are..the poor in spirit...those who mourn...the meek...those who hunger and thirst for righteousness...the merciful...the pure in heart...the peacemakers...those who are persecuted... Matthew 5.3-10 “Contrary to what might be expected, I look back on experiences that at the time seemed especially desolating and painful with particular satisfaction. Indeed, I can say with complete truthfulness that everything I have learned in my 75 years in this world, everything that has truly enhanced and enlightened my experience, has been through affliction and not through happiness.”- Malcolm Muggeridge 1. THE BLESSED (HAPPY) LIFE Happy are those who know they are spiritually poor; the Kingdom of heaven belongs to them! Happy are those who mourn; God will comfort them! Happy are those who are humble; they will receive what God has promised! Matthew 5.3-5 (Good News Bible) The Greek word for blessing is makarios. It literally means “happy” or “blessed.” “No sooner had this request been met than another uproar broke out: those who'd been given pens and paper now became the center of the siege. People began to push and jostle, clamoring to have their names written down. It seemed to occur to them simultaneously that identity was now no more than a matter of assertion, and nothing seemed to matter more than to create a trail of paper. Somehow they had come to believe that on this, the random scribbling of a name on a sheet of paper in a refugee camp, depended the eventual reclamation of a life.”– Amitav, Ghosh, “Identities Lost At Sea,” New York Times, January 14, 2005.

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“The [one] who is poor in spirit is the [one] who has realized that things mean nothing, and that God means everything.”– William Barclay, Daily Study Bible: Matthew “The greatness of the beatitudes is [it’s] …a permanent joy that nothing in the world can ever take away.”– William Barclay, Daily Study Bible: Matthew “We have all heard poems, songs, and prayers that exhort us to see God in a blade of grass, a drop of dew, a child’s eyes, or the petals of a flower. Now when I hear such things I say that’s too easy. Our greater challenge is to see God not only in the eyes of the suffering child but in the suffering itself. To thank God for the sunset pink clouds over Red Hill – but also for the mosquitoes I must fan from my face while watching the clouds. To thank God for broken bones and broken hearts, for everything that opens us to the mystery of our humanness. The challenge is to stand at the sink with your hands in the dishwater, fuming over a quarrel with your spouse, children at your back clamoring for attention, the radio blatting the bad news from Bosnia, and to say ‘God is here, now, in this room, here in this dishwater, in this dirty spoon.’ Don’t talk to me about flowers and sunshine and waterfalls: this is the ground, here, now, in all that is ordinary and imperfect, this is the ground in which life sows the seeds of our fulfillment. The imperfect is our paradise.”- Philip Simmons, Learning to Fall: The Blessings of an Imperfect Life “For a long time it had seemed to me that life was about to begin - real life. But there was always some obstacle in the way, something to be gotten through first, some unfinished business, time still to be served, a debt to be paid. Then life would begin. At last it dawned on me that these obstacles were my life.”- Alfred D. Souza 2. THE BLESSED (HAPPY) LIFE IS CENTERED ON GOD His preaching will turn the hearts of fathers to their children, and the hearts of children to their fathers. Otherwise I will come and strike the land with a curse.Malachi 4.6 (New Living Translation)

Blessed be God… Psalm 68.35

Blessed be the Lord God… Psalm 72.18

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Blessed art Thou 0 Lord… Psalm 119.12

The blessed God… 1 Timothy 1.11 The Lord Jesus Christ who is the blessed and only potentate, the King of kings and Lord of lords… 1 Timothy 6.15 Through these He has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the Divine nature… 2 Peter 1.4 It means I derive some level of benefit from union with God that would not be possible for me or available to me without that relationship. No longer will there be any curse. Revelation 22.3 For the Lord your God has arrived to live among you. He is a mighty Savior. He will give you victory. He will rejoice over you with great gladness; he will love you and not accuse you. Is that a joyous choir I hear? No, it is the Lord himself exulting over you in happy song. Zephaniah 3.17 (Living Bible) Rejoice: to return to the source of joy ...Your presence fills me with joy... Psalm 16.11(Good News)

Blessed are all who fear the Lord… v.1a…blessings and prosperity will be yours. v.2b…this will be the blessing… v.4aMay the Lord bless you from Zion… v.5a

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Blessed are all who fear the Lord, who walk in obedience to him. You will eat the fruit of your labor; blessings and prosperity will be yours.” vv.1-2 “…that indefinable mixture of reverence, fear, pleasure, joy and awe which fills our hearts when we realize Who God is and what He has done for us.”- Sinclair Ferguson The Hebrew word for fear is “arey” (pronounced “yare”). There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love. 1 John 4.18

“To miss out on joy is to miss out on the reason for your existence.”- Lewis Smedes 3. PURSUING GOD, NOT BLESSINGS (HAPPINESS) IS THE KEY “[The film Bruce Almighty] …is our love story in our dealing with God’s love. It must deal with imperfection… There is a line in the movie that is significant to me — when Bruce tells God ‘I just gave everyone what they wanted.’ And God says, ‘Since when does anyone have a clue about what they want?’ We think we want the house, the car, this certain relationship. We have no idea what we really want. What we really need is freedom, to be loved, and to love. It is often quite a journey getting us to that point.” - Tom Shadyac, Hollywood Jesus Web Site, May 2003

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“Human happiness is something that is dependent on the chances and changes of life, something which life may give and which life may also destroy. The Christian blessedness is completely untouchable and unassailable.”– William Barclay, Daily Study Bible: Matthew “The world can win its joys, and the world can equally well lose its joys. A change in fortune, a collapse in health, the failure of a plan, the disappointment of an ambition, even a change in the weather, can take away the fickle joy the world can give. But the Christian has the serene and untouchable joy which comes from walking forever in the company and in the presence of Jesus Christ. The greatness of the beatitudes is that they are not wistful glimpses of some future beauty; they are not even golden promises of some glory; they are triumphant shouts of bliss for a permanent joy that nothing in the world can ever take away."– William Barclay, Daily Study Bible: Matthew This is the day the LORD has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it. Ps.118.24

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