Happy Days – Series Overview

Happy Days

But I just want to be Happy or God’s want me to be happy. Say these words and you can justify just about any behavior. Personal happiness is hard to argue against and it is the heart pursuit of our culture and times. But what does the Bible have to have about Happiness? How do we obtain deep and genuine happiness?

A Biblical study of happiness leads us to the word Blessedness, examining every verse in the Bible that began this way…

• Blessed is the Man/Women …
• Blessed are all who …
• Blessed is he/she …
• Blessed are they who …
• Blessed are those who …
• Blessed are the people …

Here are some of the study verses

• Acts 20:35
• Daniel 12:12
• Isaiah 12:2
• Isaiah 30:18
• Isaiah 56:2
• James 1:25
• Jeremiah 17:7
• Job 5:17
• John 20:29
• Proverbs 14:21
• Proverbs 16:20
• Proverbs 22:9
• Proverbs 28:14
• Proverbs 29:18
• Proverbs 8:32
• Proverbs 8:34
• Psalm 1
• Psalm 106:3
• Psalm 112:1
• Psalm 112:5
• Psalm 119:1
• Psalm 119:2
• Psalm 128:1
• Psalm 144:15
• Psalm 146:5
• Psalm 2:12
• Psalm 32:1
• Psalm 32:2
• Psalm 34:8
• Psalm 36:7-8
• Psalm 40:4
• Psalm 41:1
• Psalm 63
• Psalm 65:4
• Psalm 84:12
• Psalm 84:4
• Psalm 84:5
• Psalm 89:15
• Psalm 94:12
• Revelation 1:3
• Revelation 22:7
• Romans 4:6-8

What do all of these verses have in common? Before we get to the specifics on blessedness what can be learned looking at all of these as one group.

4 Myths of Happiness and 4 Biblical Truths of Happiness

Myth #1 – The Desire for Happiness is Sinful and must be Resisted

The Desire for Happiness is from God and should be Nurtured

Myth # 2 – You either have it or you don’t

Happiness is Possible

Myth # 3 – Happiness must be Found

• The Bible never teaches that Blessed or those who seek Blessed. There is always something greater than the Blessedness that is sought over it. Therefore we learn that..

Happiness is not a Goal but a By-Product

• This is called the Happiness Paradox. Happiness is never found directly. Those that seek it most diligently find there lives most devoid of it. Those that who have stop trying to be happy find that happiness sneaks up on them and they find themselves having found a deep and genuine happiness of the soul.

Myth # 4 – Happiness lies in our circumstance changing

Happiness is a Choice

• If then to find happiness choices must be made for higher pursuits. What are those?

CHOICE # 1

In the midst of an every expanding list of things that our society declares good and promises that the pursuit of them will bring happiness; David invites us into a new pursuit. This pursuit does not start will our own self-interest but starts with God – the ultimate and highest good – recognizing Him as creator and owner of all. This invitation in Psalm 34:8

Taste and see that the Lord is good;
blessed is the one who takes refuge in him.

David invites us into a God-centered pursuit. To find fully discover and experience God. In the midst of the storms of life to find refuge in God and God alone. He then notes that this choice, leads to a state of Blessedness. We do not choose to seek God so that he will make us happy (that would be choosing a false God; one is a servant to us). We choose God because he is God and as we pursue HIm and not our self interest we find our souls experience a deep and genuine happiness.