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Holy Trinity Anglican Orthodox Church
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The Happiness of God’s People |
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Psalm
112 Eighteenth
Sunday after Trinity September
21, 2008 Psalm 112:3 says, “Riches and plenteousness shall be in his house.” If you have enough faith, you will always be rich, you will never get sick, and you will never die. Of course, that’s in Heaven. Down here on earth we are often poor and sick, and we all face the great mystery of death. Don’t let the TV preachers mislead you here with their gospels of “health and wealth.” Even Jesus told us we will have trouble in this world. He never promised us a trouble free life, He only promised that He would be with us in our trials, and lead us finally to a far better place. Before you start naming and claiming peace and prosperity you must remember that this Psalm was written first to the people of Israel as a nation. It was not written to individual persons. God was promising to defend and even to prosper Israel, on the condition of obedience. He promised to bless and keep Israel. Israel, in turn, was to love and honor Him in all her ways. Now there is a principle of life that even we in the New Testament Church need to keep in mind. Namely, that godliness fosters prosperity. Let me explain what I mean. A couple of generations ago, children were taught what has been called the Puritan Ethic. This is simply a summary of the Bible’s teaching about life. “Love God, love His Church, love your family, work hard, live frugally, and save much.” Later this was shortened to simply, “work hard live frugally, and save much,” and it was called the Puritan Work Ethic. Both versions of it are very biblical principles, and, if followed well, will generally lead to prosperity. Our forbearers took this very literally and built up great wealth in America. We are living on their capital today. I remind us again that the Biblical Work Ethic leads generally to prosperity. There is no promise in the Bible to make you rich in the things of this world. It is a principle, not a promise. But there are other kinds of riches that cannot be measured in dollars and cents. The riches that are ours in Christ make houses and land and money look worthless, and they are given to all who want them. The Bible often talks about them in monetary terms, but this is done as a comparison, not an equation. God uses the things we value in the physical to realm to give us a vague idea of the riches He heaps upon us in the spiritual dimension. He shows us that, “Blessed is the man that feareth the Lord.” Or, as verse 2 says, “the generation of the faithful shall be blessed.” “Blessed” of course, means, “happy,” so blessings are things that contribute to happiness, and we are blessed. I love the way our Prayer Book expresses this in the General Thanksgiving of Morning and Evening Prayer. After thanking God for “all the blessings of this life” it begins to list in more detail the spiritual blessings we enjoy. It begins with our redemption in Christ. Without that all else is worthless. If we stand before God in our sins, it doesn’t matter if we once owned the world, for our souls are lost. But if we are redeemed in Christ, our sins are washed away. We are forgiven. When we stand before God we will hear, “well done thou good and faithful servant.” If we are redeemed in Christ, when we leave this world, we will go with Christ. For He Himself said, “if I go to prepare a place for you I will come again and receive you unto myself, that where I am, there ye may be also.” What happiness to know we are at peace with God. What happiness to know that the nameless dread which haunts so much of the human race has no fear for us. What happiness to know that Heaven is our home. Our lives are hid in Christ. What more could we want? This is why Paul said he could be happy in all circumstances. Hunger, poverty, even death could not take away his blessedness in Christ. Nothing can separate God’s people from His saving love. We are also blessed with the “means of grace.” I know I have spoken about the means of grace many times, but permit me to spend a moment on them today. The means of grace are the means by which God draws us more deeply into Christ. Prayer, the Church, public worship, the sacraments, Christian fellowship, and, of course, the Bible are some of those means. We who would be followers of Christ must make diligent use of the means of grace. To put this in terms of a biblical image, we can think of the means of grace as wells of fresh water in a dry and barren land. We must drink deeply from these wells. Paul used the example of exercise in our reading from 1 Timothy. An athlete trains for his sport. He exercises, he gets the proper rest and nutrition. The Christian is a spiritual athlete. We are running the race of faith, and we must train for it. The means of grace are our exercises, our rest, and our nutrition. As the thirsty nomad loves to drink of the wells, and as the athlete loves his sport, so do we love the means of grace. They are joy to us. They lead to happiness the world cannot give. The entire Psalm is a commentary on the first words, “Blessed is the man that feareth the Lord.” It intends to show why that person who fears, that is, who loves and respects the grace and power of God, is happy. I won’t talk about all the reasons the Psalm gives. I will simply close with a few remarks about who really has these blessings. The answer to that question is found in verse two, “the generation of the faithful shall be blessed.” The happiness promised in this Psalm is for those who are faithful. It is for those who truly do follow Christ. The faithful are first of all, those who believe. They are those who have cast their souls on the mercy of God in Christ, in the faith that they are received and forgiven by God. They are those who believe in their hearts that God gave His only begotten son to die on that cross, that “whosoever believeth in Him shall not perish, but have everlasting life” (Jn. 3:16). But they are also those who love and obey their Saviour. They follow Him. They trust Him. They are faithful to Him. These are the generation of the faithful. God grant that, by His sovereign grace, we may be among them. Amen. The Rev. Dr. R. Dennis Campbell, Vicar, Holy Trinity Anglican Church,
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