HOW TO HAVE HOLY HAPPINESS

Posted by Pastor Greg Allen on September 17, 2023 under 2023 |

Bethany Bible Church Sermon Message from September 17, 2023 from Ephesians 5:18-21

Theme: Prevailing happiness comes through obeying the command to be filled with the Holy Spirit.

(All Scripture is taken from The New King James Version, unless otherwise indicated).

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I begin this morning by making a wonderful theological affirmation to you. I couldn’t make this affirmation with respect to all people. It can only apply to you—my dear brothers and sisters in Christ—who have consciously placed your faith in Jesus Christ as your Savior, and have been washed clean of all your sins by His blood, and are now fully redeemed by God the Father and are adopted by Him as His own child.

And it is this: God your Father wants you to be happy. He wants you to be gloriously happy with a fullness of joy. He wants you to be characterized by a prevailing happiness that shows itself in all the various situations of life. He in fact wants you to be happier than anybody else in this world—outside of Jesus Christ—could ever possibly be.

Now; I know that some believers—very sincere believers—would be uncomfortable with that affirmation. “After all,” they would say, “there are lots of people in this world who embrace sinful habits and practices, and who follow their feelings and inclinations; and who justify it all by saying, ‘Doesn’t God want me to be happy?’ And if that’s what makes someone happy, then we’d have to say ‘No!’ God doesn’t want them to be happy! He wants them to be holy!” Such sincere believers would also point out that to say “God wants you to be happy” would be to ignore the fact that God often calls some of His servants to experience times of suffering and pain in their obedience to Him. And some believers would even go so far as to warn that the declaration “God wants you to be happy” could lead people toward a kind of ‘prosperity gospel’.

I understand all of that. And I certainly wouldn’t want to put forth the idea that God wants us to be happy at the cost of being holy—or even at the price of facing reality. But the fact is that ‘happiness’ and ‘holiness’ are not mutually exclusive things in God’s plan for us. I would agree that God doesn’t promise that we’ll always have ‘happy circumstances’. But He does enable us by His grace to experience real happiness in the midst of the circumstances—whatever they may be. And it’s also true—and I say this with, I hope, due compassion for my fellow believers who suffer—that being truly happy in Jesus is, at the deepest and truest level, a vital part of what it means to be truly holy before Him.

Think of what the apostle Peter wrote at the beginning of his first letter. He was writing to a group of Jewish Christians who were suffering terribly for their faith. Because of their devotion to Jesus, they were scattered from their homeland. Many had lost their jobs. Many had lost relationships with family and friends. Some had even lost their lives. And yet; Peter began his letter by affirming how happy they were. He said;

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His abundant mercy has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and that does not fade away, reserved in heaven for you, who are kept by the power of God through faith for salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while, if need be, you have been grieved by various trials, that the genuineness of your faith, being much more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to praise, honor, and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ, whom having not seen you love. Though now you do not see Him, yet believing, you rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory, receiving the end of your faith—the salvation of your souls (1 Peter 1:3-9).

“In this you greatly rejoice,” Peter says … right in the midst of difficult trials that come about from being a faithful follower of Jesus. In fact, he says, “you rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory …” That’s describing a happiness that nothing in this world can produce. And so; I say it again, dear brothers and sisters in Christ: God wants us to be happy in Christ! Happier than anyone else in this world could ever possibly be! In fact, He wants us to be so overwhelmingly happy that the people of this world—who try all kinds of false methods of becoming happy—will want to know how it is that we can be so much happier than they are!

And that leads us to our passage this morning. You’ll find it in what is—in my opinion—one of the happiest books of the Bible; specifically; in Ephesians 5:18-21. And it tells us how this overwhelming, prevailing happiness is to be obtained. The apostle Paul wrote;

And do not be drunk with wine, in which is dissipation; but be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord, giving thanks always for all things to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another in the fear of God (Ephesians 5:18-21).

As this passage shows us, prevailing happiness comes through obeying the command to be filled with the Holy Spirit.

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Now; let’s look at this passage in more detail. Do you notice how it begins? It starts with the word “And …”; which connects this passage to what came before it. And that’s a very important thing to notice.

You see; what came before—in verse 1-17—was Paul’s careful description of what it means to ‘walk’ in Christ in a worthy manner. The word ‘walk’ was his symbolic expression for our daily practice in this world as followers of Jesus. It speaks of how we live out the Christian life in a practical way—the places we go, the things we do, the things we say, the things we believe, and the values we hold to—the way we put ‘shoe-leather’ to our faith. People ought to be able to tell the reality of our relationship with Jesus Christ by observing our daily ‘walk’.

And this means that this whole matter of ‘prevailing happiness’—as it comes about through being filled with the Holy Spirit—is meant to be something that is evident in the reality of our everyday practice in life. Our ‘walk’ ought to demonstrate that we are under the control and influence of God the Holy Spirit, and that we experience a prevailing happiness through Him in daily living and throughout the challenges of life.

And notice, first of all, that Paul showed us …

1. HOW NOT TO SEEK HAPPINESS.

In the first half of verse 18, Paul wrote; “And do not be drunk with wine, in which is dissipation …” That’s at least one way in which the people of this world grope after a kind of ‘happiness’. But as followers of Jesus, we’re not to seek happiness in that way. To do so would be “unwise”, as he writes in verse 17. It would be, as Paul puts it, ‘not understanding what the will of the Lord is’.

Now; have you ever thought of why it is that people drink themselves into a state of intoxication? In fact, have you ever thought of why it is that they allow themselves to be under the influence of any kind of mood-altering chemical or drug or substance at all? I may be generalizing things a bit; but I believe it’s because they long for something that they really, truly need. They need a sense of happiness or joy or peace. And alcohol or drugs or intoxicating substances gives them a temporary, artificial experience of that thing that they genuinely long for. It’s not wrong, in and of itself, to want to be happy. A sense of joy, or peace, or happiness is something that we all truly need. But it’s wrong to seek it through an artificial means that—in the end—brings harm to ourselves. That’s what an ‘addiction’ really amounts to—trying to get something that we truly need, but in a way that causes more harm in the process.

Paul wrote that we’re not to be drunk or intoxicated with wine “in which is dissipation”. Some Bible translations have it that being drunk leads to “debauchery” or “excess”. But the actual word in the original language is a very interesting one. It takes the word for “preservation” and puts a Greek letter in front of it that cancels it out—thus making it mean “loss” or “wastefulness”. And you’re already familiar with this word in another place in the Bible. In another form, it’s the word that Jesus used to describe a young man in a very famous parable He once told in Luke 15—where He said that the young man “wasted his possessions with prodigal [or wasteful] living” (Luke 15:13).

And that’s what seeking happiness and joy through intoxicating substances leads to—loss and wastefulness. Perhaps when Paul said this, he was thinking of Proverbs 23:29-35; where it says;

Who has woe?
Who has sorrow?
Who has contentions?
Who has complaints?
Who has wounds without cause?
Who has redness of eyes?

Those who linger long at the wine,
Those who go in search of mixed wine.
Do not look on the wine when it is red,
When it sparkles in the cup,
When it swirls around smoothly;
At the last it bites like a serpent,
And stings like a viper.

Your eyes will see strange things,
And your heart will utter perverse things.

Yes, you will be like one who lies down in the midst of the sea,
Or like one who lies at the top of the mast, saying:

“They have struck me, but I was not hurt;
They have beaten me, but I did not feel it.
When shall I awake, that I may seek another drink?” (Proverbs 23:29-35).

Pursuing the happiness that God wants us to have in that way—that is, in a way that He didn’t intend and that only harms us—will not lead to happiness at all. It will only lead to loss and wastefulness.

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But I don’t believe that Paul meant for that to be the main focus of this passage. He was describing this false way of seeking happiness as a means—by way of contrast—of showing us how true, prevailing, overwhelming happiness and joy are actually obtained. In verse 18, he wrote; “And do not be drunk with wine, in which is dissipation; but be filled with the Spirit …” And this shows us …

2. WHERE HAPPINESS COMES FROM INSTEAD.

You see; when someone becomes ‘drunk’ with wine, they are placing themselves under the rule and control of a substance. They are no longer under their own control; but are now—as we often put it—“under the influence” of a foreign substance. And in a way, the apostle Paul is telling us that we are—instead—to place ourselves under the prevailing and pervasive influence and control of the Holy Spirit. As God’s redeemed people, we are made by Him to be happy. And we are even made to obtain that happiness by being under the influence of something. But that ‘something’ is to be the Holy Spirit—and not something else.

Now; who is the Holy Spirit? He is the third Person of the Trinity. He is fully God. And when we place our faith in Jesus, He comes to take up permanent residence within us. As it tells us in Ephesians 1:13-14;

In Him [that is, in Jesus] you also trusted, after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation; in whom also, having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, to the praise of His glory (Ephesians 1:13-14).

If we have placed our faith in Jesus, we don’t ever have to pray or work hard to ‘receive’ or ‘obtain’ the Holy Spirit. He was given to the church once and for all at Pentecost; and ever since then, He comes—as a gift of God’s grace—to indwell every believer personally as soon as he or she believes. The Holy Spirit lives in us, and empowers us, and helps us to live for Jesus as we should. And so; to be “filled” with the Holy Spirit doesn’t mean that we must do something to ‘get’ Him or ‘obtain’ Him. He already indwells us. And because we already have the Holy Spirit living in us, becoming “filled” with Him doesn’t mean that we get ‘more’ of Him. He is a full Person, and He already indwells us completely—100%.

And we don’t need to seek proof of this through an unusual or ecstatic experience. To be “filled” with the Holy Spirit means something very simple. Have you ever read in the Bible about a group of people that got very angry? Do you remember that it said they were “filled with rage”? That simply meant that the crowd was controlled and ruled over by anger in a prevailing and pervasive way. Or do you remember how it tells us about someone who was sad and despondent; and how we’re told that they were “filled with sorrow”? That simply meant that they were ruled over by sorrow in a prevailing and pervasive way. Or do you remember how someone was said to be “filled with wine”? It simply meant that they were ruled over and controlled by a chemical in a prevailing and pervasive way. And we should understand the filling of the Holy Spirit in that way. It means that we allow ourselves to be completely under the influence of the indwelling Holy Spirit in a prevailing and pervasive manner.

That’s why Paul started off in our passage by telling us not to be drunk with wine. It was to help illustrate to us that, instead of being ‘controlled by wine’, we’re to allow ourselves to be ruled over and led by the Holy Spirit. Paul puts this in the form of a command. It’s something that we obey as an act of the will. And he put it in what’s called the ‘passive voice’; which means that we are to willingly allow the Holy Spirit to have control over us. He is—if I may put it this way—very much a gentleman. He will not take rule over us unless we willingly give Him permission and welcome Him to lead us and influence us. And Paul also puts it in a form that suggests to us that it’s to be an ongoing act of obedience—that we aren’t “filled” with the Holy Spirit once for all time, but repeatedly allow Him to fill us throughout our daily walk in life.

And dear brothers and sisters; Paul is telling us that obeying this command—the command to allow ourselves to be regularly, ongoingly, continually under the influence of the indwelling Holy Spirit in a prevailing and pervasive way—is the pathway to true happiness.

Now; think of your daily life. Think of all the problems and trials you face. Dealing with them all alone and through your own resources would be discouraging. It would rob you of happiness. But if you walked all through all of those problems every day in fellowship with Jesus Christ—if the all-mighty Savior Jesus Himself was physically present with and dealt with all those problems and trials as your Helper and Friend—you’d be continually happy; wouldn’t you? You’d never worry about anything. You’d meet each new challenge by simply turning to Jesus for help—and you’d be happy in doing so because you know He’d give that help to you. Well; the indwelling Holy Spirit is our divine ‘Helper’ like Jesus. Jesus Himself said so. In John 14:15-18—just before He went to the cross for us—He said;

“If you love Me, keep My commandments. And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever—the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you. I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you” (John 14:15-18).

Our Lord has sent the Spirit to be with us while He is at the Father’s right hand interceding for us—awaiting the day of His return for us. And the Holy Spirit communicates the very presence of Jesus to us in our daily walk. Being filled with the Holy Spirit, and being under His prevailing and pervasive influence, is as happy an experience as having Jesus right here with us in bodily presence—going with us through all the trials and difficulties of life—strengthening us and guiding us.

And what’s more, when we walk in submission to the rule of the Holy Spirit in our lives, He produces the very life of Jesus Himself in us. The apostle Paul called it ‘the fruit of the Spirit’. In Galatians 5:22-23, he wrote that

… the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control (Galatians 5:22-23).

Those are descriptions of the very character of our Lord Jesus Himself. All of those things describe the ways that He ‘walked’ in this world. And did you notice that one of those characteristics is ‘joy’? The Holy Spirit produces within us—among other things—the very joy that characterized the Lord Jesus. His own happiness!

So, dear brothers and sisters; where does a prevailing happiness in all circumstances of life come from? Not through a chemical. Never through a substance. Not through perfect circumstances in life. Not—in fact—by anything that this world can offer. Rather, it comes through the indwelling Holy Spirit. By being filled with the Spirit, we experience a happiness that is greater than anything that this world can produce.

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Now; before we end our time, let’s look at one more thing from this passage; and that’s …

3. HOW SUCH HAPPINESS SHOWS ITSELF IN US.

I see it showing itself in three ways. First, it shows itself by expressive joyfulness. Paul put it this way in verse 19; “speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord …” When we are filled with the Holy Spirit—when our inward being is completely yielded over to His pervasive influence over us—then our happiness shows itself in worship and song. We minister in three ways: (1) to each other, (2) to our own hearts, and (3) to the Lord Himself. It may not necessarily be that we’re good singers in this world’s view of things; but we’re certainly singing from a higher motivation—and that is because of the joy of the Lord Jesus in us.

It’s interesting to notice what it says in Colossians 3:16;

Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord (Colossians 3:16).

It’s the same kind of result; but in Colossians 3, it’s presented as a product of letting the word of Christ dwell in us richly. So; to be filled with the Holy Spirit is to let the Scriptures abide in us. He works the Scriptures into our hearts; and it results in happiness.

Another way it shows itself is by continual thankfulness. Paul wrote in verse 20, “ giving thanks always for all things to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ …” Being filled with the Holy Spirit produces a happiness in us that causes us to give thanks to God the Father for all the circumstances of life—both the trials and the blessings—for the sake of and in the authority of the Lord Jesus Himself.

In 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18, the apostle Paul wrote three very simple commands to us;

Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18).

It is a wonderful expression of happiness to be able to do that. And we are made able to do that when we are filled with the Holy Spirit and under His prevailing and pervasive influence.

And Paul mentions yet one more way that this happiness shows itself; and that is by mutual submissiveness. In verse 21, he wrote, “submitting to one another in the fear of God.” Being under the rule of the Holy Spirit produces a happy contentment in us that makes us satisfied with the places of service in life that God has given us toward each other. Such happiness shows itself in a humble submission to our God-given roles in relation to one another’s lives.

As Paul wrote in Philippians 2:3-4;

Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself. Let each of you look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others (Philippians 2:3-4).

And as we read on in Paul’s letter to the Ephesians—right after these words, going on all the way from 5:22 to 6:9—we find that he expands on and explains how this happy submissiveness shows itself in several different relationships.

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Now; I feel very strongly that the Lord would want us to take our time through these different expressions of happiness, and learn from them one by one. And by His grace, that’s what we’ll do in the weeks to come.

But for now, dear brothers and sisters in Christ, let’s let the affirmation I made to you at the beginning be a settled matter in our hearts. God our Father wants us to be happy—very happy—happy in a way that is greater than anything anyone else in this world can experience—happy with a genuinely holy happiness that comes from obeying the command to be filled with His Holy Spirit, and allowing the Spirit to bear His prevailing and pervasive influence upon us in every area of life.

The watching world needs to see this holy happiness evident in our daily walk. So; let’s consciously yield ourselves to the indwelling Holy Spirit’s ministry. Let’s let Him remove the sinful habits and practices from our lives that need to go. Let’s study the Bible faithfully, and let Him teach us how to walk with Jesus from it. Let’s obey His promptings faithfully and wholeheartedly. Let’s allow Him to produce this prevailing happiness in us … and to seek such happiness in no other way than ultimately through Him!

AE