Blessed to Live Close to God

Psalm 65

 

1. Today is the official beginning of autumn, and this Tuesday is the Korean Thanksgiving Day. I cannot forget the heart moving scene in the middle of the golden wave of endless rice field, as a small boy. In Michigan, we will be surrounded by spectacular fall colors soon. This is really a blessed season. And in these festive days we wish blessing for one another.

2. In the Oriental society, we wish five blessings: longevity, richness, health, honor, and fecundity. Some add life-long marriage, good gravesite, or even strong teeth. Then, is it true that those who have all of them feel happy? Six days before his death, a reporter asked Elvis Presley: “Elvis, when you first started playing music, you said you wanted to be rich, famous and happy. Are you happy?” Even though he became rich and famous, he replied that “I’m lonely as hell.” Researchers found that such external conditions account for only about 10 to 15 percent to be happy because they are quickly adapted. Rather Seligman group’s most profound six-year project on happiness found that pleasant life, engaging life, and meaningful life are essential to happy life.

3. Psalmist says that “Blessed are those you choose and bring near to live in your courts!”(4a) Blessed and happy are those who live close to God! Of course, Gallup survey showed that religious people are twice as likely to be happy than non-religious people. 850 research studies concluded that higher levels of religious involvement are positively associated with indicators of happiness such as life satisfaction or higher morale, and with less depression, suicidal thoughts and behavior, drug or alcohol use. Feeling happy and being happy are different. If feeling happy is everything, it is quite easy to feel good by taking drug or alcohol, pursuing pleasure and fun without caring any morality or rule of life. But we know that it is not true happiness, for it does not last long and it contradicts our conscience.

4. Why is the closeness to God true blessing and happiness? It is because such happiness lasts forever and it is the highest happiness of all. As a pastor, I feel very sad to see people who live carelessly without thinking what will happen after death. Many people care only how to live healthy and longer. When they approach death, they struggle not to die, prefer to die comfortably, and then care casket, cemetery plot, funeral ceremony and decorations. But they do not think the most important thing after that: “Just as man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment.”(Heb 9:27) Our life is always evaluated in many ways. There is no moment or act that escapes human evaluation and divine judgment. God does not treat everybody in the same way. God is just and He “will give to each person according to what he has done.”(Rom 2:6)

5. Life is not a vacation or free game. Life is a serious and strict God-given task, which success or failure is justly judged by God and its reward is given as eternal blessing or eternal punishment. Of course, He is the gracious God, and Jesus Christ redeemed our sin and saved us. But, it does not mean that we may live carelessly. If there is no fruit and action of faith, such faith does not save you. If you pursue simply worldly techniques to feel happy, you will be confronted with the heavy reality of judgment. Therefore, even if somebody lived life feeling happy, if he has no relationship with God and he did not live an obedient life following His direction, his happiness will suddenly stop and his severe unhappiness will start to eternity. Therefore, do not forget any moment that true happiness is to live close to God.

6. Moreover, you are blessed because He did “choose you and bring near to live in His courts!”(4a) He loved us and forgave our sins for fresh start: “When we were overwhelmed by sins, you forgave our transgressions.”(3) Victor Hugo pointed out that “Life’s greatest happiness is to be convinced we are loved.” When we are convinced of God’s love and His close care for us, our happiness is real. Therefore, we don’t need to try to make happiness. Happiness is to discover what God has already given to us, especially the grace of God in Jesus Christ. As Dostoevsky said, “Man is fond of counting his troubles, but he does not count his joys. If he counted them up as he ought to, he would see that every lot has enough happiness provided for it.”

7. Life close with God is happy, because He is so powerful and so good to us. He listens our prayer (3): “You answer us with awesome deeds of righteousness, O God our Savior, the hope of all the ends of the earth and of the farthest seas, who formed the mountains by your power, having armed yourself with strength, who stilled the roaring of the seas, the roaring of their waves, and the turmoil of the nations.”(5-7) And He provides enough things for our happiness: “You care for the land and water it; you enrich it abundantly. The streams of God are filled with water to provide the people with grain, for so you have ordained it. You drench its furrows and level its ridges; you soften it with showers and bless its crops. You crown the year with your bounty, and your carts overflow with abundance. The grasslands of the desert overflow; the hills are clothed with gladness. The meadows are covered with flocks and the valleys are mantled with grain; they shout for joy and sing.”(9-13)

8. It is a great joy and happiness to live in His courts: “We are filled with the good things of your house, of your holy temple.”(4b) Our church life is happiness, for we lift our life toward eternity and we go closer to God with our pure soul in praise, prayer, thanksgiving and worship, in which our life and thought are purified and corrected by the Word of God, and in heavenly fellowship beyond worldly competition and hostility. When we live close to God, “where morning dawns and evening fades you call forth songs of joy.”(8) Even we fail in other things, because relationship with God is so precious, our life proportionately is not a failure and by His grace of restoring and encouraging us we are able to restore other relationships and succeed our life tasks. May God bless you to get closer to God and be happier in this blessed season! Amen.