What separates believers from the rest of the world? What is the difference between us, and those who remain condemned in their sin?
In Psalm 5, King David discusses how God hates sin and evil. He discusses how God takes no pleasure in wickedness and cannot let evil dwell with Him. Ultimately, David references how the wicked and evil will be destroyed.
Yet, David himself admitted in Psalm 51 that “I was shapen in iniquity and in sin did my mother conceive me.”
How does a man, who readily admits his own sin, expect to be spared the destruction that God will pour out on sinners?
He discusses it in Psalm 5. He opens by saying “Give ear to my words, O Lord, consider my meditation. 2 Hearken unto the voice of my cry, my King, and my God: for unto thee will I pray. 3 My voice shalt thou hear in the morning, O Lord; in the morning will I direct my prayer unto thee, and will look up.”
David expresses faith that the Lord hears his prayers because David lifts those prayers up daily, beginning with his morning prayers. Despite the fact that David dwells in a dark and sinful land, he will look up to the Lord and pray to him.
David goes on to say in verses 7-8, “But as for me, I will come into thy house in the multitude of thy mercy: and in thy fear will I worship toward thy holy temple. 8 Lead me, O Lord, in thy righteousness because of mine enemies; make thy way straight before my face.”
The reason David expects to be spared from the judgment and wrath of God is because he is placing himself at the mercy of God, and worshipping God for His goodness and righteousness. He then begs the Lord to lead him in righteousness.
What separated David from the rest of the sinful world is that he recognized his sinfulness, confessed it to God, then placed himself at God’s mercy. God responds to that, and David knew he could trust in the Lord’s mercy.
What separates the saints from the sinners has nothing to do with societal standing, wealth, intelligence, or heritage. The saints are merely the sinners who realized their sinfulness, confessed it to God, then stepped out of that darkness and into the light by placing themselves at the Lord’s mercy.
The saints are the sinners who trusted the Lord’s mercy and grace, and believe in His righteousness and holiness. The saints are the sinners who trust the Lord has forgiven their sin, and will transform them into the people that He intended on them being.
The saints are the sinners who looked to Jesus on the cross and saw salvation and redemption. They are the ones who look forward to the Lord’s return, and who look forward to exiting this life in favor of the next.
We’re not spared God’s wrath and judgment because we’re “just better people.” And we’re not looking forward to the mansions in heaven because “we’ve earned it.” We are merely sinners who placed ourselves at God’s mercy, knowing and trusting that God rewards those who do.
What is happiness? Can you define it? Or can you merely describe it?
The Declaration of Independence states that God endowed man with the right to pursue happiness, and today, many people are doing just that. The tragedy is that most people cannot tell you what happiness really is. They can merely describe a situation in which they believe they would find themselves to be happy.
The blessing is that God not only has given us the gift of happiness, but has also explained through His word how to unwrap that gift.
In Psalm 1, the Bible says “Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the unGodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful.”
That word “blessed” can also be translated “happy.” To understand what it means to be blessed or happy, we have to understand what those literal words mean. “Blessed” was translated from a Hebrew word that means “to be confident and secure.”
And when you think about the ways people describe the happiness they pursue, doesn’t that definition hold up?
How many times have you heard someone say, “I just want to be with my family.”
“I just want my kids to be safe and healthy.”
“All I need is a roof over my head and food in the fridge.”
People save for retirement so they can achieve a status where they don’t have to grind at a 40-60 hour per week job in order to make ends meet. People dream of winning the lottery, not so they can buy multiple luxuries, but for the idea that they will no longer have to worry about money and deal with financial insecurity.
The sad part is, both of those avenues to happiness often fail. How many lottery winners actually go on to “happily ever after?” Very few. Most will tell you winning the lottery actually ruined their lives.
Retirement accounts can be wiped out by market crashes, company collapses, or divorce decrees. Furthermore, even if you make it to retirement with a healthy balance, often the fixed income from that account fails to keep up with inflation.
So, is happiness unattainable?
Quite the opposite.
Psalm 1 actually gives us the formula to attain true happiness, true confidence and security.
Psalm 1:1, which I quoted above, tells us exactly how to undermine happiness. Happiness is undermined when we walk in the counsel of the unGodly, stand in the way of sinners and sit in the seat of the scornful.
Walking in the counsel of the unGodly means to follow and live by the advice of unGodly people. It is important to remember that Godliness has less to do with personal morality, and more to do with aligning oneself with God’s teachings.
One can be faithful to their spouse, have integrity in business, but have a heart in rebellion against God, thus rendering themselves unGodly.
When taking the advice of others, it is important to make sure that advice lines up with scripture. Following a course of action that contradicts scripture, even when you can logically and emotionally justify it, leads to disaster. Trust me on this one.
Following a course of action that is contrary to scripture, even when others validate and understand it, will lead to emotional and Spiritual devastation.
Standing in the way of sinners means to exalt and promote yourself the way sinners do. To stand, or to have standing, means to have prestige and honor. It means to have a right to something, and to belong.
We all want these things. The problem to happiness is when we seek these things the way the world seeks them. When we self-promote out of pride, we are hindering our own happiness.
Scripture teaches that the standing we have that brings true happiness is the standing we have in the Lord through the Gospel.
And sitting in the seat of the scornful means to rest in anger and bitterness. The poster children for this category are the political commentators we see on cable news. Do any of these people even appear to have tasted happiness?
When you sit back, look for flaws, and complain, you will never be happy.
So, now that we have covered how not to be happy, how do we achieve happiness? Psalm 1 answers that question in the next two verses.
Psalm 1:2-3 says, “But his delight is in the law of the LORD, and in His law doth he meditate day and night. And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper.”
Notice the man’s source of happiness. It’s in the law of the LORD (which is basically scripture, the Bible.) This man finds confidence and security in the Lord, and thinks about him all day and night.
If this sounds boring to you, that’s a pretty good indication that you’ve fallen into the categories listed in verse 1.
Getting your mind into the scripture goes beyond just rehashing the basic fundamentals of the faith and the do’s and don’ts of life. It also means contemplating God’s character, how He interacts with man, and by doing so, how He interacts with you.
The alternative is to spend the day focused on your anxieties and challenges in life. Either that, or trying to distract yourself from them through movies, entertainment, social media, retail therapy, excessive eating, or substance abuse. If we’re honest with ourselves, this has never worked, and has always robbed us of happiness.
On the other hand, you can get your mind into the scriptures, learn of God, and then face your challenges with the confidence and security of knowing that the eternal creator of all things is controlling what you cannot. And, you’ll have the peace of knowing that He has good will toward you. He loves you.
Do you have family problems? You can stay focused on those problems all day, or you can consider how God brought Abraham, Jacob, David and others through their family problems. Maybe you can consider the testimony of a Christian friend who went through their own family problems, and how God brought them through that.
And as God gives you hope through that meditation, you don’t go into a state of denial over your family problems, but you can learn to go through them with peace. And, by thinking on how scripture teaches you to work through those problems, you will be able to see those problems through to a happy conclusion.
Psalm 1 goes on to describe what it looks like when we do this. Verse 3 says the blessed (happy) man is “like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper.”
The picture painted here is of a tree planted by the river with a healthy root system that is continually supplied with life-giving water from the river. That tree is solid, produces fruit, and doesn’t wither.
Likewise, when we stay plugged into our source of life and happiness, we too experience Spiritual health and well-being, to the point that we bear fruit and make an impact to this world. And when that happens, we find confidence and security.
Our source of life and happiness is the Lord. As that tree’s root system gravitates toward the rivers of water, our minds should gravitate toward the Lord, toward our source of life and happiness.
This is where we will find stability and prosperity. This is where we will find happiness.
Why are some people successful, while others fail? Beyond work ethic, why do some seem to have a natural ability to connect with others, negotiate, identify the right path forward, and succeed? Meanwhile, others struggle just to get through the day?
What is truth? How can we learn through scientific process the answers to these questions?
Such has been the life’s mission of Jordan Peterson, a psychologist who teaches courses at several universities including the University of Toronto, who’s also written several books and is currently hosting a podcast series for the Daily Wire.
Peterson rose to fame while doing a BBC interview about one of his books, in which the interviewer repeatedly asked pointed questions in an attempt to be able to discredit him as a misogynist or a racist. His fame continued to grow as videos of his college lectures, his public lecture series, and a podcast series on the Bible began to go viral online.
While the controversial BBC interview launched him to fame, the logic, academic approach to psychology and human nature, and the conclusions he articulates have kept him in the spotlight, so much so that he took a sabbatical and no one noticed due to the ubiquity of this content online.
Peterson looked to the Bible for psychology. He looked to the Bible to learn behavioral patterns, learn lessons, and map out a framework for how to tackle life’s challenges, taking object lessons from the Old Testament patriarchs. What he found was truth. Moreover, Peterson found that all truth is preconditioned on the Bible.
He went so far as to say, “Without the Bible, there can be no truth.”
So, how does an atheistic psychologist who preached secularism come to a faith in the truth of the Bible, and go on to a faith in the existence of God (per his statements in his videos)?
In a video lecture before a university audience, the question was posed, “Do you believe that the Bible is true?” To which Peterson responded, “If not the Bible, then what is true?”
Peterson went on to make the case that, in reading the Bible, you read about the lives of the patriarchs, and the scriptures include not only their stories of victory, but also their failures.
Peterson noted how many of these failures were major, and some of the patriarchs were rotten people, and did rotten things. He pointed out that for religious texts, this is unusual.
In this video, which I can no longer find on YouTube, Peterson said that most religious texts portray the good side of the founders of the religion, and hide their flaws and failures. The Bible, on the other hand, showed the patriarchs of the Christian faith for who they were, including their frailties, failures, and brokenness. The result was an honest, transparent representation of the Christian faith, and furthermore, an amazing demonstration of God’s power.
God was able to work through the brokenness of man to accomplish His will. That resonated with Peterson, who began to explore the Bible more, and has now embarked on a podcast series to explore the Bible more deeply.
As a result of God working through the brokenness of man thousands of years ago, you have a secular professor exploring the Bible, going so far as to declare that it is the precondition for all truth, and calling on people to turn to God or face His wrath. While his views and doctrine may not line up with ours, I believe that, for the sake of the Gospel, we can see how a man whose primary audience includes college students and intellectual leaders can benefit the Kingdom of God greatly through his scholarly presentations of scripture.
Students today are generally guided away from the Bible, away from God, and toward their own subjective perceptions of truth, which the intellectual left seeks to shape through media, entertainment and education. Peterson, on the other hand, is leading students to go back to the Bible as the foundation of all truth, if not the very foundation of our society itself.
And his journey down this road began when he discovered how God worked through the brokenness of Abraham, Jacob, David, among others.
God works through broken people, and He is glorified through His work through the lives of broken people. He is glorified in that His name is made known, His power is shown, and people are faced with His undeniable truth.
God works through broken people. So we need not be discouraged when we find ourselves struggling with brokenness, neither do we need to be disillusioned when those whom we admire fail. God works through the brokenness to bring about His glory, and the blessings He has promised.
Let’s face it… for fans of The Chosen, Jonathan Roumie sold The Jesus Revolution. Roumie’s portrayal of Jesus in The Chosen has earned him a following, a ministry, and has contributed to a national conversation about Jesus, leading many to seek the truth about Jesus, and many have professed faith in Christ as a result.
So, it comes with a bit of irony that in The Jesus Revolution, Roumie portrays a young Lonnie Frisbee, whose emotionally compassionate outreach and charismatic preaching sparked The Jesus Revolution of the 1960s and 1970s, thus sparking a national conversation about Jesus which led to many salvations.
Neither man (Roumie or Frisbee) is without controversy, as is neither character portrayed. Jesus was controversial in His day, and remains so to this day. And with a resurgence of post-morten fame on the heels of Jesus Revolution, Frisbee finds himself in the middle of controversy as well.
At the center of Frisbee’s controversy are his theatrical antics, and his struggles with homosexuality. Critics point to the former to discredit his ministry, and they point out the latter to discredit Christianity in general.
To their credit, the filmmakers of The Jesus Revolution were open about the character flaws of each of the leaders of the movement. Smith was a bit opportunistic and judgmental, and struggled with seeing the church blossom under someone else’s leadership. Laurie struggled with drugs early on and struggled with faith toward the end of the movie.
Frisbee demanded the spotlight, neglected his wife, and stormed out in a hissy fit when the spotlight was taken away. Yes, his struggles with homosexuality were omitted from the movie, but were not an issue during the time portrayed in the movie.
Frisbee was raped as a child, and as many who endure that atrocity do, experimented with homosexuality during his adolescence and early adulthood. Frisbee reported coming out of that lifestyle when he came to know Jesus, but relapsed in the 1980s. Frisbee confessed that his behaviors were sin, and were as sinful (but no more than) other sins.
When confronted, Frisbee confessed. He prayed for forgiveness. He tried to help others find forgiveness. He did not cling to the lifestyle, and did not advocate that others live the lifestyle.
It would be sinful and unproductive to try to determine Frisbee’s salvation status, or whether his faith was real, and his ministry motivated by faith and a genuine heart for the Lord. We leave the judging of the living and the dead to God.
However, a quick internet search into Frisbee’s life reveals a struggle with sin which is not unlike the struggle with pornography, addiction, anger, gluttony (I confess that!), hate, covetousness or dishonesty.
As Christians, we often find ourselves easily ensnared in sin that rapidly gets out of hand and gruesome pretty quickly. Sometimes we deceive ourselves into thinking that our sin isn’t that big of a deal, but it is.
And we can usually find a worse sinner to point out to make ourselves feel better about our sin. And in this case, that worse sinner is Frisbee.
However, the political fireball surrounding his sin neither discredits the Bible, the Gospel, nor the film, because all three uphold the fact that God works through the broken, and through weakness we are made strong.
Frisbee struggled with homosexuality, but Abraham committed adultery, Jacob was a crook, Judah hired a prostitute, King David committed adultery and murder, and Solomon dabbled in idolatry. Yet, Scripture holds those men up as patriarchs of the faith, and some even wrote scripture.
Scripture does not affirm their behavior, but God used them in spite of their brokenness, and God uses us in spite of our brokenness.
Why would God do that? He does that because the premise of the Gospel is that the broken can be healed, the sinner can be cleansed, and the condemned can be redeemed. Further, this all happens not because of how great the person is, but because of how graceful and powerful God is.
And that’s the power of the Gospel, that the death and condemnation of our sins was placed on Christ when He hung on that cross, and when He died, that death and condemnation were sent to Hell instead of us.
And because of that redemption, because Jesus took it all on our behalf, we can go free. We can place our faith in Him and make ourselves available for God to use to do big things… or maybe small and simple things. Either way, it’s a blessing.
So I’m not offended that one of my favorite actors portrayed a man who struggled in homosexuality, and I’m not discouraged that such a man was a key figure in a national revival, because I have routinely seen God use broken people, including myself, to lead others to redemption and healing.
God uses the broken to advance the Gospel, and He is glorified in it. Or as the Apostle Paul wrote in Romans 3, “For if the truth of God hath more abounded through my lie unto his glory; why yet am I also judged as a sinner?”
So let’s review. God is good. Redemption is real. The Gospel saves. The Jesus Revolution is a good movie. And God has used the broken to spark a national conversation about Jesus. Let’s have that conversation, and point people to the redemption in Christ Jesus that is found at the cross, and not let ourselves be distracted by one man’s sin from 40 years ago.
Leland Acker 