Jeremiah 9:23-24 The Key To True Happiness

Jeremiah 9:23-24 The Key to True Happiness

Jeremiah 9:23-24 The Key to True Happiness is a sermon about the fact that true and enduring happiness results from knowing God personally.

Proposition: True and enduring happiness results from knowing God personally.

The soul is measured by its flights,
Some low and others high,
The heart is known by its delights,
And pleasures never lie.

Where does your pleasures lie? If you are like the people in Jeremiah 9:23, your happiness may lie in worldly pursuits:

“This is what the Lord says: The wise man must not boast in his wisdom; the strong man must not boast in his strength; the wealthy man must not boast in his wealth.” (Jeremiah 9:23, HCSB)

To put it another way: Many people put their pleasures in health, wealth, and wisdom.

The Bible says that you should find your happiness in God:

“But the one who boasts should boast in this, that he understands and knows Me — that I am Yahweh, showing faithful love, justice, and righteousness on the earth, for I delight in these things. This is the Lord’s declaration.” (Jeremiah 9:24, HCSB)

A theologian of the fifteenth century made this astounding claim:

The worth and excellency of a soul is to be measured by the object of its love.
Henry Scougal1

The measure of how great a person is can be found in what he or her loves.
You can know how great a person is by looking at what he or she loves.

Today, we live in a world which entices us to love all kinds of things. Primarily, the temptation is to satisfy myself with many things in this world – which provide health, wealth, or wisdom. The world will try to provide many different sources to provide me happiness.

Our own achievements ought not be the source of our happiness (23)

To “boast” means to exclaim with joy. When I boast, I am describing the source of my happiness.

There are THREE Common sources human happiness

Wisdom (skills, intelligence, experience) Wise
Strength (physical, political, military) Health
Riches (monetary, relational) Wealth

God says that the only source of true happiness in my life is found in Him.

Knowing God ought to be the source of our happiness (24)

If you want to be happy, You must know and understand God. Knowing God personally involves knowing these things:

God delights in faithful love. This is the basis of the relationship

“Who is a God like You, removing iniquity and passing over rebellion for the remnant of His inheritance? He does not hold on to His anger forever, because He delights in faithful love.” (Micah 7:18, HCSB)

Notice that in the Psalms, God says that He loves righteousness and justice. He also made the earth full of His love.

“He loves righteousness and justice; the earth is full of the Lord’s unfailing love.” (Psalm 33:5, HCSB)

Out of God’s love, He created a way for us to be redeemed from the world of sin. God filled the world with His love. Then Satan hid it from other people through sin. So God wants to take love and use it bring us back to Him.

The Old Covenant stems from God’s love.

“Then the Lord passed in front of him and proclaimed: Yahweh—Yahweh is a compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger and rich in faithful love and truth, maintaining faithful love to a thousand generations, forgiving wrongdoing, rebellion, and sin. But He will not leave the guilty unpunished, bringing the consequences of the fathers’ wrongdoing on the children and grandchildren to the third and fourth generation.” (Exodus 34:6–7, HCSB)

The New Covenant also comes from God’s love.

“Israel, put your hope in the Lord. For there is faithful love with the Lord, and with Him is redemption in abundance.” (Psalm 130:7, HCSB)

God took His Son and allowed Him to suffer a death on the cross, by bearing our sins. God was happy to kill His Son.

“Yet the Lord was pleased to crush Him severely. When You make Him a restitution offering, He will see His seed, He will prolong His days, and by His hand, the Lord’s pleasure will be accomplished.” (Isaiah 53:10, HCSB)

The reason it made God happy to kill His Son by taking all of the sin and placing it on Him, As a result, of this act of love, we can come to Him.

““For God loved the world in this way: He gave His One and Only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16, HCSB)

Therefore, God wants us to be loving.

“He said to him, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind…The second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself.” (Matthew 22:37, 39, HCSB)

God delights in justice: Stipulations of the relationship

“Here is My Servant whom I have chosen, My beloved in whom My soul delights; I will put My Spirit on Him, and He will proclaim justice to the nations.” (Matthew 12:18, HCSB)

““This is My Servant; I strengthen Him, this is My Chosen One; I delight in Him. I have put My Spirit on Him; He will bring justice to the nations.” (Isaiah 42:1, HCSB)

“And there came a voice from heaven: This is My beloved Son. I take delight in Him!” (Matthew 3:17, HCSB)

God sets out correct strategies for fellowship known as covenants. The Mosaic law and atonement, which was the embodiment of the Old Covenant. This old covenant pointed to the need for a Savior. God has to be just because people could not get to know Him properly through the Mosaic Law. Instead of using the Law to get to know their need for God, they abused the law and fell away from God.

“Even the stork in the sky knows her seasons. The turtledove, swallow, and crane are aware of their migration, but My people do not know the requirements of the Lord.” (Jeremiah 8:7, HCSB)

“Then Samuel said: Does the Lord take pleasure in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obeying the Lord? Look: to obey is better than sacrifice, to pay attention is better than the fat of rams.” (1 Samuel 15:22, HCSB)

“You did not delight in whole burnt offerings and sin offerings.” (Hebrews 10:6, HCSB)
“For I desire loyalty and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.” (Hosea 6:6, HCSB)

“You do not want a sacrifice, or I would give it; You are not pleased with a burnt offering. The sacrifice pleasing to God is a broken spirit. God, You will not despise a broken and humbled heart.” (Psalm 51:16–17, HCSB)

So God had to provide a way to pay for sin. God’s own Son as Sacrifice for the world. The Justice of God is not condemnation, but life. Justice is not punishment, but a path to God. The justice of God should point us our need for God. This should point us to the love of God. The love of God should point us to His Son.

God delights in Righteousness: Fulfillment of the relationship

“For I desire loyalty and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.” (Hosea 6:6, HCSB)

God Himself is the standard of righteousness, or right living. Jesus, God’s Son fulfills God’s righteousness. This is why God told people to listen to Jesus. God told Jeremiah this about Jesus.

““The days are coming” —this is the Lord’s declaration— “when I will raise up a Righteous Branch of David. He will reign wisely as king and administer justice and righteousness in the land. In His days Judah will be saved, and Israel will dwell securely. This is what He will be named: Yahweh Our Righteousness.” (Jeremiah 23:5–6, HCSB)

God told people who witnessed the baptism of Jesus.

“While he was still speaking, suddenly a bright cloud covered them, and a voice from the cloud said: This is My beloved Son. I take delight in Him. Listen to Him!” (Matthew 17:5, HCSB)

“For when He received honor and glory from God the Father, a voice came to Him from the Majestic Glory: This is My beloved Son. I take delight in Him!” (2 Peter 1:17, HCSB)

The God of the Bible exercises loving kindness, justice, and righteousness on earth. To know him means to put into practice these fundamental principles in which he delights (9:22–23).2

“So the one who boasts must boast in the Lord.” (2 Corinthians 10:17, HCSB)

“Would the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams or with ten thousand streams of oil? Should I give my firstborn for my transgression, the child of my body for my own sin? Mankind, He has told you what is good and what it is the Lord requires of you: to act justly, to love faithfulness, and to walk humbly with your God.” (Micah 6:7–8, HCSB)

Footnotes

1 John Piper, The Pleasures of God: Meditations on God’s Delight in Being God, Rev. and expanded. (Sisters, OR: Multnomah Publishers, 2000), 15.

2 James E. Smith, The Major Prophets, Old Testament Survey Series (Joplin, MO: College Press, 1992), Je 9:22–25.