Happiness
6 min read
20 The people of Judah and Israel were as numerous as the sand on the seashore; they ate, they drank and they were happy.
— 1 Kings 4:20
From the perspective of God’s plan of salvation for the world, this season during Solomon’s reign represents one of the peak periods of human history—along with when Adam and Eve reigned in the Garden of Eden before the fall, Noah and his family right after the flood, the birth of Israel on Mount Sinai, the beginning of the conquest of Canaan, and the cross and Pentecost and its aftermath.
All that Israel needed to do at this point to fulfill God’s purpose in the world was to fill the earth with the happiness that they had received from Him. But we get a hint of the downward spiral that was to come when the author differentiates the people of Judah and Israel. They were supposed to be one people, one nation.
God wants His people to be happy and satisfied, because when His people are happy and satisfied, they don’t need to worry about anything, and they can focus on calling on His name and giving Him praise.
But also, God wants His people to fill the entire earth, because when His people fill the entire earth, the whole earth will call on His name and give Him praise.
There is so much to unpack here, and it takes the entirety of the Bible to do so.
God’s purpose to fill the earth with His glory in Jesus’s name through God-fearing, God-honoring, God-worshiping, God-loving communities and families (the church) is the endgame of the gospel.
The gospel is not merely about the forgiveness of sins so that we can go to heaven. The gospel is about propagating that blessing to the ends of the earth for the glory of God.
Huge difference.
Anyway, God’s purpose can never be fulfilled when His people are divided. Israel became divided because of pride. Churches are always divided because of pride.
When the Apostle Paul wrote to Timothy, “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness” (2 Timothy 3:16), he was referring to the Old Testament.
The word “useful” describes the nature of wisdom. Wisdom must be useful, or it’s not wisdom. Wisdom without usefulness is just useless information—and maybe from the devil.
So Scripture reveals to us the way of wisdom and the way of stupidity so that we might choose the way of wisdom. And yet, us church-folk continually choose the way of stupidity over and over again. We choose division over unity. We choose pride over humility.
To be sure, divisions do need to happen when the absolute authority of the word of God and the gospel are at stake—when the absolute authority of Father, Son, and Spirit are at stake. But the devil is an expert at poking our pride so that we make less important things a matter of life and death.
In the kingdom of God, there is nothing in this world that cannot be resolved by love. “No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and His love is made complete in us” (1 John 4:12). And Jesus demonstrated this royal law, this #1 rule, this truth that governs all truth, by going to the cross because of love. That is the gospel.
Father, I confess that we are a stubborn, stiff-necked, and rebellious people. You have done everything possible—the only thing possible—so that we might have the fullness of life and peace and happiness and blessing and prosperity. Yet we continually choose the way of strife and division and bitterness and resentment. Forgive us Lord. Forgive me. Give us wisdom to understand Your love, to experience Your love, to share Your love in the world for the sake of Your glory and for our good. In Jesus’s name. Amen.