Rick Hughes educates listeners on the deceptive allure of worldly happiness and introduces the audience to the concept of divine happiness, which surpasses temporal enjoyment. Through the lens of scripture, Rick navigates the pitfalls of common misconceptions and unveils the profound peace and contentment that come with faith and understanding. This episode is a fundamental guide to spiritual autonomy and the joy found in God’s unfailing love.
Welcome to the Flatline with your host, Rick Hughes. For the next 30 minutes, you’ll be inspired, motivated, educated, but never manipulated. Now, your host, Rick Hughes.
SPEAKER 02 :
Good morning and welcome to the Flatline. I’m your host, Rick Hughes, and for the next few minutes, please stick around. You know the drill. Short time, just about 30 minutes of motivation, some inspiration, a whole lot of education, and no manipulation. No con games, not trying to raise money, not trying to sell you anything. We just would like to give you some information that would help you verify and identify the plan of God for your life. And if I’m able to do that, then obviously, as we’ve said before, you can orient and adjust to the plan. That’s up to you. You are responsible for your own life, your own decisions, your own volition, volition, V-O-L-I-T-I-O-N. That’s your chooser. God gave you a chooser. He didn’t make you a robot. He lets you choose. The greatest choice you could ever make is what the Bible says, what think you of Christ? Have you chosen to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ? If not, I hope you’ll think about it because he alone paid for your sin. You can’t pay for your sin on your own. He paid for it. He went to the cross. He took our place. That’s why the Bible says he who knew no sin was made sin for us so we could be made the righteousness of God through him. Let me remind you of our website, rickhughesministries.org, rickhughesministries.org. There you can find all the material that we make available, the transcripts of all the past year’s shows, the various books we’ve written. It’s all there for your resource, and it’s all free if you’d like to take advantage of it. So don’t hesitate to contact us. The phones have been ringing off the hook this morning of people saying, I’m listening, I’m listening, I’m listening, and I’m so glad to know that you’re out there and that you’re listening to the show. Today we’re going to talk about the biblical secret to happiness. The biblical secret to happiness. You’ve heard me speak of the cosmic system, that’s the world, the cosmos, It has all kinds of definitions for happiness, and most of it is simply pure human viewpoint based on emotional stimulation or some sort of pleasurable circumstances. But regardless of what it is, it’s the number one feel-good emotion in America, and most people are willing to pay big bucks to experience it. Many are looking for something to be passionate about, something that smooths and calms their nerves, and something like a happiness switch that can be flicked on when things are going from bad to worse. So when things really get bad, just throw the switch and you’ll be happy. Someone once said this, and I’ll never forget it. I heard it years ago. Much of our activities are nothing but a cheap anesthetic to deaden the pain of an empty life. Some build spectacular homes in isolated locations. Seeking separation and distance from society is a key to happiness. But the search for happiness goes on and on and on. It’s the number one big buck seller in America. I mean, even here you can buy a happy meal if you can afford it. But to many folks, money is the key to happiness. So they spend money they don’t have to buy things they don’t need to impress people they don’t even like. when the truth is that unhappy people take their unhappiness with them wherever they go. To some folks, winning the lottery would bring them happiness. Perhaps they could get on TV and buy a new house for their lottery winnings. To some, money buys security, and security means happiness. One guy even wrote a book on seven strategies for wealth and happiness. And I can guarantee you, he’s happy every time somebody buys his book. But does the Bible comment on the Christian being happy? The answer is yes, it does. The unfailing love of God is the source of superabundance of happiness for us. The unfailing love of God is the most powerful source of blessing we have, and it provides increasing degrees of superabundance of happiness for the church-age believer. The unfailing love of God, that’s where the power comes from. There are several English words used for happiness in the Bible, like joy. The noun joy is a state of happiness or bliss. The verb rejoice is defined as an expression of a state of happiness. The English word happiness is defined as a state of wellbeing, characterized by a relative permanent contentment. There’s a Hebrew word used in the Old Testament called eshor, translated blessed. But in the Greek New Testament, the noun kadra, C-H-A-R-A, is translated joy. But the Romans and the Greeks were very cynical about happiness, and they didn’t see it in things and people like we do. So these koine Greek words I’ve given you have a little bit of a different connotation than their English translation. But here’s what our Lord used, the word kadra. In John 15, 11, where he said, These things I told you so that my korah, my joy, might remain in you and your joy might be full. Psalm 5, 11 says, Let all those who put their trust in thee rejoice. Let them ever shout for joy because thou defendest them. Let them also that love thy name be joyful in thee. There’s all the mandates to have the happiness that the Lord Jesus Christ is speaking about in that passage. That verse, and the verse I just quoted to you, let all those who put their trust in thee rejoice. Let them ever shout for joy because you defend them. You defend them. That’s a verse, a divine guarantee of the guardianship of Almighty God, even in the midst of the most dire circumstances. The evangelist Billy Graham once said this, this is the happiness which brings enduring worth to life. It’s not the superficial happiness that depends on circumstances, but rather the happiness and the contentment that fills the soul, even in the middle of distressing of circumstances, the most distressing circumstances, and the most bitter environment. There’s another Greek word called makarios, and it’s usually found in the plural makairoi, And it’s translated, happiness are blessed. But again, that word used for translation doesn’t really explain the biblical doctrine of happiness. There’s a noun called artarches and it comes a little bit closer because it means to be content, to be self-sufficient. And it actually describes the happiness of the spiritually mature person. Remember, you have to go from spiritual infant to spiritual adult. So we start out with spiritual self-esteem, spiritual autonomy, and spiritual maturity. It’s the verb archeo in the active voice that means to be sufficient, therefore to be self-sufficient. And this comes really closer to describing what true biblical happiness really is and what happens to us when we learn and execute God’s plan. In the passive voice, archeo, this verb means to be satisfied and to be content. And it refers to an expression of happiness related to your autonomy. It seems we carry this entrenched notion that some set of circumstances or something or some people can make us happy. But happiness is not something that is made or manufactured by us. So we can never confuse happiness as taught in the Word of God with the various stimuli of life which are enjoyable for a moment. but have no ability to sustain us day to day. Happiness, by stimuli of life, is happiness for all the wrong reasons. It’s called pseudo-happiness, or minus H. Plus H is one of our problem-solving devices, as we teach on the Flatline of the Soul. It’s problem-solving device number nine, sharing the happiness of God. But pseudo-happiness is Satan’s attempt to counterfeit the happiness of God. to counterfeit the contentment and the blessing that God provides for each of us as members of the royal family. The provision of perfect happiness is found in the portfolio of invisible assets that God gave us in eternity past. It’s found in the game plan for the church age, the protocol plan of God. That portfolio of invisible assets connotes the grace work of God the Father on our behalf. Even in eternity past, he found a way for his justice to provide fantastic blessings to his righteousness in him without any compromise of his essence. That’s when we get saved, we receive the righteousness of Christ and God’s able to pour into us blessings because of that. So the portfolio of invisible assets that we have, each one of us has one, is everything necessary to have a fantastic life. through receiving the blessings that God has for us. Now, here’s the point. If you don’t have a fantastic life, it’s your own fault. It’s not God’s fault. All you need is some positive volition and God will direct you to the place where you can get the information to grow up spiritually and have what he designed for you to have. Those assets I’m talking about are invisible. We only come to know them when we learn God’s word and apply it into our life. But unfortunately, you cannot use what you don’t know exists, can you? Now, Satan cannot improve on the laws of divine establishment. He can’t duplicate God’s plan. He does not have the power to provide for mankind in the way that he wants to, nor delegate the necessary authority to run the human race. He, that’s Satan, cannot duplicate God’s grace provisions in those portfolios of invisible assets that God gives to us. So as the ruler of this world, Satan likes to keep his constituents happy. He does so providing stimulation, ambition, self-indulgence, which will either counterfeit or cancel out the happiness that God provides. So Satan’s myth of arrogance is that both people and pleasant circumstances in life will make you happy. That’s a lie. Satan’s propaganda is that money, success, pleasure, social life, sex, public approbation, fame, material things, travel, health, pleasant circumstances, they’ll all make you happy. And that’s true under some circumstances with limitations, but it doesn’t last. Often these things can be pleasurable, stimulating, fun, and enjoyable, but they do not carry you when you’re suffering. If you’re dependent on any person or any set of circumstances for happiness, it’s an indication that you’re a weak believer and don’t really have happiness. To the extent that you are dependent on someone else or some set of circumstances or some sort of prosperity or success or any of the accoutrements of life for your happiness, if that’s what you’re depending on, you’re a weak believer. As a believer in Jesus Christ, you’ve been faithful, if you’ve been faithful, in the reception and the retention and the recall of the Word of God, and you’ve advanced in your spiritual life, you’ve gone through spiritual self-esteem, got into spiritual autonomy, headed for spiritual maturity, you’re not only a strong person, but you have that great inner happiness I’m talking about. And you will take it with you wherever you go, because it doesn’t depend on the environment, It doesn’t depend on associations or circumstances of prosperity or adversity. It doesn’t depend on any of these things. It’s simply a part of God’s grace policy to those who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. Perfect happiness. Perfect happiness is a magnificent problem-solving device because you have it all the time and you merely tune into it during problem-solving times. Perfect happiness is not only a problem-solving device, but but it’s the basis for capacity in life. Happiness, happiness is a state of soul. It’s not something that someone can do for you. Again, happiness is a state of your soul. It’s not something or someone can do for you. This happiness I’m talking about that God provides in his plan is an insulation against fear, insulation against arrogance, which always go together, by the way. Fear and arrogance run hand in hand. This happiness is a state of the soul. That’s what it is. It’s not something that somebody can do for you. Unfortunately, people with unhappy souls are always waiting on someone else to make them happy. And that’s the gimmick of the friendly church and friendly society. I’m so happy if I go there. Everybody’s happy, happy, happy. Look, Satan himself, he was a beautiful, successful, attractive creature, genius of all time in heaven. He had a maximum amount of power over millions of angels, which he still has today. They came with him. And yet Satan right now as a ruler of this world is bored. He’s miserable. He’s frustrated, and he’s very unhappy. If all the things you think will make you happy haven’t made Satan happy, and he has them in spades, then you must be the dumbest person alive, and you deserve to be miserable if that’s what you think. People who don’t have authority orientation cannot ever experience happiness. An unrestrained population is an unhappy population. Again, think about it in this country. An unrestrained population is an unhappy population. And there are a lot of unhappy people in America today. You don’t have to be. The perfect happiness I’m talking about or the divine happiness that I’m talking about is a monopoly of any believer who becomes a spiritually mature believer. And it belongs to a few believers who reached spiritual adulthood. However, unfortunately, to my chagrin, relatively few believers have this type of happiness because it requires consistent rehabilitation of thinking. After you get saved, it requires you to learn God’s Word and apply it in advance to spiritual adulthood, especially spiritual maturity. So it requires something that no lazy Christian can do. That is, you must concentrate on the Word of God, learn it, apply it, and live it in your life. And if you can’t do that, you’ll never have the kind of happiness I’m talking about. Most believers can’t concentrate on the Word of God very long to learn God’s system because they’re so easily distracted or so easily discouraged or thinking about what’s for lunch. Perfect happiness or sharing the happiness of God can be defined as the happiness of the humanity of the Lord Jesus Christ during his time here in his hypostatic union. Remember, God, man in one body forever, the hypostatic union. This is the only happiness that doesn’t change with the weather, it doesn’t change with your mood, or with any disastrous or difficult circumstances in life. Perfect happiness, the happiness of the Lord Jesus Christ, is a perpetual happiness you have in your life for every category of existence after you get saved. That’s why Paul said in Philippians 1.21, for me living is Christ and dying, well, that’s profit. He had this perfect happiness in living. He had the perfect happiness in dying. And in the eternal state, he would have happiness waiting for him after the resurrection. In Luke 11, 27 and 28, we have an illustration that gives a perfect description of pseudo happiness. In this passage, our Lord Jesus Christ is speaking and a woman interrupts him. She spoke of being happy, but she was not happy. Nor did she understand what we’re talking about, true happiness. She was an unhappy person trying to control her environment. And so she speaks up while the Lord Jesus Christ is speaking and interrupts him, speaks over him in her attempt to put our Lord down using false propaganda. Listen as I read it to you in Luke 11, 27 and 28. It came to pass while our Lord was teaching these things, a certain woman, a special woman from the crowd, shouted with a loud voice. Now here’s what she shouted. Happy is the woman whose womb carried you and whose breasts you have sucked. But the Lord Jesus Christ replied, wrong, wrong. Happiness belongs to those who keep hearing and retaining the word of God. Read it for yourself. Luke 11, 27 and 28. She made an issue out of motherhood. She’s saying, I bet your mother is really, really happy. I bet your mama is so proud of you. No, motherhood is not a source of happiness. The happiness that you are looking for comes from the retention and reception and the recall of the word of God in your soul. The relationship between our Lord’s perfect happiness and the church age believer, you and me, is given in John 15, 11. Here’s where it is. I taught you these things so that my happiness, my plus age, might be in you and your happiness might be completely fulfilled. This is what he told the disciples after John 13, where he had the foot washing and all that was in John 13 and 14 all the way up to John 15, 11. I taught you these things, these doctrines, these insights. It was a one-night Bible class. It was amazing. In Proverbs 3, 13, the Bible says happiness belongs to the person who finds wisdom, even to the person who gains understanding. What does that mean? It means this, wisdom is discernment and insight. Wisdom is discernment and insight. When you have biblical wisdom, when you learn God’s word, you have what I’ve often referred to as x-ray vision, spiritual x-ray vision. You can see through the fog of life. And you can see Satan’s gimmicks and how he deploys things to try to distract you. And so this happiness that we’re talking about, if you are a mature believer, you have that wisdom in your soul. Wisdom is the most wonderful thing in the world. And happiness belongs to the person who finds wisdom and the person who gains understanding from wisdom, understanding through insight and discernment. In Psalm 31 7, I will rejoice, rejoice, there it is again, and be happy in the provisions of God’s grace. You can have that same sort of happiness and rejoice in God’s grace. By glorifying God, by having his happiness, God’s happiness, it’s a testimony on behalf of the Lord. It’s also the basis for true leadership in a crisis. You know, if you’re gonna have a leader, you gotta have some, not be depressed all the time, you gotta be happy. Listen to Psalm 146, verse five. How happy is the one whose help is the God of Jacob, whose confidence is in the Lord. Prepositional phrase, in the Lord. Now, this is my question to you. Where is your confidence? If you’re not happy, why are you not happy? Is it because people and circumstances have done you wrong? Is it because your family did a wrong deal with you? Is it because you had something happen that wasn’t fair so you’re not happy? You’re frustrated, you’re angry, you’re bitter. You even call up other people and complain about it and get anybody on the phone that’ll listen. Anytime you have lunch or have a chance to sit down with somebody, you complain about something, you’re not happy. If you’re complaining about politics, you’re not happy. If you’re complaining about your health, you’re not happy. One of the keys to happiness is you don’t have to complain because you are what? Confident, content. That’s why Paul said, I’ve learned whatever state I’m in to be content, whether I have a lot, whether I have a little, doesn’t make any difference. So one of the surest ways to know that a person is unhappy is to listen to what they say. Are they a complainer or are they content? In Psalm 84, 12, O Lord of the armies, how happy is the man who trusts in you. This is a wonderful thing. There’s great happiness in the faith rest drill. Great happiness in the faith rest drill. Trust in you is problem-solving device number three, the faith rest drill. And that’s what God is looking for. O ye of little faith is the wrong thing. God is looking for those of you and me that have faith. That means we trust him, we understand him, we love him. We have learned enough of his word to stand confidently in that. Using the faith thrust drill is a technique you should know. If you don’t know what it is, Order the book that we’ve got on Christian problem solving. We’ll send it to you, and you can read through it. I can’t teach it right now. But it’s standing on the promises of God in his word and maintaining a relaxed mental attitude. So again, in Psalm 84, 12, O Lord of the armies, how happy is the man who trusts in you. How about Psalm 128, verse 1? How happy is everyone who respects the Lord who walks in his ways? That’s positive volition. You want to have happiness? Two things required. Respect of God and obedience. Respect of God and obedience. That’s why a person who’s arrogant can never be happy. An arrogant person can’t mind, he can’t obey authority, and he’ll never have happiness in his life because he has an unrealistic self-image about himself, and he always wants to be treated in a way he’s not worthy of being treated. So you want to have the happiness I’m talking about? Respect the Lord. That means to pay attention to him. Walk in his ways to be obedient, and that’s your volition. In Psalm 112, verse one, praise the Lord. How happy is the man who respects the Lord, who greatly delights in his commands. Greatly delights. That’s a question I have to ask you. Do you delight in the mandates found in the word of God? Are you hungry for the mandates found in the word of God? When it criticizes you and the way you live your lifestyle, how do you handle it? See, this is what the Holy Spirit does. He will bring to light those things in your life that are not pleasing to the Father. If you want to be happy, you must respect the Lord and delight in His commands. I can give you a couple. Be filled with the Spirit, Ephesians 5.18. Grow in the grace and knowledge of your Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Study to show that self-approved unto God a workman that needeth not to be ashamed. I can give you a lot of verses about His mandates. If you’re a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ and you’re not growing spiritually, You’re not sitting under a well-qualified pastor. You’re not taking in the Word of God on a daily basis. You’re not rebounding your sin. You’re not operating under the faithless drill. You will never, ever have true happiness. You will always be depending on people or circumstances to make you happy. The biblical happiness is demonstrated by having a relaxed mental attitude. What a wonderful way to live, an RMA. Having perfect contentment, knowing that whether you have a lot or whether you have a little makes no difference. Having perfect contentment in any circumstances of life because you have absolute confidence in the plan of God. That’s the tranquility of soul that I’m talking about. That’s the happiness that I’m speaking about. Biblical happiness, tranquility of soul, relaxed mental attitude, perfect contentment, and it can be yours, but only, only if you establish that flat line in this mentality of your soul. You have to grow spiritually. You have to utilize God’s grace for visions. That’s why the unfailing love of God is the source of super abundance of happiness. The unfailing love of God is the most powerful source of blessing we have, And it provides an increasing degree of super abundance of happiness for those of us that live in the church age today. And it’s yours. It’s available for you. No, not people, not circumstances, not gimmicks, not some kind of neutral age that Satan throws out. but the promises of the word of God. Go back to what Jesus said, happiness belongs to those people who hear my father’s word and who keep it. The greatest happiness you’ll ever have is to know you’re in the plan of God and you’re doing exactly what God called you to do. Probably one of the reasons you’re not happy today is because you don’t know what God’s plan for your life is. And I hope this radio show is helping you understand it. It’s a wonderful opportunity for me to talk to you, wonderful opportunity for me to give you this information. I’m very grateful that you listen. I’m very grateful that you pray for us. Keep praying as we keep marching across America with 100-plus radio shows every Sunday morning where we step out on faith and trust the Lord to provide our needs. I appreciate you listening, and if you have any questions, don’t hesitate to contact us at rickhughesministries.org or simply call us at 800- 831-0718. Until next week, this is your host, Rick Hughes, saying thank you for listening to The Flatline.
SPEAKER 01 :
Thank you for listening to The Floodline with your host, Rick Hughes. If you’d like to contact Rick, please write to him at P.O. Box 100, Cropwell, Alabama, 35054, or online at www.rickhughesministries.org.
