Holiness: A Priortiy In Our Happiness

One of the benefits I have as being a teacher in the public school system is having my summers off. Being that I am so busy during the year teaching and coaching, the summer offers me much needed make up time with my family and my reading. So far I have tackled Tony Dungy’s Biography “Quiet Strength” in which I will comment on in a later blog. I have also read a wonderful book called “What’s So Great About The Doctrines of Grace” by Rev. Richard D. Phillips. I have really enjoyed the insight and the passion he brings into understanding this doctrine and making it applicable in your everyday worship. It is a much needed book and one I highly recommend it to anyone who is in need of a deep drink.

The other morning while I was reading the chapter on election, Reverend Phillips wrote something that sent me off into a sermon preaching to my soul the necessity of holiness in my pursuit of happiness. He said, “This is the great priority of the Christian life-not happiness, but holiness.” Let me give you a little context to this statement and a couple of things that I believe it means and does not mean.

Phillips says that unconditional election promotes holiness not license. One of the arguments that comes against the doctrine of election is that if mans salvation is totally dependant on God’s mercy, then what motive do we have to live holy? Why should we struggle with our sanctification? Phillips argues that this way of thinking stems from a gross misunderstanding of salvation as a whole. God is holy and demands that we be holy. Therefore, when He predestined the elect to salvation, He predestined them to holiness. Ephesians 1:4 “He chose us…..that we should be holy and blameless before Him.” Holiness is the mark of a believer in Christ. And holiness comes through the work of sanctification; which is the will of God. “For this is the will of God, your sanctification” (1 Thess. 4:3). With this context Phillips writes that holiness is the Christians number one priority.

At a first glance it almost looks as if Phillips is saying that holiness and happiness are not able to coexist together; “This is the great priority of the Christian life-not happiness, but holiness.” {My emphasis on the words not and but} The negative connotation of the word “not” in this sentence seems to imply that being holy and being happy are at odds with each other. And this would seem to settle just fine in today’s perception of God and the church. However, I do not believe Phillips is implying this perspective in his statement.

Consideration Number One: America’s Happiness Is Not Godly Happiness

There are a couple of things I consider would be Phillips intent in this statement. First, he is very aware of the moral deprivation of our culture and a sensual society dieing on their ambition to live happy. He knows that America has bought into pagan hedonism and has manufactured its own “good news” called the health, wealth, and prosperity gospel. He is well aware of our addiction to consumption and our self imposed right to life, liberty, and early retirement (so we can have a second career riding in our yachts and collecting sea shells living gloriously for ourselves until we die 25 years later). He knows America well and does not want to give any inclination that these things are holy and are in any way the source of genuine happiness. Therefore he counters the idea by placing a greater weight on holiness over happiness.

God’s Holiness Is Our Happiness

The other consideration I thought of is that our happiness is found in God’s holiness. One of the main themes of the bible is the pursuit of God’s glory in the redemption of lost sinners. In this pursuit God offers Himself as the prize of our salvation. He is our inheritance. His glory is our satisfaction and the fulfillment of every need our soul longs to be met. We get a taste of this in in Psalm 16:11 where God promises to "make known to me the path of life and that in His presence there is fullness of joy; at His right hand are pleasures forevermore.” (paraphrase)

Our soul longs for the fullness of joy and pleasures forevermore. Furthermore, the New Testament shows us that Jesus is the pathway to life and that He sits at the right hand of the Father (John 3:16; John 14:1; John 14:6; Acts 7:56; John 13:1-3; Hebrews 1:3). If we examine Hebrews 1:3 a little closer we see that not only is Christ sitting at the right hand of the Father, but that He is the radiance of God’s glory. Christ is the exact imprint of God’s nature. Being that God the Father promises us the fullness of joy in His presence and pleasure forevermore at His right hand, and that Christ is the pathway to life who sits at His right hand being the radiance of His glory; then it is safe to say that our souls long to be enthralled by the presence and glory of God; namely Jesus. Jesus Himself alludes to this when He prays for us in John 17. In verse 24 He prays "Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world.” Jesus’ desire for us is to be near Him and behold His glory. To be near Christ is to be near the Father. And in the presence of the Father is the radiance of His glory (His Son Jesus) in which beholding brings joy. The closer to the Father we are the more joy we experience.

What Does this Have to Do With Holiness?

As we stated before in Ephesians 1:4, God predestined us for holiness. God is holy. It is a part of who He is. He is nothing less than perfect and desires His people to be that way. Knowing that we could not do that on our own He gave us His Son Jesus to be our holiness. But instead of translating us directly to heaven the moment we were saved; He found it more glorious to give us the Holy Spirit to work to sanctify us for a time on earth. This sanctification is the process of becoming holy; i.e. becoming more like Christ (the radiance of God’s glory). This in turn gives us the same kind of fellowship the Father and Son enjoy (John 3:35; 5:20; 16:27-28). The more we work out our sanctification (in which God is the primary acting agent) the closer we draw near to God. This closeness offers us waves of joy that overcome us the closer we draw near.

Therefore, making holiness our first priority is in fact a pursuit of our greatest happiness. This is so because the happiness is not of ourselves but of an all powerful, all righteous, eternal God. The happiness is genuine and sustaining. In this context the two go hand in hand together. For holiness, in Christ, will be our happiness.