PROP: The suffering Servant’s substitutionary sacrifice saves us from sin and saves us for satisfaction in Him.
1. God provided a way for us to be happy in Him.
2. God invites us to be happy in Him.
3. God commands us to be happy in Him.
4. God’s Word makes us happy in Him.
5. God is glorified when we are happy in Him.
Quotes:
“If we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that our Lord finds our desires, not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”—C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory, 26
“In what way shall we attain to this settled happiness of soul? How shall we learn to enjoy God? How obtain such an all-sufficient soul-satisfying portion in him as shall enable us to let go the things of this world as vain and worthless in comparison? I answer, This happiness is to be obtained through the study of the Holy Scriptures. God has therein revealed himself unto us in the face of Jesus Christ.”—George Mueller, Narrative, 2:731
“The first great and primary business to which I ought to attend every day was, to have my soul happy in the Lord.” —George Mueller, Narrative, 2:731
“Persons need not, and ought not to set any bounds to their spiritual and gracious appetites…There is no such thing as excess in our taking of this spiritual food. There is no such virtue at temperance in spiritual feasting.”—Jonathan Edwards, “The Spiritual Blessings of the Gospel Represented by a Feast,” The Works of Jonathan Edwards, 14:286