The header scripture encapsulates the gospel and has a clear focus on the meaning of true happiness, which pervades the entirety of this Davidic hymn of praise. It would appear that most people are, to one degree or another, engaged in the pursuit of happiness, and we might find ourselves among them. But how is happiness actually attained? The reality is that the quest for true happiness is a fruitless pursuit since it is God who pursues us to this very end, with a persistent, merciful love that seeks not to condemn, but to embrace. Our best mortal efforts will never achieve true happiness, but the great truth is that true happiness has found us in the incarnation, and specifically in the person and finished work of Jesus. This is what David teaches us in Psalm 32, a Psalm which, according to the Puritan theologian John Trapp, was ‘tuned together’ with Psalm 51,¹ David’s famous lament of repentance.

As David unravels the mystery of true happiness for us in Psalm 32, he begins in the most unlikely place of all, with sin. When we understand that sin is anything which sets itself against the purposes of God in Christ: that true life, liberty and happiness can be found in Jesus alone, and that the great word of the gospel is ‘forgiveness’; then we can know and experience pure and perfect happiness, which the whole world seeks in vain, but which has come to us in the person of Jesus, in the power of the Spirit and by the grace of God.  

The person who is truly happy, David explains, is the one who knows that not only are his or her sins forgiven, but that in the mind and heart of God no knowledge of the sinner’s sin remains. Indeed, Christ’s righteousness has replaced the sin that reigned in the once rebellious heart, where the spirit of deceit is no more to be found (v.2). That’s true happiness, and that’s what makes the gospel unique and why it is good news for everyone.

The Psalmist recounts his journey from misery to happiness, as he unfolds his testimony (vv.3-7). There was a time when David concealed his sins, though they troubled him day and night with wearying cries of anguish and ever-draining tears of remorse (vv.3-4), foolishly believing that ‘the heavy hand of God’s anger’ was the chief cause of his distress (v.4). But, once he opened up a confessing heart to the love and mercy of God, coming to that great throne of grace as the impoverished, prodigal sinner that he was, and holding nothing back, the wall of impenitence that screens the sinner from the loving-kindness of God, was broken down, and the gateway to happiness opened wide (v.5). All who come to God in Christ, as the Psalmist did, will likewise find no condemnation, no burden of judgement, but a hiding place from trouble and an effervescent wellspring of happiness, erupting incessantly, in songs of joy and praise (v.7).  

But how, when we have found such happiness, is it to be maintained? What if we should stray or stumble and lose the edge of our Christian joy? Here, at this point in the psalm, the Lord himself, reassuringly speaks (vv.8-9). God promises he will teach us and guide us in the way we should go. The way to hold onto true happiness is to simply give ourselves, in glad obedience, to the gospel and to apostolic teaching. As the song so wisely advises us: ‘trust and obey, for there’s no other way, to be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey’. ²  Kicking against the pricks, like a restive horse, is a futile action, cautions the psalmist, whereas the submission of glad obedience will always make for a pleasant, peaceful and truly happy journey of faith (v.9).

David remembers the path of wickedness, along which so many tread, a wide-open highway strewn with countless, ruinous pitfalls; yet, he knows how, in this perilous world of woe, ‘…those who trust in the Lord are protected by his constant love’ (v.10). As we worship the God who has revealed himself in the person of Jesus, we remember that our righteous standing before God is in Christ alone, and we can ‘be glad and rejoice’, not so much in the assurance of our own salvation, or of the benefits and privileges we enjoy through the gospel and the Christian life, but ‘because of what the Lord has done’ (v.11), what God has accomplished in Christ our Saviour. So the Psalmist concludes, if you are to be truly happy in Jesus: ‘…obey him, shout for joy!’ (v.11). 

¹ https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/guzik_david/study-guide/psalm/psalm-32.cfm
² ‘Trust and Obey’ – hymn by John H. Sammis,  1887

Local congregation:
Grace Communion Peterborough
Farcet Village Hall
Main Street
Farcet
Peterborough
PE7 3AN

Meeting time:
Sunday 11.00 am

Local congregational contact:
Richard Dempsey
Email:  richard.dempsey@btinternet.com
Local church website: GRACE COMMUNION CHURCH PETERBOROUGH – Landing Page

Word of Life contact:
wordoflife@gracecom.church