As individuals and families turn the page into a new year, many are quietly asking the same question: Is real happiness even possible anymore? Our world offers countless paths promising fulfillment, yet so few actually lead us there. In this episode, Sam brings listeners back to a timeless, biblical perspective that speaks powerfully into the pressures husbands, wives, parents, and single believers face today. If you’re longing to anchor your life and home in something steady, hopeful, and truly life-giving as the New Year begins, this message will guide you toward a foundation you can build on.

Checkout these other Family Fortress Ministries Podcasts:

TIME FOR THREE daily couples devotional: https://time-for-three.captivate.fm/listen

FORTIFYING YOUR FAMILY: https://fortifying-your-family.captivate.fm/listen

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Welcome to the Fortifying youg Family podcast.

It can be daunting to navigate through an anti marriage and family culture.

Our teacher will expound biblical principles to help fortify our families and keep these sacred institutions strong.

And now, here's this week's teaching from Sam Wood.

I recently came across an article in the May 29 issue of a magazine called Newser.

In it, Adam Sternball shares that the most popular course and this is what jumped out to me when I was scanning this, he said the most popular course that Yale students, Yale University students have ever taken is a course on what?

On how to be happy.

A course on how to be happy.

I think we really, she says, have a crisis at colleges and how students are doing in terms of self care and mental health.

Then she adds sadly, I don't think it's just in colleges.

In the face of this epidemic of happiness, Adam continues to say Santos decided to design course on Happiness I believe that every person alive is living their life in pursuit of happiness.

But the problem arises in where we try to find it.

Some try to find happiness through personal success in their career, whatever that career may be.

I'll be happy once I finish college and I have my career and I can have a successful career.

Then I will be happy.

Some try to find happiness through obtaining wealth and through obtaining riches.

Some try to find it, we know through athletics.

Many try to find it through getting into a relationship, and many through even getting married.

There are a lot of things people try to do to find happiness, certainly in this world, but they find out as soon as they arrive to where they thought they would find happiness that it has eluded them.

They really are not experiencing true happiness after all.

There are a lot of things that can bring temporary and superficial happiness, but the question is, how can we have true and lasting happiness?

This morning I want to share a message with you on how to find true happiness or how to be happy.

How many like to be happy this morning and have true happiness in joy in your life?

And I'm not going to turn to a college textbook for the answer, but I'M going to turn to the greatest book, the book of all books, the Bible, and we'll see what God has to say about this thing of happiness and how that we can find true and lasting happiness.

So turn with me, if you would, to Psalm Chapter one.

Psalm Chapter one, one of my favorite psalms in the Bible.

I was trying to think this week as I was preparing if I'd ever even preached on this Psalm.

And I had certainly studied it before and written notes on it before, but never have actually preached on it.

But this morning I'd like to share with you what God has shown me that I believe and hope and pray.

That will be a blessing to you and an encouragement to you today in this psalm, this wonderful Psalm of Psalm 1 and 6 verses.

Blessed or happy is a man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful.

But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in his law doth he meditate day and night.

And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water that bringeth forth fruit in his season.

His leaf also shall not wither, and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper.

The ungodly are not so, but are like the chaff with which the wind driveth away.

Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous.

For the Lord knoweth the way of the righteous, but the way of the ungodly shall perish.

The first thing I'd like to point out that we are told in this psalm, in the first few words, is that happiness possible.

Happiness is possible.

The word blessed means to have a deep seated joy and contentment in God.

It means to have true and lasting happiness.

And the word where it says blessed is the man.

The word for man there in this context means person and without reference to gender actually, so it refers to all people you know living in a sinful world where everything seems to be falling apart around us, does it not?

Is a blessing to know that happiness is possible for everyone in the midst of whatever we might be facing in this world.

How many of you here today would agree that life is not easy?

Raise your hand if you'd agree with that.

You found out that living this life not really so easy after all.

Because of sin.

We all go through trials, we all go through tribulations, we have stress.

We have the anxieties of this life to deal with because of the curse.

We're often reminded of the futility of living in this world or living in this life.

I was reminded.

For example, this week, I got home Friday night after driving all day long.

And when I arrived at my house, the grass was about that high.

I just cut it.

About a week ago.

I thought, how in the world did it get that high, that quick?

So I got on my lawnmower, I went out, and I cut it.

Once again, the futility of life.

Debbie.

On Saturday, I had gone out and gotten all the weeds out several weeks ago, and the flower beds around our house, and they all looked weedless.

But yesterday, when Debbie went out there to plant the flowers, she had to do it all over again.

How many of you can relate to what I'm talking about?

You know, you can work a job all week long and you can get paid, or you work all month and you get paid and you pay the bills.

But you know what happens the next month comes and you got to do it, what?

All over again.

Life.

Not easy.

So it's a wonderful thing that God reminds us in the midst of any circumstance that we might face that having true and lasting happiness is possible.

And God does not leave us guessing how to have it.

Praise God, he doesn't.

So I want to share with you several things from this psalm here this morning.

They're essential, I believe, to having lasting, true happiness.

I hope you'll just tune in for a few minutes here this morning.

Let the Holy Spirit speak to your heart.

I pray that this will certainly this word will be helpful and encouraging to you today.

As we look in this psalm, I think the first thing we see is that if we want to have true and lasting happiness, you must be on the right path.

You must be on the right path.

Let me look at verse one again.

Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful.

Notice that it does not say, blessed is the man who seeks blessedness, or happy is the man who seeks happiness.

What I'm trying to say here this morning is that the path to happiness is not a direct path.

The path to happiness, we might say, is rather an indirect one.

The man who is happy is not seeking happiness.

This is not his aim.

This is not his goal.

In fact, I remind you of what Jesus said in the Beatitudes in Matthew, chapter 5 and verse 6.

He says, Blessed.

Here's that word.

Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after what church righteousness for they shall be what they shall be filled.

Later in the sermon on the mountain, Jesus says, you're making a big mistake.

You're making a great mistake by asking, what shall we eat?

What shall we drink?

How shall we be clothed?

He says, seek you first the kingdom of God and all these things will be what church added unto you.

Jesus is reminding us.

Jesus was reminding them that happiness is not found in food.

Happiness is not found in what we eat.

Happiness is not found in how we are clothed.

Rather, it comes to the man who is not seeking happiness from these things, but is seeking righteousness.

Seeking righteousness.

The point is that you'll never find happiness and seeking happiness because happiness is a byproduct of seeking righteousness.

Listen, if you seek righteousness more than happiness, you'll get both.

But if you seek happiness more than righteousness, you won't get either one.

God is telling us that the less you're concerned about your happiness and the more you're concerned about him and his righteousness, the happier you'll get.

That's why God, in the rest of verse one, instructs us not to deviate off the path of righteousness that leads to true happiness.

He does this by warning us about three things that could cause us to get off of this path of righteousness.

First, to stay on the path of righteousness that leads to happiness, we must not walk in the counsel of the ungodly.

The word counsel refers to listening to someone's advice.

And here it's talking about listening to the advice.

An ungodly person.

An ungodly person is someone who does not know God or who does not care about the things of God, or who does not regard God at all in their life.

God is saying, if you want to be happy, you have to close your ears, you have to close your mind to the advice of the ungodly.

And let me say, in the culture that we live in today, there's a lot of ungodly advice being given out.

It's everywhere around us.

It comes on the radio, it comes on the television.

Everywhere around us we're given the advice, the counsel of the ungodly.

Don't waste your time going to church.

Why would you waste your time on Sunday morning going to a place called church?

Don't waste your time reading a book called the Bible.

It's old fashioned, it's antiquated, it's out of date.

Don't believe in God.

Believe in yourself.

This is a council of the world that we live in today.

You don't need to get married.

After all, you can just live together, try out marriage for a couple years, see how you like it.

And then if it works out good in a couple years, then you can get married.

There's nothing wrong with sex outside of marriage.

You can participate in sex any way you want to.

After all, who's someone to tell you what you ought to do anyway.

Don't waste your money in an offering plate when they bring the offering up here.

Don't waste your money.

Don't put your money in there.

Spend it on getting a better car.

Spend it on getting a better house.

Live for the temporal.

Don't worry about the eternal.

There's nothing wrong with two people of the same sex living together and calling it marriage.

This is the council, friends of the world, that is shouting to us and all around us, let your child even decide what gender they are.

After all, who is God to tell us that we are male or female anyway?

You're just a product of evolution.

There is no God.

Oh, we got these voices that continually come to us.

The voice, the counsel of the ungodly, that's pumped into our heads, into our minds.

But God says, listen, folks, God says, the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God.

So first, God is saying that to stay on the right path, the path of righteousness that leads to happiness, we must not walk in the counsel of the ungodly.

But also to stay on the path that leads to righteousness, we must not stand in the way of sinners.

This verse speaks of an increasingly deeper involvement with wickedness.

Notice the progression.

There's walking and now there's standing.

If you start walking in a picture of walking is taking small steps by listening to the advice of the ungodly, for example, tuning into Oprah or tuning into some other, and I'll just say it right here, plain and simple, other people on television who would love for you to listen to their advice, then it won't be long before you'll find yourself standing with them and participating in their advice, participating in their sin.

So God says, if you start walking in the counsel of the ungodly, listening to the advice of the ungodly, you'll find yourself even standing with them.

Participating in their fleshly sinful desires.

Starts with walking.

It progresses to standing.

But thirdly, it ends up in sitting, nor sitting in the seat of the scornful.

A scorner is someone who openly mocks God.

These are the people who make fun of God, and today enjoy making fun of Christians.

Enjoy making fun of people like yourself.

They make jokes.

They love to make jokes about marriage.

They make jokes about those who desire to remain morally pure.

They talk about how naive and how ignorant Christians are in that day to sit meant to become one of or to be identified with a group.

If you sat down with someone, you identified yourself with those people you identified yourself with, with that group with whom you were sitting with.

And God said, if you start walking in the council of Ungodly, it can lead to you standing with sinners.

And then if before long you'll be sitting down and identifying with those who mock God.

Listen, folks, there are many that have scoffed and mocked God that have come and gone.

For example, Voltaire was a French philosopher who pledged that Christianity would be swept from existence within 100 years.

During World War II, Adolf Hitler erected a massive stone structure in Monte Carlo.

It was to be a radio station from which to broadcast Nazi propaganda to North Africa.

Today, from that very building, Trans World Radio beams the Gospel of Christ, redeeming love.

All across Europe, Russia and Africa.

Charles Darwin scorned God through his theory of evolution.

Since that time, man has embraced evolution as a fact and scorned the God of creation.

However, I read just a few days ago in the May 30 edition of Tech Times, an article that says this.

You'll find this very interesting.

New research that involves analyzing millions of DNA barcodes has debunked much about what we know today about the evolution of the species.

This is not a Christian.

This is not a Christian writing this.

In a massive genetic study, senior research associate at the Program for Human Development and Environment at Rockefeller University, Mark Stoeckle and University of basal geneticist David Thaler discovered that virtually.

Listen to this.

Virtually 90% of all animals on Earth appeared at right around the same time.

More specifically, they found out that nine out of 10 animal species on the planet came to being at the same time as humans did about, they say, 100,000, 200,000 years ago.

I love the conclusion he comes to.

This conclusion is very surprising, says Thaler.

And I fought against it as hard as I possibly could.

You know, when I read that, I thought, just what I'm preaching this morning.

Scoffers come, scoffers go.

But God's truth remains.

So first God says, if you want to have true and lasting happiness, you must be on the right path.

The path of righteousness, the path of holiness that will lead you to happiness.

But secondly, to have lasting happiness, you also must have the right pleasure.

Notice where this blessed man finds his pleasure.

Look at verse two.

But his delight is in the law of the Lord.

And in his law doth he meditate day and night.

Notice that this man's supreme pleasure, the supreme delight of his heart, is not in sports, it's not in movies, it's not in anything of this world or what this world offers.

Where is his pleasure?

What does he delight in?

He delights in the law of the Lord.

The law of the Lord mentioned here is not just the Ten Commandments.

It's not just the Pentateuch.

It's referring to the whole of Scripture.

It's referring to that Bible that you brought to church this morning, that Bible that you hold in your hands today.

This happy man takes pleasure in.

He delights in the Bible.

He delights in the Word of God.

This man sees the word of God as authoritative.

You say, what do you mean, Brother Sam?

He doesn't pick and choose what parts of the Bible he likes and dislikes, like Thomas Jefferson did, where you have the Jefferson Bible, where he literally cut out parts of the Bible he didn't like and kept the rest of the Bible that he did.

You say, I would never do something like that.

If you're not careful, we all do that.

We will listen, not listen and yield to obey the parts of the Bible that are confronting us face to face.

And we might yield to something else, but if we're not careful, we can do exactly the same thing.

This man delights and takes pleasure in all of the word of God.

And I just want to stop here because I feel I need to and say there's a prominent.

Listen, there's a prominent and very influential preacher and pastor, one of the top three churches in America, who's come out in the last few weeks, preached some messages.

And I'm not talking about a pastor in Houston.

I'm talking about a pastor in Atlanta, Georgia.

He preached a message where he basically said that we need to unhitch ourselves from the Old Testament in the Bible, unhitch ourselves from the myth of creation and the moral laws that are given in the Old Testament, which we just need to focus on the love of Jesus and the resurrection of Christ.

Certainly we do need to focus on that, but we need to focus on the whole word of God.

Folks, you better listen to the voices that are around you, coming to you, even in the name of Christ.

But God says, the man that is blessed, the man that is happy, the man that will have lasting happiness, doesn't pick.

He doesn't choose the parts of the Bible that he likes or or dislikes.

He takes pleasure.

He delights in every word of it because he takes such pleasure in it.

Notice it says he meditates on it.

Now we can spend a whole other message on this thing of meditation, but let me just make a few statements here this morning.

I love what Matthew Henry gives us as a definition of meditation, and listen to it carefully.

To meditate in God's Word is to discourse with ourselves concerning the great things contained in it, with a close application of mind, a fixedness of thought, till we be suitably affected with those things and experience the savor and power of them in our hearts.

What What a great phrase that is.

Charles Pershing had many definitions, but one he said is very short.

He said reading the word reaps the wheat, meditation threshes it, grinds it, and makes it into bread.

You have listened to the first part of a two part message by Evangelist Sam Wood.

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More Marriages and families can be strengthened and fortified through the truths of God's Word.

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