We must recognize the difference between rejoicing and feeling happy. There is all the world of difference between rejoicing and feeling happy. The scriptures tell us that we should always rejoice. Take that lyrical epistle of Paul’s to the Philippians. Rejoice in the Lord always. And again I say, rejoice. He goes on saying it.
Rejoicing is commanded. Yes, but there’s all the difference in the world between rejoicing and being happy. I said you can’t make yourself feel happy, but you can make yourself rejoice. Well, how, says someone? Well, in this sense, that you’re always told to rejoice in the Lord. Happiness is something within ourselves. Rejoicing is in the Lord.
Very well then, draw the distinction between rejoicing in the Lord and feeling happy. Take that 4th chapter of 2nd Corinthians that we read together at the beginning. And there I think you find the great apostle putting it all so plainly and so clearly. You notice these extraordinary contrasts of his. He says we are troubled on every side. I don’t think he felt very happy at that moment, but he says he is not distressed. We are perplexed. Well, he wasn’t feeling happy all the day at that point, but he’s not in despair. Persecuted, but not forsaken. Cast down. Yes, but not destroyed, and so on. In other words, the apostle doesn’t suggest there that he was this kind of happy person in a carnal sense. But he was rich, I see. And that is the difference between the two. Very well, that brings me to the practical point, which is this.
The great thing in this respect is to learn how to stir ourselves up. That’s the whole essence of this message. As I’ve been describing to you, the whole danger is that the mood comes upon us, and we allow it to dominate and to dictate. And there we are. We say we’d like to be delivered, and yet we do nothing about it. We’re waiting. The apostles’ advice to Timothy is, stir up the gift. Away dull sloth and melancholy.
You’ve got to speak to yourself. I’ve said this many times in this series, and I shall go on saying it. There is a sense in which what the scriptures do is to teach us how to speak to ourselves. You remember how I put it in the first sermon like this. Instead of allowing yourself to speak to you, YOU speak to yourself.
This horrible self that plays upon the feelings because the self can’t really face the intellect. There’s no argument at all. So self always concentrates on the feelings. If you thought about the thing, you’d shake yourself out of that mood at once, that bitter, jealous, envious mood, whatever it is. That can’t stand up to reason. Oh no, so it turns to the feelings, and the feelings rather like it, and they say it’s too bad, and you’re not being dealt with fairly, and so on. They speak to you. Now I say the thing to do is speak to it.
Don’t let yourself, which works on your feelings, speak to you. You speak to yourself. And stir up the gift. Remind yourself of certain things. And you must talk to your feelings. And you must say to your feelings, I’m not going to be dominated by you. I can’t make myself happy, but I refuse to be miserable. You shan’t hold me down. You shan’t settle upon me as a clown. I’m going out. I’m breaking through. You get up and you walk. You do something. Stir up the gift. That’s it.
And we are commanded to do this. And the scripture everywhere exalts us to do this. You allow these moods to control you and you’ll remain miserable. But you mustn’t allow them. You must shake them off. I say again, away! Dull sloth and melancholy. Don’t recognize it. Very well, how do you do all that? Well, you do it like this.
The child of light walking in darkness. He doesn’t see the face of the Lord at this point, but he knows he’s there, so he goes on. Very well, still more practically, let me put it like this. Do you want to be happy? Would you like to be thrilling with joy and happiness as a Christian? Here’s the prescription. Blessed, (truly happy) are they who hunger and thirst after righteousness, not after happiness. Don’t go seeking thrills. Don’t go seeking happiness. Seek righteousness. And as certainly as you do so, you shall be blessed. You will be filled. You will get the happiness. Seek the happiness. You’ll never find it. Seek righteousness and you’ll discover that you’re happy.
It’ll be there without your knowing it, without your seeking it. Oh, but finally let me put it in this word. Do you want to know the supreme joy? Do you want to be filled with a happiness that eludes description? There’s only one thing to do really. Seek him. Seek him himself. Turn to the Lord Jesus.
If you find your feelings are black and dark and depressive, don’t sit down and commiserate with yourself. Don’t try and work up something. Oh, this is the simple essence of it all. Go directly to Him. Be His. As the little child who is miserable and unhappy because somebody else has taken his toy or has broken it, runs to its father or its mother.
So you and I, as we find ourselves afflicted by this condition, have really but one thing to do, go to Him. If you seek the Lord Jesus Christ and find him, there’s no need to worry about your happiness and your joy. It is joy itself. It is happiness, it is peace, it is love, it is everything.
Martyn Lloyd-Jones. Spiritual Depression – Feelings.
