Delight. Now there’s a word that has some emotion, a kind of warm and fuzzy glow, behind it. How do you describe delight? What words do you use to convey what it is to be delighted? The dictionary people at Miriam-Webster put it like this: “1) a high degree of gratification, joy, extreme satisfaction; 2) something that gives great pleasure.” This morning I’m thinking about being delighted . . .

Proverbs 8, for me at least, stretches the mind. It takes me beyond the “immediate context” of wisdom and its personification and intertwines it with the Person of Christ. As I read Proverbs 8 I can’t help but conclude that wisdom and Christ are one . . . that Christ is wisdom. Here wisdom declares she existed before the world was . . . that she was present when God created the heavens and earth . . . and not just present but actively engaged as a “master craftsman” . . . the sense is clear that by wisdom God created all things. Sound familiar? “For by Him (Christ) all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him.” (Col. 1:16)

And so, it’s with that connection, that sense that, as you read these verses in Proverbs 8, you are being treated to some divine insight into the dynamics of the Godhead in the work of creation. So what’s delight got to do with it? Check this out . . .

“Then I (Wisdom) was beside Him (the LORD) as a master craftsman; and I was daily His delight, rejoicing always before Him, rejoicing in His inhabited world, and my delight was with the sons of men.” (Proverbs 8:30-31)

Ok . . . so what gratification . . . what joy . . . what extreme satisfaction . . . what great pleasure . . . what delight . . . was being experienced by Almighty God as the earth was being formed? Lots! Tons! More than I can imagine! And if I’m reading this right it wasn’t just in the creation being formed but His delight was in the “Master Craftsman” . . . Wisdom aka Christ was His delight. As the Master Craftsman rejoiced in the presence of God . . . as He rejoiced in the inhabited world . . . as He dwelt “beside” the Father and wielded His skillful artistry . . . He was the Father’s delight. Can’t you hear God saying, “Behold my Son, in whom I am well pleased!”

And while the Father’s delighting in Wisdom, Wisdom delights in the inhabited world and in the sons of men. Sources of pleasure . . . that’s what creation and the sons of men where for God, the Master Architect, and for His Son, the Master Craftsman. Together as One with the Holy Spirit, they rejoiced, they delighted, they beamed over the heavens and the earth and people they had created and set to inhabit it.

Fast forward millennia . . . the fall . . . the rise of a nation of promise and blessing to all peoples . . . the law . . . the Christ . . . the cross . . . the resurrection . . . the ascension . . . the redemption of souls through faith in the person and work of Jesus, God in flesh, God among us . . . and can you still sense a prevailing atmosphere of delight? I read Luke 15 this morning too. There is joy in heaven over one sinner who repents (Luke 15:7). There is a Father who watches for the return of the prodigal . . . who looks for the ember of faith turning a heart toward home . . . who, when he sees it, though the boy might sill be a “great way off”, runs and falls on his neck and kisses him . . . delighting in his return . . . clothing him in the finest garments of salvation . . . declaring a feast, “Let us eat and be merry” (15:22-23) . . . rejoicing . . . extremely gratified and satisfied . . . experiencing great pleasure . . . delighted!

My God is a God of delight! Do I have that right?

He delights in the Son . . . the Son delights in the Father . . . and they delight in the those they have made . . . and re-made through the work of the cross.

And I delight too . . . for His glory . . . Yes!