June 16, 2019 – Trinity Sunday Text: Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31
Dear Friends in Christ,
Back in August of 2000, we the members of Good Shepherd Lutheran Church placed a cornerstone (though it’s not really in a corner) in the front of our church. We placed in there items such as a bible, a hymnal, a newspaper, a list of our congregation members and a few other things. We sang a hymn and had prayers. Someday, like at many churches that celebrate a 100th Anniversary, this might be opened. What will people see? They will see God’s Word, the words of his people and the words of the world.
It was our prayer that day that God would bless our congregation and the mission of God’s people. We lifted to God our petitions that people would hear the Word of God, proclaim that Word in the world, lift up to God their songs of praise.
In our text for today we do not have a time capsule with objects in it, but we do get a rare glimpse of what was there at the earth’s foundation. Our goal is to open this text so that we can see the . . .
“DELIGHT OF GOD”
This Old Testament Reading from Proverbs gives us some additional knowledge of what was happening at creation beyond what we know in the Book of Genesis. Creation is something that is constantly argued in our world. Let’s keep it simple as God’s people and say this. We were not there when the world was created, but God was, and He has revealed how it happened. God is credible. We believe what His Word has to say.
What Proverbs adds so beautifully is we are given a glimpse of God even before His work of creation. Before the world began, God was rejoicing, and his delight begins the story of our salvation.
What was God delighting in? First God was delighting in Jesus. Verse 30 says, “I was daily his delight.” Christ, the Son of God, was and is an object of delight and pleasure for the Father. Paul clarified this in Colossians 1:16: “By him all things were created, in heaven and on earth.” This ties the Father with the Son. We also know from Genesis that the Spirit “hovered over the waters.” The Trinity was present at creation. Jesus is the master workman who is with the Father before the world was created. Father, Son, and Spirit worked together to bring all things into being, and after it was all created, God called it good.
After the fall into sin, Jesus had to come to restore creation. If we go back to the foundation of the world and found this time capsule we would see that the story of our salvation begins with this delight of God.
Many times we are guilty of approaching God for a temporary fix in our lives. When something is wrong we turn to God. A divorce. A death. A disaster. A challenge. A question. We reduce God then to a temporary healer or fixer. We make him fit our needs.
People are more like what W. Somerset Maugham wrote, “The nature of men and women – their essential nature – is so vile and despicable that if you were to portray a person as he really is, no one would believe you.” Is that you? Is that me? Do we want all our thoughts exposed? Our actions to be known?
This is why we need the delight of God. Forgiveness for God is not a momentary fix in our lives. It is part of a much larger story. God found delight at creation after he formed us. When we fell into sin, He still delighted in His Son. Why? Because Jesus chose to come, to die for your sin, and to rise for your salvation. By His death and resurrection, Jesus promises to bring you from this world into the new creation of God, where you will sing an everlasting song of praise.
I do enjoy the Book of Proverbs. I think of most of it as God’s Instruction Book. There are short proverbial sayings that help us in discipleship. It helps us to walk in the ways of God. It is easy to think we are the ones pursuing Wisdom. In our text though we are not pursuing God. Instead, we come across words about God pursuing us. Wisdom goes to the crowded places, calls to all people, and sings of God’s delight. Before we ever pursue God, God pursues us. Before we ever delight in God, God already delights in us.
Thus, our salvation begins and ends with God’s delight. As verse 31 sates, “rejoicing in his inhabited world and delighting in the children of man.”
The delight of God is with us for a lifetime. Most of us or maybe all of us will not be around when the cornerstone of our church is opened some day. But the delight of God will continue through Jesus to make a difference in the lives of our sons and daughters, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. That brings a smile to my face, to your face and most importantly to the face of God. He delights in the salvation of all.
Amen.