The Delight of God

 

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” And God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food. [30] And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so. And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day. (Genesis 1:27–31 ESV).

 

Having come to the end of our exploration of the Apostles, I decided to look at the “good” of God. Our reading today is taken from the end of the Creation story as God surveys His handiwork and pronounces it as “very good” (v. 30). The Hebrew word is טוֹב (pronounced “tove”). It is used throughout the Old Testament and means beautiful, best, better, bountiful, cheerful, at ease, fair (word), (be in) favor, fine, glad, good, graciously, joyful, kindly, kindness, loving, merry, most, pleasant, pleasure, precious, prosperity, ready, sweet, wealth, welfare, (be) well-favored), and delight. It could be translated that God saw His creation and was “delighted by its goodness.”

 

Knowing the rest of the story we might scoff at this reaction. There is very little “good” or delightful in the world we know in its now fallen state. Yet, we so often forget that is not what it first was; and we fail to understand that, even now, God is working His purpose and will through Jesus to finally return us to that creation (cf. Revelation 21:1-4).

 

Recently I listened to a podcast by John Piper that reminded me of this truth. I struck me as an important and often overlooked truth. In the podcast, John Piper said:

 

“Human beings are created for joy in God, for admiring God, for being amazed at God, for standing in awe of God, and wondering at God.”

 

I think we become so bent toward doing things that might somehow impress God, or at least satisfy God, that we fail to recognize that He needs nothing from us, but desires us to simply be “good”… delighted in Him.

 

Listen to the prophet Zephaniah: “The LORD your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you by his love; he will exult over you with loud singing.” (Zephaniah 3:17 ESV).

 

Read that again and shout the word “he”… it is the Great God Almighty, Creator of Heaven and Earth who stands in our midst. He is rejoicing over us with delight! He is quietening the storm that rages around us by His love! He is singing praise and exaltation over us with loud singing! All of this because of who He is, not what we do or don’t do. Ponder that and think of the incredible gift Jesus is in making us God’s children!