GOD’S DELIGHT
Roland H Brown
Genesis 6: 5-8
Luke 3: 21-22
Psalms 16: 3
We sang in our hymn (No 59) about God’s heart. What a heart God has! It says that He “so loved the world”, John 3: 16. We may have a circle of those that we love; God’s love in its scope i s universal. In the gospel He makes His heart known to us. He commends His love in the gospel; He commends to us what should never need to be commended. God has given abundant proof of His love and His care and concern for men. He is the God with whom we have to do; a ll of us have to do with Him; “in him we live and move and exist”, Acts 17: 28. One of the early preachers of the Acts says, “himself giving to all life and breath and all things”, (v 25); that is often overlooked. People turn to God when they are in trouble sometimes. It has been said that there are times when all men pray. Sometimes when troubles and difficulties arise people see no way out. As a last resort they might appeal to God, p eople that have never given Him much thought, previously. Have you ever reflected upon that. He is the God who has to do with all men. All men have had and will have to do with God. He keeps us alive; He gives to all life and breath and all things. The very cocktail of air in this room means that God keeps us alive. The scripture says,
If he only thought of himself, and gathered unto him his spirit and his breath,
All flesh would expire (Job 34: 14,15)
before Him. People take God’s name in vain; they blaspheme His name. He could very easily remove them but He keeps them alive. One man said, “Jehovah has kept me alive” (Josh 14: 10); he was conscious of it. He was an old man; he was conscious of God keeping him alive. Why does He keep men alive? He keeps them alive that they might hear and answer to His appeal in the gospel. It is a tender appeal that comes from His heart: the heart of God is love. It is directed to your heart too. God’s appeal is directed to your heart, as well as your conscience. He may touch your conscience in the preaching but His object is to reach your heart.
We have read of God’s heart. It says, “it grieved him in his heart”, when He saw the wickedness on the earth. He was not stoical about it. It is very easy to look at the news and look at the daily menu of atrocities and calamities in the world and become stoical about them. I remember my father telling me there was a time when he was young, that a murder in London was front page news on the newspaper; i t was a headline. Now you might just get a few lines inside the newspaper at the bottom of the page, because murder is so common. It is quite easy to become stoical. God is not stoical about it. When the first man was murdered in this world, God said to his brother who killed him, “the voice of thy brother’s blood is crying to me from the ground”, Gen 4: 10. I have often thought about that. If the blood of one man cried to God from the ground what a cry must go up into God’s ears at the present time. Just take this city in which we are. Where there is a city of men there is a concentration of evil. You think of the cry that goes up to God, the evil. You can see some of it; much of it you do not see, but God sees. He not only sees it, but He hears it. It is interesting to go through the Scriptures and find what God hears. In the gospel He speaks to us about the blood of Jesus. That speaks, too. The blood of the first man that was murdered cried out to God for vengeance. When God’s own Son, His only-begotten Son, died, His blood was shed. It says of His blood that it speaks “better than Abel”, Heb 12: 24. The blood of Jesus speaks; it speaks to God of righteousness accomplished. It speaks to believers of safety and eternal salvation. It was “an offering and sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling savour” , Eph 5: 2. That is how the sacrifice of Jesus is spoken of. He laid down His life in order that those like you and me who are subject to death and judgment, deserving nothing from God but His judgment, might receive eternal blessing.
I just touch on this verse in Genesis because it says God was grieved in His heart when H e took account of the state of man. When it speaks of man it could mean mankind, which does not just mean men; it means men and women, boys and girls; and God saw. He wants you and me to see too, what the heart of man is. It says He “saw that the wickedness of Man was great on the earth, and every imagination of the thoughts of his heart only evil continually”. That is all that comes out of man’s heart. We have spoken of God’s heart being love. What comes out of man’s heart as God sees it is “only evil continually”. God tells us in His word that the heart of man “is deceitful above all things” , Jer 17: 9. Do you discover that or do you think there is some good in you? That is common. I noticed recently when you ask young people how they are: when I was young, they used to say, ‘I am very well thank you’; now I find that my grandchildren say, ‘I am good’. I was moved to ask them where that goodness was. Where is it? The Lord Jesus says, “There is none good but one, God”, Luke 18: 19. One day I came to it; in the epistle to the Romans Paul says, “I know that in me, that is, in my flesh, good does not dwell”, Rom 7: 18. Good is not there; that is what God sees. He is the heart knowing God. These things apply to me as much as you. He is the heart-knowing God and it is very solemn to think that God looks into my heart as the creature of His hand and He finds an incapacity for good in it, “just evil continually”. “By one man sin entered into the world, and by sin death; and thus death passed upon all men”, Rom 5: 12. Scripture says, “all have sinned, and come short”, Rom 3: 23. We have been speaking of God’s image and likeness. Man was made in that way, has come short of the glory of God and his heart is incapable of doing any good, only evil. People speak of reform. When people are put in prison they talk about their rehabilitation, as if o ut of something wicked you can make something good. It cannot be done. God says, “The end of all flesh is come before me”, Gen 6: 13. A little lower down than where we read it says, “God looked upon the earth, and behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted its way on the earth”, v 12.
Perhaps this does not sound like glad tidings, but we have to learn to see things as God sees them, and that means looking at ourselves, not as we might like to be or we should be, but as God sees us, as sinners . If you are convicted of that, you are convicted of what is said in these verses, that there is no good to be found there, then the consequence of that, if God touches your conscience with it, is that you will turn to Him in repentance. God, instead of being grieved, will greatly rejoice. The Lord says, “there shall be joy in heaven for one repenting sinner”, Luke 15: 7. The gospel is going out this afternoon in many places, many countries, many different circumstances. There will be joy in heaven over one repenting sinner. Could that be you? A repenting sinner, turning to God in repentance, because the way of salvation has not changed: repentance towards God and faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ.
I turn from this passage in Gene sis to speak of Him. In Luke 3 Jesus came to be baptised and there were many others in the crowd to be baptised around about Him. When this One blessed Man had “been baptised and praying, that the heaven was opened”. Think of that, God opening the heaven for this lowly Man; “and the Holy Spirit descended in a bodily form as a dove upon him; and a voice came out of heaven”. He had found the Man in whom He had found His delight. Every other man had been a grief to Him; I have been a grief to Him, I would acknowledge that. There was One Man who was never a grief to Him, but on the other hand He was a source of joy, long before He commenced His public service. You get this word, “in thee I have found my delight”. He had found it; God found in that Man all that He had ever sought from men. At the same time, Jesus was expressing to men all that God is. He came into manhood in order to lay His life down. We are reminded of that as we gather round the emblems at the Lord’s supper , that He came to die. People come to live; t hey want to live. He came to give Himself, as the s cripture says, “a ransom for all”, 1 Tim 2: 6. He came to lay down His life in death, but before He did, He suffered on the cross; He suffered for sins on the cross. There was what He suffered at the hands of man; we often comment on that: He had a crown of thorns, and the nails were driven into His hands and His feet. What He suffered from God, who could speak of it, because He made Him to be sin? We are sinners by nature, but He was made sin; it was abhorrent to Him. He was made what He hated. It says, “Thou hast loved righteousness and hast hated lawlessness” , Heb 1: 9. Lawlessness is sin. Scripture says that (1 John 3: 4); it is one of those reciprocal expressions, sin is lawlessness, lawlessness is sin, and He was made sin for us, as believers. He was made sin for us that believers might become God’s righteousness in Him. For people like you and me who have no righteousness of our own, whose hearts are incapable of good, only evil continually, God has a righteousness. The righteousness of God is "towards all”, Rom 3: 22 . It is presented in the gospel as towards all; i t is available. What is presented to us in the gospel is an accomplished work, an accomplished redemption, and it has set God free to present this righteousness, to clothe whoever will be clothed by it. It is towards all, but it is “upon all those who believe” . I ask you, I feel the responsibility to do so, is it upon you? As we sit here this afternoon, how are you clothed? You might say, ‘I am wearing my Sunday best’ . Are you clothed with the righteousness of God? There is no finer clothing than that; in God’s sight you could not be clothed better than if you are clothed with that, o ne against whom no charge can be brought. I said your heart was wicked and only capable of evil; that is the truth. The work of Christ is such that God can clothe you with His own righteousness and He can say of you that “their sins and their lawlessnesses I will never remember any more”, Heb 8: 12. What a word that is. What peace that brings. Do you have peace with God? You can have peace with God in the knowledge that you will not come under His judgment; and n ot be uncertain about it.
There are many persons who hope that they will escape the judgment of God. Some try by good works and religious observances of various kinds, and they hope, but they are not sure; t here is always that nagging doubt. Have you got a nagging doubt like that or are you sure? You can be sure that if you are clothed in the righteousness of God you are acceptable in God’s sight. You are acceptable in the worth of this One in whom God found His delight; He found it in Jesus. There is what He was, but God has found His delight in what Jesus has done. What He has done is that He has gone to the cross, to give His life. He bore and exhausted the judgment of God in respect of sin and sins. He “bore our sins in his body on the tree”, 1 Pet 2: 24 . What an affecting thing that is. Think of that holy body, “thou hast prepared me a body”, Heb 10: 5. We were reminded of it in the loaf this morning. In that body He bore my sins; they were laid upon Him: “Jehovah hath laid upon him the iniquity of us all”, Isa 53: 6. I do not know whether these things affect you, but they affect me, deeply. To think of sins that I have committed: some I remember, many I cannot. It is wonderful to know that those sins, some of them perhaps lightly, casually committed, were laid upon One who was sinless, upon a sinless body. God laid upon Him the iniquity of us all, and He has expressed His judgment for sins and sin without any relief, without any mitigation, on the head of Jesus. Not only did He bear the judgment, but He went into death . The penalty of sin is death and He went into death in order to remove that penalty, that judicial penalty: “the soul that sinneth, it shall die”, Ezek 18: 4.
He went into death and He lay among the dead; and from the dead there was a selective resurrection. From among the myriads that lie in death, one Man was selected, and He was raised and glorified and He sits at God’s right hand this afternoon. He sits there at God’s invitation: “Sit at my right hand until I put thine enemies as footstool of thy feet”, Heb 1: 13. What does that tell me? By faith I take account of this glorious Man, sitting at the right hand of God, although we do not see Him publicly yet: the writer of the Hebrews says, “we see not yet all things subjected to him , but we see Jesus, who was made some little inferior to angels on account of the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour”, Heb 2: 8, 9. God presents to you through the gospel a living Saviour, a glorious Saviour, and the fact He is sitting at God’s right hand tells me that the work He has accomplished has been completed to God’s satisfaction. If He bore my sins in His body on the tree, they must have been eternally removed from God’s sight if He has been raised from among the dead and has been seated at God’s right hand. He could not be sitting there with my sins still upon Him. My sins have been removed judicially by God and Jesus sits there as having accomplished everything that He was entrusted to do. He is my righteousness, my righteousness before God. As He is, so am I in this world, 1 John 4: 17. What a blessed thing that is. What peace it brings into the soul. What certainty it brings into the soul.
Persons that are clothed in the righteousness of God are people that are described in this p salm as saints. You might think of saints as people that died long ago, who performed miracles of one kind or another and became elevated to the position of a saint officially, in the Roman C atholic church. The idea is that, whilst they have been named as a saint you can pray to them as if, in some way, they can be a mediator for you with God. It is an evil thing to teach that; Scripture tells us there is one mediator of God and men (1 Tim 2: 5), and it is not the virgin Mary, nor is it any of the myriads of persons who are called saints, that many souls in their ignorance pray to. The word saint means the sanctified one, and God in the gospel intends that you should not only receive remission of sins, but that you might receive “inheritance among them that are sanctified by faith in me”, Acts 26: 18. You must be a believer, you must be clothed in the righteousness of God to come into that sanctified company; otherwise it would no longer be a sanctified company. As you are clothed in the righteousness of God, through faith in Christ and through faith in His blood, you discover that you have an inheritance in the company of those who are spoken of as saints. God gives the Holy Spirit so that that might be real to you. Inheritance involves living in the love of God. The love of God is shed abroad in the hearts where once there was only evil; God is pleased to shed His love abroad in the human heart. What a triumph of God’s grace that, in my heart where God saw nothing but evil naturally, He should in His grace shed His own love abroad through the indwelling of a divine P erson.
The preacher has a responsibility to ask these questions, and so I ask you, are you conscious of that, are you conscious of having received not only the remission of your sins, but the precious gift of the Holy Spirit? If you are not sure about it, you can ask God for it. The Lord Jesus said, “If therefore ye, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much rather shall your Father who is of heaven give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him? ”, Luke 11: 13. You can ask the Holy Spirit to make Himself a reality to you, that you might prove His power that the unseen things of which we were speaking earlier become a reality to you. You need the Holy Spirit for that. You cannot see the great spiritual realities with your natural eyes. There are “Things which eye has not seen, and ear not heard, and which have not come into man’s heart, which God has prepared for them that love him”, 1 Cor 2: 9. He wants you to know what they are and to enjoy them now. The gift of the Holy Spirit has that in mind.
Blessed as all that is, I just wanted to draw attention to this verse which says, “To the saints that are on the earth, and to the excellent thou hast said, In them is all my delight”. I just draw attention to the “all” . When the Father spoke from heaven, He said, “in thee I have found my delight”; that is in Christ. Christ is no longer here, but there are those that are on the earth indwelt by the Spirit, sanctified persons, apart from the whole course of things that is going on to judgment and God says of them, “In them is all my delight”. You think of God looking out on the whole scene, nothing for His pleasure in it except this circle of whom we have been speaking, a circle that exists for the glory of Christ. I thought that was one touching thing that I could carry away with me this weekend, an impression of t he circle of His brethren, the very circle itself is for His glory. Outside of that in the world around, there is nothing God finds pleasure in. He says, “In them is all my delight”. I just mention these things that we might find our portion in them, we might first of all recognise what our hearts are by nature in order that we might turn in repentance to God and find Christ in whom He has found His delight, has founded redemption, and He is able to clothe us with a righteousness that is not our own which is in view of being for His pleasure here as we enter into the inheritance among those who are sanctified by faith in Christ.
May it be the portion of each one of us for His Name’s sake.
West Norwood
17th September 2023