God’s Great Delight

Thoughts From a Bible Reader

When our daughter Jen was in elementary school, we took her to a Ricky Scaggs concert. She fell absolutely in love with the fiddle playing, and decided that she wanted to play the fiddle as well. A close friend let us borrow her grandfather’s violin, Jen joined the elementary school orchestra, and her journey towards fiddling started with learning how to play classical orchestral music. As she grew and practiced, her abilities grew as well, and by high school she was playing in both the high school orchestra and the string ensemble, learning to play the music of Bach, Beethoven and Vivaldi.

But then one of the daughters in the family who had let Jen borrow the violin wanted it, and so we gave it back. And her dream of fiddling was put on hold.

Jen is in her 40’s now, and for her birthday this year my wife and I gave her a violin. An old, handmade violin with a beautiful sound. The lady who we bought the violin from told us that she can easily rework the violin’s bridge for Jen, flattening it out a little bit to turn the violin into a fiddle for her. The idea of giving her a violin, decades after her dream had been put on hold, was mine. And I knew without a doubt that this was a gift that would bring Jen a lot of joy. What I didn’t know was how this gift would open up to me a deeper understanding what Jesus had told the disciples when He said, “Do not fear, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom” (Luke 12:32, NKJV).

Saying that giving this gift to Jen gave me “good pleasure,” though, didn’t seem strong enough, so I went looking at the Greek word translated as “good pleasure.” It is eudokesen, the same word that God spoke when Jesus was baptized, which the New English Translation states as, “This is my one dear Son; in him I take great delight.” (Matt. 3:17). Eudokesen, “good pleasure,” can also be translated as “take great delight”! God finds great pleasure, He takes great delight, in giving us His kingdom! And that led me to wondering where else we are told that God takes pleasure, where He takes delight. And “great delight” really is pretty close to how I felt after giving Jen that violin!

In the Old Testament, the Psalms tell us, “May the splendor of the Lord endure. May the Lord find pleasure in the living things he has made” (Ps. 104:31). May the Lord find pleasure, find delight, in His creation! We find delight in the world that God has given us – the beauty of waterfalls, or of an amazing sunset. The hilarious way that pandas fall and roll and just keep on going. Baby goats hopping about. These are delights that we can easily relate to. And God is so engaged with His creation that He even knows what is going on with every single sparrow in the world. Even more than that, He could tell each of us how many hairs are on our heads right now (Luke 12:6-7). But God’s delight with His creation comes with a warning as well. In Revelation 11:18 we are told that God will destroy those who destroy the earth. Many today act as if we have no responsibility to act as stewards of the planet that God put us on, that He delights in. We act like we are free to treat it however we wish, with no consequences. I think that that is a remarkably stupid attitude for us to take, for us to treat God’s amazing handiwork with such contempt, which people usually seem to do in a quest to make more money. The love of money truly is the root of all kinds of evil (1 Tim. 6:10).

Psalm 147:11 tells us, “The Lord takes delight in his faithful followers, and in those who wait for his loyal love.” Do you try to faithfully follow the Lord? Do you wait for His love? That delights Him! And Psalm 149:4 says, “For the Lord takes delight in his people; he exalts the oppressed by delivering them.” God’s delight in us takes shape, in part, by His deliverance of those who are oppressed, by freeing us from injustice. We will look at this more when we look at Jesus.

In Proverbs 11:1 we read that God abhors dishonest scales, but delights in ones that weigh accurately. I don’t think that this is just about weighing out produce, but rather it is saying that God delights in us when we do business, or even just interact, with one another fairly, and hates it when we try to cheat one another. We read in Proverbs 11:20 that God delights in all whose ways are blameless, while He abhors the perverse in heart. Proverbs 12:22 tells us that God abhors liars, but takes delight in those who speak truthfully. I have a post on lying, explaining why I think that it is one of the sins that God hates the most, because when we read in Revelation 21:8 a list of those whose destiny is the lake of fire, the only category that has the word “all” attached to it is liars. Not even “all” murderers or “all” idol worshipers, but we read that “all liars” end up in the lake of fire. But speak the truth instead, and God will delight in you!

In Isaiah’s prophecy about God’s special servant we are told, “Behold! My Servant whom I uphold, My Elect One in whom My soul delights!” (Is. 42:1, NKJV). Mirroring this prophecy, we are told that when Jesus was baptized, “a voice from heaven said, ‘This is my one dear Son; in him I take great delight’” (Matt. 3:17). And when Jesus was on the mountain with Peter, James and John, speaking to Moses and Elijah, and Peter nervously proposed building shrines to honor Jesus, Moses and Elijah, “a bright cloud overshadowed them, and a voice from the cloud said, ‘This is my one dear Son, in whom I take great delight. Listen to him!’” (Matt. 17:5). The Father took, and I’m certain still takes, great delight in His Son, Jesus!

But we are not specifically told anywhere in the Gospels about when Jesus Himself took great delight. But we can wonder. When a leper came to Jesus and professed to Him, “Lord, if You are willing, you can make me clean,” was Jesus delighted that this man exhibited such faith in Him and His abilities to heal? Was He delighted at this opportunity to deliver one who was oppressed, as Psalm 149:4 tells us that God is, by delivering him from a disease that separated him from the rest of society? We aren’t told that. What we are told is that Jesus said, “I am willing. Be clean!” (Matt. 8:3). At another time ten lepers came close enough to call out to Jesus, simply calling out for Him to have mercy on them. He told them to go and show themselves to the priests, and as they obeyed, they were healed. “Then one of them, when he saw he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice. He fell with his face to the ground at Jesus’ feet and thanked him. (Now he was a Samaritan.) Then Jesus said, ‘Were not ten cleansed? Where are the other nine? Was no one found to turn back and give praise to God except this foreigner?’ Then he said to the man, ‘Get up and go your way. Your faith has made you well’” (Luke 17:15-19). I think that Jesus probably found delight in healing all ten of these lepers. But I think that He found a special delight in the one who returned in gratitude for his deliverance from a disease that had made him a social outcast.

There were other “foreigners,” non-Jews, who Jesus ministered to as well. A Roman centurion came to Him asking for healing for a servant, who he said was paralyzed and in anguish. And Jesus offered to go with the centurion and heal the servant. But the centurion’s response was that there was no need for Jesus to do so. He recognized Jesus’ authority, and knew that anyone with that kind of authority had no need to be physically present for the authority to be recognized and obeyed. “Just say the word and my servant will be healed. … When Jesus heard this he was amazed and said to those who followed him, ‘I tell you the truth, I have not found such faith in anyone in Israel!’ … Then Jesus said to the centurion, ‘Go; just as you believed, it will be done for you.’ And the servant was healed at that hour” (Matt. 8:5-13). As we read already, “The Lord takes delight in his faithful followers, and in those who wait for his loyal love” (Ps. 147:11). How could Jesus not take delight in a man who showed such faith, as well as a man who cared so much for those who served him?

When Jesus traveled out of Galilee, and into the area of Tyre and Sidon, a Canaanite woman came to Him crying out, “Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David! My daughter is horribly demon-possessed!” And Jesus didn’t respond to her. Finally, because she would not let up, His disciples begged Him to send her away, as I guess that she was really getting on their nerves. And so, finally, Jesus responded to her. But not in a way that we might suppose. No, His response was, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” “You and your daughter are not the people who I was sent to minister to,” He was basically saying. “But she came and bowed down before him and said, ‘Lord, help me!’ ‘It is not right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs,’ he said. ‘Yes, Lord,’ she replied, ‘but even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.’ Then Jesus answered her, ‘Woman, your faith is great! Let what you want be done for you.’ And her daughter was healed from that hour” (Matt. 15:21-28). What was going on here? Why wouldn’t Jesus just heal the woman’s daughter right from the start? Is Jesus’ healing power limited, so that He only had enough to heal Jews, and not other people, as if it is bread that has to go all around? But we know from when Jesus fed thousands while starting with next-to-no bread that scant resources don’t limit Him. And so I can only conclude that the point of this whole exchange was for both Jesus and the woman herself to hear the woman to state her faith clearly, as she did by saying, “Even if I am a dog, it’s not wrong for even me to receive a few crumbs.” And I think that Jesus found great delight in her response, as well as her tenacious love for her daughter. Why? Because those words were evidence of her faith, and they were spoken not only for Him, as I am certain that He knew that they would be written down and saved for you and me as well. They are a message for us today, if the world around us is telling us that we are undeserving of God’s favor, of His mercy. Even if we feel that we are no more than a dog beneath the table, we will not be denied God’s mercy and favor. And I think that Jesus delights in both our hearing about as well as our having this woman’s kind of faith.

And then there are the Samaritans. The relationship between Jews and the semi-Jewish Samaritans was fairly close to that between the Catholics of Ireland and the Protestants of Northern Ireland. Neither was fond of the other. But in John 4 we read that Jesus “had to pass through Samaria.” And in Samaria Jesus met and had the longest conversation of His that the Bible has saved for us, with a Samaritan woman at a well. In this conversation Jesus offered her the water of life, let her know that He was fully aware of the life that she had lived, and then told her that “a time is coming – and now is here – when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such people to be his worshipers” (John 4:23). She responded that she knew that the Messiah will come, and then Jesus told her that He is the Messiah. She went into town to share her experience, and “many Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the report of the woman who testified, ‘He told me everything I ever did.’ So when the Samaritans came to him, they began asking him to stay with them. He stayed there two days, and because of his word many more believed. They said to the woman, ‘No longer do we believe because of your words, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this one really is the Savior of the world’” (John 4:39-42). I think that these few days spent in a Samaritan village brought a great delight to Jesus, because so many lives were changed.

There is another aspect to this story as well. At the beginning of it the disciples had gone into town to get some food, coming back to find Jesus talking with the woman at the well. After the woman headed back into town, they tried to feed Jesus, only for Him to tell them that He had already eaten, from food that they were unaware of. This confused the disciples, so Jesus said, “My food is to do the will of the one who sent me and to complete his work. Don’t you say, ‘There are four more months and then comes the harvest?’ I tell you, look up and see that the fields are already white for harvest!” (John 4:34-35). In Matthew, as Jesus looked out on the crowds that He had been preaching to and healing, “he had compassion on them because they were bewildered and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, ‘The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into his harvest-ready fields’” (Matt. 9:36-38). And then in the very next chapter of Matthew we read that Jesus sent the twelve out, two by two, telling them, “As you go, preach this message: ‘The kingdom of heaven is near!’ Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, cast out demons” (Matt. 10:7-8). After they returned, “the apostles gathered around Jesus and told him everything they had done and taught” (Mark 6:30). Do you think that He might have been delighted at what they shared on their return? Later He sent 72 disciples out into the harvest, and “the seventy-two returned with joy, saying, ‘Lord, even the demons submit to us in your name!’ So he said to them, ‘I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven’” (Luke 10:17-18). Do you think that Jesus found delight in seeing those who followed Him and believed in Him taking up this ministry, going out into the harvest that was awaiting them? I do.

I think that there is so much more that delighted Jesus as well. Every time that He healed a person. Delivering those oppressed by demons. Bringing Jairus’ daughter, or the widow’s son, or His friend Lazarus back to life. Feeding the hungry. I think that when Peter had enough faith to walk on water with Jesus, it deeply delighted the Lord. I also think that He was delighted to use a fish to pay the temple tax for Peter and Himself. When the woman of poor reputation anointed Him with a jar of expensive oil, after washing His feet with her tears and her hair, or Mary anointed His head a few days before His death and burial, I think that He found great delight in the love and devotion that they showed. When Zacchaeus came out of the sycamore tree and welcomed Jesus joyfully into his house, and his life was changed, how could Jesus not be delighted? I think that He was especially delighted when He was with children, putting His hands on them and blessing them.

John uses over a quarter of his gospel (John 13-17) sharing with us everything that happened between the beginning of the Last Supper and Jesus and His disciples leaving for the Garden of Gethsemane. Jesus, near the end of these chapters, prays to the Father, and says, “But now I am coming to you (the Father), and I am saying these things in the world, so they may experience my joy completed in themselves” (John 17:13). All of the joy, all of the delight that Jesus experienced? He has left it for you and me to experience ourselves. He is sharing His delight with us! What a wonderful thought!

Do you have questions or comments that you would like to share with me? Feel free to drop me an email (stevesuterfaithandfruit@gmail.com).

My posts come from my observations in reading the Bible literally dozens of times, always hoping to understand it a little bit better. If you want to go back and read more of what I’ve observed in my reading, click here.

Unless otherwise noted, the Scriptures quoted are from the NET Bible® https://netbible.com copyright ©1996, 2019 used with permission from Biblical Studies Press, L.L.C. All rights reserved

NKJV Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.