This is a ministry of the Pee Dee Baptist Association, comprised of 31 Southern Baptist churches in Dillon and Marlboro Counties. For more information call 843-774-8062.
Featured this month is Rev. Chris Alderman, the pastor of Little Rock Baptist Church, Little Rock.
“God Has Always Been Happy”
We hum our favorite music. We dress like our favorite stars. We naturally imitate the people & things we like.
2 Corinth. 3:18, “Beholding as in glass the glory of the Lord, we are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of God.” As believers, we are to portray the glory of the Lord so that His superior excellence and worth may be seen. How does that work?
We should enjoy the things in which God takes pleasure. In what does God take pleasure? Matt. 3:17, 12:41, & 17:5, the Father says, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.”
God delights and takes pleasure in the Lord Jesus. In what does God take pleasure? Psalm 115:3, “God is in the heavens; He hath done whatsoever He hath pleased.”
Psalm 135:6, “Whatsoever the Lord pleased, that did He in heaven, and in earth, in the seas, and all the deep places.” God takes pleasure in His Son and in running the universe.
Ezekiel 18:23 and 32 “Have I any pleasure at all that the wicked should die? For I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth.” And yet the Bible teaches that God does have pleasure in the death of the wicked.
Deuter. 28.62, “And it shall come to pass, that as the Lord rejoiced over you to do good, and to multiply you, so the LORD will rejoice over you to destroy you, and to bring you to naught.” So, in one sense God takes pleasure in the death of the wicked and in another sense He doesn’t. How is this reconciled?
The pleasure for God in this is that His justice is satisfied. Those who have moved beyond repentance and faith in His Son, the Lord Jesus, and live! Isaiah 46:10 and 11, “My counsel shall stand, and I will do all My pleasure. I have spoken it, I will also bring it to pass; I have purposed it, I will also do it.” God takes Pleasure in His Son, in running the universe, in the death of the wicked, and in performing and keeping of His Word.
There’s one more thing in which God takes pleasure. Isaiah 53:10,11, “Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise Him (Jesus); He hath put Him to grief. He shall see the travail of His soul, and be satisfied; for He shall bear their iniquities.”
God was pleased to punish His Son on the Cross. God was satisfied in the death of His Son for our sin. John 10:17,18, “Therefore doth My Father love Me, because I lay down my life. No man taketh it from Me, but I lay it down of Myself.” Hebrews 12 says that He did it all for the joy that was set before Him. Jesus’ joy and pleasure is in the redemption of a sinful man.
At the one point in history where it looked like God was trapped on the Cross, He was totally in charge doing precisely what He pleased. Where is Jesus bodily now? Seated at the right Hand of God in heaven. Hebrews 10:12, “But this Man, after He had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down on the right hand of God.”
Where are the pleasures of God kept? Psalm 16:11, “In Thy Presence is fullness of joy; at Thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore.”
Jesus is at the right hand of God and He is the pleasure of God and our joy. And the pleasure of Jesus is in the salvation of sinners. None of this pleasure, however, can be yours until you believe in the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus, surrender your life to the Master in repentance for your sins, and call upon the name of the Lord…. THEN thou shalt be saved! Is Jesus your pleasure?
