Proverbs 8, verses 22 through 36, these are God's words. Yahweh possessed me at the beginning of His way, before His works of old. I have been established from everlasting, from the beginning, before there was ever an earth. When there were no depths, I was brought forth. When there were no fountains abounding with water, Before the mountains were settled, before the hills, I was brought forth. While as yet he had not made the earth, or the fields, or the primal dust of the world, when he prepared the heavens, I was there. When he drew a circle on the face of the deep, when he established the clouds above, when he strengthened the fountains of the deep, when he assigned to the sea its limit, so that the waters would not transgress his command when he marked out the foundations of the earth. Then I was beside him as a master craftsman, and I was daily his delight, rejoicing always before him, rejoicing in his inhabited world, and my delight was with the sons of men. Now, therefore, listen to me, my children, for blessed are those who keep my ways. Hear instruction and be wise, and do not disdain it. Blessed is the man who listens to me, watching daily at my gates, watching at the posts of my doors. For whoever finds me finds life and obtains favor from Yahweh. But he who sins against me wrongs his own soul. All those who hate me love death. So far the reading of God's inspired and inerrant word. For most of this chapter in Proverbs, we have had an attribute of God personified and therefore speaking as a woman, a counterpart, an opponent to the foreign woman or the strange woman. And this attribute is the wisdom of God, the wisdom of God which is especially associated in Scripture with the Son of God, the Son whom John chapter 1 refers to repeatedly as the Word, the Son whom 1 Corinthians calls for us, Christ the wisdom of God and the power of God. And as wisdom as an attribute has spoken, there has been some overlap with the Son. And especially now as we come into verses 22 through 36. Because now It's not just the personification of an attribute, but there's an actual reference to a point in time and a state of existence outside of time and a particular person. a particular interaction with God himself. It's a little bit different than one of God's attributes being personified and addressing us, but what we have in much of this passage is wisdom being a person telling us about his relationship with God, and particularly his relationship then, if we're going to put it in the terms in which Christ has made God, the triune God, known to us, his relationship with the Father. And this is wonderful for us. One of the great things in being a Christian is knowing the love of God in Christ Jesus. And I think we hear more about that than this other great thing about being a Christian that is in our passage this evening, and that is knowing the delight of God in Christ Jesus. Now, both of these are ministered to us by God the Holy Spirit. You remember In Romans chapter 5, the Scripture told us that it is the Holy Spirit who pours out the love of God into our hearts. And you come into Romans chapter 8, especially that last third or so of the chapter, and you find out just what the Spirit is doing as He pours out the love of God into our hearts. He is communicating to us that we are his in Christ Jesus. Nothing can separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus. Because of course, Jesus is God the Son. And if God has been loving us from within himself, the creator, then what can any creature, any created thing do to undo that love? And of course, the answer is nothing. And if God has been loving us in himself, in his son, from all eternity, what can happen in time to undo a love that is from eternity? And of course, the answer is nothing. Well, we have something very similar then in Proverbs 8, verses 22 through 36, because here we discover that God has not only love within himself, but delight within himself, the Father delighting in the Son, and the Son delighting in the Father, and that it was in the delight within the Godhead, the intra-Trinitarian, that means within the Trinity, in the intra-Trinitarian delight of God. God has been delighted to create and to redeem man, to bring us into being enjoyed by him and enjoying him. And it is perhaps in this connection that the gospel, the one of the four gospels, that most focuses on Christ as the wisdom of God, Christ as the eternal word, Christ as the word became flesh, that the Holy Spirit also gives us the most about the joy of the Lord Jesus in his Father and his speaking to us so that his joy might be in us. That's the language he uses, not just that he came so that we might have his joy in us, not just that he died so that we might have his joy in us. But the scripture says, and the Lord Jesus himself said to his apostles, that He has spoken to them that His joy might be in them. He has spoken to us that His joy might be in us. And that's the big picture of these 15 verses that are before us this evening. The one in whom God has delighted as also God from all eternity. The one who has rejoiced before God from all eternity and God having delight in and with the sons of men and inviting us to be blessed, to be happy. Blessed is the man, verse 34. Blessed are those, verse 32, and the word there meaning primarily happy, as we had in the psalm in yesterday's devotional. How happy is the man who fears the Lord. And so the delight of God creating and redeeming man into a happiness, that is in God himself, a happiness to have the Son, a happiness to, by the having of the Son, have the grace, have the favor, have the pleasure in us also of the Father indeed, of the whole Godhead. And so there is something wonderful here with Christ, the Son of God, the second person of the Godhead, the Word, the wisdom of God being the Creator. And this is perhaps, well, it's certainly connected. Maybe we shouldn't talk about why, but it certainly overlaps with and communicates then the same thing to us. As John chapter 1, which we have mentioned already a few times, Colossians 1, 16 and 17, the Lord Jesus being the one who created all things invisible and visible, who created all the powers that there are, uh, Ephesians chapter three and verse nine, uh, Jesus being, uh, the one through whom all things, uh, were made and Hebrews chapter one, verse two, I believe maybe it was still in verse one, because the verse two, uh, with Christ the creator. And so there's this emphasis in, uh, in at least those four places in the new Testament on Jesus being this one who is God the Creator, the One through whom God made everything, certainly opening and applying then for us the passage before us this evening. And so we want to study with great interest. We want to learn as much as God is glad to tell us about the relationship between the Father and the Son from all eternity, because that is the relationship in which we come to know the love of God for us and the delight of God in us, the delight into which he brings us. And so, as we consider this passage and that relationship this evening, we'll consider these five things about it and then make application in a sixth head or heading to ourselves. The five things being the timing of the relationship, the nature of the relationship, the identity of the relationship, and we're using the word there in a mathematical sense, that the relationship is an identity, one being identified with the other. the delight of the relationship, the fruit of the relationship, and then we'll make some further application as we consider in verses 34 through 36 the necessity of our own relationship. So the timing of the relationship, Yahweh possessed me at the beginning of his way, before his works of old. So before there are any works, what is the way of Yahweh? What is the path that the living God takes? This, of course, is a trick question, is an impossible question, because He is infinite, eternal, and unchangeable in His being. he does not have location because he is that's why we refer to him as omnipresence because existence belongs to to him and so when the poetry speaks in this way Yahweh possessed me at the beginning of his way and you say but there is no way and there is no beginning that's precisely the point The Lord Jesus is God the Son who is as eternal as the Lord is. That's what the first part of verse 22 is saying. He is as eternal as the Lord is. And so already we have proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that the one of whom this is speaking is very God of very God. He is from the beginning of God, and of course God has no beginning. That's why when we come from thinking of the timing of the relationship to the nature of the relationship, and we start thinking about and hearing this language of being brought forth or being begotten, we must never allow ourselves to think that somehow the Father is first and then the Son. No, God, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is one God, the same in substance, and equal in power and glory. And so, there is no person before any, either of the other persons. In fact, when we speak of how the persons relate to one another, and that's just what we have come to call the personal properties of each of the persons in the Godhead, all we do is use the words that Scripture gives us of how the Father relates to the Son and the Spirit, and how the Son relates to the Father and the Spirit. And so the timing of this relationship is from the beginning of God, is from before then the beginning of the world. I have been established from everlasting, from the beginning before there was ever an earth. When there were no depths, I was brought forth and so forth. And so the timing of the relationship, the one who is speaking here, the Lord Jesus, is speaking, especially in, as one of his attributes personified, he is very God of very God. So what's the nature of the relationship then? And the language that God uses is that of bringing forth. You see this both in verse 24, when there were no depths, I was brought forth. And verse 25, before the hills I was brought forth. And so there is this language of the father begetting the son. Now this is not a begetting or bringing forth like anything that we know, because that which is brought forth of man is man, but that which is brought forth of God, that which is begotten of God in this way is God. This is why, although the scripture does talk about believers being given a new life and a new birth, being begotten of God by the seed of God, that life of God or from God that the Holy Spirit gives us and puts into us so that we are even able to repent and believe in the first place, it is only of the Lord Jesus that the language only begotten is used. In fact, these words don't really, or that word is a combination of two words, that until the Holy Spirit starts using it in the New Testament, that word doesn't exist. He invents a unique word or an unique word to communicate something that is only true of the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the only begotten. of God. And again, although it does appear once in the book of Hebrews, it is especially in the writing of John, who speaks of Jesus as the eternal word, that we have this only begotten language. And so there is this begetting It belongs to the Father to beget the Son and to send forth the Spirit. It belongs to the Son to be begotten of the Father. and also to send forth, uh, the spirit belongs to the spirit to proceed from the father and the son. This is something, uh, that, uh, does not have a beginning. It just is from the beginning of his way, as it were from everlasting verse 22, verse 23. And so there's the timing of the relationship eternal, the nature of the relationship, the begetting, so that the nature of the father and the nature of the son is one nature, exactly the same. And therefore we're not surprised that the father and the son are one. You—if you look at the summary or the poetic rephrasing, recapping of Genesis 1, 1 through 9, that we have in the making of all things, when he prepared the heavens, when he drew a circle on the face of the deep. So day one, day two, when he established the clouds above, he strengthened the fountains of the deep. Then day three, when he assigned to the sea its limits, that the waters would not transgress his command, when he marked out the foundations of the earth. And so you have this third-person language about him creating all these things. But then we find out who the craftsman is, and it's not the he of verses 27 through 29. It's I, verse 30. Then I was beside him as a master craftsman. Indeed, this is This is why the New Testament identifies the Son especially as the Creator. So that when you go back to Genesis chapter 1 after understanding Proverbs chapter 8, after understanding John chapter 1, after understanding Ephesians 3, 9, and Colossians 1, and Hebrews 1, you are to see by faith, you are to think especially of the Lord Jesus. Yes, it is the triune God who creates, And just as we said, we're thinking about intra-Trinitarian, within the Trinity. Many of you will have heard the phrase, opera ad extra, those works or actions that are extra, outside of God, and are all actions outside of Himself. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit all act. act as one. It is not like the Son or the Spirit does things as God that the Father doesn't do. And yet, it is especially the Son who is emphasized to us as Creator. and not only the person of the Son, but also the Son whom the Scripture identifies to us as the Word of God, God's communication of himself to us, the image of God, to use another Bible way of speaking as the Son, especially God the Son being God's way of communicating himself to us. And so it is by speaking words. God invented for us to be able to communicate ourselves with words. This is something that of all of the earthly creatures, only man does. Even parrots and other creatures that are able to make sounds and communicate and signal to one another with various noises, they do not communicate themselves to one another. that communicate about things. They do not communicate themselves. God created words for us to communicate ourselves. And he created words by which he, especially in the word in his son, communicates himself. And so it is in the word, in the second person of the Godhead, especially that God God especially emphasizes the second person of the Godhead when he talks about creating and he uses words. I was beside him as a master craftsman. The Father is the creator. The Son is the creator. The Spirit is the creator. but it is especially the son whom God emphasizes when he speaks to us about himself as creator. So the identity of the relationship that there is the one creator and yet the emphasis upon the Son, the Word, the wisdom of God. And so there is this concept forming of God being one God, one uncreated creator, one eternal and living God to whom being itself inherently belongs and yet more than one person within the Godhead? And what is then the character of this relationship between the persons? Not just the nature of it, we thought about the beginning, but what is it like? And it's a relationship of joy. I was daily his delight. rejoicing always before him. Again, there's overlap here with John chapter one, when it says that the word in the beginning was the word and the word was with God. And again, the word was in the beginning with God. It does not use the ordinary Greek preposition that you would use for with. It's not the word meta. It's the word pros. And why say Greek words in the pulpit? Are we gonna, are we trying to pull language rank on you? No, but I want you to hear the word pros and then the word pros upon. That second word is the word for face. And the preposition that's used then is not the most commonly used, most frequently used preposition for with. It's a word that really does have more of a sense of facing. So in the beginning, before there was anything, before God, the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit made all things from nothing by the word of his power, in which he especially emphasizes his Son, the word to us and his creating, before all of that, there is relationship. There is the word face to face with God. And that's what's being described here in verse 30, this God delighting in his son. I was daily his delight, as it were, daily, referring perhaps to the days of creation, the delight of the father in the son. Now that time has begun to exist, spilling over into that time, which he has created. but not just the delight of the Father in the Son, but the delight of the Son in the Father. I was daily His delight, the delight of the Father in the Son, rejoicing always before Him, the delight of the Son in the Father. And it is this mutual delighting of the triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit living in mutual love and adoration and delight that he creates people in whom to delight. You see that, the spilling over of this enjoyment that is within God in verse 30, into and causing the creation of these sons of men in verse 31, rejoicing in his inhabited world. and my delight was with the sons of men." And so God in whom there is perfect and everlasting blessedness. This is, of course, we get it in different places, Romans 1, of course, the ever-blessed God. one in whom we ought to have delighted, the one whom we ought to have worshipped, whom we ought to have known and given Him glory and given Him thanks because He is the ever-blessed God and He is creating because it pleases Him to do so. He is pleased to will to create and And so he did. But his pleasure in creating is focused especially on one particular creature. My delight was with the sons of men. So the fruit of his relationship, the father and son and Holy Spirit being pleased, not just to make all the creatures as an expression of himself and a display of himself and indulging of his pleasure, his delight to do so, but especially to create men. to create men so that they might be redeemed, which is what verses 32 through 36 now especially focus on, bringing us into that delight or back into that delight. For man was created in knowledge and righteousness and holiness. And dare we say that that knowledge and righteousness and holiness means especially happiness. How happy man was created that he would be created in the knowledge of God, that he would be created right with God, that he would be created as consecrated unto God, the one creature made in God's image, to know him and be right with him, to be loved by him and to love him. to be delighted in by him and to take delight in him, how happy man was. But we fell from that happiness, didn't we? We fell from knowledge and righteousness and holiness in our first father, Adam. And now here is the wisdom of God. Here is the son of God. Here is that eternal person who is the delight of God, urging us to listen to him. Because it was the will of God not only to create men in whom he would delight, but to redeem them back into his favor by means of the son who uses his word as an instrument to bring us to faith, to bring us to repentance from sin and faith in Jesus Christ, which is to say to bring us back into that proper fear of Yahweh. that fear of Yahweh, which is the beginning of our wisdom. Verse 13, remember in this chapter, bringing that idea back forward again, that first arose in chapter one. And so it is necessary for you to have a relationship with God in His Son. So wisdom now addresses us. The second person of the Godhead now addresses us. Now, therefore, listen to me, children, for happy, blessed, happy are those who keep my ways. Hear instruction and be wise and do not disdain it. Happy, blessed is the man who listens to me. your God Himself in a particular person of the Godhead offering Himself to us. And isn't that what the Lord has done in sending His Son into the world to be the Savior? He has offered Himself to you that you might believe in the Lord Jesus Christ When you turn from your sin and you refuse to belong to yourself alone, and you come to be received by the Lord Jesus Christ, to be received by God in the Lord Jesus Christ, no longer your own, but His, God offers Himself to you in His Son. And you believe into Jesus, you're united with Jesus. You and he become one forever. You become a member of his body, a member of his bride and united to him. When you believe into Jesus, you become a son or a daughter. You become adopted by the father. And because you are adopted by the father, when you believe into Jesus, Galatians 4 says, because we are sons, he sends forth the spirit of his son into our hearts. And so God offers himself to you in the Lord Jesus Christ. And this is especially what we are to be doing in the word. Yes, we want to get prudence and knowledge and discretion. We want to learn how to think rightly and how to live well, praise God. But what we want most of all is him himself. And that is what he offers. Blessed, happy is the man who listens to me, watching daily at my gates, waiting at the posts of my doors, for whoever finds me finds life. And this is not just then a condition of your heart that you would desire the Lord Jesus, that you would desire God himself more than you desire anything. but it's also a habit of your actions that if you know where he is to be found, and he's actually not found at gates or doorposts, is he? He's told you where to find him or how to find him. Even in this passage, he tells us, listen to him. He uses especially his word. His spirit uses especially his word. And if you know that that's how Jesus is found, and that he's found in his word, and he's found by prayer, and he gives himself to you at the table, and this is why you should want to come to the Lord's table, because this is one of the ways that he gives himself to you. So you say, so if an elder asks you, or if your parent asks you, or if your own heart asks you, why do you want to take the Lord's Supper? You say, well, it's the same reason I want to hear preaching. because that's how Jesus gives himself to me. It's the same reason why I come to him praying with the help of his spirit, because that's how Jesus gives himself to me. And he says to take the Lord's supper. He tells us to do it. And so I want to be obedient and I want to obey him. But I also know that that's one of the ways that the Lord Jesus gives himself to me. And I want to watch at his gates and wait at the posts of his doors to find Jesus wherever and whenever, however I can, which of course is only however he gives himself to us. Watching daily at my gates, waiting at the posts of my doors for whoever finds me finds life and obtains favor from Yahweh. The smile, the help, the exerting of of God and all his greatness and all his goodness for our good. The necessity of our own relationship. But when we learn this about the Lord Jesus, that he is the one in whom God has communicated himself to us and that he is one that not only God communicates himself to us, but gives himself to us. then if we don't desire him, if we don't look to him in faith and trust in him, if we don't turn from ourselves and being merely our own, instead to come to him and be received by him and for ourselves also to receive him, but to be his, if we don't desire him that way, in that faith of the heart, that longing for and resting upon the Lord Jesus that is expressed by attending upon the means by which and through which he gives us himself more and more. If we don't do that, then it's not like we are merely indifferent. There's no neutrality with Jesus. Look at how verse 36 describes the one who doesn't watch daily, watch at the posts, look for him, seeking him to find him. Verse 36 calls that person, he who sins against me. Even worse, second half of verse 36, it calls that person, he who hates me. You see Jesus being God the Son in whom God gives himself to us. There's a right response to that, isn't it? Isn't there? That's a wonderful gospel. It's not just good news. It's the best possible news. God himself giving himself to us in the Son. But the gospel is something to be rightly responded to, to be obeyed. Could you imagine? God offering himself to you and you not longing for him, seeking him, waiting at the post of his doors, watching daily at the gates, seeking to find him with all your heart. Oh, that would be a sin against him, wouldn't it? That would be hating him. Perhaps you don't have to imagine God having offered that, and you not having accepted, you not having sought Him out, you not having rested upon Him, maybe that's what you've done so far. Lord knows every one of us find that we repeatedly discover we have not been desiring or looking for seeking Christ, either reference to the affections of our hearts or the use of his means, the employing of those means as measures by which he he gives us to seek him. But then seek him now. Don't sin against the Lord Jesus and just listen to this as so much more preacher talk or Bible talk. Don't hate the Lord Jesus and hear about him who offers himself to you in everlasting love. Him in whom the love of God that from which you could never be separated is offered to you by the Holy Spirit who would pour out that love in your hearts. And you go away without responding, without resting upon Him, without receiving Him, cold and unchanged. That's the worst part, to sin against Him and to hate Him. But He sets before us, doesn't He, a motivation for our own good. And it's not wrong to desire your own good. God desires your good. It's never wrong to desire what God desires, is it? And so he does give us that warning that the one who does not respond to the Lord Jesus by seeking him out, does not respond to this triune God by seeking him out, especially in and through his son. The person who doesn't do that wrongs his own soul and loves death. How dreadful, not only to sin against and hate the Lord Jesus, but even then your own soul. And so God give us, God the Spirit give us to watch for Christ and wait for Christ by means of his word, to listen to him and hear him and seek him so that we might find him and find life and find favor from Yahweh. so that for unending ages we will know the delight of God in us, in his Son. And we will be brought into delighting ourselves in God, in his Son. Amen.