God's Excitement

Mark Dunagan
02/22/09 - Sunday Morning

As one reads the Bible it is very clear that its author is far from an impersonal force. Our God is incredibly personal. Often we encounter God expressing a variety of emotions, including, but not limited to, “love” (Malachi 1:2), “hate” (Revelation 2:6), grief (Genesis 6:6) and wrath (Romans 5:9). In this lesson I want to focus on an emotion that I see God often showing, that is, His excitement and joy.

Hosea 9:10 “I found Israel like grapes in the wilderness; I saw your forefathers as the earliest fruit on the fig tree in its first season”

God refers to the early days of Israel’s history as He does in 10:1 and 11:1. In the freshness of Israel’s youth God had found them. “And as one delights in the first ripe figs of the early summer after a long season of no fresh fruit, so Jehovah had looked upon His chosen ones” (Hailey, p. 166). “Grapes, unusual in the desert, are a special delight” (Gaebelein, p. 206). God had viewed Israel as a prized possession, and yet how had they treated Him? Things soon changed. Even before they entered the Promised Land, the people had gravitated towards the worship of Baal (Numbers 25:3-18). “Delight and anticipation could hardly be more vividly expressed than in this opening reminiscence of the Lord’s great early venture with His people. Allowing for its language of manlike relish and dreamlike anomaly… the passage conveys something which our careful theology cannot quite pin down: the Lord’s zest and enjoyment, so different from cold charity, in His encounters with responsive love, however meager that response may be (Hosea, Kidner, p. 88). Obviously God is not naïve, and He knew that Israel could fail and eventually would (Deuteronomy 30:1ff), yet none of that seemed to deter His excitement over what He was beginning to do with the young Israelite nation. He was truly excited about the potential He saw in this nation and how it could be a powerful influence upon the world (Deuteronomy 4:6-7). We certainly have the wrong idea if we think that nothing can impress God, or if we think that since God knows the future, that such knowledge severely limits His optimism and excitement about people.

Hosea 11:1 “When Israel was a youth I loved him, and out of Egypt I called My son”

Once again, God recalls Israel’s early history. “More than once we have been reminded of the bright promise of Israel’s youth, so rapidly to fade. The promise arose out of God’s grace rather than their good qualities, and the fading of it out of their sheer perversity… The grace of God shines out at once in the words, ‘I loved him’ (implying, when used by God, not the involuntary emotional reaction which it tends to mean to us, but a choice as free as it is affectionate), and still more clearly in His naming Israel ‘my son’” (Kidner, p. 101). At the beginning, God had displayed His love for this nation by delivering them from Egyptian bondage. God is not punishing this nation because He is mean or cruel, but because they have been so ungrateful and rebellious in spite of His many blessings. Here we see the heart of God. It must have caused Him tremendous pain to punish this nation that He had loved so much.

Luke 15:7 “I tell you that in the same way, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents, than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance”

Note what is clearly implied is that the sinner over whom God rejoices in finding is a sinner who has repented. “Ninety and nine righteous persons, who need no repentance”: This is “perhaps an ironical thrust at the Pharisees self-complacency” (Foster, p. 936). There is continual joy for the righteous and here is a sudden burst of joy at the repentance of the sinner.

Luke 15:10 “Even so, I say unto you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth”

The rejoicing in the presence of God testifies to the interest of the Angels in our salvation (Hebrews 1:14). Here we see the glaring difference between the Pharisees and the angels in heaven: the Pharisees murmured at the very thing that makes angels rejoice. That should have given them pause to search their hearts, where something must have been wrong (Lenski, p. 806). “The Three Parables presented here have the same objective. God's part in saving lost men and His great love in seeking and saving”.

Luke 15:20 “His father saw him”: The father did not go and look for or find his boy, or drag him back out of the far country. God cannot save the man who will not repent and come to God for forgiveness. The father, true to his nature, is there waiting. “Here is a picture of God, as being ever ready to pardon the repentant sinner. As if he were constantly watching the road” (Lenski, p. 815). We see this same expectant longing when Jesus said, “How often I wanted to gather your children together, the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were unwilling” (Matthew 23:37).

15:20 “And was moved with compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him”: “and his heart went out to him” (Phi). “Here is encouragement to the sinner to forsake his sin – though many never escape from the far country... it is not because they would be unwelcome should they choose to return” (P.P. Comm., p. 44). “The explosion of the pent-up love and agonized yearning of the father during all this time reveals how great had been the desire of the father for the salvation of his son” (Foster, p. 941).

I Saw God Run

15:20 “And ran”: Running in excitement and impatience of love, regardless of Eastern dignity and the pace safe for advancing years(Gr. Ex., p. 581). James 4:8 “Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you”. “And kissed him”: Kissed him much -- kissed him again and again. “Fervently and frequently the son folded in his arms” (Gr. Ex., p. 581). “Although the son hears not his sin mentioned, he yet makes his confession” (Trench, p. 147).

Applications

• “I want to be a son God has been longing for”

The Bible is filled with occasions where those who professed to be His people forsook God and broke His heart in the process. I don’t want to do this; on the contrary, I want to bring God joy. Instead of living a life of unfulfilled dreams, where God fondly looks back upon what could have been, I want to live in such a way that God revels in what I am at this moment, “Have you considered My servant Job? For there is no one like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, fearing God and turning away from evil” (Job 1:8), or someone like Enoch, “Then Enoch walked with God” (Genesis 5:22). I long to have not just a bare minimum of faithfulness, or merely a “decent” fear of the Lord, but where His interests and concerns are completely shared by each of us. Walking with God is such a beautiful expression; it is the language of friendship, the language of loyalty, the language of a son following the father that he admires and adores, the person who will be with you through thick and thin, the genuine disciple, always following, always imitating, always listening, and happy to be the side-kick.

• “I want to keep the honeymoon alive”

For God does! I do not find that God enjoys stale or distant relationships, and neither does He stand by idly or silently and just accept the status-quo. God uses the language of the ardent lover to describe His attempt to bring Israel back, “Therefore, behold, I will allure her, bring her back into the wilderness, and speak kindly to her” (Hosea 2:14). The expression, bring her into the wilderness, suggests bringing the nation back to her roots (the honeymoon period), after God had brought Israel out of Egyptian bondage. Note, not everyone in the nation will get this second chance, for many will die in the battles to come. Yet what is left of the nation in captivity will be given this chance. God will speak kindly to the nation, that is, with persuasive words through the prophets. “The Lord now for His part will exert His charms and speak to the heart of His beloved. For the wilderness could mean either of two things for Israel: either her life in ruins or her pilgrim spirit and youthful promise recaptured” (Kidner, p. 32). We often talk about recapturing our early zeal, yet God fully remembers – in Jeremiah God said to Israel, “I remember concerning you the devotion of your youth, the love of your betrothals, your following after Me in the wilderness” (Jeremiah 2:2).

• “How bad God wants us saved”

One way of over-viewing the history of Israel is to see God’s attempts, one after another, in bringing His people back (2 Chronicles 36:15; Matthew 21:34-38). I wonder if we see a similar effort on God’s part in seeking each one of us. No, a prophet may not be sent to us, yet how many providential blessings had been bestowed upon us. It might have been the love of Christian parents, or a continual exposure to the word of God through various preachers and teachers. It might be the friendship with Christians, one encouraging word after another, or the intense love of God through His people (John 13:34-35). I must confess that as I look over my life, it seems clear to me that God is doing everything He can, short of forcing me, to bring me to heaven. How about you?