Do You Delight in God’s People?

From Gospel Translations

Two Questions to Ask Yourself

Audio Transcript

“As for the saints in the land,” that is, holy ones, godly ones, the ones who treasure God and live for him, “they are the excellent ones in whom is all my delight” (Psalm 16:3) — all my pleasure, all my joy, which does not mean that he delights in the saints, the godly ones, instead of God, or above God, but because of God.

In other words, as the psalmist contemplates all the kinds of people in the world — all the worldly people, all the powerful people, all the influential people, all the people that could scratch his back — he says there is one kind of people that make me really, really glad: people that treasure God.

I wonder if you’re sitting there thinking: “I don’t like the Christians I know, and I have more fun with all my unbelieving friends.” If that’s you, I think you should ask two questions.

First: Do you know any Christians? I mean, Christians? I don’t mean church-goers, I mean radical people who lay their lives down because Jesus means everything to them. They are servants of the world because Jesus has moved into their lives, turned everything upside down, broken them free from their love affair with the world and their ego and power and money and sex, and they’re radical people. Do you know anybody? Maybe you don’t know anybody like that to dislike. That’s the first question you should ask.

Second, you should ask is this: Why would it be that you, a professing Christian, would find more joy in people who find no joy in what is your primary joy? What would that mean? Those are the two questions you should ask.