Pastor Mark Stafford
Our God, Abounding in Joyful Sufficiency | Psalm 11:1-6
There is a wonderful description of God in 1 Timothy 1:11 that you might blow by if you weren’t reading carefully. In that passage, Paul mentions “the gospel of the glory of the blessed God…” God is called the blessed God, which seems like a strange way to describe God. The word for ‘blessed’ in Greek (makarios) not only means to be supremely blessed, but to be happy. When you think about God, do you picture Him being happy? Do you picture a being that is overflowing with joy?
Today I’m going to show you from scripture that a huge part of God’s glory is that He is thrilled to be God. He delights in His own perfections. He cannot improve. He is as good as it is possible to be. He exudes joy based on the infinite worth of His own character. To put it simply, God is happy. How could a being who is infinitely glorious be anything but happy? How could the King of Heaven keep from being filled with joy? I might even suggest that God is so perfectly content with His glory, power, and perfection that He is happy beyond our wildest imaginations.
David writes in Psalms 16:11, “You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.” It sounds like God’s presence is a joyful place! It is a place that you’d want to stay forever! A ‘fullness of joy’ in God’s presence is the best news about the gospel. If God was grouchy, then spending an eternity with Him would be a drag. No one would want to spend eternity with an all-powerful, grump. That would be miserable!
However, Jesus invites us to spend an eternity with a God who is wildly joyful. In Matthew 25:23, Jesus says to the ‘faithful servant’ in the parable, “Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.” Jesus’ picture of God in this parable is one of a joy-filled master.
Jesus told us that He lived and died so that our joy might be full. He says in John 15:11, “11 These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.”
God has an unshakable happiness in Himself and in His eternal fellowship with His Son, Jesus Christ. That means God doesn’t rely on us in order to be happy or joyful. He is filled with joy, independent of our choices or behavior. God’s joy stems from His own perfect glory and the fellowship He has eternally enjoyed with the Son and the Spirit.
The scriptures teach that Jesus was always with God. John 1:1 says, “In the beginning was the Word (referring to Jesus), and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” Paul tells us in Colossians that Jesus is the absolute perfect reflection of God’s glory. Colossians 2:9 says that in Jesus, “…the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily…”
Therefore, as God the Father has been in a relationship the Son throughout all of eternity, He beholds an exact representation of Himself. God is thrilled with His glory and in anything that reflects His glory. Jesus is a perfect, flawless reflection of God the Father. Jesus said to Philip, His disciple, “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.”
God is perfectly delighted in His glory and perfection. From these scriptures, we see that when God beholds the image of His Son, Jesus is perfectly reflecting back all of God’s joy and glory. God is perfectly and infinitely satisfied in His relationship with Jesus. Jesus is a source of never ending delight for God.
Look at how Jesus describes His relationship with God the Father in His high, priestly prayer in John 17:24-26, “24 Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world. 25 O righteous Father, even though the world does not know you, I know you, and these know that you have sent me. 26 I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.”
There is no greater intimacy or delight in a relationship than that which exists between God the Father and Jesus, His Son. When Jesus entered the world to fulfil the righteous requirements of the Law for us[4], His ministry began with God declaring from the heavens, ““This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.”[5] Don’t let those last five words escape your notice. In Jesus, God is well pleased. Jesus makes God really happy! God takes great delight and pleasure in His relationship with Jesus.
As God contemplates the image of His own glory in the person of Christ, it makes Him exceedingly joyful. Through the prophet Isaiah, God said these words about Jesus, “Behold my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights…”[6]
We haven’t even touched the person of the Holy Spirit yet, but we are going to focus on the relationship between the Father and the Son. We’ll save an intense study of the Holy Spirit for another day! Within God’s relationship with Jesus, He is perfectly satisfied and is filled with affection. God is supremely and eternally satisfied in the fellowship within the God-head (or Trinity.)
So here is the question that we are compelled to ask: If God was already perfectly happy, why did He make us? If He was perfectly satisfied within the Trinity, then we can’t dare to say that He made us because He was lonely. God was not lacking in anything and yet it was part of His good pleasure to create us and the world we live in.
Psalms 19:1 says, “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.” God is thrilled with anything that reflects of His glory. God delights in His glory is reflected in us and in His work. He is abounding in joy, and created us so that we could know and enjoy Him.
God Made us in Order to Share His Joy with us
Psalm 11:1-3 says,
“Praise the Lord! I will give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart, in the company of the upright, in the congregation. 2 Great are the works of the Lord, studied by all who delight in them. 3 Full of splendor and majesty is his work, and his righteousness endures forever.
In Creation, God “went public.” He revealed some of His splendor and majesty through His work. Plus, we see a reflection of God through the person of Jesus. In doing so, He made it possible for us to study, to know, and to enjoy Him. He took the glory that echoes endlessly between Him and the Son and shared it with the creatures He made. The Elders in Revelation 4:11 proclaim, ““Worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created.”
AW Tozer said, “God formed us for His pleasure and so formed us that we, as well as He, can in divine communion enjoy the sweet and mysterious mingling of kindred personalities. He meant us to see Him and live with him and draw our life from His smile.”[7]
God was so full that He was overflowing. God’s joy is so vast and full that it tends to overflow. His joy wants to expand, it wants to share itself. The joy we find in His creation is a reflection of the God who made it.
There was a man named “Ethan the Ezrahite” who wrote part of the Bible. According to Wikipedia, he may have been a cymbal-player in King David’s court[8]. More reliable resources say that he was a renown wise man who lived during the time of Solomon.
Regardless, Ethan the Ezrahite wrote Psalm 89, where he says:
11 The heavens are yours; the earth also is yours; the world and all that is in it, you have founded them. 12 The north and the south, you have created them; Tabor and Hermon joyously praise your name.
God didn’t have the impulse to create out of weakness, God does not need anything. “Need” is a creature word, not a God-word. In Psalm 40:17, King David made this proclamation as one of God’s creatures, “As for me, I am poor and needy, but the Lord takes thought for me.”[9]
God isn’t a creature. He isn’t poor. He’s the Creator and has unlimited resources. AW Tozer once wrote, “God is so vastly wonderful, so utterly and completely delightful that He can, without anything other than Himself, meet and overflow the deepest demands of our total nature, mysterious and deep as that nature is.”[10] As Creator, God enters into a relationship with his creatures voluntarily – of His own free will.
His interest in His creatures is not to fulfill a need of His, but arises from His sovereign good pleasure. God doesn’t enter into a relationship with us because he has some need that only we can fulfill. God is perfect and complete in Himself. He is lacking in nothing.
God is self-sufficient, meaning that He is the only being in the entire universe that needs nothing outside of Himself. He does not need to eat, breathe, rest, drink, or blink His eyes. He is not lonely. He does not need advice. He doesn’t have to figure anything out. He needs nothing outside of Himself.
In order to wrap our minds around this aspect of God’s character, we have to create a whole new category for God in our thinking. God is utterly unique in that He sustains Himself. Nothing else in our experience is like that. All creatures require something outside of themselves in order to exist. No creature is complete within itself:
- All breathing things need air to live.
- All organisms need food and water to survive.
- It’s helpful to have a planet to live on.
Have you ever seen how much equipment they have to take on a space journey just to keep the astronauts alive? Every created thing needs some other created thing in order to survive. If we were to take food and water off the earth, all life would stop immediately. The next part of our text makes it clear that God is the one who is the supplier of our needs as creatures. Psalm 11:4-5 says,
4 He has caused his wondrous works to be remembered; the Lord is gracious and merciful.
5 He provides food for those who fear him; he remembers his covenant forever.
Ultimately, all created things are totally dependent on God, but God is not dependent on anything in creation. In this way, all life is a gift given directly from God. God is infinitely resourceful and He created us so that we might enjoy His gifts without needing anything in return.
God Invites us to Partake of His Gifts
Of all the gifts that God bestows on us, there is one that is great above all others: the gift of life. God is the only being who did not have life given to Him but who has life in Himself – so that He can give it to others. In John 5:26, Jesus says, “For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself.”
Here is another way that God is self-sufficient. All that God is, He is in Himself. Here is something we really can’t understand: God was not created. He has always existed. All other life comes from Him. It doesn’t matter it that life is the lowest form of bacteria or the highest rank of an angel, all life originates with God Himself. In John 1:3-4, the Apostle writes, “3 All things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made. 4 In him was life, and the life was the light of men.”
No creature has life in themselves. Every creature has life given to them from another. In that way, all life is a gift from God. And then the Bible says that God Himself is the context for the reality of life as we know it.
When Paul tried to explain the reality of God to the men gathered at Mars Hill, he proclaimed, “…He (God) is actually not far from each one of us, 28 for “‘In him we live and move and have our being…’”[11] God is the context for everything else. God is to reality what the ocean is to a fish. We exist within the context of who He is. So if we have anything at all, it ultimately came from God’s resources. He is a great giver while He, Himself is lacking nothing. He is totally sufficient in Himself and knows no needs.
Herman Mickley once told me that we should stop telling people to accept Jesus. Here’s what he meant: Jesus doesn’t need accepting. He’s not a divine nerd trying to get into a popular clique. He is perfectly worthy, complete and satisfied. Jesus isn’t nervous for our friendship. He’s not weak and He’s not needy.
He is generous, however, and offers many gifts freely to us. It’s not a matter of whether or not we accept Jesus. The question is whether or not we will freely receive the gifts the Lord offers to us. Of course the greatest gift that Jesus offers us is the gospel. Paul calls the gospel, “…the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes.”[12]
It is the offer of eternal life with our generous and joyful God. It is free for the taking to anyone who would receive it. However, God is still fully satisfied, joyful, and without any needs even if no one receives that free gift.
If every man on earth were to suddenly become an atheist, God would still be fully satisfied in His relationship inside the God-head. It would not affect who God is in any way and perhaps He would simply find a different place to lavish His overflowing joy. God is content and sufficient in Himself, without any need outside of Himself.
- If we believe in His perfections, it does not make Him more perfect.
- If we doubt His abilities, it makes Him no less powerful.
- God is God regardless of what we think about Him.
Probably the hardest blow to our pride is this thought: God does not need our help. We hate this idea. We want to think that God couldn’t get by without us. I want to think that God is better off because I’m on His team. People often portray God as busy, eager, or perhaps somewhat frustrated as He frantically tries to carry out His plan here on earth. I’ve even had people say to me, “I don’t pray about the little things because God is just too busy to be concerned about my minor issues.”
The truth is that God is not like that at all. He’s not overwhelmed. He did not create a universe that He can’t control. God has PLENTY of time for your little prayers! God runs the universe with His feet up and the game on. Paul wrote in Romans 8:28, “we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.” The God who is working all things for our good and His purposes does not need our help.
I’m afraid that too many people go into Christian service with an idea God is lacking in resources. Some young people enter into full-time ministry in order to save God from the embarrassing situation He seems to have gotten Himself into. They figure that God’s abilities are limited, so God desperately needs their help or His purposes will never be accomplished.
The truth is that God will accomplish His purposes with or without our help. It’s our choice whether or not we choose to be a part of His plans.
God Invites us to Participate as He Rules
Consider what the Psalmist said in Psalm 93:
The Lord reigns; he is robed in majesty; the Lord is robed; he has put on strength as his belt. Yes, the world is established; it shall never be moved. 2 Your throne is established from of old; you are from everlasting.
Now flip back back to our text, Psalm 11:6,
6 He has shown his people the power of his works, in giving them the inheritance of the nations.
Our God is ruling and reigning. While He doesn’t need our help, we do have the opportunity to choose whether or not we want to be a part of serving God’s purpose in our generation. [13] For those who answer the call, God is thrilled to share with them an inheritance they don’t deserve. God rewards those who willingly choose to serve Him even if He doesn’t need them to fulfill His plans.
I felt the call to come here to the Verde Valley to begin this new church. I believe this is a work that God stirred up and I wanted to be a part of what God was unfolding here. Now, what do you think would have happened if I had chosen not to answer the Lord’s call? Would He have been crippled by my decisions? No Way! There is no way I can stop God from doing what He pleases.
I think He was going to start a church here whether I was a part of it or not. I have the choice of sharing God’s joy and pleasure in starting this new work or of sitting on the sidelines as someone else does the work.
Our God reigns. He does not need my help or yours, but it is part of His good pleasure to allow us to share in the unfolding of His purposes in this generation. We are rewarded not necessarily for our contribution, but for our faithfulness in being available to be used by Him. As we come along-side His work, we enjoy some of the overflow of His Joy.
Conclusion
Since God does not need to ever wait to receive anything from us (or any other creature), He is free to act in total sovereignty. God is not deficient in any way. He acts from a passion to embrace the things He delights in. Some people call this “sovereign freedom.”
He is free in that He lacks in nothing and is therefore dependent on nobody. He is completely sovereign because He is totally free to do whatever He pleases without knowing any limitation stemming from need or inability. No power outside of God’s limitless power is able to stop Him or even slow Him down against His will. Psalm 115:5 says, “Our God is in the heavens; he does all that he pleases.”
You and I have the opportunity to join Him and even to take risks to be a part of all that He pleases. Those who delight in the works of the Lord share in the overflowing joy of our happy God.
[1] John 14:9b
[2] Hebrews 1:3a
[3] 2 Corinthians 4:4b
[4] Romans 8:4
[5] Matt 3:17b
[6] Is. 42:1a
[7] AW Tozer, Pursuit of God” Chapter 3 Location 335 Kindle
[8] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethan_(biblical_figure)
[9] Psalm 40:17a
[10] AW Tozer, “Pursuit of God” Chapter 3 Location 436 Kindle
[11] Acts 17:27b-28a
[12] Romans 1:16
[13] Acts 13:36
Leave A Comment