then I was beside him, like a master workman, and I was daily his delight, rejoicing before him always (Proverbs 8:30)

We have had some pretty intense teaching these last few days, much soul searching has been required.

Today we are going to take a little break. We’re going to sit back and allow God’s word to minister to us in a different way.

Colossians 3:16 says “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God.” We’ve spent a lot of time in teaching and admonishing; now we come to a place of worship. Truly the passages we’ve been looking at are a cause for praise as they remind us of God’s glorious creation and sustaining power.

As I read and re-read Proverbs 8:22-31, and noted the repeated use of the first person pronoun, there seemed no other way for me to look at the passage than as an account of the pre-existence of Jesus Christ. I’ve always known it was so, John opens his gospel with the proclamation of it: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God (John1:1). However, “hearing” the words from the “mouth” of Christ Himself touched me in a deep and powerful way.

“The Lord possessed me at the beginning of his work, the first of his acts of old. Ages ago I was set up, at the first, before the beginning of the earth.
When there were no depths I was brought forth, when there were no springs abounding with water. Before the mountains had been shaped,
before the hills, I was brought forth, before he had made the earth with its fields, or the first of the dust of the world. When he established the heavens, I was there; when he drew a circle on the face of the deep, when he made firm the skies above, when he established the fountains of the deep, when he assigned to the sea its limit, so that the waters might not transgress his command, when he marked out the foundations of the earth, then I was beside him, like a master workman, and I was daily his delight, rejoicing before him always, rejoicing in his inhabited world
and delighting in the children of man”. (Proverbs 8:22-31)

In a close reading of this passage, we learn several things about Jesus that are affirmed throughout scripture:

• Christ’s eternal existence – Jesus Christ, the 2nd person of the Trinity was and is and always will be. Because of His eternal existence, we can have confidence in our eternal future. He is eternally present in the universe and He is eternally present in our lives. He is with us from the beginning and He will be with us until the end. We don’t have to fear the things of this world, Our Great Shepherd goes before us, He fights for us, He keeps us, He cares for our needs.

• Christ’s participation in creation – As Creator, His power is made fully known. If Jesus can mark the foundations of the earth, if He can not only create the seas and tell them how far they can go, but calm the storms of those same seas, surely He has the power to control the trials of our lives, to calm the storms that rage against us.

• Mutual honor between the Father and Son – In verses 30-31, we see how the Father delights in the Son and the Son rejoices in the Father. And because we are His children, we receive that same delight from the LORD.

• And, because we belong to Jesus, He rejoices over us.

What a wonderful thing it is to be a child of the Living God!