Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
Zephaniah 3
3:1 Woe to her who is rebellious and defiled,
the oppressing city!
2 She listens to no voice;
she accepts no correction.
She does not trust in the LORD;
she does not draw near to her God.
3 Her officials within her
are roaring lions;
her judges are evening wolves
that leave nothing till the morning.
4 Her prophets are fickle, treacherous men;
her priests profane what is holy;
they do violence to the law.
5 The LORD within her is righteous;
he does no injustice;
every morning he shows forth his justice;
each dawn he does not fail;
but the unjust knows no shame.
6 “I have cut off nations;
their battlements are in ruins;
I have laid waste their streets
so that no one walks in them;
their cities have been made desolate,
without a man, without an inhabitant.
7 I said, ‘Surely you will fear me;
you will accept correction.
Then your1 dwelling would not be cut off
according to all that I have appointed against you.’2
But all the more they were eager
to make all their deeds corrupt.
8 “Therefore wait for me,” declares the LORD,
“for the day when I rise up to seize the prey.
For my decision is to gather nations,
to assemble kingdoms,
to pour out upon them my indignation,
all my burning anger;
for in the fire of my jealousy
all the earth shall be consumed.
9 “For at that time I will change the speech of the peoples
to a pure speech,
that all of them may call upon the name of the LORD
and serve him with one accord.
10 From beyond the rivers of Cush
my worshipers, the daughter of my dispersed ones,
shall bring my offering.
11 “On that day you shall not be put to shame
because of the deeds by which you have rebelled against me;
for then I will remove from your midst
your proudly exultant ones,
and you shall no longer be haughty
in my holy mountain.
12 But I will leave in your midst
a people humble and lowly.
They shall seek refuge in the name of the LORD,
13 those who are left in Israel;
they shall do no injustice
and speak no lies,
nor shall there be found in their mouth
a deceitful tongue.
For they shall graze and lie down,
and none shall make them afraid.”
14 Sing aloud, O daughter of Zion;
shout, O Israel!
Rejoice and exult with all your heart,
O daughter of Jerusalem!
15 The LORD has taken away the judgments against you;
he has cleared away your enemies.
The King of Israel, the LORD, is in your midst;
you shall never again fear evil.
16 On that day it shall be said to Jerusalem:
“Fear not, O Zion;
let not your hands grow weak.
17 The LORD your God is in your midst,
a mighty one who will save;
he will rejoice over you with gladness;
he will quiet you by his love;
he will exult over you with loud singing.
18 I will gather those of you who mourn for the festival,
so that you will no longer suffer reproach.3
19 Behold, at that time I will deal
with all your oppressors.
And I will save the lame
and gather the outcast,
and I will change their shame into praise
and renown in all the earth.
20 At that time I will bring you in,
at the time when I gather you together;
for I will make you renowned and praised
among all the peoples of the earth,
when I restore your fortunes
before your eyes,” says the LORD.
(ESV)
Redeemer exists to celebrate and declare the gospel of God as we grow in knowing and following Jesus Christ.
Good morning once again. We are gonna be in Zephaniah chapter 3. So I will give you 20 minutes to find it. It is in your worship guide. We're gonna be in Zephaniah chapter 3.
Jeffrey Heine:I I wish that we had time to go through, the entire prophecy of of Zephaniah, because it's only 3 chapters. But where we're gonna be spending our time in chapter 3 is really a a resolve, a surprising resolve that comes after 2 chapters focused on judgment and destruction. It's kind of like if you've read through, the prophecy of Isaiah, where for 39 chapters, there are these woes that are being talked about. There's judgment that's being talked about. Destruction coming from the Lord.
Jeffrey Heine:And then in chapter 40, there is this turn that happens where it says comfort, Comfort my people. We we kinda see a a a really small short version of that here in Zephaniah. For 2 chapters, it's been about judgment to come, God judging sin, and then this turn happens. And so I encourage you, at some point this this afternoon, perhaps, to take time and read through, all of Zephaniah. It won't it won't take you long, but to really see this in its context.
Jeffrey Heine:But we're gonna be jumping in at verse 14. I'm gonna read all the way through verse 20, but we're gonna spend most of our time this morning looking at 14 through 17. So let us listen carefully for this is God's word. Sing aloud, oh, daughter of Zion. Shout, o Israel.
Jeffrey Heine:Rejoice and exalt with all your heart, o daughter of Jerusalem. The Lord has taken away the judgments against you. He has cleared away your enemies. The King of Israel, the Lord is in your midst. You shall never again fear evil.
Jeffrey Heine:On that day, it shall be said to Jerusalem, fear not, let not your hands grow weak. The lord your god is in your midst, a mighty one who will save. He will rejoice over you with gladness. He will quiet you by his love. He will exalt over you with loud singing.
Jeffrey Heine:I will gather those of you who mourn for the festival so that you will no longer suffer reproach. Behold, at that time, I will deal with all your oppressors, and I will save the lame and gather the outcast. I will change their shame into praise and renown in all the earth. At that time, I will bring you in at the at the time when I gather you together. For I will make you renowned and praised among all the peoples of the earth when I restore your fortune before your eyes, says the Lord.
Jeffrey Heine:This is the word of the Lord. Yes, sir. Let's pray together. Oh, Lord, our God, we are grateful for another day and another opportunity to come together to worship you in spirit and in truth. Lord, we need to hear from you today.
Jeffrey Heine:We need your truth. Your truth to comfort us, to confront us, to change us, to be more like your son, our savior Jesus. So speak, Lord, for your servants are listening. We pray these things in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Jeffrey Heine:A few weeks ago, while I was in Kentucky for Thanksgiving, I started reading a book about time. I've never read a book specifically on the topic of time before, let alone one by a physicist. But it's been a fascinating read. It's called The Order of Time by Carlo Rovelli. I've had to go back and reread pages, paragraphs, sentences 2 or 3 times in hopes of understanding it, which means that by this rate, when I finish the book, I will have read it 3 times.
Jeffrey Heine:So that's nice. What is helpful about the book's approach is how elementary it begins. Rovelli very simply offers the building blocks for understanding time. Early in the book, he says this, quote, There is our past, all the events that happened before what we can witness now. There is our future, the events that will happen after the moment from which we can see here and now.
Jeffrey Heine:Between this past and this future, there is an interval that is neither past nor future, yet still has duration. It is the expanded present. End quote. As I read this, I couldn't help but think of where we find ourselves in the church season of Advent. At Advent, we stand in this moment, this expanded present, the space between what has happened and all that will happen.
Jeffrey Heine:We are called during Advent to intentionally stand between the past and the future in this interval that is neither past nor future. We stand at Advent at this moment, the expanded present. And we consider all 3 of these places at once. Culture at large, however, chiefly focuses on the moment, the immediate gratification of now. It's about celebration and enjoyment, gift giving and decorations.
Jeffrey Heine:It is the general, if not generic, holiday season. This generic season only looks back for nostalgia's sake, to personal Christmases long, long ago. Very easily, we can turn inward, selfishly, self focused, without even realizing it. I mean, think about it. We encourage kids to write wish lists.
Jeffrey Heine:We listen to carols of materialism, like Santa Baby, which annually tries to unseat Baby It's Cold Outside as the creepiest Christmas song, which no song will ever do. But as Christians, we do well to look to the past, the ancient past, and remember the coming of the Christ child. But that alone is incomplete. The church season of Advent calls us to even more. To all three points in time, this moment, the ancient past and the promised future.
Jeffrey Heine:The great preacher, Fleming Rutledge, once said that Advent, quote, locates us correctly with relation to the first and second comings of Christ. Advent calls us in the present to live life on the edge, shaped by the cross, proclaiming His death until He comes again, end quote. At Advent, we look to the past, Christ's first arrival, Advent, and at the same time, look to His return, the second advent. And further, we do all of this in the present, in the here and now. And we desire that these two truths of the past and the future would speak to, even define our present moment.
Jeffrey Heine:That is the invitation of Advent. And this is so easily lost if we rush past Advent and dive headlong into the celebration of Christmas without pausing. Thankfully, the Old Testament prophets stand ready to help us to accept the invitation of the Advent season and to exert a stubborn resistance to the rush of the holidays. They model for us this manifold approach to time. But they didn't call it Advent then.
Jeffrey Heine:They were looking to the future for what they called the day of the Lord. That's where we find ourselves this morning as we come to this passage from the prophecy of Zephaniah. Now each prophet in the Old Testament had topics and concepts that they focused on in their writing. And the primary theme of the prophet Zephaniah is the day of the Lord. We don't know a great deal about the prophet Zephaniah.
Jeffrey Heine:A few things that we do know was that he was a prophet in Judah, the southern part of the divided kingdom of Israel. And he was a contemporary of Jeremiah, which means that the northern kingdom had already been captured and exiled. And Zephaniah was writing to warn the people of Judah and Jerusalem, to repent because God's judgment was coming. And it was coming in the form of their own exile. But at the close of Zephaniah's prophecy, there's this turn.
Jeffrey Heine:Zephaniah is given the word of the lord of what will come in the far future. Not only will it occur 1000 of years from his moment in time, but it unfolds over 2 advents, 2 arrivals. The first arrival of the Christ child and the second in his return. And I I'd love to cover the entire book, like I said. But today, we're gonna focus on verses 14 through 17.
Jeffrey Heine:So let's look together at verse 14. Sing aloud, o daughter of Zion. Shout, o Israel. Rejoice and exalt with all your heart, oh daughter of Jerusalem. The Lord has taken away the judgments against you.
Jeffrey Heine:He has cleared away your enemies. The king of Israel, the lord, is in your midst. You shall never again fear evil. This section begins with a call to rejoice. It's an emphatic call for the people of God to rejoice and exalt with all their heart.
Jeffrey Heine:And verse 14 is a call to great joy in worship. We see here this common construction in in the scriptures, and and it's helpful to learn to look for this. It's a pattern. In verse 14, we see a call to action followed by an explanation of why. The writer gives a basis for this call to action.
Jeffrey Heine:And the cause for this great rejoicing is 3 fold. 1st, the Lord has taken away the judgments against you, which means he has forgiven you of your sin. Because of the work of the lord, the judgments against you have been taken away, and you are invited then to rejoice. Secondly, the Lord has cleared away your enemies. The Lord has dealt with everything that is against you, chiefly the enemy of sin and death.
Jeffrey Heine:And since the enemy of your own sin has been cleared away by the Lord, you are invited to rejoice. And lastly, you shall never again fear evil. The prophet says, you don't have to be afraid anymore. Why? Isn't there plenty to be afraid of in the world?
Jeffrey Heine:How can we live unafraid? The prophet says, the king of Israel, the lord is in your midst. The Lord, the King of Israel is with you. He is among us. Zephaniah is saying that the Lord is Emmanuel.
Jeffrey Heine:He is God with us. And if God is with us, if He is in our midst, then you shall never fear evil again. Because the presence of God is enjoined to the victory of God over all darkness. His presence means that his power, his supremacy over everything is with you, and you shall never again fear evil. Why?
Jeffrey Heine:Because God comes as the king of Israel to rule and to reign in your midst. It will take many years from Zephaniah's time. But one day, this very king will ride into the city of Jerusalem on the back of a donkey's colt. And the people will cry out together, Hosanna. God save us.
Jeffrey Heine:Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord, even the King of Israel. This is the basis for the call to rejoice. The Lord has taken away the judgments against you. The Lord has cleared away your enemies. You shall never again fear evil, for the Lord is in your midst.
Jeffrey Heine:Next, the prophet goes on to describe in greater detail what has occurred in this advent, this arrival of god in your midst. As the voice of the Lord speaks through Zephaniah, we see in verse 16. Look with me. On that day, it shall be said to Jerusalem, fear not, O Zion. Let not your hands grow weak.
Jeffrey Heine:Zephaniah is calling on the children of God to take heart, to fear not because the day of the Lord has come. Verse 17. The Lord your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save. He will rejoice over you with gladness. He will quiet you by his love.
Jeffrey Heine:He will exalt over you with loud singing. Verse 17 unfolds what it means for the Lord to be in our midst. And this verse has 4 parts, and this is where I want us to linger for the rest of our time. We find here 4 truths about the day of the Lord when God comes to be in our midst. The first, the Lord comes as the mighty one who will save.
Jeffrey Heine:The name mighty one is used throughout the Old Testament as a name of God. In Genesis, Joshua, the Psalms, the prophets, Isaiah, and Ezekiel, they all refer to Yahweh as the mighty one. Some of your translations might say the mighty warrior. Here in Zephaniah's prophecy, the Lord says that He will come as the mighty one who will save. And last week, we considered how the very name of Jesus, Yeshua, as commanded by the angel to Joseph and Mary, means salvation because Jesus will save His people from their sins.
Jeffrey Heine:The name of Jesus is consistent with this prophecy that we see in Zephaniah, that when God comes into our midst, he will come to save. God brings salvation with his presence. He comes to rescue us from our enemies so that we will never fear evil again. The prophets Isaiah and Ezekiel as well as the psalmist Asaph and the sons of Korah all refer to God as this mighty one. And that's the first promise.
Jeffrey Heine:The Messiah in our midst, His first arrival, the mighty one comes to save. The second promise. When the word of the Lord comes in your midst, He comes to rejoice over you with gladness. When I was in college, I had to bail one of my roommates out of jail. It was right before Christmas, and I sat in a courtroom when they decided to bail.
Jeffrey Heine:And then I waited outside the jail for him to be released. And as I stood out in the snow, I waited with other people who were also picking up, friends or family members. And let's just say that the overall mood was not good. It was not reflective of the festive holiday season. These people were not happy.
Jeffrey Heine:Many, if not all of them, were furious. They probably just paid money that they didn't have on someone else's mistake. They were paying, literally, for someone else's sins. I watched as their friend or their family member would come out of the jail. And sometimes, the person waiting would immediately start chastising the person, yelling at them about how foolish they were and how much money they owed them.
Jeffrey Heine:And some wouldn't speak to each other at all, which was somehow more terrifying. They would just angrily make their way to their cars and slam the door shut. Do you ever picture God in this way, That He begrudgingly bailed you out of your foolish sin? That He paid for our sins and that He's fuming over our foolishness, and He's gonna hold it over your head forever. Just how much he had to do for you.
Jeffrey Heine:And the call to worship him is just about this bitter debt that we owe him. That's not the picture we get from the scriptures, especially not here with the prophet Zephaniah. Zephaniah says that our rescue is not a begrudging rescue. God does not hold over us some resentment for our deliverance. Rather than harshness, God displays the exact opposite.
Jeffrey Heine:He rejoices. He rejoices in your salvation. He rejoices over you with deep and divine eternal gladness. Is that hard to imagine? I find it to be.
Jeffrey Heine:But I believe that we should take on this challenge to receive this truth, the truth that your savior rejoices over you now with gladness. This isn't a license to think too highly of ourselves. It's to make much of God's gracious and extravagant love and to enjoy it. He rejoices over you. He delights with unending gladness over you.
Jeffrey Heine:The focus isn't on you. It's on who he is, what he has done in the past and will do in the future, and what he's doing right now. Look, I I understand that we can sing Jesus Loves Me and put the emphasis on me, but that potential danger of self centeredness must not prevent us from rightly receiving the truth that God rejoices over us with gladness. Of course, in our foolishness, we can make everything about us, but we can't let that fear prevent us from knowing who God really is and what he really is doing for us. He has come to us to be in our midst, to rescue us from the place of deep darkness, to transfer us into the kingdom of his son.
Jeffrey Heine:And in all of this, he rejoices over us in gladness. That isn't self aggrandizing. It's just true. And we don't need to be afraid of it. We need to receive it in all humility and all confidence and behold his rejoicing and delight in his gladness.
Jeffrey Heine:Because this joy, this divine gladness is not mere happiness. It's not a gladness that is ignorant to suffering or to sorrow. It's a gladness it's not a gladness that that numbs or ignores the pain of life. Instead, it's a gladness that, in the words of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, it's a joy that has gone through the poverty of the manger and the pain of the cross, and it is therefore invincible and irrefutable. We don't have to manufacture this joy.
Jeffrey Heine:We we receive it. We receive it because the lord is so effusive in his extending his own joy to us. That's the second promise. When the lord comes in our midst, he comes to rejoice with gladness. The third promise.
Jeffrey Heine:When the Lord comes in your midst, he comes to quiet you by his love. This verse offers a picture of a parent lovingly quieting their child, like a mother or a father tenderly cradling their little one softly and lovingly quieting them. Zephaniah says, the Lord, the mighty warrior who will rescue you, he will tenderly hush you with his love. Now I hesitated to go here because I feel like when I do, I become a caricature of myself. But this quote is too good to skip over.
Jeffrey Heine:So if you've been waiting for a reference from a random theologian from a distant country with a hard to pronounce name, let's go. From the 20th century, the Swiss theologian Hans Urs von Bald Hausser, that's his real name, what can you do? He says this. After a mother has smiled at her child for many days weeks, she finally receives the child's smile in response. She has awakened love in the heart of her child.
Jeffrey Heine:And as the child awakens to love, it also awakens to knowledge. That initial empty sense impression gathers meaningful gathers meaning around the core of the mother. Knowledge comes into play because the love has already begun beforehand, initiated by the mother. So God interprets himself to us as love in the same way. God radiates love, which kindles the light of love in the heart of man.
Jeffrey Heine:And it is precisely this light that allows us to perceive the absolute love of Christ Jesus. He is saying that the love of a mother, like that love of a mother awakening love in the child, receiving that smile back, and then, in time, growing in knowledge of who this mother is, so does God's divine love awaken love in us. He hushes, quiets us with his love. And in doing so, he awakens his love in us. Each one of us needs to be quieted by the love of God.
Jeffrey Heine:Think of all the loudness in your life. What in your life needs to be quieted by the love of God? What lie needs to be silenced? What fear or sorrow needs the tender quieting of God's love? What does that look like, really look like?
Jeffrey Heine:I think it looks like rest. I think it looks like living in the expanded present, this moment resting in the sufficiency of God's overwhelming love. It looks like a divine contentment that finds its sole source in resting in Christ. It means you let the 1st advent of the past and the 2nd advent of the future speak into, shape, and define the here and now. It looks like letting the past deeds of God and the future promises of God speak to shape and define your present this very moment, and you rest in the love of Jesus.
Jeffrey Heine:Because this love, this divine love is invincible and irrefutable. The great British preacher Charles Spurgeon once posed the question, Can sin ever make Jesus cease to love me? And his answer? If it could, he would have ceased to love me long ago. God has promised through the prophet Zephaniah that this quieting love comes when the Messiah, the mighty one, comes into our midst.
Jeffrey Heine:That was the third promise. When the Lord comes in our midst, he comes to quiet us by his love, which brings us to the 4th one. When the Lord comes in your midst, he comes to exalt over you with loud singing. The word exalt here is synonymous with the rejoicing. It's another emphatic and effusive expression of God joyfully rejoicing over you.
Jeffrey Heine:And this time he says, that God will rejoice with loud singing. Think about this. So often, we put the focus on our own acts of devotion and singing and worship. We feel good about ourselves. We congratulate ourselves when we do that hard work of getting up and driving to the church building, finding a parking space, getting inside, and joining together with our brothers and sisters, raising our voices to the Lord.
Jeffrey Heine:We congratulate ourselves when we sing. Maybe we beat ourselves up or chastise ourselves when we don't. But that's not what Zephaniah is focused on here. He's not focused on you singing. He's not focused on your voice.
Jeffrey Heine:He's conveying the promise of God that the Lord sings over you. Loud singing, joyful singing. What if for a moment we allowed ourselves to be quieted by the love of God and just listened for Him to sing over us? His singing of our redemption, singing of our rescue in His grace, singing of His own divine and unending love, singing of His own greatness, His own name, His own glory, His own holiness and splendor? What if we stop making everything about us and just listen to Him sing His song of Himself?
Jeffrey Heine:Father, Son, and Spirit. I've heard people talk before about getting lost in worship, and I've never really understood this. I don't need to be lost in worship. I need to be found. I need to be found in His love.
Jeffrey Heine:I need to be found in His joy. I need to be found in His song. I think too often, we're too pleased with our own voices and our own feelings, too focused on ourselves. And we rush on to the next thing, the next feeling, and we give no patience wherein God might have something to say back to us that he might have a song to sing. And if you your life if your life doesn't have space to be quieted by His love and to hear Him sing over you with His own gladness, His loud singing, then perhaps your life is too loud.
Jeffrey Heine:And all of this makes the invitation of Advent so invaluable. That is why for the next 2 weeks, I implore you to take up this Advent invitation. To look to the past of Christ's first advent, His first arrival in the great incarnation, to be in our midst, And at the same time, look to his return, the promise of the second advent when Christ will come again to be in our midst to rescue and redeem us into his eternal kingdom. It's the invitation to listen to the prophets like Zephaniah that give us a basis, a why to our rejoicing. For the Lord has taken away the judgments against you.
Jeffrey Heine:He has cleared away your enemies. The king of Israel, the Lord is in your midst. You shall never again fear evil. At Advent, we are invited to behold the mighty works of the lord. The lord your god is in your midst, a mighty one who will save.
Jeffrey Heine:He will rejoice over you with gladness. He will quiet you with His love. He will exalt over you with loud singing. We do all of this in the here and now, allowing these 2 advents of the past and the future to define our expanded present moment. Because in this moment, this interval between the past and the future, He is in our midst by His Spirit.
Jeffrey Heine:And His Spirit will quiet us in His love and rejoice and exalt over us with gladness and loud singing because you are His beloved. He has set His love on you. The mighty one, the King of Israel has come to rescue you. That is our hope this Advent. And that is why we will have reason to rejoice this Christmas.
Jeffrey Heine:For Christ has died, Christ is risen, and Christ will come again. Let's go to him in prayer. Oh, lord, would you help us to believe this morning? Help us by your spirit to trust you, to obey you, and to love you. Help us to be quiet before you, to not be so focused on our own voices, but to listen for yours.
Jeffrey Heine:Help us to believe that you sing over us, that you are glad, that in joy, you rescue us. Lord, would you continue to speak to our hearts this morning and help us to continue to listen. We pray these things in the name of Christ our king. Amen.