Yeah. Please turn with me, if you would, to Zephaniah chapter 3. We're going to be looking at verses 14 through 20 this morning. The easiest way to find the book of Zephaniah might be to start at the end of the Old Testament, which is the book of Malachi, and count backwards four books. And once you find Zephaniah, go to the very end of the book.
We'll be reading the last seven verses. Of this book, a book which otherwise is all about God's chastening and his judgment, but in these closing verses, God promises.
so much mercy to his children that it almost Sounds scandalous to read.
So let's read it. Zephaniah chapter 3, verses 14 through 20. Sing aloud, O daughter of Zion. Shout, O Israel. Rejoice and exult 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. On that day it shall be said to Jerusalem, Fear not, O Zion.
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 exult over you with loud singing.
I will gather those of you who 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 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. Let's pray. God of all mercy. Without faith, It is impossible to please you.
Because whoever would draw near to you must believe that you exist and that you reward those who seek you. But how prone we are to doubt your eagerness to bless us with mercy.
So Holy Spirit, I ask that you would please give us The capacity this morning to believe the incredible promises we've just read. and in believing them to rejoice in them. You are a God who sings. Teach us to sing. because of the great mercy we've been shown.
I pray in Jesus' name. Amen.
Something that all human beings have in common is that we find it difficult to rejoice in the face of suffering. We find it hard to maintain joy in the face of suffering and danger and pain and death. That's human nature. And so it shouldn't be at all difficult for us to put ourselves in the shoes of those people from Judah who first heard this message from Zephaniah. They had just been told by the Lord's prophet that a day was coming of horrific suffering and destruction, that their entire world.
Their society, their culture, their homes, their families was about to be turned upside down.
Now, understand that this threat of divine judgment came at a very prosperous and secure time in Judah's history. Things were going pretty well, at least outwardly, when this message of doom was delivered. And so I suspect that back then, just like today, there would have been plenty of people in the covenant community who rejected Zephaniah's message. Oh, he's just a radical preacher. He's making a big deal about nothing.
They likely wouldn't have believed him. On the other hand, there were no doubt plenty of spiritually-minded, God-fearing people who took this message to heart and were absolutely distraught by it. To hear that your world was about to collapse due to the church's unfaithfulness to God. would have been devastating news to hear. And yet that's exactly the message Zephaniah had delivered to Judah in the preceding chapters.
But as Zephaniah concludes this message of doom, he comes to verse 14 of chapter 3. And what he says hardly makes sense at all. He says, in light of that impending day of doom, Sing, O daughter of Zion. Shout, O Israel. Rejoice and exult with all your heart, O daughter of Jerusalem.
This should be a day of mourning, a time for sackcloth and ashes. How in the world can the prophet call for rejoicing at a time like this?
Well, we're going to find out How he can say these things as we work through this text today. But let me give you the quick answer. Why does God conclude this threatening message with such a strong, triumphant call to hope? He does it because he never wants his children to despair. God never wants his children to despair.
He wants us to always, always have hope. In him. Yes, there are times when the church needs pruning. There are times when we deserve the chastening hand of God. But even in those times, God wants us to always remember that the end of the story for the believer is glory.
The message of our text this morning Is that we should rejoice by faith now because one day God will do for His people far more than we could ask or imagine. And that message is given to God's people just before. Their greatest suffering, their greatest disillusionment, their greatest doubt. Judah was less than one generation away from the Babylonians sacking Jerusalem and carrying the people of Judah into exile. And yet God makes sure that they hear this message loud and clear: Rejoice, because one day I will restore you.
This morning, I want us to think about the things that tempt us to despair. And then I want us to see how God counters the very things that so often make our hope and joy crumble. What are the things that make Christians lose heart, that melt our hope, that cause us to be paralyzed with fear? I suppose there are any number of things we could mention. The possibility of acquiring some fatal disease.
The threat of persecution. The thought of the people we love the most walking away from the Lord. the looming possibility of the death of the people we love. Maybe the things that leave us feeling hopeless are things like addiction or some secret sin that weighs us down with guilt and leaves us feeling like there will never be any freedom for me. Maybe despair is brought on by just a general sense of worthlessness or incompetence or lack of giftedness or importance or purpose.
Maybe for you, your joy is sapped by the people in your life. A difficult pastor. A difficult boss, an uncaring spouse, children who say hurtful things, parents who belittle your achievements and interests, and we could go on and on. These closing verses of Zephaniah are spoken to a people who deserve everything that is bringing despair upon them, and yet God in His mercy extends to them hope. Hope that every threat, every chastisement, every tear, every pain, every sorrow, and even death itself will be removed.
And so the Christian life. The life of one whose hope is in God is a life of simultaneously dying to sin and all of the grief and pain that goes with that. and yet rejoicing in the life to come. The prophet gives us three reasons to rejoice, even as we experience the chastening hand of the Lord. First, we are to rejoice because God will remove his judgment against us.
God will remove his judgment. Against us. As I talk with people about the challenges and trials in their lives, as I contemplate the hardships of my own life, one of the commonly recurring themes that comes up is the fear that God is out to get me. I am so sinful, so defiled, so unworthy that there's really not any hope for me. God should just strike me dead where I stand because I've broken his law.
And even when I've managed to maybe conform externally to that law, I've broken the spirit of his law in my motives and attitudes.
Now, the reason this is such a powerful cause for despair and doubt among Christians is because it's true. We are filthy, defiled, and unworthy. God would be just to strike us dead where we are. We're guilty and we know it. How well Judah knew this.
For two and a half chapters now, Zephaniah had been telling them that their infidelity to the Lord would bring destruction of the highest magnitude. Surely they had every right to despair. And yet God told them to rejoice. Why? Because verse 15, he was going to take away the judgments against them.
He was going to erase every infraction, every demerit, every sin they had committed or would commit, gone. Nothing left but the pure, white, righteous record of Jesus Christ. Friends, that's the gospel. You may feel guilty. You may even be guilty.
In fact, you are guilty. But the good news is that for everyone who belongs to God through faith in Christ, the slate will be wiped totally clean. The judgment against you. is gone. This promise That the Lord will take away His judgments against us is explained in great detail in verse 20.
Verse 20 says, 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. He's describing a time here in verse 20 when God's people will be returned to the promised land. He will bring them in.
That is, he will gather them back together in the land that he had promised to them.
Now this promise had an immediate, although partial, fulfillment after the Babylonian exile, as the Jews were allowed by Cyrus and others to return to the promised land and begin rebuilding it. But this return was limited. It never resulted in the complete restoration that had been promised. If, however, we jump to the end of the story, Revelation 21, we read a description of the very things that. Zephaniah promises here in verse 20.
We read about a new Jerusalem, fully rebuilt and restored and holy. You see, the ultimate fulfillment of this gathering together of God's people that Zephaniah and other prophets promised will be at the second coming, when God gathers the elect from the four corners of the earth and ushers in the new heavens and the new earth. A restoration of that magnitude is only possible if the judgments that had resulted in the dispersion of God's people have been removed. Church, those judgments have been removed through the blood of Jesus Christ. Notice that this is such an astounding event that it results, verse 20, in God's people becoming renowned and praised among all the peoples of the earth.
So incredible is the divine favor God pours out on the church that the whole world is talking about it. The very covenant community that is being condemned as exiled, deserving criminals. In chapters one and two of Zephaniah, is now a household name and the envy of the whole world in chapter three. Zephaniah is telling the people of Israel. You're going into exile now.
But rejoice, God will deal with your guilt and bring you back. We maybe look at the Christian landscape today and It can be disheartening. To see how irrelevant the church has become in the world's estimation. And then, when we consider how much our personal lukewarmness has contributed to that sad state of affairs, it's something to grieve over. We haven't represented Christ well.
We haven't valued the word of God like we should. We haven't worshiped God alone and guarded our hearts against idolatry. We haven't honored our parents and loved our spouse and raised our kids the way we should. And the judgments against us have just piled up more and more and more until God's chastening hand is inevitable. It must strike, and it will.
But it is in that moment that God reminds us. The judgments against you are taken away. What ought to be poured on you, I will pour on my son, God says.
So rejoice. because our judgments are taken away. There's a second reason in verse 15 to rejoice. And it's because God will clear away our enemies. Verses 18 and 19 elaborate on this second promise.
Verse 18 says, I will gather those of you who mourn for the festival, so that you will no longer suffer reproach. Verse 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. Zephaniah ministered just a generation or so before the Babylonian exile began.
So the promises of verses 18 and 19 are being given to a covenant community who, in just a few short years, will have been carried into exile far away from Jerusalem, far from the temple. All she will have left will be memories of the great feasts and festival days she once enjoyed at Jerusalem. And in the place of these festival days will be the ridicule of Babylonians. Pagans who don't understand the greatness of Yahweh or the sweetness of the fellowship that God's people had enjoyed. Judah would be scattered and left to mourn the loss of those spiritual privileges which.
she had taken for granted while her enemies looked on and mocked. Many of you remember a better day in America. when Christianity was valued. When moral moorings were explicitly biblical, when strong Orthodox churches were the norm rather than the exception.
Now those days are gone. And Every voice that mocks Christianity reminds you of that better day. And you, like Judah in verse 18, are left to simply mourn over what has been lost. and endure the ridicule of those who hate God and hate God's people. To belong to God while living in Babylon is to be ostracized, overlooked, and cast aside.
But it is in this very context that God comes to his church and says, sing, shout. and rejoice. Why? Because he will one day deal with all of our oppressors. He will come to those whom the world labels as good for nothing.
Verse 19, the lame and the outcast. And he will change their shame into praise. He will change their irrelevance into renown in all the earth. Christian, do you realize that those who hate you because they hate God are pawns in God's hand? Do you realize they are not sovereign?
In fact, they actually do God's bidding. Don't be shocked when the world hates you, Jesus told us. Of course, they hate you. That's what the world does. It's at enmity with God.
But, beloved, don't ever forget the world and those of the world are not sovereign, there is only one God. And he is supreme, and he will deal with those who oppress his children. You do not need to fear your enemies. In fact, you need to rejoice. We should rejoice now.
Because one day God will defeat every enemy that stands against his own.
So God promises to erase the judgments that stand against us. And he promises to clear away our enemies. Finally, he promises to be with us, to be in our midst. Look at that third promise in verse 15. The king of Israel, the Lord, is in your midst.
You shall never again fear evil. Beloved, we should rejoice. because God will establish His presence with us. Zephaniah expounds this wonderful promise in verses 16 and 17. Verse 16 says, On that day it shall be said to Jerusalem, Fear not, O Zion, let not your hands grow weak.
And why? Because 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.
He will exult over you. with loud singing. Think with me for a minute about what God is promising to his people here. When he says in verses 15 and 17 that he will be in the midst of his people. He isn't merely describing his location.
He's not just saying, I'll be close to you, or you'll be in my presence. We know that God is omnipresent, that he's everywhere at all times. He cannot be limited by time or space. And so, in one sense, God is in the midst of everyone, right? The psalmist reflects on this reality in Psalm 139 when he asks, Where can I go from your spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there. If I make my bed in hell, you are there. You cannot escape the presence of someone who is omnipresent. And so, if God is making a statement in Zephaniah 3 about his omnipresence, he's really just stating the obvious.
It's really not a very meaningful promise if that's all it means. And that's the point. That's not all it means. His promise to be in the midst of his people. means so much more than the mere presence of God.
It means the acceptance of God. He's saying to his children, I associate with you, I receive you, I accept you. One of my seminary professors read a quote in class one day that I've never been able to forget. He said, Hell is an eternity in the presence of God. Heaven is an eternity in the presence of God with a mediator.
You see, no one can escape the presence of God. But being in the presence of absolute Perfection, absolute holiness, absolute purity, infinite wisdom and knowledge and power is a terrifying thing. Unless you have a hiding place. Unless you have a mediator, a priest, a savior, only then does God's presence become something to be desired and even longed for. Church, that's what God is promising to his people when he says to them in verse 15, I will be in your midst and you won't be afraid.
And then just to be sure, God pours out on his people reassurance after reassurance of his love. First, he says in verse 17 that he will rejoice over his people. with gladness. I don't know how you think about God. We are.
Prone to all sorts of imagined ideas about what God is like. But you know, we ought to get our knowledge of what God is like by what He tells us He is like. And he tells us here that he is one who rejoices. and is glad. This is the response of a husband to the wife whom he loves.
I was out of town for a few days this last week and could only talk to Laura on the phone.
So when I finally saw my wife again, I rejoiced over her with gladness. No one had to twist my arm or force me to smile. I love my wife. She loves me. It was a happy, happy reunion.
And this is how God describes his response to his bride. Do you believe that? This is how he reveals himself to us. There is divine gladness and mirth. And pleasure and delight over us, not because we are deserving of these things.
But simply because God loves us. with a fiery, everlasting love. But verse 17 doesn't stop there.
Next, it says, He will quiet you by his love.
Now, it's not entirely clear in the Hebrew whether the Lord is quieting us or quieting Himself. Different translations reflect one of these two options. Either way, it's pretty amazing. If God is quieting us. It's saying his love for us is so strong, so constant, so real that it calms our anxieties, it eliminates our doubts, and floods our heart with peace.
If he's quieting himself, it suggests that God is perfectly satisfied in his love for us. It's not an unsettled love. It's not an uncertain love. He's simply enjoying quiet reflection on the love he has for his redeemed children. Christian, is this how you view God's love for you?
Because this is how God reveals his love to us. Finally, verse 17 says, He will exult over you with loud Singing. And this has got to be one of the most incredible descriptions of God in the Bible. The word exalt means to be happy, to make mirth. to be full of glee.
Some scholars suggest it describes spinning around under the influence of a violent emotion, as if God is dancing with joy. Perhaps it almost feels Sacrilegious for us to think of God in these terms, to think of Him taking that much delight in the people He has redeemed. And yet this is God's revelation of himself to us. He is so full of sheer delight in his children that he's spinning around and singing at the top of his lungs.
Now, to be sure, this passage is describing God in human terms simply because it's the only way that we as finite creatures can come to understand the heart of God for his people. But by employing this very human and emotional response, Zephaniah is helping us to see that God's love for his people is real and that he loves his people more than his people realize, more than we. Can give him credit for. His love is deeper and higher and broader than perhaps we dare to imagine.
Now there are those who contemplate The magnitude of God's love for his people, and they conclude that God's great love for us says something about us. They tell themselves, well, if God loves us this much, it must be because there's something about us that is lovable. And so, the incomprehensible love of God for sinners is twisted into some sort of self-exalting, man-centered idea. of divine love. You know, Paul corrects that misunderstanding in Romans 5 when he says.
while we were still weak. Christ died for the ungodly. While we were still sinners. Christ died for us. While we were enemies of God, We were reconciled to God not by our loveliness, but by the death of his son.
You see, this incredible description of God's love for us in Zephaniah 3. Is saying nothing about the magnitude of our loveliness. It's saying everything about the magnitude of God's love. It wasn't a love that loved us because we were beautiful. It was a love that loved us in order to make us beautiful.
And so we have all the more reason to be confident that this love, God's love, is unconditional. We have all the more reason to rest assured that nothing can separate us from this love. We have reason to sing. and shout. And rejoice because God Himself is singing and shouting and rejoicing over us.
Beloved, this passage in God's Word Assures us that God is going to do some marvelous things for His people. He's going to clear away all of our enemies. He's going to take away the judgments against us. He's going to receive us into His presence with acceptance and even unbridled delight.
So what are we supposed to do in the meantime as we await the day when these things will come to pass? Zephaniah makes it very clear what we're supposed to do. In fact, he began this final message with the application. It's right there in verse 14. Sing aloud.
Shout. Rejoice. and exult with all your heart. At the end of this stern book of judgment, the application is joy. Christians are to be a people who rejoice in what's in store, even as they're heading into exile, even as they suffer and fear and doubt and grieve.
They are to be a people who rejoice in faith.
Now maybe this sounds a bit impossible to do. I mean, how can God command joy? Doesn't that diminish the authenticity of it? Shouldn't joy be an organic response of walking with God, not something we're commanded to do? But the thing we've got to realize is that joy is not merely an emotion.
Joy, especially in the context of suffering, is an act of faith. In fact, the faith aspect of joy is very clearly implied in this passage. Did you notice how all of the promises spoken to Judah there in verse 15 are spoken in the past tense? As the prophet explains these promises in greater detail, he makes it clear when. They will actually be fulfilled three times.
He refers to the day of the Lord, the second coming. Verse 16, on that day, verse 19, behold, at that time, verse 20, at that time. These promises haven't been fulfilled yet, and still the prophet speaks of them as if they're as good as done. Bible scholars like to call this the prophetic past tense. It's a technique used throughout the Old Testament that describes future events that are so certain to happen that they're referred to as if they've already happened.
And so God commands his church then and now to exercise faith by rejoicing in suffering. We are to rejoice now. Even while there are still consequences of our sins, even while we still have enemies, even while God's love for us and presence with us is oftentimes unseen and unfelt, rejoice in faith. that these promises are as good as done. You know, this doesn't mean that we're supposed to put on a fake smile and walk around like all is well.
Like suffering doesn't hurt. Like pain isn't excruciatingly painful. Suffering is real. Pain does hurt. Persecution is not fun.
The Lord's chastening in my life is not enjoyable. It's not supposed to be. Otherwise it wouldn't accomplish what it's supposed to accomplish in us. But what all of this does mean is that even in the middle of the junk that this life in a fallen world brings, we keep reminding ourselves that this isn't the end. We're created for another world.
And one day we will be gathered to that new world with a glorified body. And our joy on that day. will make our worst day in this life. seem like a passing shadow. A shadow that is obliterated by the thrill of heaven.
So church, keep your eye on that day. and on the Christ who will appear on that day. and rejoice even now. Let's pray. Father, thank you for.
your sweet promises. Promises that remind us of the amazing grace that has been given to us. That is being given to us, and that will be given to us. Would you please fill our hearts? With such a certainty of that grace that We are able to rejoice.
Even in the grace of your chastening hand. We pray it all in Jesus' name. Amen.
Yeah.
