Scripture: Zephaniah 3:14-20
What is your image of God? Some people picture a sort of a Santa Claus looking old man on a throne, smiling down on you. Others see the same picture except that he scowling. When you think of God the Father, what words or pictures come to mind? Creator, Holy, maybe you think of the pillar of fire? How about a raging storm? Brilliant light flashing all around a giant throne over wheels within wheels? Burning bush? Still small voice after a fire, an earthquake and a great wind? How about judge of the whole earth? These are all biblical images of God the Father.
What emotional words do you associate with God the father? Is that where you locate wrath and judgment, angry with sin, jealous? Or do you tend toward love, grace and forgiveness? I know I prefer to think of his love for the whole world that motivated him to send his one and only son. But then, I believe he sent his son like a king sends a prince off to war, proud of his son’s willingness to do the right thing in the fight against evil, but angry that he has to go at all, that there even is an enemy to conquer.
Put that all aside for a moment. In our text today we have a more unusual picture of God. He is singing over us; singing and taking delight in his children! Can I tell some dad stories? I used to sing over my children. Now I do that with Maddie. It was originally Kathy’s idea really. But I love it! Every night at bed time, when the kids were little, we used to read bed time stories, sometimes four different ones, one for each kid. We worked at getting them all interested in the same stories though. Then we would pray for them, and it ended with the song. All through the day, all through the night, dwell in his promises, walk in his light. Darkness shall flee at his command. All through the day and night we’re in his hand.
Now that they’re grown, I think they might be a little creeped out if I tucked them in and sang a song. But I do still sing it when putting Maddie down for her nap. Now with my older kids, I want to disciple them. What I mean by that is that I want to continue to be as strong of an influence as I know how to encourage them to go deeper in their relationship with Jesus Christ. Much of the time I still feel like I don’t really know how to connect, or I do it all awkwardly. I send them texts every now and then with a good Bible verse or some spiritual thought. I keep in touch on Facebook, and I comment on their posts, sometimes to be funny. The other day I found and passed along one that said, “Best dating advice ever: Run as fast as you can toward God, and if someone keeps up, introduce yourself.”
But my latest favorite moment as a dad came just last Sunday with my oldest son, Matt. He calls home for some good conversation with his mom every week and I hang in there to listen. They tease me about not really listening and having nothing to say either. But eventually Kathy says good bye and leaves Matt and I to have a little man to man. This has been a good and growing pleasure. At the end of every conversation I pray for my son based on what we have talked about. And I have often wished he would offer to pray for me in return. But he just didn’t. I think it just didn’t occur to him.
A few days before last Sunday I had read about the basic plan that Jesus used in making disciples and here it is, a simple four step process: 1. Jesus invited the disciples to watch him do his work, then they talked about it. 2. Jesus invited the disciples to help him do his work. (Think of how they served the masses during the feeding of the five thousand) Then they talked about it. Step 3. Jesus told the disciples to go and do the work he had for them, and he helped them, and then they talked about it. And finally, 4. Jesus sent the disciples to go and do their work, and they talked about it afterward.
So before my talk with Matt I thought and prayed about how I could put that plan into effect to disciple my son. At the end of our conversation, instead of just praying for him based on what we had talked about, I asked him what he would like me to pray about on his behalf, and he told me. Then I told him a couple of things he could pray for me about if he was so inclined. Then I prayed for him, and when I said amen he said, “I guess it’s my turn now.” And the most beautiful thing happened. My son prayed for me and I could hear the emotion in his voice and he mentioned it too. It was emotional for me to, to be so blessed by my son. I think we have now connected in a deeper way than ever before. I am so grateful to God. And I am singing in my heart over my own kids!
Our Father God longs for a special connection with each of us as his children. The text we read today speaks of great blessings ahead for the children of God. God wants them to be strong and encouraged by looking forward to a bright a beautiful future. This is a really important message because the first people who heard it were devastated by God’s wrath and had suffered much! Zephaniah was preaching to the remnant of Israel, whose families and relatives and entire communities have been wiped out by God’s punishment of their sin. It came in the form of Babylonian conquest, a horribly ruthless army. Many had died. Now the survivors were living in exile. Without Zephaniah’s message of reassurance, it would have been really easy for the remaining Israelites to completely give up and just fade away by being absorbed into the culture around them in Babylon. The nation of Israel was no more.
“Not so,” says God. I will keep my promises! Sing, Daughter Zion; shout aloud, Israel! Be glad and rejoice with all your heart, Daughter Jerusalem! The Lord has taken away your punishment, he has turned back your enemy. The Lord, the King of Israel, is with you; never again will you fear any harm.”
Of course the Israelites could also wonder, if God loves us so much why did he let such terrible things happen to us in the first place? Much of the rest of Zephaniah’s message explains that God’s judgement was designed to produce repentance so that the children would come back to God and enter fully into the wonderful relationship God longs to have with his children.
You see, just like an earthly father gets angry when his children disobey and disrespect his will, so does our Heavenly father. In both cases it is an anger born out of great love and concern for the children to live healthy and blessed lives. But far better than an earthly father’s frustrated expression of anger that actually accomplishes little, God’s anger is not because he is frustrated. Rather his anger becomes part of a plan to fix the problems and bring the children back around.
So in the message of Zephaniah, the children of Israel have suffered God’s wrath and anger. The prophet now reassures them that the judgement is complete. God’s love is on the rise again and this will bring about an ultimate triumph over all evil and rebellion. So it turns out God uses devastation not to really destroy us but to teach us a lesson we wouldn’t learn any other way. In order to accept this, we really need to believe that we are that stubborn and would not respond correctly to any gentler form of teaching.
Everything God does is motivated by his love! Love is the ONLY thing that motivates him. God IS love. And he will keep his promises. He would never let Israel be destroyed completely. But he would punish her to purify her. We can also give thanks for this because our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ had to come from Bethlehem, a Jew descended from King David! If God didn’t keep his promises to Israel, he wouldn’t have been able to keep his ultimate promises to redeem the whole world, because that redemption was to come through the seed of Abraham.
So God now reaffirms his sovereign control over the whole situation by making further promises to this remnant. “I will remove from you all who mourn over the loss of your appointed festivals, which is a burden and reproach for you. At that time, I will deal with all who oppressed you. I will rescue the lame; I will gather the exiles. I will give them praise and honor in every land where they have suffered shame. At that time, I will gather you; at that time, I will bring you home. I will give you honor and praise among all the peoples of the earth when I restore your fortunes before your very eyes,” says the Lord.
All these promises are fulfilled in Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord, the one we expect to come again one day and complete the work of redemption that he started way back at the first Christmas, and even before that to set up the perfect circumstances to make it the right time for God to be born as a baby. We know that he lived and died to offer himself as a perfect sacrifice so that we could be forgiven of all our sins and for that we are very grateful. And so we celebrate Christmas!
But of course the world in which we live, though greatly changed and blessed by the presence of the Holy Spirit in the Church, is still far from perfect and in many ways it may look as if evil is getting stronger. Yet we can hold on to Jesus and hold on to the promises that one day he will come again and we will be alive to enjoy the new world that he will bring in to being. Through faith in Jesus we are given the power to become the children of God and our Heavenly Father surely sings over us, mostly.
Lately I have often mentioned here our own discouraging circumstances. Our congregation is smaller than it used to be, our resources are depleted. We could feel that this ministry has been devastated by many hard losses. But, thanks to the grace of God, we haven’t been through anything near as bad as Israel. There really is no comparison other than the downward trend and the promise of recovery. Still, the message of Zephaniah ought to encourage us to look at hard times as a training ground for future glory.
So though these are not the glory days, we can still be confident that God loves us. He has not forgotten or forsaken us. And he will not let us be spoiled by blessings with no challenges. God intends to raise us up as faithful disciples who do his work in his world in good faith and with great joy. It is too easy to focus on and be dragged down by the problems and hindrances in our ministry. We can’t ignore them and we have to do our best to deal with them, but according to all God’s promises, we don’t have to let them discourage us. The Word says, be strong and courageous. Do Not fear.
Our response to all his love and good graces is so key. He doesn’t just pour out blessings so we can live it up. No, he is providing all we need so that we can joyfully serve him and live up to the call for us to bless others. If we do that faithfully, we will grow deeper in faith and obedience, we will grow in joy and confidence about doing what God calls us to do. We will not be troubled by fears or doubts. We will be bold to pray for mountains of opposition to be moved as we walk together and work together as a strong and healthy missional church made up of devoted disciples of Jesus Christ, until he comes!
The Lord bless you and keep you! The Lord make his face shine upon you, and give you peace, and give you peace, and give you peace forever.
Philippians 4:4-7 Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
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