Zephaniah 3:15-17

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I’m reading now from one of the minor prophets in the Old Testament, Zephaniah. Zephaniah wrote just a three chapter prophecy. He lived and worked about 600 years before Jesus was born. He was a contemporary of a more famous prophet by the name of Jeremiah. And like Jeremiah, the prophet Zephaniah issued some very frightening warnings to the people of Jerusalem and Judah because of their unfaithfulness. They would be swept up in the coming Babylonian Empire and its fierce confiscation of that part of the whole world coming upon them. And the prophet warns them, this is a punishment from God.

But God always has his faithful remnant, those who wanted to remain faithful to His word and loved His Word. And as with the other minor prophets, here Zephaniah also then issues some very sweet and comforting promises to his faithful people. In some ways, our world is probably not so much different from the world of Zephaniah all those many centuries ago. And there are things that are coming upon our world that seem to be quite frightening. And the most frightening for some will be the last day, the day of the Lord, as Zephaniah calls it, when Jesus will return for the final judgment of his people.

And yet, even with such a day in our own future, perhaps as Christians, we can be at peace knowing that the one who is coming is our friend, and that he has paid for our sins and delivered us from this world unto himself for eternal life in heaven. So Zephaniah the prophet, in his last verses here of his prophecy says,

The Lord has taken away your judgments, (Zephaniah 3:15)

By his death he canceled out the punishment that our sins would have brought about. He says

He has cast out your enemy. (Zephaniah 3:15)

Our fiercest enemy is the devil, and through Jesus the devil has been defeated and can no longer rightly accuse us. He says,

The King of Israel, the Lord, is in your midst; (Zephaniah 3:15)

The one who’s coming is the one who’s already with us in our midst, already present with us in the word that he gives to us and speaks to us the word of the forgiveness of our sins with the hope of heaven. So thinking about what’s coming, the prophet says,

You shall see disaster no more. In that day it shall be said to Jerusalem: “Do not fear; Zion, let not your hands be weak. (Zephaniah 3:15-16)

Imagine in all the dread and fury of the end, we can stand up and be at peace, knowing our friend is coming. And so again the prophet says,

The Lord your God in your midst,
The Mighty One, will save;
He will rejoice over you with gladness,
He will quiet you with His love,
He will rejoice over you with singing.” (Zephaniah 3:17)

What a precious image that is of our Lord. So happy to know that we will be with him even through the turmoil that comes at the end, and that he is glad to do this for us. He rejoices over us. He quiets us with his love as a mother can quiet her crying child, frightened of a dream in the night by holding her. That’s how we can imagine our dear Lord approaching us and interacting with us as we wait for the coming day of his return.

May God bless us as we wait and keep us trusting in him. Amen.

John 3:16, Zephaniah 3:17

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It’s a really weird feeling, isn’t it? To know God loves you, but to feel like he doesn’t like you. Okay. I see the way you’re looking at me. Like, you’re like I don’t ever feel that way. But let me tell you my story and maybe it’ll resonate.

I realized a few years ago that I know God loves me and he loves me so much that he sent Jesus to die on the cross to pay for my sins. So then I can have eternal life with him. But I also know that God knows me and my life and he sees all the ways that I don’t live the way I was meant to live. He sees all the things I do that I shouldn’t do and all the things that I should do and that I don’t. And he knows all this stuff in my head that I would be so embarrassed for other people to know. And he also knows the stuff that I do that looks really good. And everybody’s like, All right, great job, but my heart’s not in it. And so knowing that God knows that about me, I often would feel like God was just super disappointed at me.

Like if I could look at his face that I would see him just kind of shaking his head. And so I actually started feeling like my relationship with Jesus was almost like he was like a ticket taker at like, a sports arena. You know, like, I could come up to the gate and all right, here’s my ticket, so I get to go in, right? So like, okay, I believe in you, Jesus. So I get to go to heaven, right? But there wasn’t really much of a relationship.

Does that resonate? If it does, I want to share with you what I learned. Part of what I learned has to do with the concept of God’s grace. And maybe you’ve heard that God’s grace is his undeserved love. Let’s dig a little deeper into it. If God’s grace is undeserved love, why? Where does it come from? When you look at the word in the original language, it actually describes delight or favor.

When someone is gracious to you, it’s the idea that they delight in you so much that they give you a gift, not because you’ve done anything to earn it. But just because they delight in you, it’s like a parent who gives a gift to their child just because you love them. You throw them a birthday party just because you love them, not because they’ve done anything to earn it. This is what grace is. God’s grace is that he delights in us so much that he loves us. He doesn’t love us because he has to.

Think about one of the most well known verses in scripture, John 3:16.

For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son.

He doesn’t love us because Jesus died for us, he loves us and so as a result, Jesus died for us. God loves you because he delights in you. And this is why one of my new favorite verses is Zephaniah 3:17 This is how it goes,

Your God is with you. He is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you. He will quiet you with his love. He will rejoice over you with singing. (Zephaniah 3:17)

I love this verse partly because actually if you read the rest of the book, God’s talking about how much his people have screwed up. Like it’s kind of a challenging book, and then all of a sudden, what did it just say about you? He will take great delight in you. Your God delights in you. And that’s why he sent Jesus to lay down his life, to die for your sins, to rise again. When you look at your God, he’s not shaking his head at you. He actually sees you now through the perfect life of Christ.

So today, lift up your head. Imagine looking at God’s face. And as you do so, may the Lord bless you and keep you. May He make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you. May he look upon you with favor and give you peace.

Deuteronomy 9:6, Zephaniah 3:17

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So I don’t know, I don’t know if I’m, if I should do this. Like I know, I know I made a lot of videos for church before and people tell me they’re pretty, they’re really good, but I just they don’t know, like, I’m not actually, it’s not, they’re not as good as people say they are. I don’t know. Maybe I shouldn’t, maybe I shouldn’t make this video. Or if I do, I need to make sure I got to get it down. I got to get it, I got to get everything word for word, perfect before I can do this.

You ever thought like that? You know, if you have an opportunity in front of you and ever thought that, OK, I don’t know if I’m gifted to do it, even though, even though people have told you and you’ve had success. Or if you ever thought, OK, there’s an opportunity in front of me, but I just I got to make sure it’s perfect before I can do it. If you’ve had thoughts like that, you’ve had thoughts that are typically associated with something called imposter syndrome.

It’s this belief, this being certain that there’s something about me that isn’t quite good enough. And even though people have said or even though you’ve had great successes, you’re still convinced that you’re not good enough. Maybe you’ve been able to fool people into thinking that you’ve been pretty good, but you’re afraid that people are going to find out that you’re really not that good. Or you’re really not good enough. And so what happens with this often is, procrastination or you kind of hold back because you don’t want to try it. Because what if people find out you’re not that good or the other side is perfectionism, where you just have to have it be perfect because people can’t find out that you’re not perfect.

We don’t have time to get into all the details of what imposter syndrome is. But one of the great things about God’s word is that we can really get right to the core of some things. And so we’re going to spend here a few videos and we’re to have God’s word speak right to the core of what’s going on with imposter syndrome.

Why do we feel like there’s a part of us that isn’t good enough, that doesn’t measure up? Well, because naturally none of us do. When our parents, Adam and Eve, turn away from God, when they sinned, they started missing the mark. Missing the mark of what? Of God’s law. And why is God’s law what it is? God’s law is what it is because of God’s law tells us how we were meant to live, what we were created to be. And all of us now are born into sin, which means we born missing the mark of what we were meant to be.

Yeah, naturally we’re not enough. And so, like Adam and Eve, what did they do afterwards? They went, they hid from God, they hid from each other. Because when you know you’re not enough, you’re terrified people are going to find out. But when you realize that we’re not enough, here’s something to bring some encouragement. And it might seem kind of strange at first of a place to go, but we’re going go to Deuteronomy 9:6. God is talking about the people of Israel. And he says,

Know, then, that it is not because of your righteousness that the Lord your God is giving you this good land to possess, because a stiff-necked people is what you are. (Deuteronomy 9:6)

It doesn’t seem very encouraging. It’s not because of your righteousness. You’re stiff necked. But here’s why I find it comforting. When God chose the people of Israel, he didn’t, he wasn’t fooled. He didn’t have some false idea that they were going to be this great people. He knew totally what he was getting himself into. He knew they would be stubborn. He knew that they would turn away, but he still chose them. And he chose them by grace. And these same stiff neck people, he also says in Zephaniah 3, he says,

The Lord your God is with you as a hero who will save you. He takes great delight in you. He will quiet you with his love. He will rejoice over you with singing. (Zephaniah 3:17)

See God is such a God of grace that he knows our flaws. He knows our sins completely and yet loves us fully. Now, if God knows you completely, could there be anything that you would need to hide from him? He knows everything about you and he loves you fully. He loves you so much. He delights in you so much that Jesus became one of us to live that perfect life. We were meant to live, but don’t. To lay down his life, to die on a cross, to rise again, to give us new life with God so we could be declared right with God.

If God knows you fully and God loves you completely, what is there to hide?

How could you be an impostor?

1 John 4:16, Zephaniah 3:5

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God is love. You’ve probably heard that before. Maybe you’ve seen it on billboards. Maybe you’ve seen it posted online. What does it mean? God is love. Does that mean that God doesn’t care about sin? God doesn’t care about right or wrong? The Bible tells us that God is love. In fact it says that in 1 John chapter 4. The Bible also tells us this about God in Zephaniah chapter 3 it says The Lord is just.

Now someone is just there someone that carries out justice. They are very much so concerned with right and wrong and punishing those who do wrong. So it seems almost to be a contradiction, doesn’t it? That God is love, but also God is just.

I want you to imagine though for a moment that God was not just. Imagine if you had a judge that wasn’t just. That no matter what crime was brought before him whether it’s the crime of murder, or rape, or theft, whatever it was that he would just allow every last criminal to go free. And he’d say: “Well, I want to be a loving, and merciful, and compassionate judge.” People would be outraged, wouldn’t they? They’d be outraged because he’s failing to do his job. In fact, they might even call him evil for not carrying out his role of justice.

So also with God. If God is not just God is evil. If God simply allows evil doers to go free unpunished he’s allowing them to wreak havoc throughout the world and to perpetrate more evil upon innocent victims. But the Bible says that God is just. So how can it be true God is a God of love and God is also a God of justice?

Well it’s true in this way. Yes, God must punish sin, he must even punish all of our own sins that we’ve committed. But he has chosen to do so in his Son Jesus Christ. In this way God is both love and just. He’s just because he punishes sin, but he is love because he is punish them in Christ Jesus. He’s allowed all the weight and guilt and punishment that our sins deserve be placed on his Son Jesus Christ, who suffered and died for them fully at the cross. Who made payment for our sins carrying out God’s justice to its very end.

What a comfort that is for us in our own lives. What meaning it has for us too. Certainly doesn’t mean that God takes pleasure in us continuing to sin, rather by our sins we led Jesus to have to suffer and die on the cross. So instead of wanting to continue in those lives of sin what reason do we have to turn from our sins? Because we know of God’s love and forgiveness for us, we now want to live new and different lives, knowing that God has love for us in Christ.

There’s much more that can be said about God, and in our series ‘What is God Like,’ perhaps it’s best to end on this truth of God: that God is just and love. Yes, know that God is love for you in Christ who’s been punished in your place. Amen.