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Pastor Ian Upward preaches on Zephaniah 3verses 1-20 and the song God sings
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Details
Pastor Ian Upward preaches on Zephaniah 3verses 1-20 and the song God sings
Comment
Pastor Ian Upward preaches on Zephaniah 3verses 1-20 and the song God sings
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The speaker begins by pondering how people come to church and if they are seeking God or if God is seeking them. He mentions having a word from the Bible, specifically from the book of Zephaniah, a prophet who spoke to the people of Judah and Jerusalem. Zephaniah witnessed the people turning away from God and practicing idolatry, including human sacrifice. The speaker acknowledges that the book of Zephaniah may not be an easy read, as it speaks of destruction and judgment. However, in chapter three, there is a shift towards a rescue plan and a promise of God being with the people and rejoicing over them. The speaker shares a personal story about receiving a verse from Zephaniah and how it felt like a miracle. They reflect on the power of singing and how it helps us remember the works of God. The speaker encourages everyone to sing praises and reminds them that singing is biblical. Good morning Church. Hello. And good morning Lord, how are you? I wonder this morning, like I often do, how have we as people come to church this morning? Have we come to church this morning saying to God, stay close? Or is God saying to us this morning, stay close? I want to pray for you this morning. I've got a word this morning and I don't know how it's going to turn out to be fair. I've been reading a chapter in the Bible, well I read a book in the Bible. That's not unusual, I do that sometimes. And I'm not entirely sure where it's going to go this morning. And every time I thought about it, it's blocked. It's like, not yet, not yet. So as we go through the service, I'm going to ask you to do something for me, pray. Because otherwise we're going to have a 20 minute segment where nothing much happens. All right, now this morning's reading comes from Zephaniah. Not a book you hear often preached from, to be fair. Well I haven't anyway. Now, Zephaniah was a prophet. He was given a word to give to the people of Judah and Jerusalem. And it was a bitter pill for them. He lived about 600 years before Jesus. He was the great, great grandson of King Hezekiah, a great king, a king when Isaiah was prophesying. And he grew up as a lad in a difficult time. He grew up under the rule of King Manasseh and King Amon. Amon was Manasseh's son. And they were just about the worst kings that have ever walked this earth. They were abominable people. They were pretty much responsible for everything that Zephaniah is about to prophesy. So he grew up in this place and he witnessed the people suffering. He grew up in this place and he witnessed the people slowly turning away from God, worshipping idols, worshipping other gods. These idolatrous things, this worship and these other gods started to seep into the temple, the temple worship. Things of God were being replaced by other things that were not of God. Human sacrifice started to make a comeback. If you remember way back when Joshua arrived in the Holy Land, the Promised Land, he was given a mission to go in and eradicate this group of people. They were performing horrible rituals on people. They were murdering children and adults for sacrifice. And largely Joshua sorted that out and they had a period of time where human sacrifice stopped. But now it's starting to creep back in on the outlying villages and towns and it's starting to corrupt the people. They're starting to turn away from Yahweh, from God. Now if you ever go through the Bible and you pick it up and you go, you know what I'm going to read, I'm going to read a whole book. I'm going to go and find one of the small ones and I'm going to read that so I've got a sense of accomplishment. You might look at Zephaniah in its three chapters and go, ah that'll do, I'll get a nice bit of comfort from that. And you look at the first verse and it's like, oh that tells me who's writing it, that's good. He's the son of Cushie and Gedalia and Amariah and the son of Hezekiah, that's good. Second verse, I will sweep away everything from the face of the earth declares the Lord. Maybe it'll get better. I'll sweep away both man and beast. I'll sweep away the birds in the sky, the fish in the sea and the idols that cause the wicked to stumble. When I destroy all mankind on the face of the earth because I will stretch out my hand against Judah and then it goes on for two chapters about this utter destruction of the world, of man, of idolatry. And you're sitting there and you're thinking, I wish I'd chosen something else now. This is a pretty tough book to read. And so he pours out this judgment and a summons to repent to the world, to Jerusalem. We get to chapter three. I'm going to read the whole chapter. Woe to the city of oppressors, rebellious and defiled. She obeys no one. This is Jerusalem he's talking about. She does not trust in the Lord. She does not draw near to her God. Her officials within her are roaring lions. Her rulers are evening wolves who leave nothing for the morning. Her prophets are unprincipled. They are treacherous people. Her priests profane the sanctuary and do violence to the law. The Lord within her is righteous. He does no wrong. Morning by morning he dispenses justice and every new day he does not fail. Yet the unrighteous know no shame. I have destroyed nations. Their strongholds are demolished. I have left their streets deserted with no one passing through. Their cities are laid waste. They are deserted and empty. Of Jerusalem I thought surely you will fear me and accept correction. Then her place of refuge would not be destroyed nor all my punishments come upon her. But they were still eager to act corruptly in all they did. Therefore wait for me declares the Lord. For the day I will stand up to testify. I have decided to assemble the nations to gather kingdoms and to pour out my wrath on them. All my fierce anger. The whole world will be consumed by the fire of my jealous anger. Then I will purify the lips of the peoples that all of them may call on the name of the Lord and serve him shoulder to shoulder from beyond the rivers of Cush. My worshippers, my scattered people will bring me offerings. On that day you Jerusalem will not be put to shame for all the wrongs you have done to me. Because I will remove from you your arrogant boasters. Never again will you be haughty on my holy hill. But I will leave within you the meek and humble. The remnant of Israel will trust in the name of the Lord. They will do no wrong and they'll tell no lies. A deceitful tongue will not be found in their mouths. They will eat and lie down and no one will make them afraid. 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. On that day they will say to Jerusalem do not fear Zion. Do not let your hands hang limp. The Lord your God is with you. The mighty warrior who saves he will take great delight in you. In his love he will no longer rebuke you but will rejoice over you with singing. 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 fortune before your very eyes says the Lord. So we start off with utter despair, utter destruction. God has judged the city of Jerusalem. He's judged the kingdom of Judah. He's judged the whole of the Holy Land. He's judged all of the nations and all of the men and women in it and he has found it to be abhorrent. He has found it to He has found it to be an unholy place. Now the last time he did that, the last time he gave that level of judgment, do you know what he did? He made it rain and he wiped out pretty much the entire population of the world, save Noah and his family. That's how angry he was then. I've not found anyone other than this one man who has the confidence and the courage to face me. I'll smite the rest of them. So we read these first two chapters and we think, oh my goodness me, he's going to do it again. But this time, this time he speaks of a rescue plan. Now I read this last week. Someone sent me that verse. You may remember I mentioned it last week. I was mulling over this particular verse about the Lord your God is with you, the mighty warrior saves, he'll take great delight in you, in his love he will no longer rebuke you but rejoice over you with singing. I was meditating on that verse, thinking about it, wanting that verse to be true for me and I even prayed, Lord I really want that, I want that verse for me. I want that to be true, Lord. I want you to be singing over me. My phone went and I picked it up and I looked at my phone and this pastor, retired pastor who sends me messages on a Sunday, said I've got this verse for you. And he gave me this verse, that very verse that I'd been thinking about, meditating over. And I said to him, my goodness me, thank you, you don't know what that means to me. That is such a miracle. I just, I was literally just praying that that verse would be true for me and then you've sent it to me. And he just replied with, well I felt prompted. And I just thanked the Lord for that miracle because the chances of that actually happening by coincidence are so astronomically ridiculous, it's almost impossible for that to happen. So then I started thinking about God's singing voice. Now we worship, don't we? We sing and you've sung this morning and some of you have got fantastic voices by earthly standards and those that stand next to you going, wow they can really belt out a tune. I wish my voice was like that, sounds like a frog with a cold. Some of us don't even really sing that much because we're a little bit embarrassed of our voices. We don't like to sing, there's still that bit of shame in us that we think, no I can't, I can't do that, I'll wait until I get home and then I'll do it later. If that's you, I've got some news for you, that's a very unbiblical thing to do. We are supposed to sing our praises. So I was looking through the Psalms and how many of those are a song of David? Pretty much all of the Psalms are songs to be sung, we don't know the tunes unfortunately, but they're there to be sung because when we sing we remember songs more than we can remember scripts, because there's a tune, there's a melody, it helps us to remember, we can sing a song more than we can remember a text. So David wrote songs so we could remember the works that God has done, and so they sang them in praise and worship of all the work that God had done for their people, was doing for their people, and will do for their people. And it's a fantastic thing to lift up our voice and worship. Someone once said to me that it doesn't matter how bad your voice is, nothing bad can enter heaven, so therefore when God hears you singing, there's like this heavenly filter, so your bad voice goes up into the filter and to God's ears it is just heavenly music. I like that, I want that to be true. So we sing our praises, we sing worship, we sing about lots of things, we sing in despair, we sing in joy, but that's us singing. What about God? What is God going to sing? So I started thinking, I wonder if it's an individual song for each person, like God's written a psalm for each of us, and he sings it over us, and maybe it speaks into the hurts that we've experienced in our lives, maybe it speaks into the joys, the victories that we've had, maybe it speaks into the losses, maybe it reminds us about who we are, maybe it speaks of him coming into our lives and removing the shame, that we feel when we've done something wrong. So I was thinking about all this stuff, thinking, wow, that's going to be a really long song for me, if he's going to go through all the stuff that I've done wrong and talk into that. And then I started feeling a little bit depressed, I was thinking, oh my goodness me, that's a really dreary song, I don't think I want to hear that. Is he really going to be singing all that stuff? Is he really going to be singing all that stuff? And then I remembered, no, actually he's not going to be singing about that stuff, because if I've repented of those things that I've done wrong, your word says that you're going to forget it, you're going to put it as far as the East is from the West, you're not going to bring it up. So he's not going to be singing about my sin, that's a relief, that's a few hundred millennia off the time of the song. So what is he going to sing? Think about your lives, what's God going to sing over you? What does God's voice sound like? We've had a few times in the Bible where God's spoken. Jesus is baptism, this is my son of whom I am well pleased. Hundreds, thousands of people heard it that day. But what does his voice sound like? Has anyone ever heard the voice of God since these times? What does God sound like when he sings? And what does he sing over us? Puzzling me, I went through the Bible, I was trying to find instances of God I went through the Bible, I was trying to find instances where God may have sung. And the angels sing, there's choruses of angels, but they're not God, that's the staff. What does God's voice sound like? Why do we need God to be singing over us? What does God speak? He speaks truth. So everything he sings will be truth. What do we need to hear? What songs do we need to hear? It won't be a psalm from the Bible because that's a human expression of praise and worship. He doesn't need to sing those songs to himself. So will he be worshipping us? It's a brave preacher that says he will be, and that certainly ain't me. No, he will not be worshipping you, or me. It will not be a song of worship. I hope it will be a song of praise, but well done. But well done, but it will definitely not be worship. So it will be a song of truth. Will we get the same song? Will my song be the same as Laura's, the same as Kevin's, the same as Edith's, the same as Brian's? Now I gave up and I just thought, you know what, I can't be doing this. So I started looking in the Gospels for a bit of, oh, a bit of cheery uppiness. So I went to John. I started reading from the beginning. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. And suddenly it all fell into place. Oh, you idiot. Oh, you idiot. What's the answer to any question? Jesus. The Word, the spoken Word, the voice of God, if he speaks the truth, whether he's speaking or he's singing, it's of his Son. It's of the glory of Christ. He is singing Jesus over every single one of us. And so I went back to Zephaniah, and I had a look. And it talks about the sin of the world. It talks about all this sin, and there's a call to repentance. And then the last chapter is almost a song of God saying, I'm going to prepare a saviour for you. I'm going to give you someone, a mighty warrior who saves. He will take great delight in you, in his love. He will no longer rebuke you. He won't tell you off. But I rejoice over you. I'll remove from you all who mourn. We hear that a lot in Scripture, don't we? About the people who are mourning, being lifted up and will rejoice. The people that are burdened, the loss of your appointed festivals, the people going through the motions, trying to find God, being burdened by all of the things we try and do to try and find God, all of the religion that we think we have to do to find God. He's going to remove all of that. Ceremonies, rituals, incantations, He's going to remove all of that stuff, all of that rubbish that we don't need any more because we have Christ singing over us. At that time, I'll deal with all who oppressed you. The song that He is singing is Christ. The song that He is singing is Christ. Christ beat our oppressor. Who is our oppressor? Satan. He beat death, the divide, the great divide between man and God, death. He beats the oppressor. Rescue the lame. We look at Jesus through the Gospels. He is restoring people's physical abilities. He is restoring their spiritual abilities. He is singing over them. I'll gather the exiles. Right now, the Gospel is being spread across the world. He is gathering all of those that have been separated from God. He is going out in the world through brothers and sisters in Christ and He is sharing His Gospel and He is saving lives. He is transforming this world right now. And all the murder and oppression and wars and violence and abhorrent things, it doesn't matter what they do, the Gospel will save. We can't escape from God but we can be on the right side and the Gospel gives us a chance to be on the right side. The Gospel of Christ, the Gospel that says, you are a sinner, you've done wrong in the sight of God but I will provide a person who will sing over you and if you dance to his tune, if you believe in Christ, if you just have faith in Christ, I will count you among the exiles who have returned. And you will be with me in heaven. He says to the person on the cross, doesn't He? You've believed. Today, you will be with me in paradise. I will give them praise and honour. Our honour is restored. When honour is restored, it means that shame has been removed. You see, shame is the opposite to honour. Honour is like a commodity. You can honour someone by making them important, by showing their worth to you. Shame is the absence of honour. When you are shamed, your honour is stripped away. You are no longer held in any authority, you are no longer seen as important or worthy. Shame is the stripping of honour. Shame is the stripping of honour. And Jesus sings over us that our honour will be restored, not for our benefit, but we will bask in His glory. We will be a part of God's family. We are sons and daughters of God and therefore we will have our honour restored. There'll be no shame. In every land where you have suffered shame, I'll remove it. At that time, I will gather you, He sings. At that time, I will bring you home. And when I've gathered you all together in one place, when I restore your fortunes before your very eyes, well, that to me speaks of heaven. That is a statement from God saying, I will gather you together. I will restore your mind, your body, your souls. I will restore your status. And you will watch as I create the new heavens and the new earth and you will receive your inheritance. No more pain, no more suffering. I'll wipe away every single tear. You will be renewed and restored. You will be back to how things should have been. You see, there's the song God sings over us. We find it in Zephaniah. We find it in the Gospels. It is a song of incredible love, of incredible sacrifice, of incredible restoration. One day, we will hear Him say, well done, good and faithful servant. And then that will mark the end of one song and the beginning of quite another. A song that I couldn't possibly discern, but it will last this whole time. A song that I couldn't possibly discern, but it will last eternity and it will be so sweet, our ears will want to hear it forever. That we will never grow weary of hearing God singing over us because every interaction, every thought we have, every possession we have will glorify God. Every atom of our very being will revel in the song that God sings over us in eternity. His voice, I can't even describe how it's going to be, but it will be good. It will be restorative. Are you going to let God sing over you today? Are you going to let Jesus control your destiny? In His hands. Are you ready for shame to be taken away and replaced with honour? Are you ready for your religion to be stripped away and replaced with love? Are you ready for a mighty warrior who faced the ultimate enemy and defeated him through his sacrifice? Listen to his song. Dance to his song. Let those words wash over you. The Lord your God is with you, the mighty warrior who saves. He will take great delight in you. In his love, he will no longer rebuke you, but will rejoice over you with singing. 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 honour in every land where they have suffered shame. At that time, I will gather you, and at that time, I will bring you home. I will give you honour and praise among all the peoples of the earth when I restore your fortunes before your very eyes. So sings the Lord. Let's say the grace together, shall we? May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with us all now and forevermore. Amen. God bless you, everyone, and I pray that you will hear the song of God in your hearts this week.
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