#5 - God’s Love is Relentless
Zephaniah 3:14-17 - Victory Fellowship
March 26, 2023 - Rev. Roderick Grabski
5th Sunday in Lent – Healing Service
I. How Important Is the Soundtrack?
The Soundtrack to a movie, what you hear, is as important as what you see. You often don’t even notice it, but it keeps the story moving and it connects the story in the movie. It draws you into the story.
A. What Is Our Soundtrack?
We have been talking about our story, and I want us to consider this morning: “What is our Soundtrack?”
B. Does the God Story have a Soundtrack?
In The God Story, we have talked about the greatest story ever told: the story of God and God’s people. This story is found in our Bible, but what is the connection between these books of the Bible—thirty-nine in the Old Testament and twenty-seven in the New Testament, with many different authors.
Jaime gets up in church and reads out of a book called Zephaniah, and you wonder, “What in the world does that have to do with the rest of the story? And what does it have to do with me?”
C. Recap
We have discussed threads that run through the whole story. There are unique and individual stories in the Bible but also some incredible glue that holds them all together.
Beginning in Genesis we saw Thread #1: God speaks because He desires relationship.
The laughable dream of Abraham showed us Thread #2: If God makes a promise, He keeps it.
As we watched the wandering people of God get frustrated in the wilderness, we found Thread #3: God will provide all you need for the journey.
Then last week with David, who we often think of as great, we saw that he started out the least likely candidate to carry on the lineage of Christ.
That was Thread #4: God calls the unlikely and gives them a better story.
II. The King Experiment
And so David becomes king and then from his lineage there was king after king after king. Here is what was said about most of them. “He did what was evil in the sight of the Lord” (2 Kings 21:2).
The people who were once called Israel split into two nations, so then they had two kings, and then they faced oppression, even destruction, and eventual subjugation and dispersion from other larger, more powerful nations. This king experiment had gone bad.
During this time God raised up certain people to be prophets. In the Old Testament, sixteen books contain the story or the words of these prophets. The word prophet (Hebrew: aybn nabiy), or from the Greek, (profhthv prof-ay'-tace) means “foresee.” That is what we usually think about with the term prophet, someone who sees the future. But that is not the whole of it. And if we stop there with prophet, we truly miss what they were sent by God to do.
A. A Need for Prophets
The prophets’ true task was to speak on behalf of God to the people, and to speak on behalf of the people to God. God speaks because He desires relationship (Thread #1), and most of the time what the prophet spoke was a message of God’s continued desire. The prophet says God still remembers His promises. And certainly, the prophets’ voices took into account our thread of betrayal and deceit; they didn’t sugar coat that or wash over it.
B. The Prophets Provide the Soundtrack
The prophets’ voice is the Soundtrack to the faith experience of the Hebrew people. As they went along on their way, God would raise up prophet after prophet who spoke of the promises of God to draw people into the story.
We have the option to just do life with no mind to the greater story.
You can pay the bills, punch the clock, drive kids, and mark time until it is all over. All of these things are a part of our life, important parts.
But you have an important role to play in the God Story, and the prophets’ Soundtrack is a reminder of this.
III. Zephaniah
Zephaniah was one such reminding prophet (626-612 BC). We don’t know the exact details of the situation of the nation of Judah, but it was likely under fire from surrounding empires.
The first four verses of chapter 3 are:
What sorrow awaits rebellious, polluted Jerusalem, the city of violence and crime! No one can tell it anything; it refuses all correction. It does not trust in the LORD or draw near to its God.
Its leaders are like roaring lions hunting for their victims. Its judges are like ravenous wolves at evening time, who by dawn have left no trace of their prey. Its prophets are arrogant liars seeking their own gain. Its priests defile the Temple by disobeying God’s instructions.
It would only be a couple of decades before the nation was completely taken over. Before the kings of the line of David were killed, Jerusalem was destroyed, and the Temple leveled.
So we know Zephaniah’s word would have been an urgent word.
And he is telling them God is going to do something!
Zephaniah 3:17 (NIV 1984) says:
The LORD 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.
The Soundtrack for our lives, the re-occurring theme song, is God’s love song ringing in our ears.
It’s hard to take in. This isn’t just somebody romanticizing and getting all touchy feely about God. Zephaniah is not a romantic book.
Zephaniah’s book is a hard book that exposes the depth of betrayal of the people, how far they have turned from God, and the devastating consequences of such choices. One of the most forceful prophets about Judgement but also offers the possibility of restoration to those who repented and sought after righteousness.
So when you hear this word about God delighting, quieting, and singing over us, don’t take it lightly.
Zephaniah is introducing us to Thread #5 in our story. Video
IV. Thread #5: God’s Love Is Re-occurring and Relentless.
It will keep on coming and will not go away. God is saying, “I love you. Yeah you’ve messed up; I see that; I see that better than you, but your messing up is not more powerful than my love.”
And he calls out to his people over and over again, so he can sing to us over and over again.
Like someone singing a song to comfort a child or dying person.
You know how with kids sometimes you have to repeat things over and over again, so they will get it, or at least we hope so.
The prophetic voice is the voice of God over and over again, saying, “It’s ok; I’m with you; I’m mighty to save; I delight in you; I want to comfort you.”
The prophets’ song is the Soundtrack to remind us that God loves us.
God is not sick of you, annoyed by you, or ready to expel you. But like a grandparent a thousand times over, God just wants you to know you are loved and valued.
God sings over you His song of love.
PRAYER and Anointing with OIL
SONG: In Jesus Name (Katy Nichole)
Zephaniah 3:14-17 NLT
Sing, O daughter of Zion; shout aloud, O Israel! Be glad and rejoice with all your heart, O daughter of Jerusalem! 15 For the LORD will remove his hand of judgment and will disperse the armies of your enemy. And the LORD himself, the King of Israel, will live among you! At last your troubles will be over, and you will never again fear disaster. 16 On that day the announcement to Jerusalem will be, “Cheer up, Zion! Don’t be afraid! 17 For the LORD your God is living among you. He is a mighty savior. He will take delight in you with gladness. With his love, he will calm all your fears. He will rejoice over you with joyful songs.”
