Advent 3: Songs of Joy

Songs of Joy
Zephaniah 3: 14 – 20.

I. Introduction.

I’ve told this story once before…About the first time I attended the Rotary Club in Canton, Mississippi. Every pastor of First Baptist Church, Canton, Mississippi had been a member of the Canton Rotary Club. It was either written in my job description, or it was assumed that I would join the Rotary Club.

After I had been in Canton for about a week, a man in the church (Robert Filgo) called and announced that he would pick me up on Thursday to take me as his guest to the Rotary meeting. As I recall, he didn’t ask a question. He simply told me when to be ready.

When we arrived at the restaurant, we went through the buffet line and carried our food into the back room where the Rotary Club met. Mr. Filgo sat down and asked me to sit next to him. We were the first to sit at our table. In a few minutes, we were joined by the men who normally sat with Mr. Filgo. The first person introduced himself to me and said, “You are sitting in Cecil’s seat.” The next person introduced himself to me and said, “You’re sitting in Cecil’s seat.” Then, Cecil came in. I knew him from church. I asked him if I needed to move to another seat. He said, “No. I’ll sit in Jim’s seat.” When poor Jim came in, he had to find another table.

After the meal, the Rotary president called us to order and announced that we would sing the Rotary Song. He told us that since we were singing such a familiar song, we wouldn’t need the song books. Everyone in the room knew the words and sang along. That is, everyone except me.

When Mr. Filgo took me back to the church, he explained how I could join the Rotary Club. Again, he assumed that I would join and assumed that I wanted to join. I remember thinking to myself about how uncomfortable I was through the entire meeting. I wondered why anyone would want to join the Rotary. You don’t know where to sit and they sing strange songs. That is when I realized…This is what church looks like to some people. We sing songs that might be familiar to us but sound strange to the rest of the world. We sit in the same seat every week and think it is appropriate to tell new people they are sitting in the wrong seats.

Do you ever wonder why we sing in church? After all, church is perhaps the only public gathering in modern day life where we sing. But that is not the case with other cultures. If you watch soccer on TV—or if you plan to watch any of the World Cup soccer matches next year—you hear people singing. You don’t usually hear people singing at American sporting events like football, basketball and baseball. But soccer is not an American sport. It is a world sport. And the fans from other cultures sing in unison throughout the entire match.

Historically, singing is the way people express their joy. When the soccer match begins, people sing, because they are excited about what they hope their team will do in the match. As their team wins the game, the singing becomes louder and more joyous. This is why we sing in church. It is an expression of our joy. We have joy because of what God has done for us by sending his Son Jesus. We have joy, because we have been saved from sin, death and the devil. We have joy, because God has given us his presence to sustain us through any trouble or trial we might face in life. We have joy, because one day Jesus is coming back to take us to heaven to live with him eternally.

The prophet Zephaniah preached about the connection between joy and singing. Zephaniah did not describe one song of joy. He told us about two songs of joy.


Read Zephaniah 3: 14 – 20.

I am going to assume that you are a lot like me. Until this week, I have never really studied the book of Zephaniah. I am going to assume that you have not heard many sermons from Zephaniah. After all, today is my first time to preach from Zephaniah in ten years of preaching every Sunday. And I have learned a lot about Zephaniah and the context of his prophecy.

The words I just read come as somewhat of a surprise if you have read the entire book of Zephaniah. These are words of joy and singing, which don’t seem to fit with the rest of what Zephaniah has said.


II. Zephaniah 1: 2 – 3… "I will sweep away everything from the face of the earth," declares the LORD. "I will sweep away both men and animals; I will sweep away the birds of the air and the fish of the sea. The wicked will have only heaps of rubble when I cut off man from the face of the earth," declares the LORD.

The first words out of Zephaniah’s mouth were words of doom. He predicts that a day is coming when the entire world will be swept away by the hand of God. In many ways, Zephaniah’s words remind me of the words God spoke to Noah in Genesis 6: 7, about the coming flood.

In the days of Noah, the world had become so corrupt that God decided to start over. On one hand, the great flood was an act of judgment in that God destroyed all that he had created. On the other hand, judgment is never God’s ultimate or final goal. The destruction of the flood created a new world inhabited by a new people.

In the same way, this is the kind of judgment Zephaniah described. God does not take delight in judgment. God takes delight in the restoration and redemption that comes as a result of the judgment. Yet, judgment is necessary before God’s redemption can be established.


III. Zephaniah 1: 12… At that time I will search Jerusalem with lamps and punish those who are complacent, who are like wine left on its dregs, who think, 'The LORD will do nothing, either good or bad.'

As you can imagine, this was not a very popular message. It would be OK for Zephaniah to preach about God’s judgment on Assyria. After all, Assyria had recently destroyed the Northern Kingdom of Israel. It would be Ok for Zephaniah to preach about God’s Judgment on Egypt. After all, Egypt had held God’s people as slaves for hundreds of years and at this particular time in history, they were trying to become an international empire. It would be OK for Zephaniah to preach about God’s judgment on Babylon. After all, Babylon was the empire that eventually conquered the Southern Kingdom of Judah and the empire that God’s people needed to worry about the most.

Yet, Zephaniah preached about God’s judgment coming on God’s own people. The people of Judah. The city of Jerusalem.

This is a message we need to hear today. God was bringing his judgment against Judah and Jerusalem, because God’s people had become complacent. Do you know what “complacent” means? It means to be satisfied with the way things are. It means to have opportunities to make the world a better place and to choose to do nothing. It means to be satisfied with being lazy and doing nothing.

Should I preach a sermon on “complacency” for our church today? I am reluctant to preach on “complacency,” because most of us would hear that sermon and make a list of all the OTHER people who need to hear it, never acknowledging that we are the ones who are complacent!

God’s people had become complacent by carrying on their lives as if there was no God. God sent his prophets to speak God’s word to God’s people. Yet the people ignored the word of God and lived in ignorance. God made a covenant with his people in the form of the Law. God kept his part of the covenant, but the people found the Law to be too constricting and preferred to live free from restraint. God had provided unfailing love and care for the needs of his people. Yet, the people preferred to think the blessings of God were really the results of their own individual hard work. God protected Judah from the political upheavals experienced by the other nations around them. Yet, the people…Well, I don’t really know what they thought. Perhaps they simply thought they were lucky.

Again, God’s people faced judgment because they were complacent. God’s judgment always has a redemptive purpose. Judgment comes so that God can start over with a new people, who will acknowledge him and keep their part of the covenant. Could we, as a church, experience the same kind of judgment? Would God want to start over with a new people, who are not complacent about all God has done for us?


IV. Zephaniah 2: 3… Seek the LORD, all you humble of the land, you who do what he commands. Seek righteousness, seek humility; perhaps you will be sheltered on the day of the LORD's anger.

Zephaniah’s prophecy contained both a warning and a promise. It’s as if Zephaniah was saying, “God is going to destroy all that you see here, but there is still hope.” This hope is found in the fact that God will start over with a new people. The new people of God will be formed from a “remnant” of those who are God’s people today. If you want to be a part of the “remnant,” then you need to repent—seek the LORD, seek righteousness and seek humility.

The remnant Zephaniah preached about would be the ones who returned from the seventy-year exile in Babylon.

Zephaniah preached these words BEFORE the nation of Judah was conquered by the Babylonians. In Zephaniah’s day, it looked like things were going to turn around. King Josiah had begun wide sweeping reforms by re-committing himself and all the people to the covenant of Law. Josiah had ordered the destruction of all the pagan sanctuaries and altars. But, for some reason, Zephaniah recognized that these reforms would not be enough. The nation was too far gone. They were too complacent and too much like the nations around them. God would have to start over.

God used the Babylonian Empire to accomplish his purpose for Judah. The Babylonians destroyed the city of Jerusalem, torn down the walls of the city and burned the Temple to the ground. Then, they carried off the strongest, wealthiest and best leaders into captivity.
On one hand, Zephaniah warned that this destruction was coming. On the other hand, Zephaniah promised that destruction would not be the end. SOME of the captives would return to Jerusalem.

V. Zephaniah 3: 14 – 17… Sing, O Daughter of Zion; shout aloud, O Israel! Be glad and rejoice with all your heart, O Daughter of 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, O Zion; do not let your hands hang limp. 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."

According to Zephaniah, this is what it would look like when the remnant returned to Jerusalem. Actually, this is what it would SOUND like. There would be singing throughout all the land.

The people who returned from a foreign land would have four reasons to sing for joy.

God has “taken away your punishment.” It’s important to read this in its proper context. God did not prevent their punishment. They were taken captive into Babylon. But there would be an end to their trials. Difficult days would not last forever.

God has “turned back your enemy.” Again, keep the context in mind. It looked like God’s people had been defeated. There was a period of time when it appeared that the enemies had been victorious. In the end, God prevailed over the enemy.

“The LORD, the King of Israel, is with you.” This is one thing that is different about Zephaniah’s prophecy. Other prophecies focus on the Davidic line. Zephaniah seems to say that there will be no need for a king, because God himself will be the King of Israel.

God is “mighty to save.” There may be times when God’s sovereignty is in question. But there is coming a day, when we will see—once and for all—that God keeps his promises. God is faithful and able to keep all that he promised.

Verse 17 contains my favorite part of this passage. When God rescues his people, there is only one thing that can stop God’s people from singing. They will sing and sing and sing and sing. They will sing until they are quieted by the sound of God’s voice. God will not be speaking. God will be singing. When God’s salvation becomes final, God’s people will be so full of joy that they can’t stop singing…Until they hear the sound of God singing his own joy of having a people to himself.


VI. Conclusion.

Zephaniah spoke these words of prophecy to God’s people BEFORE they were carried into a foreign land. They lived as strangers in a strange land. They worshipped God in a land that did not worship God as Lord. However, this was only a temporary arrangement. Eventually, God brought them back to their land and restored them as his people. Does this sound familiar?

Today, you and I live as strangers in a strange land. We worship God and serve him as Lord in a world that does not acknowledge God. However, this is only temporary. There is coming a day, when Jesus will return. He will rescue us from punishment and defeat our enemies. Jesus will be the King in our midst, and we will recognize God’s faithfulness to keep all his promises.
Oh, what a day of singing. We will sing for joy, and nothing will stop us…That is, nothing until we hear the voice of God, singing his joy over us.