Zephaniah 3:14-20
“His Promise to Delight in You”
December 16, 2012 - Third Sunday in Advent

         In My Teacher Hates Me, children’s author Mary Beth McGroary tells the story of a little girl who truly believes that her teacher hates her. She comes home talking about how her teacher is always correcting her and never gives her a break. She feels bad and doesn’t want to go back to school.

         In our text today, the prophet Zephaniah deals with the people of Judah’s perception that God hated them. They had a lot that needed to be corrected. The whole first chapter of Zephaniah is God’s complaint about their worship of idols, about their complacency in the midst of wealth. They even climb on their roofs to bow down and worship the stars, forgetting the God who made the stars.

         Zephaniah told them God would comb Jerusalem to search out the complacent, the people who imagined in 1:12 that, “The Lord will do nothing, either good or bad.” But He would correct them. They would lose their homes and vineyards and everything they had. There would be distress and destruction as God judged and punished the sins of everyone in the whole world, including those of His own people.

         In chapter 3, God spoke specifically to the capital city, to Jerusalem, to “Zion,” using the name of the mountain on which Jerusalem was built. Verse 1 warns them “Woe,” “beware” what God will to a city that oppresses, that loves wealth and ignores God and ignores the poor within it. But then verse 2 laments, “She obeys no one, she accepts no correction. She does not trust in the Lord, she does not draw near to her God.”

         Like that little girl in the story, the people of Jerusalem didn’t want to be corrected. When they were, they imagined God hated them. They wouldn’t trust in Him. Like the girl with her teacher, they didn’t want to “draw near” to God.

         The beginning of a change came when that little girl realized she really did need her teacher’s correction. Zephaniah wanted his people to recognize that same need. He grew up under evil king Manasseh and his son Amon. The effect of their evil was still there despite that fact that good little King Josiah began to reign at age eight and was growing up. Zephaniah was speaking to complacent, sinful people who resented and rejected God’s correction.

         In our New Testament text from Luke 3, John the Baptist spoke to the same sort of people. He made it sound like God hated them with words like, “brood of vipers,” and “the axe is already at the root of the trees.” John preached about God correcting people by cutting down everyone who would not repent and turn to Him.

         You and I may feel the same, feel sometimes that God hates us. Why else would the kind of events we’ve heard about this past week happen? God must have had something against those children at Sandy Hill School, against their parents and all the people who loved them. Why else would He let such horrible tragedy occur?

         Even on other levels we imagine God must be angry or displeased with us. Why don’t things go better? Why doesn’t the economy improve more rapidly? Why don’t we have cures for cancer or Alzheimer’s disease? Why does it seem so often that God has something against us?

         If we’re honest, like that little girl regarding her teacher’s correction, we will admit that there is plenty that needs to change in us. Zephaniah and John the Baptist and all the other Scripture writers who give us God’s correcting Word are absolutely correct. We sin and are complacent about our sin. We tell lies and hope not to get caught. We ignore people in need and try to get more for ourselves. We carry around anger and lust and jealousy and all manner of ugly feelings. It’s no wonder that we sometimes feel like God hates us. We might even think we deserve it.

         Yet in our text, God’s message through Zephaniah takes a different direction. The girl who thought her teacher hated her had a change of heart when she was surprised to discover the teacher actually liked her very much, even loved her, and only wanted the best for her. That’s exactly what God said to Jerusalem through this prophet.

         The punishments, the correction would come, but that wasn’t God’s whole plan. There would be a day when the correction was over and the people of Jerusalem would celebrate and rejoice. That’s where our text picks up in verse 14, with “Sing, O Daughter of Zion; shout aloud, O Israel! Be glad and rejoice with all your heart, Daughter of Jerusalem!” In other words, little girl city, your God doesn’t hate you, He loves you.

         Verse 15 says that there will be day when all the punishments are over, when God takes them away, when there’s no longer anything to be afraid of. Zephaniah anticipated what was then the future history of Judah and Jerusalem. Not too long after his time, the ultimate punishment would arrive for Jerusalem. Babylon conquered and destroyed the city. Yet that captivity would end in fifty years. They would come back and Jerusalem would be filled with rejoicing. There would be dancing in the streets.

         But this isn’t just an ancient history lesson. The prophet looked farther forward, to the coming of Jesus Christ. It was not just the punishment of those people at that time which the Lord would take away. His promise was that punishment for sin would be removed for anyone who accepted the gracious gift of Jesus.

         “Do not fear, Zion; do not let your hands hang limp.” That’s what verse 16 tells us will be said to God’s people. Don’t mope around and stay home from school because you are afraid of a teacher who hates you. Don’t look at the news and at your own life and go limp with despair because you think God hates you. No, it’s just the opposite. God delights in His people. God delights in you.

         Our prophetic promise for today is here in verse 17, “He will take great delight in you; in his love he will no longer rebuke you, but will rejoice over you with singing.” God wants to delight in His people. He wants to sing over us, over each one of us like a young mother or father might sing a sweet lullaby to a delightful little newborn baby. He doesn’t want to always be correcting us, but wants to rejoice and delight in us. God wants to delight in you.

         That’s why Jesus came into our world. Judah’s punishment and correction came to them in the form of tangible enemies, people like the Philistines and the Cushites whom Zephaniah wrote about, or the Babylonians still to come. So he used the language of God defeating enemies in verse 15, taking away those punishments. And in verse 17, the promise is that “The Lord your God is with you, the Mighty Warrior who saves.” That’s who Jesus is, that’s what His name means, “God saves.”

         God gladly saves us. God’s grace in Jesus Christ is a gift He delights in giving us.  But we imagine God to be too much like ourselves. When we manage our own acts of grace, there’s almost always a little ungraciousness inside us. You grounded your daughter for a week and graciously let her off two days early, because you didn’t want to hear her complain anymore. Or your husband left his clothes in the hallway again, and you graciously pick them up, but resent him for it. You gave an employee a second chance, but secretly hoped she would fail. That’s how we are. Our grace comes mixed with grudge.

         However, Zephaniah’s message to Israel and to us is that God is completely gracious. There is no grudge in His grace. He does not resent us for making His saving love necessary. In fact, amazing as it seems, He positively delights in the opportunity to be kind to us. God delights in us, delights in you despite your sins. He rejoices in who and what you are regardless of the fact you feel unworthy of His favor and love.

         God does not delight in us by ignoring our sins. They really are as despicable as they feel. But God deals with our sins. He confronts them and removes them and makes us something better through Jesus Christ. The Son of God came into the world to die on the Cross for you, so that God could do what He promised and take delight in you.

         But you may feel, “God can’t be delighted in me because no one is. Everyone tells me I’m no good, that I can’t do anything right, that I’m worthless.” You have a parent or a boss or a teacher who finds nothing but fault in you. Remember verse 15 says “he has turned back your enemy.” Verse 19 says, “I will deal with all who oppressed you.” Jesus came and suffered the contempt of others so that He could save you from that same suffering.

         Or you might find it hard to believe God delights in you because are so lonely. Friends are far away, or you have plenty of acquaintances but no real friends, no one who really pays attention to you. You feel like a nobody and can’t see how God actually cares. Both verse 15 and verse 17 say, “The Lord is with you.” At Christmas we remember that Jesus was called “Emmanuel” which means “God with us.” Christ came into the world so that God would be with you. He is with you, and He delights in you.

         You may have trouble accepting God’s delight in you because of something you’ve hidden for years. Some event, some abuse, some tragedy colors your whole life with shame. But in His delight God also promised to deal with shame. In verse 18 He promised to take away the sorrows of burdens and reproaches, and in verse 19 He said, “I will give them praise and honor in every land where they were put to shame.” Jesus knew what it was to be shamed. His family called Him insane and His followers ran from Him in the hour of His greatest need. He understands and came to take away your shame by delighting in you.

         God delights in you and the result of that is in verse 20, where God says, “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.” God will delight in you like a couple years ago our daughter was delighted to bring home the young man she had fallen love with and introduce him to us. God loves you with a delight that makes Him want to bring you home with Him forever.

         You may have one last worry. You might think that like a weak, human lover God will get tired of you. You believed in Jesus long ago and accepted God’s grace and forgiveness. You set out a new life, trusting and obeying God. Now years later you look back and say, “I failed over and over. The sins I wanted to leave behind keep coming back. I’ve asked God to forgive me for the same stupid thing more times than I can count. How could He delight in me? How could He be anything but weary of me?”

         God is not weary of you. Zephaniah prom­ised, “The Lord, the King of Israel, is with you; never again will you fear any harm.” God’s delight never changes. He will not leave you. He does not get weary. Only you are weary. God’s capacity to delight in you is not diminished by repetition. God does not get bored or tired or frustrated. His delight in you is strong enough to outlast all the sin that you can bring Him.

         God promised to delight in you. Charles Spurgeon said,

The fulfillment of a divine promise is not the exhaustion of it. When a man gives you a promise, and he keeps it, there is an end of the promise; but it is not so with God. When he keeps His word to the full, He has but begun. He is prepared to keep it, and keep it, and keep it for ever and ever.^[1]

         Jesus came so that God could keep on delighting in us, despite all our sins, despite the fact that we keep failing over and over. God’s capacity to forgive by the grace of Jesus goes totally beyond our capacity to sin. G. K. Chesterton wrote a marvelous little passage in which he wonders at the child’s capacity to delight in repetition. This is what he says,

     Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, “Do it again;” and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, “Do it again” to the sun; and every evening, “Do it again” to the moon… It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we.[2]

         God wants to forgive us, delights to forgive us, as many times as necessary. I played a silly little game with both my daughters when they were toddlers. I’m not sure how it started with Susan, but we called it “Down into the Abyss.” My little girl would sit on my lap facing me and I would hold her hands and lower her backwards saying “Down into the abyss!” I’d leave her there, letting her feel the sensation of being head down, then pull on her arms until she came back up and say, “Up she comes and give me a kiss!” And I would get a kiss and a hug.

         Then you know what came next. “Do it again Daddy, do it again!” So we’d do it again and again and again, until I was worn out and my lower back was screaming for relief and my delight was turning into pain and boredom with this game. But my girls were not bored at all. They would have done this for an hour.

         God does not get tired or bored. He was delighted to forgive your sins the first time, and He will delight to do it the thousandth time. He never gets tired of reaching down and lifting you out of whatever abyss you find yourself in. His grace is infinite and there is enough to repeat His gracious forgiveness as many times as you need it. Jesus came into the world to save sinners and He never gets bored with doing so. The Lord has promised to delight in you and that promise will never fail. He will lift you up and lift you up and lift you up, and al­ways with joy and pleasure, for you are His delight.

         All our Father in heaven asks is this: that as He lifts you up He receives from you the equivalent of that kiss I got from my daughters. His delight in you is at its best and at its greatest when you delight in Him, when you return His love with your own love. For when you realize that God will delight in you, and when you accept the gift of His love in Jesus, then His delight enters into you and becomes your own delight. Trust in Him and in His good pleasure. You are His joy. And in Him you will find your own joy overflowing.

         Amen.

         Valley Covenant Church
         Eugene/Springfield, Oregon
         Copyright © 2012 by Stephen S. Bilynskyj