Very happy to invite Paul Henry to come and bring God's Word for us this morning. Good morning. Wow, usually say that and you don't get any response. But today I'm gonna be, I want us to look at Zephaniah 3. And I'm not actually going to share too much about New Zealand, but I will say just a couple of things before we get going. And one is that this passage we're going to look at today in many ways comes as a great comfort to us. As I, as we've been in New Zealand, there's been some really hard things that we've had to deal with. And we're so thankful that God brings comfort to us by his spirit through his word. And in many ways, When we first got into New Zealand and the country went into lockdown, we, like many other churches, we just stopped meeting, did online streaming and so on, and that went on for a month and a half, and then we were allowed to begin meeting again. But different regulations came and so on. And I was convicted, actually, of my fear that I had in my heart. And actually, what I would say was wrong. I acted wrongly in how I did certain things, how I gave in to this fear. And yet, God, in his grace and mercy, he forgives us. He rejoices over us. In this passage we're gonna look at this morning, it speaks to that very thing. And so I'd ask that you would turn with me to Zephaniah 3, verses 14 through 17. Zephaniah 3, verses 14 through 17. Let me read this for us. Sing aloud, O daughter of Zion. Shout, O Israel. Rejoice and exalt with all your heart, O daughter of Jerusalem. The Lord has taken away the judgment against you. He has cleared away your enemies. The King of Israel, the Lord, is in your midst. You shall never again fear evil. Oh, that day it shall be said to Jerusalem, fear not, O Zion, let not your hands grow weak. The Lord, your God, is in your midst, a mighty one who will save. He will rejoice over you with gladness. He will quiet you by his love. He will exalt over you with loud singing. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, as we look at your word this morning together, we do pray that you would speak to us by your spirit. God, that you would minister to our very souls. We would be reminded that we are but dust, and yet you rejoice over us, that you are a mighty one to save. God, I pray that whatever we are dealing with and battling with, that we would bring it to you today, we would lay it at the feet of Jesus. Lord, I pray that the people here would not see Paul Henry, but God, that you would be exalted and glorified. Father, we pray now that you would lead us as we learn from you. In Christ's name we pray, amen. What is your life verse? For many, many years, my life verse has been Isaiah 6, 8. And then we heard Isaiah 1 through 3, but Isaiah 6, 8 is the Lord says, all right, he will go for us. And I said, here am I, send me. That was my life verse because as obviously I'm a missionary and I felt called to missions. But in more recent years, my life verse has actually become Zephaniah 3.17. Zephaniah 3.17, which we just read, again, says, the Lord your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save. He will rejoice over you with gladness. He will quiet you by his love. He will exalt over you with loud singing. And so today I want us to look at specifically Zeph and I at 317 and kind of dive into this together. You know, as we begin the new year, many people make New Year's resolutions of what they're planning to do in the year ahead. And I've given up doing that a long time ago because I can never keep them. I always break them. But did you know that God has made resolutions about us that he cannot break? And so as we go into the new year, I want us to think about these things. And so the four things that we're gonna look at today are, God is mighty to save, God rejoices over us, God quiets us by his love, and God exalts over you with loud singing. Now, before we get into more detail about these points, it's good for us to get some of the context of what's going on in the book of Zephaniah. And so what's going on with the book of Zephaniah is that it was written before the Babylonian captivity and Zephaniah was a contemporary of the prophet Jeremiah. And so the book was written to Judah. Now Israel, the northern tribes had already been taken into captivity by the Assyrians and God is disciplining his people and soon the Babylonians will come in and they'll just take everyone away and just a small remnant will be left behind and God is disciplining his people because of their lack of covenantal unfaithfulness. And so God has allowed these things to transpire, to happen. In fact, in Zephaniah 1.7, it opens up with, Zephaniah uses the words, the day of the Lord, which is in reference to judgment. And so God is judging his people. He is disciplining his people. They have broken his covenant. And yet, God reveals Himself, despite what the people might be thinking, all of this judgment and discipline and captivity that is happening, God reminds them that He is with them, that He is mighty to save. Our first point, God is mighty to save. And so the backdrop here is this exile that is inevitable. It is going to happen if the people do not repent, but God is still with them. The Lord your God is in your midst. That is what we read here. And this is really significant because despite that they are going to be led away in captivity again, God doesn't leave his people. He is in their midst. Despite their screw up, despite them forsaking him, he does not leave them. He is in their midst. And God, likewise, he doesn't sit idly by, right? He doesn't watch them go be taken off into captivity, but he is with them even through those difficulties, even through those hardships. And likewise, God is with us here today. He hasn't left us. During COVID and lockdowns and all of those things, God was still with us. He never left us. He is mighty to save. And so if God is mighty to save, that means that he must be accompanied with power. We are reminded of this, aren't we? And as I've shared with some people in the last couple of days, how when I was convicted of how I was so fearful, what God brought me out of that fear by reminding me of his power. And that if we got deported because we were going against the government, he is powerful to save, he is mighty to save. and he has not left us. You think the people here in Zephaniah, they must have felt despair for where they found themselves. You know, they only brought this on themselves though, didn't they? Because in their rebellion, they were unfaithful to the Lord. They've brought it on themselves into the exile, into the suffering. but God was still with them. And I don't know if you've ever felt this way before, but I know I certainly have. Have you ever felt that despair of where you find yourself and what led you there? What a huge mess I've made of things. How am I going to get out of this mess? Growing up, there was this show that I really loved watching, a comedy, maybe some of you know it, Seinfeld. I'll be honest, I've gone back and re-watched some of it, and I'm like, man, I can't believe I used to watch that. But anyways, there is this one point in Seinfeld where there's this lady, Elaine, one of the characters, and she works for this clothing line, and her job was to write articles for the clothing line. Well, in the office, they began celebrating everybody's birthdays, and it seemed like every day there was a birthday to be celebrated. And what that resulted in was birthday cake. So Elaine, she ends up getting addicted to birthday cake, that afternoon sugar rush. So she finds herself in her boss's office. Her boss had bought this antique cake from Queen Elizabeth, this 60-year-old cake. And it's sitting there on the office desk. And so she hasn't, for some reason, there's no one's birthday that day, and she's really suffering from withdrawal. And she sees this cake there, and so she decides to cut a little slice. She cuts a little slice for herself, and she eats it. She thinks, that's not so bad, and then she cuts a little more, and eats it, and a little more, and a little more, and before she knows it, the cake is almost gone. And you see the horror in Elaine's eyes, like, I've made such a huge mess, how am I going to fix it? What can I do? And she tries different things, but she knows it's hopeless. She can't do anything about it. Well, unbeknownst to her, her boss actually has a hidden camera. And so he sees everything. He sees it all. And Elaine is so afraid of what's going to happen. She thinks she's going to be fired. Her boss comes in and confronts her about it. But instead of firing her, he shows her grace. Elaine can't do anything to fix the situation at all, but her boss shows her grace. And we've all found ourselves in places like this before. And we all share that commonality of the problem of sin, don't we? How sin has messed up everything. It has put us in this hopeless estate. We cannot get out of it. But God and his mercy comes to us. He is mighty to save. There isn't anything the Israelites are gonna be able to do to get them out of this mess. Only God can do it. Just like for us, there's nothing that's gonna get us out of our messes. But God is mighty to save. He comes to us and he frees us by his grace. But it goes beyond just pardoning us of our sin, because there was still justice that needed to be served. And what has God done? Well, God poured that justice, His wrath out on His Son in place of us. And so Zephaniah here, he is reminding the people that only relief is going to come from God. Because through God, nothing is impossible. But there is more. Not only is God mighty to save, but after he saves us, he rejoices over us. So let's look at our second point, God rejoices over us. What does it mean to rejoice? Do you ever rejoice over something or someone? What it means is that that someone or something brings you much joy. You're glad that it is yours. And John Calvin, he equates this, the words here, to that of us being the bride of Christ, because the same kind of vocabulary is being used. And so we are reminded, too, that we are the bride of Christ in this passage. I remember very clearly, 23 years ago, May 13th, year 2000, looking down the aisle and seeing my bride come down. And what joy filled my heart that the most beautiful person was going to be mine, and I was going to be hers. What joy filled my heart! You know, maybe you remember your child being born, this little baby, and what joy filled your heart as you received this child. You remember last week and Christmas, how Mary treasured those things in her heart. And Zephaniah is describing to us the joy that God has in us, that He rejoices over us with gladness, with joy. We are described as the bride of Christ, as the bride of Christ. Christ adores us, and He lavishes upon us His love as His bride. And not only does He lavish upon us His love, but He presents us to the Father as pure and holy. We can never fully comprehend how much the Lord rejoices over us with gladness, but we do catch a glimpse of it here, don't we? As Zephaniah speaks to us. Not only does he rejoice over us with gladness, with joy, but he quiets us by his love. Our third point, he quiets us by his love. I find it interesting that the ESV study Bible just simply skips over this part of Zephaniah. It doesn't give any commentary about it, that he will quiet us by his love. And it is possibly, it skips over it because there's been so much controversy over the years of the translation of this. You see, The ESV translates this passage as, God will quiet us by his love. However, the NESB translates this part of the verse by saying, the Lord your God is in your midst, a victorious warrior. He will rejoice over you with joy. He will be quiet in his love. He will rejoice over you with shouts of joy. And so we have these different translations then of this passage. And I want to point out the phrase here that he will be quiet in his love versus he will quiet you by his love. There is actually a difference in these translations and it's amazing how though you could take either one and we're still, God's word still speaking truth. We don't have to be afraid that in some way there's error in God's word. Well, the ESV that says he will quiet you by his love. How does God quiet us? And what does that look like? Now, it's not the same as God making quiet by his judgment. And perhaps a way for us to better understand this is to go to Psalm 23, verse two. In Psalm 23, verse two, David says, he makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul. So this, what the ESV is saying here, this is something that God is doing to us, just like we read in Psalm 23 verse two. And I really appreciate this translation because I see how applicable it is to us, to me today. I mean, how many times have you felt anxious this past week? Perhaps you felt anxious about Christmas Day itself. Maybe you felt anxious about how you were going to deal with certain relationships by seeing people you haven't seen in a long time. Maybe you've been feeling anxious about finances. Or perhaps you've been feeling anxious about your health. Maybe you're feeling anxious right now. Or you're feeling anxious about the coming week, going back to work or going back to school. Psalm 23 too paints quite the opposite picture of anxiety or anxious thoughts. And Zephaniah 3.17 only reaffirms what David is saying in Psalm 23. How is it that we get so anxious when God has it under control? How is it we get so anxious when God is a God mighty to save? And yet we do. Even the things that flood through my mind that I'm going to have to deal with this year or even later today, I can become anxious. But the Lord has this. He quiets us by his love. He takes those anxious thoughts away. And there's another aspect of how God quiets us by his love and it reaches into the day-to-day or the basic issues of life that we deal with. And in the basic issue that we all deal with is sin, isn't it? How many of you deal with sin on a daily basis? We all do, don't we? And what does that cause in your hearts? It cause anxiety. It cause us not to be at rest. Chaos and turmoil is what sin in our lives cause in our hearts. And yet God is mighty to save. He is true and he brings us peace. He quiets us by his love. He forgives all our sins. He leads us into peace. But now let's look at the other interpretation of verse 17 of the NESB. John Calvin also holds to this translation as well. John Calvin, who wrote a commentary on Zephaniah, says that the actual Hebrew translation of the word quiet or silent is rest. Thus the outcome of God cherishing his church is rest. It is quietness in one's heart and soul. For God to be at rest means for him to be fully and completely satisfied in his work that he has done with us. And so this is no different than how we see God resting on the seventh day after He created everything. After He created us in His image, God rested on the seventh day. Does it mean God was exhausted? No! It means God was satisfied in what He had done. So not only does God give us rest from our sin and what our sin deserves, but he himself rests in his own satisfaction of his work, his work in us that is perfect and complete. And so the translation here of quiet you follows the understanding in the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament, which translates means he will refresh you in his love. But because in this context, in Zephaniah, God is also seen then though as this warrior, as we've already looked at earlier in the verse, right? God is a warrior. He is mighty to save. Thus the phrase quiet himself is probably what I would say the better translation because after the war comes peace. The Lord's former war cry in verse, in 114, is now quieted by his love. And so the Lord, he performs this purging and transforming work of grace. And he creates a new people who acknowledges his rule and authority and trust in his name. If God is totally satisfied in us and the work he has done over us, the implications of this for us is huge, isn't it? It means that all the world, all the things that the world throws at us cannot even compare to God as our warrior. God, who is mighty to save. He's quieted by His completed work in us. My friends, it does not end there though. It does not end there because God, He exalts over you with loud singing. Our last point, He exalts over you with loud singing. Now what we have here in this verse, verse 17, is what we call anthropomorphism. And anthropomorphism is this big word that describes God with human characteristics. I mean, God is a spirit, so how can he rejoice over us with loud singing? But God chooses to reveal himself with these words that we would understand. so that we get to know Him and understand Him more and His love to us. When we sing to the Lord, we exalt Him, but that pales in comparison to God singing over us. He is so pleased with us that He bursts forth with loud singing. And we read earlier in Isaiah 6, in the seraphim, in verse 4, as they're singing and calling out, holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty. The actual pillars in the temple, they shook with the noise. And that pales in comparison to the singing that God does over his people. But his pleasure over us does not come from what we have done. It comes from what he has done. He has done great things. He has taken what was broken and he has made it whole. Have you ever restored something before? Years ago when I was a kid, my dad got his parents table, dining room table, and this table is over 150 years old, this antique, but the problem with this table was that it had like 15 or 20 coats of paint on it. Every time his parents got tired of the one color, they would just slap another color of paint over it. And so it was like that thick of paint. My dad got the table and he began restoring the table to its original color. And he got hours and hours of sanding the paint off this table. Finally, after months of work on this thing, he finally got all the paint off of it. And then he put varnish on it, and it just beamed. It just beamed. It was beautiful. And my dad was so happy. He rejoiced over this table that you could see its original color. And of course, we rejoiced with him. It was beautiful. God has done this to us. He has restored that which was broken. And so now we shine. We are image bearers of him because his spirit dwells in us. God took that painstaking task of restoring us and bringing us back to a place where sin no longer has victory over us. When He died on the cross, that painstaking task, He was restoring us. This is what God has done for us. You know, as we enter the new year, how comforting it is to know of God's grace to us. How comforting it is to see that the Lord is in our midst. He is mighty to save. He rejoices over us with gladness and He quiets us by His love. But what does knowing about this actually mean though? We can know these things as, is it just head knowledge to you? Do you know, when you actually know and believe that God delights in you, doesn't that make you want to just fall in love with Him? The more we love God, the more we hate our sin. We don't hate ourselves, we hate our sin. God delivered this message here in Zephaniah to Judah because He wanted them to repent. He wanted them to turn back to Him. He wanted them to fall in love with Him again. And He wanted them to see just how much He loves them. And when we repent of our sin, the only outcome is us resting in God, to be fully caught up in Him. We bask in His grace because there is nothing else for us to do but to be fully caught up in Him. So as we come to this new year, think about it. Let us be reminded how God sees us and how He thinks about us. that yes, we are going to sin, right? Where we are in that already and not yet stage. Christ has yet to return. He's coming back and he will do away with all sin. We are going to mess up this year, but be reminded that God is in your midst. He still loves you. He still adores you. He still rejoices over you with loud singing. Come to Him, fall in love with Him. Remember that God doesn't sit idly by. He is mighty to save. So let us then be reminded today that God is mighty to save. God rejoices over us. God quiets us by His love. God exalts over you with loud singing. Let's pray. Lord, we are truly humbled when we think of these things that you describe of yourself doing. Lord, we are humbled because we realize, God, that we are so undeserving of your grace. We are so undeserving of your mercy. And Lord, you work in us to just fall in love with you. God, help us to love you today. Lord, help us to die to our sin and to live for you because you are mighty to save. Lord, your promises are sure and true that you continue to work in us Father, I pray that you would help us to share this, to share the joy that we receive with others. Lord, for those today who are just struggling, Father, who find themselves in such a mess, may they not forget who you are, Lord, your promise to them. that you are a God mighty to save. Let us come to you, O Lord. In Christ's name we pray, amen. stand and you'll find the communion psalm, Psalm 107 printed in your bulletin, and it is to the tune of There is a Fountain, these two verses from Psalm 107.