Our Old Testament lesson and sermon text is Zephaniah 3, verses 9-20. For at that time, I will change the speech of the peoples to a pure speech, that all of them may call upon the name of the Lord and serve him with one accord. From beyond the rivers of Cush, my worshipers, the daughter of my dispersed ones shall bring my offering. On that day, you shall not be put to shame because of the deeds by which you have rebelled against me. For then I will remove from your midst your proudly exultant ones. and you shall no longer be haughty in my holy mountain. But I will leave in your midst a people humble and lowly, and shall seek refuge in the name of the Lord. Those who are left in Israel, they shall do no injustice and speak no lies, nor shall there be found in their mouth a deceitful tongue, for they shall graze and lie down, and none shall make them afraid. Sing aloud, O daughter of Zion! Shout, O Israel! Rejoice and exult with all your heart, O daughter of Jerusalem! The Lord has taken away the judgments against you, and He has cleared away your enemies. The King of Israel, the Lord, is in your midst. You shall never again fear evil. On 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 exult over you with loud singing. I will gather those of you who mourn for the festival, so that you will no longer suffer reproach. Behold, at that time, I will deal with all your oppressors, and I will save the lame and gather the outcast, and I will change their shame into praise and renown in all the earth. At that time, I will bring you in at the time when I gather you together, for I will make you renowned and praised among all the peoples of earth when I restore your fortunes before your eyes, says the Lord. The word of the Lord. Our Father, we ask that you would attend the reading and the preaching and teaching of your word with your blessing, that we would abound in fruit and endurance on account of it. We pray these things in Christ's name. Amen. You may be seated. In J.R. Tolkien's epic mythology, The Silmarillion, which he intended to be a kind of a northern Anglo-Saxon mythology, because they didn't have one. He wrote it, so he had to include a creation account in it. In that creation account, the high god, Iluvatar, creates the world in song. Now, because Tolkien is Christian, he cannot make Iluvatar a great chaos monster or something like that. He cannot make Iluvatar just a mere part of creation, which the pagans are always falling into these traps of thinking, of making the great creator just another part of the world. Now, because he is also Catholic, he involves countless intermediaries in his creation account and throughout the whole story of Providence there. It's fascinating. But it reflects very much his Catholic theology. He also has a kind of Arminianism that he plays around with there, his view of Providence. But setting that aside, it's a fascinating perspective. on the creation of the world and it sheds light on his views of the nature of God, the type of being that he is, and what he thinks of Genesis. His buddy C.S. Lewis had a similar creation account, albeit in a children's book. And it only spoke of part of creation, the creation of Narnia. But in The Magician's Nephew, Aslan moves throughout this new world of Narnia, singing trees and stars and people into existence. Now, both authors made creation an act of song. Now, Scripture, of course, says that it was an act of God's speech. And in the New Testament we learn that that speech was God the Father speaking the world into existence through his Son. The Son was the agent of creation. But it's not hard to imagine that the words of God's creative activity must be something very near to what we would consider music, at least poetry. Certainly, they would have been very deep and beautiful, profound and glorious words, if we even had ears that were capable of hearing them. And whatever God did, the first observers of creation sang in response. In the book of Job, God speaks to Job face to face, this is in chapter 38, and asks him, were you there? And of course he wasn't, it's to humble him. But he says this, were you there, Job, when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy? So there was singing there. There was singing in response. The first word in that line, sang together, is the same word as found in our passage today, in verse 17, that we're going to be focusing on. So I want to focus on the use of that word in Zephaniah 3. It's used several times. We're going to focus on the second time. That's verse 17. We're going to lay a foundation there of thinking about God and what He does, His activities, and then return to the other use of that word for our application. But I want to read for you again verse 17. It's one of the most memorable verses in Zephaniah. It's the kind of verse that you would see easily on a calendar or like a beautiful kind of a scene. You know, I've seen this in Christian bookstores. It's one of those ones that goes in frames and on things. But it says this beautiful, it's a beautiful thought, beautiful sentiments, profound. It 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 exult over you, and here's the word, with loud singing, with loud singing. Now, before we unpack this, let's look what is going on here in Zephaniah. It is a short prophecy. This comes at the end of Zephaniah's prophecy, as is often the case in the prophets. It begins with statements of judgment, but it always, at least typically, includes a word of consolation to those who would turn from their sin, who would repent, who are believing during that time God makes a distinction between his people. And he gives a word of consolation here at the end of Zephaniah. Zephaniah, the prophecy was written during the time of Josiah. As you may know, that comes towards the end of 2 Kings, towards the end of the monarchy in Israel. It is a time of expectant judgment. Because of the sins of Manasseh and all the people there, I mean, they did such things as burn their children in fire and polluted the temple with false gods and they did all kinds of things, blasphemous and grievous and abominations to God. God ordained that these people would be removed from the land. It was going to happen. And King Josiah was a good king and led a great reform And though the judgment, that specific judgment was not removed, which Zephaniah is going to expound on, it was not removed, many turned back to the Lord. And through the good work of men like Zephaniah and Jeremiah and Josiah and others, a faithful remnant was preserved through the judgment. God keeps his faithful people, even in the midst of unspeakable destruction and difficulty, So the final chapter of Zephaniah is a word to these people, word of promise and encouragement that God will be with them through this difficult time that is coming. He will protect them from evildoers. He will bring them and their descendants back into the land and with great joy. So that's the context in which we find this remarkable revelation of a singing, and shouting God. Now to understand what is happening specifically in this verse, I want to ask three questions. What does it mean that God sang? What is he getting at there? Second question, what was that song that God was singing there that was revealed to Zephaniah? And then the third question, does God still sing today? We have good reason to believe he sings today. So what does it mean for God to sing? What was that that he was singing? And does he still sing today? And then we will make application. And the text is filled with application, so it won't be easy. We'll just grab parts of the text itself. This is how you are to respond, knowing these things to be true. knowing these things to be true. So first, what does it mean that God sings? This is, to my knowledge, the only place in Scripture, besides when Jesus sang hymns with his disciples, where that has God singing. The verb here translated loud singing, the same as in Job, is frequently translated as singing. Sometimes it's not. Always it seems to communicate some kind of a loud vocalization of emotion. There are times, like in Lamentations, where it seems to communicate loud grieving, great emotion. But most often in Scripture it is translated singing. It is the same verb, as I said, it's the same noun, rather, that is used back in verse 14, where it says, So there's a correspondence between these two actions. This is what the people are to do, and this is what God is doing. in their midst. It seems clear that whatever it is that the Lord, through Zephaniah, intends to communicate in this verse, it pictures the Lord as being greatly moved, such as would shout for joy or speak in great prophetic poetry and utterances of joy. One translation, very bad translation, It's actually a terrible translation. He translates this, he dances for joy. It is not a word for dancing, but what that translator is trying to communicate is this is God's overflow of joyful exuberance. Perhaps you have some image in your mind of God. Maybe he's seated on a throne. Very likely, if you picture God, that might be what comes to mind. And that would be correct because that is an image that is communicated all throughout scripture, whether on the throne in heaven or in the temple or on a chariot. Is Ezekiel a moving throne? God is frequently portrayed as being on a throne. It doesn't mention in those instances much movement and activity. Often he doesn't say very much in those contexts at all. Others are saying things around him. When he speaks, it's sometimes few words, of course, very weighty. But the image, if we let that maybe go too far, I don't know if that's even the right way to say that, we might get the impression that God is permanently fixed in a chair in heaven and just sitting there, barely moving, unstirred, untouched. I remember when I was a kid watching the movie Jesus of Nazareth. It had a star-studded cast, and I don't recommend it. But I remember the character of Jesus was portrayed in the story as one who barely seemed to speak. and trying to communicate that Jesus was somehow above the humble things of the world and make him appear to be holy. They also made his face barely move and smile or respond to people with exuberance. His eyes seemed to look otherworldly, and I think that's what the actor was trying to communicate. Now, all of this is just an impression But I believe that it represents some kind of a subconscious conviction that we might all have that somehow God is above everything. He's above the world with its joys, its sufferings, its emotion. And there is a theological point to be made in this. We don't want to understand God as being passive in His response to the world, as moving Him around and He's jerked around in his emotions or that he changes or anything like that. We need to maintain our theology of God throughout this. However, we sometimes might project our own emotions. Sometimes our emotions are overpowering, cause us to be irrational. They're sometimes separated from the truth. Sometimes we're responding to things emotionally, and often what we see when that's happening, what we experience when that's happening is, I know this isn't rational, I know there's other truths, but this is how I feel right now about this thing. And that's true of us, but that's partly true of us, in a sense, because we are very finite creatures. We're not always taking in all of the truth. Not entirely reasonable. But God is not like that. When Scripture communicates some kind of an emotion or an expression of joy or anger or anything like that, it is, in terms of God, is always in accord with His own will, His own sovereign will, all of providence, the truth, what He knows, His plans, His judgments, and so forth. God is not like us in our finitude. When we are emotional, in accord with the truth, When our emotions are in proper relationship to right desires and a right will, we are like God in that regard. And that is something really to think about. We are made in the image of God and part of what that means is things like joy and anger. Joy is something of what God is like. Anger is what God is like, even disgust. The word abomination is just a Hebrew word which means something disgusting and repulsive, such that it would be expelled or removed. from God. So disgust, all these emotions, they're part of what it means to be made in God's image. God is not some unfeeling, stoic being in the sky, untouched by anything. He's a perfect person like you and me. But his emotions are perfect and perfectly ordered. within his perfect knowledge, his perfect power, his perfect wisdom, and he never loses control and just lets his emotions fly. I think I've hedged myself there enough. You get the idea. But the joy, what I'm trying to say is, the joy is real. The joy that we're prophetically able to see here in this verse is real. God truly experiences joy. And we should delight to see this portrayal of our Father as an exuberant, singing, joyful being. And I'll tell you why that's good news. Because you're going to spend eternity in His presence, Christians. And it's not going to rest upon your shoulders to set the emotional tone of heaven. The joy of heaven will be the Father's joy. And all of us will simply respond in turn. You know how a person with a lot of gravitas can walk in a room and set the tone, whether it be for good or bad? How you as parents, we have so much power over our children to make their day or trouble their day with our emotional tone, the way in which we respond to them, the tone that we set in the room. And isn't it good news to know that heaven, at the center of heaven, on the throne, there is an exuberant, joyful being. who is profoundly content and happy. And he doesn't rely on his creation. He doesn't need his creation to cheer him up. That's the kind of being he is. It was helpful for me. I remember the day I grew up with a kind of a melancholy attached to my face. Always just a little bit, a little bit gloomy for whatever reason. I don't know. I remember on graduation day, one of the people up on stage had to like shake me and like, Devon, it's your graduation, cheer up. And then I grabbed my diploma, you know, put a smile on my face. But I remember, I remember where I was reading and the scripture passages and the pastor who was explaining at the moment that I first came to realize that God is actually a very joyful and happy being. And that's very, very much good news. To those who belong to Christ, there's a smile in heaven for you. He's like the sun, it says in Psalm 19. He's like the sun. He's like a man on his wedding day. The sun, the speaking of the glory of God. The sun is not a gloomy object in the sky. It's put there to communicate to us day after day the joy of God. And what kind of a person He's like is very good news. Well, what is he singing here? So this is the second question. What song was God singing at that time that Zephaniah was able to observe and see and tell to all these people? That is, do we know the lyrics? And of course, the answer to that is no, we don't. It doesn't say. It does not say what he's saying. It only says that he's saying. But it matters, though, what he is singing about. I think this is important to observe. You're going to have to follow my logic here. This is a place of encouragement. This prophecy is given to us, this revelation of our joyful, exuberant Father is given to these people at this time to encourage them, to strengthen them. And so one of the things of which they are to be thinking about is why is He singing? What is He singing about? I want you to suppose with me a ridiculous hypothetical. I want you to suppose that it was revealed to Zephaniah and the people living there 2,500 years ago that God was in heaven singing, rejoicing and glad, but that he was doing so over some matter completely unrelated to his people. He was just singing about things that he finds glorious and joyful and happy. Perhaps it was some obscure part of creation, a corner of the universe that completely unknown to us. Maybe there's some quadrant, some galaxy that God finds particularly interesting. I told you this is ridiculous. But it inspired him to sing. And it is observed here by the prophet that God was in heaven singing about that. However, it seems kind of unrelated to us, but at the very least, He's not angry anymore. He's happy or at a reason. Now that would change the meaning of these verses and that is of course not what is intended. It's not what is intended. On the contrary, it makes much more sense that God would be singing something about that, something that would give these saints encouragement. And we can infer from the context of this verse, and we don't have the lyrics, but we do know pretty clearly what it is that caused God to sing. Look at the words again more carefully at the beginning. The Lord your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save. He's among them. What's he doing there? He's there to save them. He was there to deliver them. Sometimes that word is translated a warrior. He's there to defeat their enemies. And then what follows are three actions of this saving warrior God. He will rejoice over you with gladness. Rejoice over you. And if just drawing attention to that word, the word over you can mean, I think sometimes it might be imagined that it's just simply God in his covenant presence, over his people, just singing on top of them, above them, okay? Like singing a blessing over them or something like that. But the word can also mean on account of. On account of. But it's less poetic, so it's often not translated that way. You sing over you. But I think that the second meaning makes sense. He sings on account of what has happened with these people. What has happened in their midst. They're being gloriously delivered by the warrior God. Now the next line is difficult to translate. It's often translated something like, He will quiet you by His love. It can mean, there's a whole range of things that it means. And I'm just gonna skip over it for the time being. And we'll go to the last line. We see more of the same idea. He will exalt over you with loud singing. Similar to that verse before. The Lord delighted in what was happening with his people and what was happening with them was their salvation by his hand. It seems therefore entirely reasonable, though we don't have the lyrics, it's entirely reasonable that what brought such jubilation and joy and exuberance to the Lord was his consideration of his people's welfare. and how he had delivered them, and how he had brought them safely through, and how he had cared for them, and how he had fulfilled his promises to them. And this makes sense, doesn't it? because we sing about that. We've sung several songs this morning, songs of salvation, songs rejoicing in what God has done. Why would it be anything different? We read that one of the first very lengthy songs in Scripture is there in Exodus 15, where the people of God are brought out of Egypt and across the Red Sea, God covers the Egyptian army with the Red Sea, and they begin to sing. They sing to God, they sing a song of salvation. But it's not as though God, we will sing these songs forever and ever. We know that to be true. We'll never tire of Christ and his salvation. We'll never tire of salvation. But it's not as though God will be in some part of heaven saying, oh, are they singing about that again? What the righteous upright rejoice in, all the righteous upright rejoice in. All the angels of God sing about these things. God Himself would sing about these things. There's a coherence between what the upright delight in, what God delights in, all good-natured minds. They rejoice in the same things. They love these stories of salvation. They love to see people delivered. They love to see enemies defeated. And the same goes for God himself. God sings over His people's salvation, over their welfare. He sings about their salvation. And so that's the content. And I think if we had the lyrics of that song it would be amazing and we will maybe hear it that day. And that's the third question I want to ask. I've been trying consciously, you might have seen me slip from time to time, been trying consciously to keep it back in the time of Zephaniah. Because as you read there in Zephaniah, there's a lot of language about what he's about to do in the immediate near future. He's going to deliver them. The Babylonians are going to come into the land. It's going to be brutal. It's going to be difficult. It's going to be ugly. But God, through Jeremiah, through Ezekiel, through Zephaniah, through these people, God promises, stay with me. Trust in me. I'll get you through this. And he does. He delivers his people. But my question is, and that's the context there, and that's where God says to these people who he's bringing back into the land, he says, I sing over you. My question is, does he still sing over us? Does he still sing over us? Is it right for us to maybe apply this to our own day and age? He was singing over these people, but I believe we can answer that question much in every way. He sings over us much in every way. First of all, the deliverance from Babylonian captivity, like the exodus that came before it, was just a type, just a picture of the great deliverance that God would work through Jesus Christ out of Satan's stronghold into the promised land. Zephaniah sees these people being sung over while God is ushering them into the promised land. And we have the promise of eternal rest in salvation in Jesus. Everything going from Zephaniah to our own context is from lesser to the greater. And if God finds reason to sing over these people As He delivers them and walks with them and cares for them in that context, how much more? How much more can we say He sings over us who have known the great salvation of Christ? The great salvation that is given to us in Jesus. The theme is only greater. The character is more numerous, more global, more cosmic. the Lord Jesus more songworthy. Everything is just simply much more. So we can say this. Yes, God surely sings over us today. Even as we sing to him, we can be assured that he is singing over us. But I want to say that the exuberance can only have increased all the more. Amen. So just a few words of application now. Just what do we do with this? Because one thing that we can be sure of is that God is not here singing over these people if they are proud and unbelieving people. There's a certain type of person that is here that he says he sings over. And that manner of life, Zephaniah is speaking to, and I believe he would say exactly the same thing to us. He's speaking to a certain people that have lived and conducted themselves before God in a certain way. And he says, you will know this type of relationship with God. You will know this type of deliverance. And such as you, God will sing over. And to understand this, we have to, it's just a short little prophecy, but if you follow through, you see a theme that is developed throughout. And that is a theme of pride. A theme of pride. In chapter 2, verse 9, it says, Those of my people who are left will plunder their belongings. Those who are left in Judah will take possession of their land. This is how they will be repaid for their arrogance, for they taunted and verbally harassed the people of the Lord who commands armies. And then he says this of Jerusalem. This is how the once proud city will end up, the city that was so secure. She thought to herself, I am unique. No one can compare to me. What a heap of ruins she has become, a place where wild animals live. Everyone who passes by her taunts her and shakes her fist. And then of the religious leaders in Jerusalem. So we have the outlying nations around Israel, Jerusalem, and then the leaders in Jerusalem itself. He says this of them in the beginning of chapter three, her prophets are proud. their deceitful men. Her priests defile what is holy, they break God's laws." So you see this theme. Each of these groups of people is brought under condemnation because of their arrogance and their pride. God is judging Israel because of its pride. But the people whom He will preserve in their midst are a different They're different. And notice he calls on people to join the remnant, to join the believing remnant. This is what he says at the beginning of chapter two. Seek the Lord's favor, all you humble people of the land who have obeyed his commands. Strive to do what is right. Strive to be humble. Maybe you will be protected in the day of the Lord's angry judgment. You see that? Don't be like all these people around you and their arrogance and their pride. You be humble. Strive after it. Seek after it. And then in this from, we read this earlier, chapter three, God is able to all together bless his people because he has brought, he has separated from them the proudly exultant ones. This is why, by the way, there's a change of tone when you come to Ezra and Nehemiah. There's a change of tone. These people have been chastened. And God has done what He said He would do. He has removed from them the people that were the troublemakers and brought judgment on them. The people in those stories, the people that are brought back into the land that rebuild the temple and commit themselves, at least for a season, at least to some degree, are chastened and a humble people before the Lord. They praise and honor Him with pure lips and honest hearts. Now it makes sense that God would sing over such as this because God, after all, is the only one holy, the only one glorious, the only one truly great. As it says in Psalm 147, his delight is not in the strength of the horse nor his pleasure in the legs of men, but the Lord takes pleasure in those who fear him and those who hope in his steadfast love. He sings, they're a part of His song, they're a part of His blessing, His glory, His salvation, those people that are humble before Him. Those people that are humble before Him. And that's part of how we are to respond. And the second part of how we are to respond is to be like Him, to be exuberant, to be joyful. to sing. Following the logic of chapter 3, we are clearly directed to respond to God's own exuberance in a very specific way. Sing aloud, O daughter of Zion. It's the same word. Shout, O Israel, rejoice and exult with all your heart. And then he's going to go on because, because, because he's going to get to, because this is what God has done for you, because this is what he's doing for you. This is what he is doing over you, singing over you. Because of that, sing, rejoice, be at peace. Be at peace. Be at peace. Now, I want to just finish with this one thought. These words are given to a people that are about to walk into an experience of great darkness. It does not mean life is about to turn rosy for them. This word, this promise of salvation, promise of God's goodness is delivered to a people entering the dark part of the journey, the valley. It is a call for these such people to sing despite what their eyes might tell them. What they might from time to time feel like is happening around them. It might feel like their world is falling apart. It might feel like it's the end of everything. It might feel like all the promises have come to nothing. because of all the ruin and destruction that they see around them. But it's given to these people to sing, he's told to sing, by faith, because what God is going to do. And he does keep his promises. He does remember them. He does preserve them and protect them, despite what their eyes see and think. And we need to remember that. Because we still live in the midst of much darkness. We face darkness every day. We face troubled times. There's all manner of difficulty before us. And yet, through it all, we can have God's assurance and confidence. He will walk with us through it. He will be singing over us. He will deliver us. He'll deliver us from all of our enemies, from sin, the devil, the world. He will take us through all of it, and we will come out on the other side rejoicing with Him. But rejoice right now. That's what faith looks like. Faith is singing in the darkness, singing in the valley. Now, we began by asking whether or not it was true that God sang at creation. And, of course, the answer is we don't know. We don't know. And I imagine in some way it was true. But I do know this. God surely sings over the great work of salvation in Christ. He sings today. He sings over you that you've been redeemed by the blood of the lamb. He will sing over you forever and ever. And we will respond in song as well. Amen. So Lydia Gloria, may God be glorified in the preaching of his good word.