Zephaniah 3:14-20
14 Sing, Daughter Zion; shout aloud, Israel! Be glad and rejoice with all your heart, Daughter Jerusalem!15 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.16 On that day they will say to Jerusalem, “Do not fear, Zion; do not let your hands hang limp.17 The Lord your God is with you, the Mighty Warrior who saves. He will take great delight in you; in His love He will no longer rebuke you, but will rejoice over you with singing.”
18 “I will remove from you all who mourn over the loss of your appointed festivals, which is a burden and reproach for you.19 At that time I will deal with all who oppressed you. I will rescue the lame; I will gather the exiles. I will give them praise and honour in every land where they have suffered shame.20 At that time I will gather you; at that time I will bring you home. I will give you honour and praise among all the peoples of the earth when I restore your fortunes before your very eyes,” says the Lord.
Zephaniah 3:14-20 HOW DOES GOD’S RESTORATION INSPIRE WORSHIP?
Springford Baptist Church: July 25, 2021.
Think of a time when you have been sick in bed and have felt terrible. When you have recovered and are feeling better, you are so grateful to be alive.
It is good to be up and around and able to enjoy each new day. Everything seems brighter and hopeful.
Here in the Old Testament book of Zephaniah, we have a picture like this. As a prophet who delivered God’s message to the people of Judah during the reign of King Josiah (640-609 B.C.) Zephaniah begins with the bad news. That bad news is that there is a time of judgment coming. This will be the time of exile from their homeland. God’s people have disregarded Him and there will be an accounting for this. They will go through an extremely difficult time of punishment. But that is not the end of their story. Zephaniah also makes it clear that God will still show mercy to His people. Like many other Old Testament prophets, Zephaniah ends the predictions of doom with the beautiful promise of restoration.
In recent days, many of us have been thankful for a time of restoration after all the restrictions of the pandemic. We are even more thankful for some of the regular things we have been able to do again because for so long we could not enjoy these pleasures.
The Scripture we are considering today, highlights what happens when after a time of great difficulty, there is restoration. If we understand God for who He is, which is an integral aspect of worship, then we must recognize how much He does love and care for us. Sometimes an experience of despair does lead to the question, “Does “God really care what happens to me”? Zephaniah’s prophecy affirms that absolutely God does care what happens to us! When there is a time of restoration and awareness of God as described here, then the obvious response of those restored will be worship!
Restoration does inspire worship! It reinforces what we have known of God all along.
14 Sing, Daughter Zion; shout aloud, Israel! Be glad and rejoice with all your heart, Daughter Jerusalem!15 The Lord has taken away your punishment, He has turned back your enemy. The Lord, the King of Israel, is with you;
Worship of our God is a rejoicing with all of our hearts. It is a recognizing of what God has done for us and an assurance that He is with us. When we realize this in our circumstances then we appreciate God even more because we are assured that He has not abandoned us.
A key verse here in our desire to understand how restoration inspires us to worship God is verse 17
17 The Lord your God is with you, the Mighty Warrior who saves. He will take great delight in you; in His love He will no longer rebuke you, but will rejoice over you with singing.”
This creates for me a tender picture of a parent delighting in a child. Have you experienced the LORD rejoicing over you with singing? I think of a mother holding her young one and out of the fullness of her heart beginning to sing over that one she loves so extremely.
A friend of mine has just welcomed a new grandchild and the look of pure joy on her face as she holds that precious baby leaves no doubt how she feels about the one in her arms.
There is no doubt about God’s love for us when He rejoices over us with singing.
When we consider the promise of God’s restoration and drawing us back to Himself even when we have stubbornly gone our own way, what other response could there be than to worship God?
This Scripture comes at the end of the prophecy of Zephaniah. He indicates that there will be impossibly hard things to endure but that is not the end of the story.
In our lives of impossibly hard things to endure, God has already written the end of each of our stories. There comes a promised time of restoration. Even if we have not yet fully experienced that, we can turn to God with worship as we anticipate that He will ultimately bring us home.
20 At that time I will gather you; at that time I will bring you home.
It is only in the life to come in heaven that we will fully experience God’s complete restoration when He brings us to our forever home with Him. Until then God gives evidence of His restoring and redeeming power over and over in our every day lives.
We stand up from our sick beds and tentatively take one step and then another. We find new strength and vigour as we realize that God in His love and mercy has forgiven and restored us.
Our response to Him when we think about where we have been and where he has brought us now is an overwhelming outpouring of worship directed toward our God!