Zephaniah 3: 17

There is a story about a child psychologist who was building a new driveway at his home. For hours he worked very hard, smoothing out the freshly poured concrete to the point that it was perfect. All of a sudden, chasing a wayward ball came his children, roaring right through the cement and leaving deep footprints in the driveway. The father exploded in anger. He let out a torrent of angry words at his kids, and his wife was shocked. She said, "Honey, you are a child psychologist. You are supposed to love children." Fuming, he replied, "I love children in the abstract, but not in the concrete."

Jesus taught us to uphold the following two commandments in the most important regard by saying "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind," and "You shall love your neighbors as yourself." (Matthew 22: 34-40). John Wesley, the father of the Methodist Church, listed piety and mercy as the two most important virtues that we, as Christians, must edify and implement through our actions. Piety is a vertical virtuewhere we love God with all our hearts and follow in His Wordswhereas mercy is a horizontal virtue, where we love and take care of our neighbors. However, such love, during the course of our lives of faith, can easily become an abstract ideal, far from reality and our own hearts and minds.

To reiterate, it is difficult to actually implement into action the love we profess for God and our neighbors. Our love of Godespeciallydoes not usually take place without some demonstration of God’s love for us beforehand. Without experiencing God’s love and blessings for us, it is almost impossible for us to love God first. The reason is simple: Since God seems to be so far away, short of viscerally experiencing His love through our own skin and senses, we cannot love God. I hope, in the name of our Lord, that through today’s scripture, as outlined in Zephaniah 3: 17, that all of us can truly understand the depth and width of the love that God has reserved for us.

The Book of Zephaniah, one of 12 Books of Minor Prophets in the Old Testament, is a short Gospel, being only 3 chapters long. This Gospel was written during the reign of King Josiah (640-690 B.C), during the fall of Nineweh and the Babylonian invasion of the Judah. The meaning of the name Zephaniah is "God has preserved," and Zephaniah himself strongly proclaimed God’s judgment against the King and the people of Judah for their worship of Baal, Molech, and other pagan gods (Zephaniah 1: 2-6). In the first chapter of Zephaniah, verses 1 through 8, predicts the severe and stern judgment of God against those who have committed the mortal sin of pagan worship.

After the prophesy against the judgment and destruction for those who have sinned, chapter 3, verses 9 through 20 prophesies the promise of God to bestow resurrection and overflowing blessing to not only the people of Judah but those in neighboring countries and regions as well. As promised through this Gospel, God, upon punishing those Kings who have misgoverned and those who have committed the mortal sins, resurrects His newfound kingdom through those who remain.

Today’s scriptureZephaniah 3: 17is truly a valuable Word from our Lord, who promises us hope, recovery, and healing while demonstrating to us His boundless and bottomless love. This morning, I would like to explain the five examples of God’s love for us, as outlined in Zephaniah 3: 17.

First, God proclaimed that He would always be with us. I hope that each of us believe the fact that God is always with us. Moments before his death on March 1, 1791, at the age of 88, John Wesley requested pen and ink from the person by his bedside and attempted to write something. Upon seeing that Wesley lacked the strength to write himself, a woman volunteered to scribe for him, to copy down whatever he had to say. Many people were curious as to what this great evangelist had to say before he departed this world. Wesley said, "Nothing, but that God is with us."

After uttering these words, Wesley, a few hours later, left his last words to the 13 close relatives and fellow Methodists by saying, "The best of all, God is with us!" With these last words, one of the great men of a century departed this world. It is true. There is no greater news than the fact that God is with us. We must frequently experience, before we love God and our neighbors, the fact that God loves us and will always be with us. I hope that each of us can understand the fact that God, whether we are happy, sad, or troubled, will always be with us.

Second, the Gospel states that God is an Omnipotent Being who will bestow everlasting salvation to us. God is the Almighty Being who rescues us from fear and dangerespecially from situations wrought with sins and death. David Wilkerson, in his book, "The Cross and the Switchblade," tells of a night when he was preaching the Gospel on a New York street corner. The notorious gang leader, Nicky Cruzwho had been harassing him for weekscame up to him, pulled a switchblade, and said, "I am sick of you preaching about Jesus; I am sick of all this stuff about the love of God; and if you say it one more time, I am going to slice you into a thousand pieces."

David Wilkerson looked Nicky Cruz in the eyes and said, "Go ahead, Nicky, and every piece is still going to love you." It was David Wilkerson’s unconditional love for Nicky Cruz that broke open the man’s heart and allowed the Holy Spirit to break in, transforming Nicky Cruz into the man he is today. He is now a pastor. God’s love and blessings rescue and save even the most notorious leader of gangs from the depths of the abyss.

Third, God cannot contain the joy He feels through us and because of us. Zephaniah states that God, because of His love for us, cannot contain the joy He feels from watching and being near us. When children do things that are particularly pleasing for us, we, as parents, often feel overwhelming joy, to the point of dancing out in the street. I can still picture the joyfulness of my parents when I, as a junior high and high school student, won prizes at competitions and contests. Remember the fact that God, as our parent, take great joy and pride in all the good things that we, His children, do.

Fourth, God loves us calmly and silently. In looking at English translation of this verse, the New Revised Standard Version Bible, used as the official Bible of the United Methodist Church, states "He will renew you in His love." The New International Version delineates, "He will quiet you with His love." How this verse is expressed in Hebrew is unknown; but the verse "He will quiet you with His love" seems most appealing. God is the One who heals and cures our heart and diminishes our fear when we feel hurt and afraid. One of the great lecturers of Scotland, Alexander MacLaren, got his first job in the city of Glasgow when he was sixteen.

Not only was MacLaren young, but his place of employment was over 6 miles from his home. To make the matter worse, between his home and his workplace was a deep ravine, notorious for appearance of ghosts and other supernatural events. People, let alone at nights, often avoiding traveling through this ravine even during daylight hours. On Monday morning, the boy’s father accompanied him as he made his way through the 6-mile journey to his workplace.

Before departing from his son, the father said, "Alec, come home as fast as you can when you get off Saturday night." Upon hearing this, and instantaneously remembering the haunted ravine, the son stated, "Dad, I will be awfully tired Saturday night. I will come home early Sunday morning." The father spoke again. "No, Alec, you have never been away from home before, and these five days are going to seem like a year to me. Come home Saturday night." Unable to overcome his father’s insistence, the boy agreed to come home on Saturday night. But Alec spent the whole week thinkingand fearingthe deep and dark ravine that he has to walk through in order to get home.

When Saturday night arrived, he was more afraid than ever before. But since he promised his father that he would return home on Saturday night, he packed his bags and made his way towards the ravine. As he confessed, "I whistled to keep up my courage, but when I looked down into the inky blackness I knew I couldn’t go on. Big tears came unbidden. Then suddenly, I heard footsteps in the ravine coming up the path. I started to run but hesitated, for these footsteps were familiar. Up out of the darkness and into the pale night, as I watched, came the head and shoulders of the grandest and the greatest man on earth. He was bound to have known I was scared, but he only said, "Alec, I wanted to see you so badly that I came to meet you." So shoulder to shoulder we went down into the valley and I was not afraid of anything that walked." Just like the man, who, out of concern for his son, accompanies him through the darkest of the ravines, our God will do the same for us to keep us safe from dangerous and perilous paths.

As long as God is with us, just as Psalms 23 states, we will have no need to fear anything as we walk, even through the valley of deathand this is because our loving God is always with us.

Fifth, Zephaniah states that God, because of us, sings in joy. The one who sings and dances in joy on the account of uswhat a great parent and God! It is true. As long as we lean and depend on the Almighty Father, and carry out good deed befitting of His intent, God sings in joy and blesses us endlessly. This morning, I hope that each one of us can feel and experienceand most importantly, understandthe boundless and endless love that God feels for us.

A man was walking in the desert during a pitch-black night when he heard a voice out of nowhere. "Reach down and pick up some stones and put them in your pocket. And in the morning you will be both glad and sad." The man did as he was told, diligently picking up stone and putting them in his pocket in the dark night. At first light of the morning, the man reached into this pocket and looked at the stone he picked up during the previous night; surprisingly, the stones were actually diamonds.

True to the prophecy of the night before, the man felt both happiness and sadness. He was happy that he picked up diamonds as he was told; yet, he felt sorrow in the fact that he did not pick up more diamonds, which he thought were stones, from the previous night. When we go to Heaven, we will probably experience the same thing as this man in the desert did. God loves us, and wants to bestow endless blessings to us; woe to the fact that we do not understand this truth, and are unable to experience God’s grace and blessings before we depart from earth.

Bernard of Clairvaux, a 12th century French philosopher, stated that there are 4 stages of Christian spirituality. The first stage is "Love of self for self’s sake." The second stage is "Love of God for self’s sake." The third stage is "Love of God for God’s sake." And the fourth stage is "Love of self for God’s sake." What stage are we in? I hope that all of us, through Zephaniah 3: 17, experience the great love of God and love God, God, our Goderstwhile learning to love ourselves as well as our neighbors. Amen.