Zephaniah 3:14-20 v2

5:52-6:36

Christian Standard Bible Chapter 3

14 Sing for joy, Daughter Zion;

shout loudly, Israel!

Be glad and celebrate with all your heart,

Daughter Jerusalem!

15 The LORD has removed your punishment;

he has turned back your enemy.

The King of Israel, the LORD, is among you;

you need no longer fear harm.

16 On that day it will be said to Jerusalem:

“Do not fear;

Zion, do not let your hands grow weak.

17 The LORD your God is among you,

a warrior who saves.

He will rejoice over you with gladness.

He will be quiet in his love.

He will delight in you with singing.”

18 I will gather those who have been driven

from the appointed festivals;

they will be a tribute from you

and a reproach on her.

19 Yes, at that time

I will deal with all who oppress you.

I will save the lame and gather the outcasts;

I will make those who were disgraced

throughout the earth

receive praise and fame.

20 At that time I will bring you back,

yes, at the time I will gather you.

I will give you fame and praise

among all the peoples of the earth,

when I restore your fortunes before your eyes.

The LORD has spoken.

I grew up in church. I’ve gone to church my whole life and was a fairly good kid. But there was one Sunday where I was shamed in front of the entire church. I was sitting on a Wednesday night, I remember my church met in a high school auditorium, flanagan high school. I remember where I was sitting. All the youth were sitting together and we would go to Taco Bell after. Well, we had a guest speaker that night, I even remember his name. John Bevere. He’s famous now, but he wasn’t then. This was over 25 years ago or something. Anyway, we are sitting in the back corner and we start to talk. We are talking to one another as is often the case.

now what most people don’t know and what I didn’t know then, for sure, was that you can see a lot more than you people think you can from the stage. You can see everything. So we were talking and John Bevere didn’t like it. He didn’t like it all. So he stops his sermon and says, you kids in the back. You all better be quiet and fear God.

So I stop. Now I feel guilt, I feel shame. I’m a good kid. So I stop talking. But the hooligans behind me, well, they were sinners alright becasue they kept on chit chatting. And its grating on me. Why can’t they be more like me. We got called out and now we get our act together. NO they keep on talking. And so finally, I can’t take it anymore, I turn around and say “You guys need to stop…”

I didn’t even finish my sentence before my man John Calls out “you” I turn and he is pointing at me. “You in the green shirt. I said to stop talking!”

Oh that was it. Emotional damage. Shame. I wasn’t even guilty. I was doing this guys work and he calls me out. Really all of us felt shamed after that. Nobody went out for Taco Bell that night.

And I remember, the injustice of it all. I was paying attention and he calls me out in front of the church, and this wasn’t a small church. He called me out in front of my family, my friends and my pastor. All of them. They are all going to think I was the one talking, when I was the one shushhing.

I felt very ashamed. I remember my brother worked for the church, he was ashamed that his brother was a hulligan. I mean it was like in Mulan, dishonor on me, dishonor on my family, dishonor on my cow, well my dog anyway. It was like a cloud of shame. Here’s this visiting pastor, someone who would go one to be famous, calling me out for not fearing God.

It was the worst. Until my brother got home from work the next day. And I go to him, and I’m like what did pastor john (that was our pastor’s name) what did he say? Is he angry?

And you know what he said? He said, Pastor John’s not angry with you he’s angry with John Bevere and he said that he’ll never have him preach at the church again.

You know what happened in my heart at the time. The shame was lifted. It was gone. There was no actual guilt, I wasn’t acting up at the time. So there wasn’t guilt, but when I found our that the pastor wasn’t angry with me, I no longer felt the shame. He was on my side. my honor was restored.

Shame happens when someone special makes us feel like we aren’t special. When someone important makes us feel unimportant. When someone with status makes us feel like we don’t have status.

Shame is social. If someone who is important uses us, we feel shame. When we get punished in front of other people, even if we deserve it, we can no longer create the illusion of superiority, we are humbled and every one knows it.

Deep down, we all know there is something we lack. There is something wrong but we desperately want other people’s approval, not all people’s approval, but important people’s approval and when we lose it, when our outward reputation matches our inward self-doubt we feel shame.

And the only way to get it back is to be given it by someone else who is special and important. Honor is a gift while shame is a curse.

Why do I tell this story, I tell it because shame is one of the most powerful emotions that we feel. Sometimes we don’t even know that we are feeling it. But it’s hugely powerful in our lives. And it comes on us when someone when someone of a higher status makes you feel small, especially in the eyes of other people. There doesn’t have to be an audience but often times that what it is. And shame sits with you and it eats you up, until honor is restored and that honor has to be restored by someone also of a higher status.

Shame, its a weird thing. But it’s a powerful thing. And in the book of Zephaniah, he is prophesying about the punishment of Judah that’s going to come at the hands of the Babylonians. And while the punishment is harsh, the shame of the punishment is unbearable. So what he is prophesying is that when God restores Judah to the promised land, he isn’t going to just restore their land and posessions, he is going to restore his honor.

And this is important for us today because a lot of people live lives filled with shame. Sometimes it settles into your soul with anxiety or sometimes its confused with guilt. But it sits in your soul and it whispers “you are no good” “you are nothing.” sometimes it doesn’t whisper it shouts “You are awful for doing that” “This happened to you because you deserve it and you are worthless.”

That’s what shame does. It’s like a parasite, that gets into your system and it sucks out your life and your joy and it just continues to do that until you kill it.

And what Zephaniah is going to teach us today is that the only way to get rid of shame, is to replace it with the honor that comes from God. He takes our shame and replaces it with honor.

But before we start we need to place Zephaniah in history.

So he is ministering under the reign of king Josiah and he is prophesying that trouble that’s coming but then he switches at the end of the book and turns his focus onto the good that is going to happen too. So let’s look at it.

in verses 14 - 15

Christian Standard Bible Chapter 3

14 Sing for joy, Daughter Zion;

shout loudly, Israel!

Be glad and celebrate with all your heart,

Daughter Jerusalem!

15 The LORD has removed your punishment;

he has turned back your enemy.

The King of Israel, the LORD, is among you;

you need no longer fear harm.

So here’s the deal. He is talking to the future restoration of the people. He is promising that even though there is going to be trouble there is going to be a day of restoration and joy.

So he is telling people to sing and shout and the people he is telling it to are people who are expecting trouble. They are feeling sad. The people he is imagining are the people in exile. The ones who have been beaten down, they have been abused, they have been used. All these bad things have happened to them.

And there is an extent to which this was their punishment. They deserved it. Not perhaps each individual, there is a community nature to this shame. The whole youth group wasn’t talking but they were all in trouble. The whole group felt the shame and wrath of the punishment.

They could never overcome the shame because God had publicly humiliated them when he punished them. They couldn’t hide their guilt. They couldn’t hide their shame. Their shame was public. And here’s what he say, your punishment was public but your restoration will be public too. Your glory will be public too.

So you can sing and you shout. And you can celebrate.

This isn’t the power of positive thinking. There is a real cause for their celebration. Their punishment has been removed and their enemy has been turned back. This is a big deal.

Like a child going to time out and then returning

I think some of you may need to hear that. You can celebrate today because the punishment for our sin, the shame in our life is lifted in Christ. That’s why we can sing. We don’t shout much in church, but we could. We would have reason to!

Zepheniah goes on in verse 16-17

Christian Standard Bible Chapter 3

16 On that day it will be said to Jerusalem:

“Do not fear;

Zion, do not let your hands grow weak.

17 The LORD your God is among you,

a warrior who saves.

He will rejoice over you with gladness.

He will be quiet in his love.

He will delight in you with singing

Here’s what he is saying. Their hands grow weak out of fear and shame. They feel like they’ve been rejected. This is like me the day after getting yelled out. I thought the whole church was going to be angry with me. I was living in fear. I was meak, that next day.

But he is saying, you don’t have to feel that way. You don’t have to be ashamed. You are back under his protection. You are back in his good graces.

Not only that look at what it uses: It says that he will rejoice over you - imagine that - imagine you in your shame with whatever the lies your shame tell you. In our shame we have that internal shame parasite telling us we are worthless, but God, is rejoicing over you with gladness.

It says that he will be quiet in his love, some translations read that he will quiet us with his love, either way, the sentiment is like when a child is falls in a playground and they want their mother. They don’t want some stranger picking them up, they don’t want a friend, sometimes, they don’t even want the dads, they want their mother. And what does she do, she holds the child and soothes them. Sometimes she will even make a shushhing noise but not harshly. Not in anger. In love.

So maybe your shame whispers to you that you are rejected that your pain is what you deserve but here is god, saying that he will hold us and soothe our pain in his love.

Then it says this, “He will delight in you with singing” It’s my birthday coming up, so you prepare your presents now, but what happens at a birthday. People sing! And its fun. Its fun to have people sing over you, but you know what’s more fun than people singing happy birthday - when they sing “For he’s a jolly good fellow.” That’s fun. Or for she’s a jolly good fell-ah if its a lady. Lady’s can be jolly good as well.

But its silly songs of delight. That’s what it is getting at. Your shame tells you that you are forgotten and cast out. It says that God doesn’t even want to look at you. But meanwhile, God is singing silly songs of delight over you. Isn’t that wonderful.

I mean , that’s just great. That’s way better than scorn!

Zephaniah goes on in verse 18 - 19

Christian Standard Bible Chapter 3

18 I will gather those who have been driven

from the appointed festivals;

they will be a tribute from you

and a reproach on her.

19 Yes, at that time

I will deal with all who oppress you.

I will save the lame and gather the outcasts;

I will make those who were disgraced

throughout the earth

receive praise and fame.

Here’s what he is saying, in verse 18 he is recognizing that there is pain. There is hurt. The people of Israel were separated by their sin from the worship of God. They were separated from the festivals and the feasts because they were in exile. They were cast out. They were far off. But he is going to gather them back. Yes it happened. But they are going to come back.

We face some of that. We long for heaven. We long for true connection with the Lord but we are separated by our sin. By through Christ, he brings us back.

But not only that, he is going to deal with all those who oppress you. He is going to deal with the people who cause you shame and hurt and pain.

The guest speaker caused me shame. He hurt me and my reputation. It was small and you, know, now its funny, but then it was painful. But what happened? My pastor dealt with him, he wasn’t invited back. That’s a fairly appropriate response.

But there are some of you who were harmed in a big way. You feel like the lame and the outcast. You felt the disgrace of the way you were treated. Maybe it was something public, maybe it was something that no one else knows about except for you and that other person.

But here is what God says, he says that he is going to save the lame, he is gathering the people who were cast out. He is going to turn the disgrace we have to fame. Not tick tock fame, but honor. We will be restored.

The way you were made to feel small he will make you feel big

the way you were made to feel insignficant he will make you feel signficant

The way you were dishonored he will make you honored.

Imagine that final judgment. imagine that day, we normally think of it as a bad day and there is a lot of trouble that will happen, but I want you to imagine it as a believer.

God is there, and I don’t know that this will be the case, but imagine everyone else is standing around. You know it doesn’t really matter if they are there or not, sometimes the mocking voices of the ones who shamed us live in our mind and in our heart.

So let’s just set the scene, whether they are actually present or just there symbolically as the continued voice in your soul, they are around. And There’s God in all His glory, shinning so bright you can barley look at him.

And his eyes meet your’s and he smiles. His face breaks out in a big grin. He starts to rejoice over you, maybe he sings a silly song of delight, but then he says, “I’m glad you are finally home, well done,” and then in front of all the voices of the accusers in your life and in front of all the voices of shame he says, “you are my child, welcome home.”

You will not walk into the new jerusalem with you head bowed down in shame. It will be held up high by the honor you received through your adoption in Christ.

That’s going to be a pretty powerful moment for all of us. I mean, how do you avoid praising God for that. How do you still think poorly of yourself?

How do we allow the voices of shame to still preach their venom over us when God himself is singing his delight

Our glory is not in what we have done, it’s in what Christ has done for us.

He has taken our shame and replaced it with glory!

Look at how he ends it in verse 20

Christian Standard Bible Chapter 3

20 At that time I will bring you back,

yes, at the time I will gather you.

I will give you fame and praise

among all the peoples of the earth,

when I restore your fortunes before your eyes.

The LORD has spoken.

I love that last line - “the Lord has spoken!”

He says he is going to restore your fortune before your eyes. You will see that day when all those voices are proved to be liars.

But they are not liars because we are so good, they are liars because God is better than we can imagine. He took our shame and gave us glory.

Think of it this way. Maybe you are here today and you aren’t even sure about Christ. You aren’t sure about God. You don’t know what you believe. First, if that’s you we are glad you are here.

But whether you agree with us about the Bible and God or not, there is one thing we can all agree on, I think, and that is that shame is a real problem in people’s lives. It tears people down, and we all hate that.

Sometimes, people blame the church for it, and they say, well I wouldn’t feel this way if it wasn’t for the church telling me how bad I am, but that’s not true. Shame is universal. Even in communist countries where there aren’t any churches, there’s shame. Even in primitive societies whose religions don’t have major points of ethics, there is shame and anthorpolgists study it.

See shame is universal and it points to a bigger truth, it points to the reality that we have failed to live up to a standard. That there is something wrong with us. But nothing the world has found has been able to deal with that. We can help with some shame, but not all. And the reason is that ultimately we weren’t made for this world. Our shame can’t be fixed by this world because our failure is bigger than this world.

and the Bible teaches that we have shame because we have sin. We have been separated by God. There is a punishment just like the exile Judah faced. But because God loved us, he sent Jesus to live a perfect life, to go to the cross and to die on it.

The cross was a shameful death. It was a criminal’s death. In fact, the law of God says that anyone who dies on a tree is cursed. And what the Bible teaches is that Jesus became a curse, he took our shame, so that we could be adopted and have glory. He died and was buried but rose again defeating all the sinful forces of this world that would keep us locked in shame and guilt, and rose to heaven where he invites us in to adopt us as his children if we turn from our sins and put our faith in him.

ABC’s of repentance.

But maybe you are here and you are a believer and you still struggle with shame. A huge part of the christian life is preaching the gospel to ourselves, reminding ourselves what is true.

And what’s true is that if we are in Christ, he rejoices over you, he sings silly songs of delight over you. That’s what true. You are his beloved child. Whatever voice of shame lives in your head, I want you to hear the greater voice, the more important voice of the God of the universe saying you are accepted.

This is good news. It’s really good news in a culture that wants to cancel people and that wants to rub their noses in their failures.

And this is a big deal, our culture is sliding further away from cultural christianity and one of the affects of that is a rise in shame culture. Of people not forgiving. This is one of the reasons why we planted Mercy Hill, because as more and more people move to the area, we need more churches to proclaim the good news to them. This is why we are called Mercy Hill, because in a culture that cancels people, we want them to know that there is mercy through Christ.

So listen, as you experience the freedom of shame and guilt in Christ, let’s not keep it to ourselves. Who do we need to be sharing this with? Be praying for them, Be inviting them. Let’s do this work together.