Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

Christmas is a hard holiday to spend alone.

It’s a holiday that lends itself to being together—with family, friends, loved ones, spouses, children—but for a lot of people this Christmas will be marked more by who isn’t there than who is there.

And for some, that separation is no fault of their own; whether something as mundane as having to a work shift over Christmas Day, to kids whose Dad is overseas on military deployment, to a child or spouse who has passed away, there will be an empty seat at Christmas dinner and an empty spot around the tree on Christmas morning.

And that’s a hard thing.

Some of the joy of the day will be lost because of that empty space.

Some folks will be separated from loved ones this Christmas through circumstances that are no fault of their own.

And there are others who are isolated and alone this Christmas because they have isolated themselves through the consequences of their own behavior or attitudes.

Maybe they’ve burned their bridges with their family, maybe their family wants them to be there but they are in the grip of some bitterness or envy or anger that keeps them away.

Maybe they have driven themselves so far into self-destructive sin that nobody wants them to show up.

Or perhaps someone else’s sin has driven you away from them; their violence or hatred or dissension means that you are not welcome there, and you have no place to go at Christmas.

All of this is another way of saying that it is hard to celebrate Christmas here in this fallen, sinful world.

The consequences of sin that brought death into the world overlays our Christmas celebrations with a layer of grief and loss; the consequences of sin that isolate us from one another and from God makes it hard to enter into the “tidings of comfort and joy” that this season is supposed to bring us.

I don’t know where you are this morning as you anticipate Christmas Day 2021—I don’t know how the consequences of living in this fallen world might be dampening your joy this season.

But our text this morning gives you a very clear command to

Zephaniah 3:14 (ESV)

14 Sing aloud, O daughter of Zion; shout, O Israel! Rejoice and exult with all your heart, O daughter of Jerusalem!

Even in the midst of the brokenness and sin that weighs you down, even in the midst of the heaviness of spirit that you wrestle with because of the consequences of sin that have devastated your life, there is real and lasting joy for you this Christmas.

What I want to show you from these verses this morning is that the very essence of Christmas—the Incarnation of Jesus Christ—is the both the basis of and the fuel for your everlasting joy in God:

The Incarnation of Christ GUARANTEES your REAL and LASTING JOY

As we get started, the first thing I want to do is unpack that word “Incarnation”.

The word itself comes from the Latin word “carne”, meaning “flesh”.

(If you’ve ever had chili con carne, you’ve had “chili with meat”).

So the word itself literally means “enfleshment”—to become flesh.

We say it this way because this is precisely what John’s Gospel says—we read earlier this morning in worship:

John 1:14 (ESV)

14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

The incarnation of Jesus Christ is one of the absolute non-negotiable truths of the Christian faith—it is a first-order issue.

If you do not affirm this truth, there is no meaningful sense in which you can call yourself a Christian at all.

The Incarnation: The eternal Second Person of the Trinity took on HUMANITY in the person of Jesus Christ; He is both FULLY GOD and FULLY MAN

The essential core of Christmas—the whole reason for the holiday—is to celebrate the arrival of Jesus Christ in the flesh with us.

I believe the Book of Zephaniah sets up a wonderful picture of the joy that comes from the presence of God in our midst—look again at the verses we read a few moments ago:

Zephaniah 3:14–15 (ESV)

14 Sing aloud, O daughter of Zion; shout, O Israel! Rejoice and exult with all your heart, O daughter of Jerusalem!

15 The Lord has taken away the judgments against you; he has cleared away your enemies.

The King of Israel, the Lord, is in your midst; you shall never again fear evil.

These verses come at the end of a book that is full of pronouncements of judgment on God’s people for breaking their covenant with God—it was written about thirty years before Nebuchadnezzar and his armies would sweep through and destroy Jerusalem and take the people into captivity.

In Chapter 1, God lays out His charges against the people for breaking His covenant, separating themselves from Him, burning their bridges” by going and worshipping other gods:

Zephaniah 1:4, 7 (ESV)

4 “I will stretch out my hand against Judah and against all the inhabitants of Jerusalem; and I will cut off from this place the remnant of Baal and the name of the idolatrous priests along with the priests... 7 Be silent before the Lord God!

For the day of the Lord is near...

And in Chapter 2, God makes it clear that He is not just bringing judgment against Judah and Jerusalem for breaking their covenant with Him, but He is bringing all of the nations to account for their disobedience.

God’s covenant people are being judged, but even those nations around them are guilty before God:

Zephaniah 2:4–5 (ESV)

4 For Gaza shall be deserted, and Ashkelon shall become a desolation; Ashdod’s people shall be driven out at noon, and Ekron shall be uprooted.

5 Woe to you inhabitants of the seacoast, you nation of the Cherethites!

The word of the Lord is against you, O Canaan, land of the Philistines; and I will destroy you until no inhabitant is left.

In Chapter 3, Zephaniah returns to pronouncing God’s judgment on Jerusalem again, and then sums up His statement of all of the judgments to that point in the book in verse 8:

Zephaniah 3:8 (ESV)

8 “Therefore wait for me,” declares the Lord, “for the day when I rise up to seize the prey.

For my decision is to gather nations, to assemble kingdoms, to pour out upon them my indignation, all my burning anger; for in the fire of my jealousy all the earth shall be consumed.

God’s anger and jealousy are poured out on rebellious and wicked kingdoms—His people have broken their part of His covenant to worship and obey Him, and so He is keeping His part of the covenant to punish them in His wrath.

But then, all of a sudden, the tone shifts wildly starting in verse 9—let me read verses 8-9 together so that you can see the break between them:

Zephaniah 3:8–9 (ESV)

8 “Therefore wait for me,” declares the Lord, “for the day when I rise up to seize the prey.

For my decision is to gather nations, to assemble kingdoms, to pour out upon them my indignation, all my burning anger; for in the fire of my jealousy all the earth shall be consumed.

9 “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.

Do you hear that?

Where did that shift come from?

One verse earlier, God is announcing that He is pouring out His wrath and indignation on all the kingdoms that have broken faith with Him and have rebelled against Him in their wickedness.

And then He turns around and promises to “change their speech to a pure speech” so that they can call on His Name and serve Him, that they will “not be put to shame because of the deeds by which you rebelled against Me” (Zephaniah 3:11).

How in the world can a righteous and holy God suddenly declare that you will “not be put to shame because of the deeds by which you have rebelled against Him?” What is it that will cause Him to grant forgiveness and restoration to His rebellious people?

Because the day will come when The LORD Himself will be in their midst!

Zephaniah 3:14–15 (ESV)

14 Sing aloud, O daughter of Zion; shout, O Israel! Rejoice and exult with all your heart, O daughter of Jerusalem!

15 The Lord has taken away the judgments against you; he has cleared away your enemies.

The King of Israel, the Lord, is in your midst; you shall never again fear evil.

Not exalted above you, not separated by the thick veil and darkness, not standing in judgment over you for your sin but in your midst… The people will be able to rejoice and exult and sing with all their heart because the LORD will be with them.

He is

I.

The KING who has come to PARDON you Zephaniah 3:15)

Zephaniah 3:15 (ESV)

15 The Lord has taken away the judgments against you; he has cleared away your enemies.

The King of Israel, the Lord, is in your midst; you shall never again fear evil.

All of the kings of Judah and Israel that had reigned in Jerusalem and Samaria during the days of the Divided Kingdoms, and even back to Solomon and David and Saul—those kings were merely representatives of the True King of Israel—YHWH Himself.

And this verse promises that the day would come when YHWH Himself would appear among them as their king!

And when He appears in their midst, this verse says that He will do two things—“take away the judgments against you” and “clear away your enemies”.

Why are the people called to rejoice?

First, because

His JUSTICE has been SATISFIED (v.

15a)

When we read that the LORD in their midst has “taken away their judgments”, it doesn’t merely mean that He has “swept them under the rug”—He didn’t “take them away” in the sense that He ignores them or merely “sets them aside”.

That would be a reason to mourn, and not rejoice, if your King merely winks at justice, and says of those crimes, “Don’t worry about it, it doesn’t really matter!”

No, the LORD who appears as King in your midst didn’t just “set aside” or postpone the judgment you deserve—He satisfied those judgments by His own death!

The Incarnation of Jesus Christ meant that God in the flesh paid the penalty for your sins by the flesh He took on!

When He cried out on the Cross, “It is finished” (John 19:30), He meant that there was no more judgment to pour out!

Hebrews 2:17 tells us that God the Son had to come in the flesh in order to satisfy the judgment of God that stood against you!

Hebrews 2:17 (ESV)

17 Therefore he had to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people.

The word “propitiation” here literally means “a sacrifice that takes away wrath”—as we love to sing in our worship, “And on the Cross / As Jesus died / The wrath of God / Was satisfied!”

Shout for joy and sing and exult in the fact that your God has appeared in your midst—because it is the only way your judgments could be taken away!

The presence of God in the flesh in your midst means that your judgments have been taken away, and also that

Your ACCUSER has been SILENCED (v.

15b)

God promised His people through Zephaniah that someday He would “clear away their enemies”—in fact He did so a century later when they returned from their exile in Babylon, having been freed from their captivity and brought back to Jerusalem to rebuild the Temple and the city.

But Christian, you have an even greater reason to rejoice and exult and sing for the joy of your King in your midst—the incarnation of Jesus Christ and His death, burial and resurrection from the dead mean that your Accuser, the devil, can no longer make his accusations against you stick!

Romans 8:34 (ESV)

34 Who is to condemn?

Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us.

Because Jesus came in the flesh and died and was raised, Satan’s accusations against you have lost their power!