Ah, so shall I never die, But live with Thee the perfect life, A blind eternity. Amen. People of God, we now come to the reading of God's Word, our text, Zephaniah chapter 3. That's right around page 1,000, 1,004 in most of the pew Bibles. We will focus on verses 11 through 15. There's very much interwoven themes working through this third chapter, so we'll begin reading at verse 9, and verses 14 to 17 are kind of a song in the middle here, so we'll read at least the whole song. So we'll read from 9 to 17, but we will focus especially on 11 to 15. People of God, let us hear the word of God. Zephaniah 3, beginning at verse 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. 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. They 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 exalt with all your heart, O daughter of Jerusalem. 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. 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 exalt over you with loud singing. So far the reading of God's holy word. Dear congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ, a message heard so often in this world is something along the lines of, be your best self. You know, I took the little bunny ears for the TV and set those up in the basement earlier this week I was hoping to get CBS. I wasn't hopeful. I figured we probably wouldn't be able to get it. But I was like, you know, we'll try. We'll just see. And so you run the channel scanner to see what you can pick up with those little bunny ears. And you know, the only station that we can get in that basement with those little bunny ears is TBN. It's the only one. Two different versions of it. And the sermon is being wrapped up. We can call it a sermon. And the application is, guess what the application was? It was basically some version of be your best self. Maybe not those words used exactly. Now if the application of the sermons from this pulpit ever lack a particularness and they ever sound like a broken record, if that broken record is look to Jesus Christ and look away from yourself, well then, that's okay. I mean, we should. work to have particular applications as well. But if that's the primary overarching broken record from this pulpit, then amen, let's hear that. If there's ever some kind of broken record where it's look to yourself, then we are in trouble because there's a reason why the message of the world which says, Be you in the best way that you can be you. And the application of false preachers, which is be your best self, there's a reason why those sound the same. It's because the world loves to say it, the world loves to hear it. But it's not what the Bible teaches. The Bible teaches, look away from yourself, look away from the city of man and look to the King who will make a totally different city. That's the message, which is truly a wonderful message of peace. That's the message of Zephaniah. Not be your best you, but God will save you from yourself and make you to reflect His perfect attributes. The message here is you will be remade to again reflect the image of God, true righteousness, knowledge and holiness, which was lost at the fall. The message here in Zephaniah is that the Lord will take his people. He will change them and he will make them to dwell in his holy city. And that's what we'll be considering together this morning. First, we'll look at the absolute king. and second, that the subjects are to be humble subjects, and third, that the subjects are to be joyful subjects. First, there is an absolute king. Now, I mentioned that we're, by stopping at verse 15, we're kind of stopping in the middle of a song. And we can look at the language of verses 14, 15, 16, 17, it's all to the Lord, about the Lord, sing with joy, sing, rejoice and exalt with all your heart. And surrounding this kind of, this song in 14 to 17, is all of this I language of the Lord. It really begins already in verse six and seven. I have cut off. I said, surely you will fear me. Verse nine, I will change the speech of the peoples. In our text, we see verse 11, I will remove them from your midst. In verse 12, I will leave in your midst a people humble and lowly. And then that eye language is picked up again after the song in verse 18. So Lord willing, next week we'll be looking at that eye language. I will gather, behold I will deal with your oppressors. I will bring you in. It is the work of the Lord. And in the song, it's focused on the presence and the action of the Lord. Look at verse 15, the Lord has taken, what are we singing about? Verse 14, we're to sing, and we'll look at that in more detail when we come to our third point, that we're to be joyful, but what are they singing about? Verse 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. This is a God focused passage because God is the only one who can do these things. Zephaniah is very much, there's this evil, both in the world and in the city of Jerusalem, which was rebelling against God. That's said in many different ways in the first two chapters. But now, how is that situation changed? How is it reversed? It is focused upon the king. The reversal comes through the action of the king. I will remove. I will leave. Notice that the language of verse 15 is reflecting what's described in 11 to 13. So it says at the end of verse 15, he has cleared away your enemies. Well, that directly relates to the middle of verse 11, does it not? I will remove from your midst your proudly exultant ones. And then there's also a relationship between leaving in your midst the humble and lowly and the beginning of verse 15, the Lord has taken away your judgments against you. Why are we humble? Why are we lowly? Why do we exalt the Lord? Not because Oh, look, now we've been able to be our best self and we've been able to do this and accomplish this. No, it's because the Lord has taken away your judgments against you. The Lord has done this on that day. You shall not be put to shame because of the deeds by which you rebelled against me. For then I will remove from your midst the proud ones and I will leave you in your midst the humble and the lowly. It is all the work of the Lord. When we cry out, When we cry out, like the psalmist in Psalm 74 would cry out, as we read earlier, or like Habakkuk, who lived in the same day and age as Zephaniah, would cry out, how long will the wicked surround the righteous? Who do we cry out to? We cry out to the only one who can fix this situation. We cry out to the only one who can reverse, who can remake the city, This is what God can perform, and He will do it. The just judgment to remove the proudly exultant ones and the gracious gift to take judgments away and to leave the humble in the city. God being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ, by grace you have been saved. That's the language of the Apostle. In another place, the Apostle says, Romans 3.16, surely God is just and the justifier of those who have faith in him. That's what's going on here. The Lord has taken away your judgments. How does the Lord take away your judgments? Well, we've, for those who have been with us as we've walked through Zephaniah, we talk about how sometimes, right, there are certain verses where we're historically removed, and so Zephaniah knows in more detail some of the specifics than we do. But then there are other verses where the prophet is looking forward, and so we can understand better, can we not? And so when the prophet talks about the Lord has taken away the judgments against you, well, we can understand that better than Zephaniah because we have the full revelation of how judgment is removed because God so loved the world that He sent His Son to remove those judgments. Zephaniah knew this to some degree, but we know this with full revelation. By Christ this is accomplished, and so then the humble are left in the midst of her." And who are these humble subjects of the perfect, absolute King? His action has made this city, so how are these humble described? Well, certainly they're the humble of repentance, All right, we can look back again at chapter 2, verses 1 to 3, that language of repentance in the midst of the language of judgment. Seek the Lord, all you humble, and now here are the humble who are left in the city. There is no refuge in human might in human cities. They fail. They are filled with sin. But here is a city where the Lord removes the proud and the Lord puts the humble in the land. He makes them humble. He restores their knowledge, righteousness, and holiness. We might think of how At the beginning of the book, judgment is described as all of the blessings of creation being taken away. Well, what is verse 13? It's the opposite of that. It's being restored to this perfection of the very good of Genesis 1. It's, who are those who are now left in Israel? They shall do no injustice. They shall speak no lies. There shall be found in their mouth not a deceitful tongue. but rather it is a place of peace. They shall graze and lie down and none shall make them afraid." This is the Lord saving man from himself and remaking, restoring, reordering things as they always ought to have been. Now there are those in the world who paint a different picture of what a perfect city is. So in accordance with that whole be your best self motto, there are those who say that we need to work towards some kind of utopia, and then there are different names for that. There are other people in the world who are a little bit more dreary and they just look and they say, well, everything's going to be destroyed and you just kind of live for today. They actually might be more ready to hear the gospel because they have an understanding of the futility of sin and the futility of man. But there are others, they say, they're optimistic and they look at man and they think eventually that man can ascend to or should try to ascend to some kind of perfection. And then sometimes this is called utopia, right? This perfect city that we'll eventually get to. Sometimes it's just called the next stage of evolution. We'll just get there and it'll be perfect. And maybe we won't even call ourselves man anymore. Sometimes it's called the ubermensch, the superman, where we're going to attain to be some kind of superman. And sometimes it's just called, well, be your best self. And that's how you find perfection and joy. But it's not really optimism, it's delusion. Is it not? Man cannot just be his best self. Man needs to be saved from himself at the individual level. Man cannot build a perfect city. Man needs to be cleansed from sin at the societal level. Two of the three great enemies are the world and our own flesh. Understanding this, then, that we don't look to ourself, that we don't look to man as a collective to get to some perfect measure of peace. Well, understanding this does make us the humble ones of the city, does it not? This is understanding that I will fail to even define what goodness is because I'm not inherently good. This is understanding that peace is found in God alone because God is peace. This is understanding that men can't set their own standards. God is the one who sets standards and God is the one who does not change. And so, the humble, the poor in spirit, those who seek the Lord, think of the language of Matthew 5. Blessed are the poor in spirit, theirs is the kingdom of God. These are the ones who will find peace because God will establish peace and God will make the peaceful city. He will place them there. Zephaniah likes to pull ideas through to their final end. And so, verse 13 describes even a perfect city. While the tongue is difficult to control, but in this city, even the tongue will be perfectly controlled. No stray word will ever cut another down. No gossip of any kind No lying or deceit of any kind? What city is this? Zephaniah, who looks all the way back to the beginning and all the way to the end, whether that's the wrath of the end of time or the grace of the end of time, surely he's describing the city described in Hebrews chapter 12. Hebrews 12 verse 22, Certainly only such controlled tongues would be found in the perfect city. I mean, we understand this young and old. middle school already, the tongue is cutting and cutting and tearing down. We get older and it doesn't change. There is a city not relying on man. There is a city where God changes that. There is a city where even the tongue is perfect. And the spirits of the righteous made perfect. And it is Jesus, the mediator of the new covenant, who sprinkles the blood better than the blood of Abel. Hebrews 12, 22 to 24. It's by the blood of Jesus that all those who are humble will be able to seek the Lord and to enter this city. Judgment removed. by God, humble subjects brought to His city. We've spoken for those who have been with us for this walk through Zephaniah, right? There's all this bouncing back and forth. The description of Judah being destroyed, the description of the world to be destroyed, the description of rebellious Judah again, the rebellious world again. Well, now we've bounced back and forth the other way. Verses 9 and 10 describing those from beyond the rivers of Cush brought to a point of unity. And now it's focused on the city. Now it's focused on the language of Zion, of Israel. The language of Jerusalem. And so it's not only those beyond the rivers of Cush, it's also those who remain. It's also the faithful remnant. The word remnant is not used, but I will leave in your midst those who are left. Verse 12, verse 13. The faithful subjects. And certainly these subjects are not only to be humble, they are also to be joyful. They have been delivered from much. We might think of the language of the prophet Isaiah, who wrote many years before Zephaniah. Isaiah 51 verse 11, And the ransomed of the Lord shall return, and they will then come to Zion with singing. everlasting joy shall be upon their heads, and they shall obtain gladness, and joy, and sorrow, and sighing shall flee away. In verse 14, it's sing aloud. It's said in three different ways. Sing it aloud. Shout it, O Israel. Rejoice and exult. And this is all the people joining together to sing. It is hearty singing. It's loud singing. Language has described judgment on making the blessings of creation, but now the blessings of creation are remade. It's not only the joyful city, it's the joyful pasture. They shall graze and lie down. None shall make them afraid. This is not the peace like the peace described in Psalm 23, near and dear to so many. God makes me to lie down in green pasture. He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul. And so we say of him, as it says at the end of that Psalm, you prepare for me a table in the presence of my enemies, you anoint my head with oil, surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life and I shall dwell in your house forever. Now Zephaniah is is not describing here some city that man can attain or come to or build. This is the city of those who look away from their selves and look to God, the King of Israel, who is in your midst. We must look to God for deliverance, not to man. We do not look to ourselves for salvation, we look outside of ourselves for salvation. If that sounds strange, it's because we either have too high a view of ourselves or too low of a view of sin. Those would be the only reasons why that would sound strange. But when we do understand both the pervasive and perverted influence of sin, then we would rejoice to hear the Lord say, look away from yourself. We would rejoice to hear the Lord say, the Lord has taken away the judgment against you. That it's not something which depends upon the subjects, but it depends upon the King. And so if Look away from yourself. Sounds good. Rejoice. That's the Holy Spirit convicting you of what sin is. And rejoice because there is somewhere to look. There is the Lord who does remove the judgments by the blood of Christ. And so this is the city with both joyful subjects and with oppressors removed. Lord willing, next week we'll look at how it's not only external enemies removed, it's even all of our internal fears wiped away. That's the city where the king is in the midst. So let's long for this and seek to be both His humble and joyful subjects. Amen. Let us pray. Father God Almighty, our King, make us to look away from man, to look to Jesus, our Savior, Lord, make us to long for that place where even the tongue is perfectly in order. And Lord, even now make our tongues to more and more reflect your holiness. Make us to understand our need for humility, and that the proud ones will be removed. Lord, help us to have a low view of ourselves and a high view of you, our mighty King, in whose name we pray, amen. People of God, both in considering the joy of that city now and even thinking a little bit perhaps ahead to next week and even inner peace being restored, let's sing from Psalm 23. Let's sing from that precious Psalm 23b, standing to sing all the verses of 23b. all not want, he makes me down to lie. In pastures green, he leadeth me, the quiet waters lie. I surely love thee, store again, and mean to walk doth make. Yet in the paths of righteousness, yean for his own name. ♪ In death's dark vale ♪ ♪ Yet will I fear no ill ♪ ♪ For thou art with me ♪ ♪ And thy rock ♪ ♪ And sadly conquered still ♪ ♪ My table thou hast furnished me ♪ with oil anoint, and my cup overflows. Goodness and mercy all my life shall surely follow, in God's house forevermore my dwelling place shall be Amen. People of God, it's now time for our morning tithes and offerings. This morning, that's for the General Fund. Following that, our benediction and doxology, number 567. If you could stand, if able. The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. The Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace. Amen. is you It's really smart. It's really smart.