Knowing the Violent Love of God

Welcome to the Lookout Weekly Podcast.

The Church of the Lookout is an older Colorado, and our vision is Jesus, abiding in his presence, growing in his family, and living on his mission to transform the world with awe-inspiring love.

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Christmas Advent message.

Woohoo! Well, I was not.

To be honest, when Luke came and said, Will you uh preach during Christmas season?

I was like, Yes.

Because listen, I have been coming to church and hearing or uh attending Christmas messages since in utero, okay?

Since I was in my mother's womb.

So trying to come up with like a fresh angle or something that we haven't all heard a gajillion times is hard.

So I was really excited when Luke said, we're gonna be looking at prophetic words that were spoken in the Old Testament, proclaiming who Jesus was going to be.

That I got excited about because I love the prophetic.

So last week Luke brought Isaiah 11:1, a shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse, and from his roots, a branch will bear fruit.

Isaiah 11:1

And he talks about those places in our life, whether they're promises or things that have just gotten cut down at the stump, and you're just, you know, reading the thing it's rights because there's no way any life is coming out.

But our Jesus, the one who came as a baby, who would uh raise again from the dead after going to the cross for us, he can bring life to anything that has been declared dead.

Amen.

And so if you didn't hear last week's message, I encourage you to go back and listen to it or watch it on our YouTube channel because it was amazing and incredibly encouraging.

And this morning, we are going to look not at the prophet Isaiah and what he foretold, but we're gonna be looking at the prophet Zephaniah.

And we don't talk about Zephaniah a whole lot in sermons because literally the book is only three chapters, and the first two chapters are pretty dang depressing.

Everything that he's seeing is like destruction and death and all just it's horrible.

Like, who wants to preach on that stuff, right?

Um, and it's because he was uh he was a prophet during King Josiah's reign.

And we know from King Josiah that he was working to turn the people's hearts back to God, and the Bible says that they were they were wicked, even the even the priests at that time were wicked, and so um what Zephaniah was seeing, we know now was the captivity of Israel from Babylon.

So it was super depressing, everything that he was seeing.

But in in chapter three, what he begins to see changes a little bit.

And he he starts describing God gathering everyone to him, and he's pouring out wrath, and that sounds horrible.

Like we don't want wrath being poured out on us, right?

But this wrath is special because it's a fire that brings purification for those that will let it burn them.

And it purifies even their lips so that they are then able to call upon the name of the Lord, and it says, serve him shoulder to shoulder.

And I love that imagery of banding together with brothers and sisters, shoulder to shoulder, calling on the name of the Lord and running after him together.

And it says, These people will be a humble remnant, and their shame will be removed.

They are people who can now trust God, they have no need to fear anymore, and punishment is removed.

And when I read that, I'm like, he's seeing us, he's seeing what Jesus did for us on the cross.

This is the gospel.

So I want us to understand that what Zephaniah was seeing was yes, it was practically speaking to things that were gonna happen to Israel, but he was also seeing us and our moment today, and what we are grasping and what we are um taking hold of and we are living out and moving on every day, every day, every day into eternity.

Amen.

So it's very relevant for us right now to be paying attention to what Zephaniah is prophesying about Jesus and what he's saying he will be.

So Zephaniah 3, 16 and 17 is our key passage for the morning.

And it says, On that day they will say to Jerusalem, Do not fear Zion, do not let your hang hands hang limp.

The Lord your God is with you, the mighty warrior who saves.

He will take great delight in you, and in his love he will no longer rebuke you, but he will rejoice over you with singing.

So he's envisioning this mighty warrior, and this mighty warrior is singing over us, and it's beautiful.

So when I start envisioning mighty warrior, my head goes to Hollywood's depiction of a mighty warrior, and I'm thinking of a guy ripped with muscles and you know with all kinds of weaponry, and he's gonna kick some butt.

I start thinking of Gladiator.

Do we have that image of Russell Crowe and Gladiator?

I know it's been a while, but uh, you know, he was like the odds were against him.

He was put in this arena where he should have been taken down by, you know, his enemy, and he prevails.

He kicks butt, right?

This is what I picked.

Or I think of Mel Gibson and Braveheart, William Wallace, Freedom, you know, painted face, rallying the troops, the the army is outnumbering them, and there's no way they should win, and they defeat and they take the enemy down.

This is what I'm picturing.

All right.

Don't judge me.

I know some of you think that, you know, when you're thinking mighty warrior, okay, but let's go biblical.

We can go biblical.

Okay, David and his freaking mighty men, they have the word mighty in their title, right?

Slaying so many people.

Like they kicked some butt, right?

Or for crying out loud, Samson killing a thousand men with a donkey jawbone.

That is in the Bible.

I don't know what that looked like, but holy cow, that had to be gruesome, right?

And then it says in another fight, he tore a lion apart with his bare hands.

These are my lawyers.

I can't do it.

I'm not a guy, I can't do this.

But you know, okay, we can go extra, extra biblical and go Revelation 19, Jesus.

Okay.

So I'm like probably nine, ten, eight, I don't know, somewhere around there.

And my parents decide to gather all these people in our living room and they get the slideshow thing, but this is like the ring that looks like a donut with the individual slides that you put in, and then you know, the screen that you have to like roll down and clip in.

I know some of you young people are like, what are you talking about?

This is how we watched clips and videos.

So they brought it in, and there was this woman, her name is Pat Marvenko Smith, and in 1980, she took it upon herself to use watercolor and acrylic paint to illustrate revelation.

And I don't remember a lot of the pictures, but there is one that stuck with me, and it was Revelation 19, Jesus.

Can we show that?

Okay, so while that stays up, I'm gonna read what John, who is functioning like a prophet, because he has this vision of Jesus and him coming at the end of time, and it says, Then I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse.

The one sitting on it is called faithful and true, and in righteousness he judges and makes war.

His eyes are like a flame of fire, and on his head are many diadems, and he was and he has a name written that no one knows but himself.

He is clothed in a robe dipped in blood, and the name by which he is called is the word of God, and the armies of heaven, arrayed in fine linen, white and pure, were following him on white horses, and from his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron, and he will tread the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty, and on his robe and on his thigh, he has the name written King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

Okay, this is tatted warrior Jesus.

You know, dude, he's trampling people under, you know, the horses' feet.

If he's turning anyway, he's slicing people up.

Like this is scary, and somehow you're drawn to it.

It's like the you know, all these conflicting emotions when you're reading this and you're looking at this imagery, right?

Terrifying and awesome, and wah, and stay away, but I want to be drawn to you.

It's it's this is warrior Jesus.

And so is this what Zephaniah is seeing in this moment when he's having this vision or this prophetic picture is being revealed to him by God about this Jesus that would be coming.

Well, we kind of miss something sometimes in our Western viewpoints and looking at translations um by people translating from the West.

And if we all knew Hebrew and could read the Bible in Hebrew, uh, we would get a lot more nuances, you know?

And so when we look at that verse 16 that says, The Lord your God is with you, the mighty warrior who saves, he will take great delight in you, he will no longer rebuke you, he will rejoice over you with singing.

That word rejoice in Hebrew is the word gil.

Some people say you're supposed to say it ghoul or goal, that doesn't matter.

We'll just say gil this morning.

Um, but this word is actually used in the Old Testament 44 times.

And out of that 44, King David alone uses this word 19 times.

And to me this makes total sense because the word gil means to spin around under the influence of any violent emotion, usually rejoice, but can be cringing cringing with fear.

It means to be glad, joy, be joyful, rejoice.

And so when I think of King David, he's known for having pretty intense emotions, is he not?

You just have to read through the Psalms, the guy's all over the place.

Elated and frustrated, wanting to die, wanting to live.

He's all over the place.

But the other thing that he's known for, besides these intense, red-hot emotions, is dancing.

And he's not dancing like you know, he is dancing, he's moving around so much, he's like, I gotta take clothes off.

I need movements, okay?

So he is not afraid in his worship to God to get really passionate with his emotions and with his body, and so it makes sense to me that when he's trying to describe rejoicing, that he's using this word that means spinning around with violent emotional joy.

And it's it's crazy.

But there's part of me that can totally uh get it, okay?

Because I've I think I've told a little bit of this story before, but when my husband and I were talking about getting married, he came to me at one point and joking, but kind of there was some seriousness to us.

He said, Look, if we're gonna get married, I really need you to do at least this one thing.

I need you to be a Chiefs fan.

Well, I didn't really give a lick about football, so I was like, sure, I'll be a Chiefs fan.

Because he grew up in Wichita, Kansas, and had been raised as a young boy to cheer for the Chiefs.

And at that time, this was a hard thing.

So I didn't know by me saying yes, what I was signing up for was gonna be watching my husband in great agony.

And so his gill would be like the depressive kind of like, seriously?

We got so close.

I mean, I don't know how many times I watched, as they did pretty good during the season, then we get to that playoff, the first game, and they would lose.

And you're like, ugh.

So it was like a saying in our household, well, there's always next year.

Until the glorious day.

Pat Mahomes and a few others, Andy Reed, all came together in this glorious thing, and now the story has changed greatly.

And so the gill that is happening in our household looks something like this.

Can we roll the video?

One last shot.

This is it.

Oh my goodness.

Okay, we can stop it.

So there is a lot of celebration, and and there's even spinning.

Like when you get excited, it's hard to not grab each other and spin a little, right?

But violent joy.

These are not terms that we like normally put together.

And so when when this revelation came to me about what this verse was really talking about, I've spent a lot of time, honestly, meditating because I'm a dancer, and I thought, what does this look like that Jesus is doing as a mighty warrior?

This dancing that he's doing.

What could it be?

And so I actually went to some of the dancers in our community because we have professionals and Hannah and Brandon Welch, and then we have dancers like Katie and Tiana, who have spent a lot of years performing and dance, and I gave them this verse and I explained to them what I've shared with you, and I've said, could you spend some time meditating on this and imagine what it must look like for Jesus to be dancing in this way?

And will you do it for our community?

And then we are fortunate to have Michael Freeman, who's an amazing director, writer, producer, film person.

Um, and I had just found out about this, so I was like, hey, do you want to film them?

And I'm thinking, you know, he's just gonna use the iPhone and it'll be great.

And he's like, no, no, no.

He started having all this vision, and I'm like, go for it, go for it.

So let's take a look at the dancers in Michael's uh portrayal of Jesus dancing for us.

Thank you, dancers.

Now we can't really know what it actually looks like.

Maybe someday we'll get to see that in heaven.

But and you might be saying, why does this matter?

Why does it matter that Jesus is dancing?

Why can't we just know that he's a mighty warrior that's singing?

And I think it's because the difference between the imagery of a warrior in battle.

A warrior in battle is like at the end of it, think about what they look like.

They're worn out, they're all sweaty and bloody, and they've you know, it's been hard work and there's great loss usually.

And this is not the picture of Jesus that Zephaniah is seeing.

Jesus is a mighty warrior, so let's not make a mistake.

He is going after the enemy on our behalf when we are facing real battles and challenges, and the enemy has formed weapons against us.

The way he is making them not prosper, Jesus is not through getting a sword and slashing and working and grunting and it's hard work.

The picture that Zephaniah is seeing is a Jesus who is joyful, and he is so joyful that he can't even contain it.

He has to spin around and he has to be excited, and he it's so crazy that it almost looks violent.

And his focus is not even on the enemy, his focus is on you because he delights in you and he is rejoicing over you, and this song of redemption is coming out as he's dancing and singing, and this is the imagery that we need to hold on to when we are in a battle and we feel oppressed by the enemy.

It's not one of Jesus working really hard, it's one of him delighting in us in a like over the top extreme way.

So then I start to ask, okay, if Jesus is dancing and he's doing all this stuff, what am I doing?

Am I joining in this dancer?

What do I need to be doing?

How do I need to be posturing myself in this moment when I'm facing the enemy that's out to steal, kill, and destroy?

Sorry, all this dancing.

I've got hair now like in the wrong places.

Okay.

So actually, I think the answer is right in that Zephaniah 3.17.

And you find it in the ESV.

And I'm just so thankful that we live in a time period where we can look at different versions, right?

I mean, I feel bad for those medieval people, you know.

I don't know what they were reading, but we've got, you know, ESV, NIV.

Like all, you know, so anyway, ESV, here we go.

Same verse.

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.

Did you catch that?

He will quiet us with his love.

So Jesus is doing this crazy, wild, extravagant dance and just laughter, laughter, laughter, and he's focused on us, and he's singing the song of redemption, and we get to be quieted by his love.

And it just so happens one of the dancers and I were out for coffee, and Hannah was reminding me in that moment of Isaiah 30, 15.

And I think it's very fitting with what is being presented here in the ESV, for it says, For thus says the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel, in returning and rest you shall be saved.

In quietness and trust shall be your strength.

So I'm proposing to us this morning that while Jesus is fighting for us, he is in this wild dance and singing over us and focused on us and his delight over us, and he's inviting us to simply stand and be still and trust.

And this reminds me of the Israelites in that moment in their Exodus, where they have been under the tyranny and oppression of the Pharaoh and the Egyptian people.

For 420 years, they are in slavery.

And if you have been trapped and contained and told what you can and can't do, if you've been in any kind of position like that, it is easy to lose sight of things.

And we we know in our in our own, just in America where oppression has happened with people groups, that they lose their culture, they lose their identity, they lose a touch of what made them them.

And so that was happening to the Israelites at 420 years of slavery, generation after generation, they lost touch with who God really was and his character.

And so everything that's happening in Egypt, leading up to Pharaoh finally relenting and saying, get out of here, go, and giving them their freedom was God showing not only the Egyptian people, but his own people, the Israelites, this is who I am.

I am a powerful God.

I am so mighty and powerful that I have power over life and death itself.

And so they finally get out and they're they're moving towards the promised land, and God still wants to teach them about who he is.

And part of that is because they needed to know who they were.

And everything that we are truly in its truest form is informed by who God is.

And so when we have understanding of God and his character, then it gives us understanding of who we are, then.

And so he wants them to know him, he wants them to know them, and so he uses this moment in Exodus as they're leaving Egypt to teach them another lesson.

And so we're gonna go to Exodus 13, verse 17 through 18.

Exodus 13:17–18

When Pharaoh let the people go, God did not lead them by way of the land of the Philistines, although that was near.

For God said, lest the people change their minds when they see war and return to Egypt.

But God led the people around by the way of the wilderness toward the Red Sea, and the people of Israel went up out of the land of Egypt, equipped for battle.

Okay, I always bring my drink and I never actually use it, but this morning, hmm.

I'm using it.

I guess I shouldn't have gotten so carried away in my David demonstration.

I'm like out of breath.

Um, okay, I want us to see two things in this Exodus um verses.

Number one, they could have gone right through Philistine uh encampment, right, and gotten where they needed to go.

It would have been a shorter route.

But God says he routed them a different way because he didn't want them getting scared and running back to Egypt.

And so he takes them toward the Red Sea.

And this is important for us to understand that he doesn't want them running back into slavery.

And I don't think it's just because he had just freed them, he doesn't want them going back into slavery.

He knew they were not ready to fight, okay?

And so he wants them to understand that he is the mighty warrior who will fight for them, okay?

And so he basically set them up to be trapped.

Because what happens?

They have the Red Sea now behind them, and then God hardens Pharaoh's heart, and Pharaoh grabs all the warriors in the land of Egypt and his army and comes after the Israelites, and so then they're standing there and they're literally trapped.

It's like we either go that way and we drowned, or we go that way and we die because we don't know how to fight.

We've been in slavery for 420 years and just been building a bunch of stuff.

We're gonna die.

And God's using this opportunity to say, I'm I'm the warrior that's gonna fight for you.

And he also, I think it's funny that they're equipped for battle.

So I imagine the men, like in this battle armor that's probably not even theirs because the Bible talks about how they went to the Egyptians and got silver and gold.

And so they probably got the battle equipment, so they're like wearing this stuff, but they don't know how to use it.

They either like, we don't know how to fight.

And God's like, exactly.

Now we know that they are going to fight someday, and they're gonna fight those Philistines that God was trying to route them away from.

But before they got to that point where they were actually becoming warriors, right?

He wanted them to understand something about our internal posture that is important before we fling around any weapons.

And it has to be this place of stillness and trust, where our heart is just so grounded and anchored in the truth that God is the one who is fighting for me.

And I just have to stand still and listen as Moses prophesies this, basically, to the Israelites as their backs are up against the Red Sea, the army is closing in, they're crying out and saying, Oh, we are going to die out here in the desert.

And Moses in Exodus 14 turns and says to the people, fear not, stand firm and see the salvation of the Lord, which he will work for you today.

For the Egyptians whom you see today, you shall never see again.

The Lord will fight for you, and you have only to be silent.

And we know, if you know the story, that God does a miracle.

They don't drown in the Red Sea, they don't get slain by the army.

The Lord opens up the waters, they cross over safely, and then as Pharaoh and his army is in pursuit, the Lord closes the water and drowns the enemy.

And the Israelites didn't have to do anything except trust the Lord.

And it's the same for us.

Now, I'm not saying that we don't actually do things, right?

I'm not saying you don't rebuke the enemy.

I'm not saying you don't declare uh the scriptures over a situation.

I'm not saying you get your pace on and you get going when you're praying, right?

But if you're doing all that and internally you have all this anxiety and you're freaking out, this all this stuff doesn't have any authority to move.

Our authority comes from trusting the Lord and what he has said.

There was a time of intense warfare in my life where the enemy had his weapons formed against me and they were coming at me, and I was feeling the uh uh uh of the darts, you know.

And so I'm doing everything that I know to do.

And if you saw me on the outside, you'd be like, oh, you go girl, you're doing all the things that you're supposed to do, and you're just you're yay you.

But it was not working.

I mean, I was rebuking the snot out of the enemy, I was pacing, I was taking every scripture and declaring it over my situation, and nothing was moving.

And this was like going on and on and on.

And now looking back, I realized the Lord was trying to teach me about what it is to fight and do spiritual battle.

Because it's not necessarily about all that stuff, because what I realized looking back is internally I was completely freaking out, and I thought the onus was on me.

I had this weird thing going on in my head where I was like, God has given me the authority.

I knew I had authority over this situation, I knew that I should be able to rebuke the enemy and he would flee.

So I had all this like stress and anxiety of like, I have to do this right for it to work.

And I thought, it's all on me.

Like God was like passively watching, go do the thing that you know to do.

And he wasn't involved in it because he had given me the authority.

I mean, it was weird, but I think I've seen some of you all operate like that sometimes.

You know, we just were like wanting to see the thing change or shift, or we have a loved one that's going through, you know, and we're like battling on their behalf, and it's like, ooh, this may work.

And the Lord was telling me, Jeanette, I need you to trust me.

Trust me, let it sink down deep.

And it's not about the activity, but it's about you trusting me.

And when you do, when you know that he is the one that's actually fighting for me, and when I came to that place, then I saw the thing shift, and it changed.

And I'll tell you, it didn't look like me rebuking the enemy in this situation, it didn't look like me pacing and doing all the the way that I learned to trust the Lord was start blessing the person that this demonic stuff was moving through.

And it just began to bless their spirit and pray blessing over them.

And then when I would pray and I would start to feel that anxiousness come up of like, oh, you need to be doing something more.

At that time, I relied on my prayer language, because my understanding of speaking in tongues, it has a lot of operation and a lot of uh ways that it plays out.

But one thing that we know is that it is the Holy Spirit who's praying through us in this language that we don't understand, and I think there's a reason we don't understand it, because our soul, meaning our mind, our will, emotions, our body doesn't need to really know what is being said, but our spirit does.

And so when I would have this anxiousness come up, of like, oh God, because it took a little while for things to shift, and there were layers and to the thing, you know.

And I would feel some anxiety coming in, and I would just say, Lord, I don't know how to pray.

And I feel like if I start praying, I'm just gonna pray out of anxiety and like slip back into those old patterns of like, I'm gonna declare the scripture and I'm gonna rebuke the enemy.

And I'm just gonna pray and I'm gonna let you pray through me because, Holy Spirit, you know exactly what needs to be prayed in this moment.

And so I would just fold my laundry and I would pray in tongues, and I would just go about my day, and I would pray in tongues because you know when you're going through something that's coming to your mind often, right?

And so anytime it would come up in my heart or in my mind, I just pray in tongues, and the thing shifted.

And I began to learn during that season this is how I trust the Lord.

It's not about me and what I'm doing.

He is the one who is fighting for me.

He is the one who is truly rebuking the enemy and making him flee.

And this is the invitation I feel that we have before us this morning.

Little baby Jesus that came and grew up to be a man who would hang on the cross and take all of our punishment, and then in this glorious moment come out and be risen and then go to be with the Father and leave his Holy Spirit with us, equipping us to be able to defeat the enemy in our life.

Who is dancing over us, he has so much emotion and love and passion for each and every one of you, and has a song of deliverance that he's singing.

And when we are fighting with the enemy, this is the Jesus that's showing up.

There will be a day when Revelation 19, Jesus, will come, but that is not yet.

And when he does, I hope that we are all counted as the remnant who have learned to trust the Lord, that have let the fire of his Holy Spirit burn away all that can't remain.

And so that we stand there pure in heart and our lips are calling on the name Lord Jesus, and he says, You I know, come, get on this horse with me.

But in the meantime, the way Jesus is showing up when we're fighting is this dancing, spinning violently at Jesus.

And so I want to leave us with this.

Um I I'm gonna read the JMR version of Jeremiah 3.17.

That's the Jeanette Marie Ross version.

I've made my own adaption.

And let it sink in with this dancing warrior Jesus, and we are invited to simply be still and trust him to fight for us.

The Lord your God is with you, the mighty warrior who saves.

So this morning, you may be relating to the version of me that was all freaking out.

And maybe on the outside it looks like you're doing the right things, or maybe not.

It doesn't matter.

You you know either you're currently in a situation or in the past when you have dealt with a battle where your internal heart has been.

And so you just need some time to come forward and be with the Lord in a place of repentance and saying, Lord, I'm sorry that I wasn't trusting you.

But the next time we're facing a battle, and we all know there will be next times, right?

You want to remember this dancing Jesus that's delighted over you and singing the song of deliverance.

And so it's really just a marking moment of saying, help me trust you in that moment to be still and know that you're fighting for me, and however that looks, and show me how being still manifests on the outside, you know?

Because it's not gonna look like my example necessarily, but the Lord will lead you in how you are to trust Him.

And so I'm gonna give a moment, I'm gonna pray in a minute, and if that's you and you want to come forward, come forward and spend a little time with the Lord.

And the reason I'm saying come forward is um, I don't know, I think the Holy Spirit really responds to us getting up and embodying something and moving and saying, I'm coming to you.

Jesus, I know you're with me, you're in me, but I'm coming to you to say, I want to meet with you.

And for some reason, this little carpet space here has become sacred for that.

And I think it's just that act of moving towards God that the Holy Spirit will respond to.

Now, some of you might be thinking, you know, I feel like I've battled well and I've trusted the Lord, but this this idea of warrior Jesus not being the Hollywood version, but being this joyful dancer, this is a new concept.

And you might be in your heart thinking, I want to know this Jesus.

I'm aware of Revelation 19, Jesus, I'm aware of other forms.

He he shows up in many ways, but dancing Jesus that's so freaking in love with me that he's spinning around like a crazy man.

This Jesus I haven't known, and I want to know him.

And if that's you, I want to give you time to come up this morning and just to say, Lord, I want to know you this way.

Show me what it's like to be, have you clamorously celebrating over me.

I want to feel that and I want to know you that way.

Maybe there's something else that's been going on in you as I've been talking and the Lord's stirring.

I come up.

Come up, okay?

So I'm gonna pray you can um come forward and just have a moment with the Lord, and then we'll we'll wrap things up shortly.

Jesus, you are full of surprises.

It's so amazing and awesome.

We know you and we want to know you more.

We understand you and we want to understand you more.

We see you, we want to see you more.

What we have of you is enough, but yet it's never enough.

Help us swim in the depths of your love.

Expand our revelation, our understanding, and our experience of you.

We want to know you as this mighty warrior, dancing and delighted, rejoicing and singing songs of deliverance.

Open our ears to be able to hear you as you sing those songs of deliverance.

Open our hearts to trust you.

Lord, we don't want to be like the Israelites that have to be backed into a situation to trust you.

We want to choose when we have the moment to choose.

So help us, Holy Spirit, help us to trust deeper still.

Amen.