Zephaniah 3:14-20 - Sing to the Lord

We are to fight for Joy. It's a command.

We are commanded here in the midst of our dependence.

In the midst of the Babylonians, coming to fight to rejoice.

We're going out to play in a church.

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Pray for us. We need your prayer.

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serve Us in various ways. Not necessarily come along with

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would call, you just come and join us.

We'd love to have you as part of that team that you saw up here.

So yeah, ask the Lord to do that in you and see see how he would

lead you. So with that said, Zephaniah

chapter. 37 diet. Chapter 3.

The second best animated movie ever made is Finding Nemo, if

you didn't know Finding Nemo, is a great movie.

I loved the movie. And, you know, it's a movie

about a father looking for his son.

And there's this scene in that movie that I think of, when I

come to this text in the book of Zephaniah, Marlin the father and

Dory. The forgetful friend are out

looking for Nemo and they come upon a school of fish.

Ash and the fish tell the forgetful Dory.

When you see the trench go through it, but go through it.

Don't go over it. And what happens when they get

to the trench, it's dark, it's scary.

It looks like death and there and Marlins, like I'm not going

through there up above, it is blue, skies or blue water.

It looks free and safe and open. I can see things.

Things. But down that trench down.

Will that trench looks scary. He says, are you kidding me?

It's got death written all over it.

And what he does. Convinces Dori to go up with him

over it, and instead of finding safety above him, he finds a

field of jellyfish and nearly dies.

As we come to our text today, we find that much like Marlon our

instincts don't serve us. Well our instincts, don't

service while Marlins instincts told him that dark trench is

dangerous and has death on it, but his instincts were wrong,

his instincts were dead wrong and for us, I believe our

instincts, when we come to, this text would not serve us.

Well, through the book of Zephaniah, we have seen in

chapters 1 & 2 You just this raining down of God's Wrath

judgment anger, God's Wrath being poured out on Jews

Jerusalem and on the nation's around it and it's scary, it's

dark. And then in chapter 3 last week

we saw at the beginning of chapter 3 that when God's

judgment comes, it doesn't just destroy.

But it transforms people into the kind of people that God is

pleased with, which is weird, right?

We saw the miracle. Oil of God's transformation last

week and what he transforms them into is peculiar what he

transforms people into our people, that are on one hand

self-sufficient, and he's displeased with them.

And he transforms them into dependent humble people.

He trains that forms them into people who are deeply and

profoundly dependent and humble and low to the ground before

God. And when I think about that,

When I see that, I see a dark trench in front of me.

When I think about God, make wanting me to be humble and

lowly. When I think about God wanting

me to be dependent. It sounds like I got someone

with their foot, on my back, just pushing my face into the

dirt. It sounds like a dark deep

horrible Trench. When someone wants you to be

lonely, when someone wants to lower you, it does not sound

like a happy experience. It sounds more.

Like that's got death written all over it.

That's the way it feels, but I have good news for you this

morning. I've good news for you, the life

of humble dependants in this text is not what your instincts

will tell you who it is. Just like Marlon looked at that

trench, it was scared of it. That was actually the place of

safety and life and flourishing. And this morning, what I want to

show you from this text, is that the life of humble, dependence

is actually the pathway to Joy. It is actually the pathway to

life. It's actually the pathway to

flourishing down in the dark Trench.

A humble, dependence is life and joy and all that God is for us

in Jesus. And so I hope to show you that

this morning. So stand with me, we're going to

read Zephaniah chapter 3 and we're going to be reading verses

Zephaniah 3 · chapter mention

14 down to verse 20. Starting in verse 14.

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's 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 of 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. I will gather those of you who

mourn for the festival, so that you will no longer suffer

reproach. Behold, at that time, I will

deal with all your oppressors and I will save the lame and

gather the outcast, and I will change their shame into praise.

And renowned in all the Earth. At that time, I will bring you

in at the time when I gather you together for I will make you

renowned and praised among all the peoples of the earth.

When I restore your fortunes before, your eyes says the Lord,

this is God's word. You can be seated Let's pray.

Lord, I Thank you for your word and man as I stand before it

this morning, my voice is not capable of doing this text

Justice. My notes do not have in them,

the wisdom necessary nor the nor the arguments necessary or the

depth of knowledge and emotion necessary to do, what this text

is aim to do through your spirit.

And Lord, I feel this morning in a position of great, dependence

and lowliness before this tax East.

And so I just pray that your spirit would be pleased to use

the week. Mumblings out of my mouth, to

excite the hearts of your people on to proper, worship of you,

and we pray and ask this in Jesus name.

Amen. So this morning, as we come to

this text some Scholars call this text, the John 3:16 of the

John 3:16

Old Testament, this is like the greatest text.

It's like it's like the mountain peak of the Old Testament.

It is an unbelievable taxed. It's so what I want to do is I

want us to think through this morning, why we need this text,

why? This text is so necessary for us

and how it answers for us and fixes in us, the wrong Instinct

about humble dependence. And so to do that, we're going

to see two things in this text. We're going to see that Joy is

commanded and we're going to see that Joy is grounded.

That Joy has commanded. Enjoy is grounded in light of

everything that God has already said through this text.

So first Joy is commanded. He says there in verse 14, sing

aloud, o, Daughter of Zion, shout rejoice and exalt so

rejoice as humbly dependent people that should cause our

foreheads to wrinkle what. We don't sing and shout over.

Lame broken. Shame filled, people that

doesn't make any sense. It shouldn't make any sense.

If you read this and you go. Oh yeah, that makes sense.

You're not reading, you're not thinking this is crazy.

Why would God tell people that he's intentionally going to

bring his Justice upon and then make them lowly and humble?

Hey, rejoice. That doesn't make.

It doesn't make any sense and it shouldn't.

It shouldn't make sense. To get this.

We have to understand God's working through the scripture

joy in the Bible is experienced from beginning to end through

humble dependence, not through strong Independence.

Joy through the scriptures is not experienced through strong

Independence. Through overcoming it is

experienced through humble dependants.

There's no training montage. Like In Rocky Cole, it's

happening. I'm coming after Rocky this

morning funding, you hear? That Emmaus is funding is on the

line now, In Rocky, you got the training montage, he's building

up his strength, you got that song in the background.

The beats are going right you got the eye of the tiger playing

and he's climbing the steps to the Capitol and Philadelphia and

he's who there is, none of that before God that does not lead.

In fact in this text that leads to death.

The road to Humble dependants is Rocky sitting at home, broken

with holes, in his wall, crying alone, that is the path to life

in the scriptures, which is mind-blowing.

It doesn't make any sense. It's through, utter dependence.

If you if you look through the scripture, you know, it's

through the waters of judgment in the flood that brought Noah

and his family walking out into New Creation, they went through

the Judgment of God and stepped out into new create.

It was through humility and being humbled and hearing death

all around them. There's bloody sacrifice blood

being sprinkled everywhere. In the Old Testament, gross

disgusting scenes of blood being sprinkled in sacrifices showing

us that it's through death and humility and lowliness.

That Joy comes that life comes. When you get to the Book of

Daniel, it's through Daniel receiving the death penalty and

being thrown into a lion's den that he experiences new creation

and is cuddling with the lions that Joy comes through the death

sentence or just a chapter or two later with rad Shack and

Benny I've got too much Veggie Tales in my history.

It's a problem can never remember their real names rad

Shack and Benny are they defy the king don't worship him?

They get thrown into the fiery furnace and they're partying

with Jesus in the middle of a fire.

It is through death. It is through humility.

It is through gross dependence. That joy and life comes.

And we see this all throughout the New Testament to.

It's everywhere. It's everywhere through the

scriptures, the Beatitudes. It says the meek are going to

inherit the earth, not the strong, not the independent.

In Luke 14, 11, Jesus says whoever exalts himself will be

humbled. So the strong are going to be

brought down but whoever humbles himself.

Off whoever is low and broken, they're going to be lifted up.

Mark 35, my 935 if any would be first he must be.

What? Last.

Luke 9:23, if anyone would come after me, Jesus says, you have

Luke 9:23

to deny himself take up his cross daily, which is in our

day, like saying, put a gun to your head daily Do away with

yourself and your pleasure. In the world.

And follow me for whoever would save his life has to lose it,

but whoever loses his life will save it.

It is through pain suffering, humility, dependence that God

brings Joy, which is crazy. That's crazy in all of these

verses and all these things from the Bible, what we see is that

the pathway to life, the pathway to flourishing, the Pathway, to

exaltation is a very narrow dark trench.

The trench of humble dependence Upon Jesus.

And we see this most acutely in most clearly in Psalm 23.

We read it in all. It's one of the most famous

chapters in The Bible, right? We read it at funerals, we have

it printed on our walls and this is the message of Psalm 23.

Yay though. I walk through the valley of the

shadow of death death. I'm not going to fear any evil

God's going to put a table before me in the presence of my

enemies who want to kill me. I'm going to lie down and party,

and green grass in the middle. In the middle of Horror.

There's life and flourishing, they're eating in the middle of

death and enemies and it's there where life it's there.

Where the real party is which our minds.

Just don't know how to put that together.

We just we don't know how to do that.

And cold this morning. He read chapter and verse out of

st. John Piper's book Desiring.

God, that's a joke for those who know it.

That put this that I think really cap encapsulate this

Piper says that there are capacities for joy that you can

scarcely imagine. And that's the problem.

That's our problem is that we have capacities for joy that we

think are only accessible in strength in strategy, and how we

can exalt ourselves, and how we can figure out our way through

the The world. And what we don't realize is

that it's actually in the moments of greatest weakness and

lowliness that the greatest and most powerful capacities for Joy

exist in your life, it doesn't seem like it, it looks like a

trench that's going to kill you but in reality it's in the

darkness where the greatest party of your life would ever

be. Which is backwards but it's

true. We have a hard time.

Seeing that God knows. We have a hard time seeing that

and that's why right here. In verse 14, He commands us to

fight for that Joy, He commands us to have that Joy.

He commands us to enter into that party.

This, this verse here, feels like a whiplash from what we've

experienced last three weeks. If you've been here, the last

three weeks, this feels really weird to read this passage

because it's just been so dark. And then all of a sudden

Rejoice, sing, everything's going to be great.

It feels like whiplash. Judgment though.

In this text is leading to death and yet humble dependence is

going to lead us into rejoicing. We find in Zephaniah, is what we

find for the rest of the Bible. It is through the judgement and

through the lowliness and through death, that we find that

we find life and we find the capacity here to enjoy God.

And it's not because the circumstances have improved the

circumstances for jute. The Jewish people here, the

circumstance for the nation, they haven't gotten any better.

The Babylonians are still coming.

In 586 BC, not long after this text is written the Babylonians

come in and do everything. This text tells us, Jerusalem is

destroyed the nations are destroyed this.

The circumstances aren't getting any better life is still going

to be hard and so God. Graciously reminds them.

There's joy in your lowliness and in your dependents.

There's joy in the midst. There's a capacity for Joy.

You have not yet realized you have to experience in your life.

Humble dependants does not seem like a good strategy.

It just doesn't look like a good strategy to us.

When we know the Babylonians are coming.

We know death is coming what we want to.

What we want is a rocky Montage. We want to climb those Ups.

And what this says is put your face in the dirt below.

Lee be humble, be dependent and it's through that.

That got that there's joy and life and flourishing, our

instincts don't serve us here. Our instincts, don't serve us

and instead we are commanded. That's why we have this lovely

phrase painted on the back of our wall.

Here, we are to fight for Joy. It's a command.

We are commanded here in the Midst of our dependence, in the

midst of the Babylonians, coming to fight to Rejoice to fight for

Joy. Jesus himself had to fight for

joy and humble suffering, Romans 12:2 cells.

Romans 12:2

It tells us that while he was suffering, Jesus chose to look

ahead to the joy that was set before him and endured the

cross. That is our calling in life to

join Jesus in fighting for the joy and Delight.

Delights of all that God has for us, in through in and through

the Cross of Christ Jesus, endured the cross in tears.

And through the Cross of Christ comes life through the, the

crucifixion and the death penalty being exact Adan.

Jesus, there is life. There is flourishing, there is

joy and there is hope. Not only do these, people remind

need to be reminded of the joy. It's also a way to push them and

US deeper into dependence upon God.

You see, I can't just turn Joy on and off like a water spigot

in my soul. I can't just walk in here this

morning and be like, yeah, life sucks right now and boy, I'm

happy that doesn't work. And so it puts us even in a

further and deeper place of dependence upon God because we

need help. If we're going to do that, And

God demands it from us. And God demands all kinds of

things from us that we can't give him.

I mean, Jesus tells us to be perfect like the heaven.

Our heavenly father is perfect. We can't do that yet.

God demands it from us. And here, he demands from you.

That you have joy in your heart, in the midst of the difficulties

in your life. And he tells us how to fight for

that Joy. Here, he doesn't just leave us.

Leave us groundless. He tells us how to fight for

that Joy. He says, Sing aloud.

Shout Rejoice with all your heart singing and shouting in

worship or the tools that God has given us to fight for joy.

That's why we sing in church. We don't just sing in church

because God deserves our worship.

We sing because we need help in our souls to feel the joy that

he demands from us. And it is a feeling, it's not

just a propositional truth about the glory of God.

It is a feeling. This is why he says to rejoice

and not just to think good thoughts.

This is why he tells us to do it with all of our hearts and not

just all of our minds. He wants us deeply, mmm.

Emotionally invested in and it's white, what singing is, there's

a reason you, sing you don't sing except for things that are

so emotionally compelling that talking is no longer sufficient.

The reason you sing is because saying something just isn't

enough. This is why I love songs are

written because telling your wife that you love her is not

enough. You need more, you need Chris

stapleton's. Tennessee, whiskey.

That's what you need to tell your wife, you love her, right?

You need it Strawberry Wine, even gettin high, right?

It's the thing. That's the thing that we need to

tell our wives and our spouses that we love them because

talking, Thinking good thoughts is not enough.

It must explode out of us, in song.

It it's necessary. We need it.

You don't yell, except if you are overcoming overpowered by

your emotions. Such that talking is not

sufficient. This is why we're called to

shout Because just merely telling someone that you love

them is not enough. You want to shout it to them

your joy overflows in shouting. God demands of you that you

experienced overwhelming experiences of joy.

Not a part from but as an attribute of your humble

dependence upon him. In the midst of your dependents,

you have the capacity a capacity as Piper says that is so far

beyond your imagination to experience joy unspeakable in

the face of death itself. And we are called to, we are

commanded and God demands of us that we experience that with

him. I'm going to step on some toes.

Ready. Here we go.

Frontier church is a great church because I hear a lot of a

lot of loud singing but there's some of us in here that are

mealy-mouthed than are singing. There's some of us That are more

concerned about the style of music, or lunch, or whatever

else. And we're just unimpressed with

Jesus and we want to temper our emotion because we don't

understand that God created us to have strong emotions to be

expressed with shouting and singing.

And that worship is the most appropriate context for that.

And what ends up happening, what ends up happening is we just

Mumble through music either because we're trying to manage

your reputation. Ation or we're trying to, I

don't know what we're doing, or where we use the excuse that

we're introverted or quiet. And we don't understand that we

were literally created for the, your lungs exist for the purpose

of shouting and singing the praise of God.

That's what they're there for. That's what they're there for.

And you know that you can sometimes measure a person's

health by watching them watch football and then watching them

worship. If they Shout at football, it

can be a measure that their lack of shouting in preaching or in

print and well preaching to. But in singing, if there's not

shouting there, it's an evidence that there's a greater

excitement in sport and a greater joy in sport than there

is in the Lord and it can be a measure.

That's one of many measures but it's one of many measures of how

it is that our souls are warped. We just And we don't we've not

access that capacity for joy. As we've been commanded to, we

are to fight for that. We are that's why we say let's

fight for Joy. We're calling you to access the

capacities that God has given you that you do not have on your

own that you have not been able to access.

Its why you were created. When we yell at spouses or when

we yell at our kids, which I guilty of my kids are here.

They know this, they know I'm capable of this and they're

like, yeah, he's capable of it. In the scriptures in the

scriptures shouting is talked about as as something to be done

in war, and it's something to be done in worship and preaching.

Those are like the categories that shouting happen though.

The most extreme expressions of human emotion in war because you

want to kill somebody or in worship because of the highest

the highest good in all of your life.

And when our wives hear us shouting at them, but not

shouting, and worshipping Jesus. Well, first of all, it sends a

mixed message. But it shows just a level of

unhealth in our souls, that is unhelpful.

And so this morning, here's what.

Here's my challenge. Here's my challenge to us.

Shout and worship. Open up your mouth and get loud.

It's what God's called you to do.

And what's funny is the more you shout and worship?

The more we shout and worship the more we express our lungs in

the way that God's created them. The more capacity we have to

deal with our emotions and other areas more effectively.

Our worship of God should be loud.

It should wear out our throats each week.

It's not a suggestion. It's a demand God demands that

you have profound emotional. Intensity expressed in shouting

and Loud singing for the praise of Jesus.

I got a whole thing here. I'm not going to go into on the

regulative principle and however, the people that are

most excited about it, ignore all this for some weird reason.

But I'm gonna I'm gonna save that for discussions afterward,

so a life of humble dependence. Is not fearing that your face is

going to be pushed further into the ground by God.

It's a loud party. It's a loud party.

It looks like a dark trench from the outside.

It looks like the place where death would lurk.

But it's a place of joy and flourishing God tells us in this

text that we must fight to see that joy in the dark trench of

humble dependants. So now, what is the ground for

this? Because when we look at this, we

think okay, well, that's good. God tells us to do that, okay?

We're going to try to do that. But how like, why, like what

what's, what's the purpose behind all this?

So Quick things that we can see in verses 15 to 20.

That that point. This out the for the four quick

things. First verse, 15 shows us that

there's no judgement for us verse 15.

The Lord has taken away the judgments against you.

We've heard over the last three weeks that God is going to

destroy judge and condemn people for their sin in the most strong

language possible. We've heard about God's

greatness his Justice and we're left wondering if I humble

myself Myself before that. God that's going to do that.

That just sounds like an opportunity for him to crush me.

Am I not just asking to be crushed if I do that?

And here's what we find, here's what we find when God comes to

those who are humble independent, when he sees those

who have renounced their own strength and are not

self-reliant, he takes the judgments away from them.

He takes her judgment wins away from them.

And here, in verse 15, he removes their enemies.

He puts them into safety, he protects the humble from the

fire of judgment in our world. When we see people that are

humble and lowly, we see people with feet on their back with.

This was the story of Jim Crow in the 1960s.

African Americans in our country, had the foot of the

American government on their back, pushing them into the

ground. What God does is, he comes and

he brings a place of safety. He takes away the judgments.

He take, he lifts up the face of that person and he and he

lovingly loves them. It's the image of Superman

flying with Louis in his arms right?

Superman. Great power.

Amazing capacity to destroy everything in the world.

And what does he do? He takes an innocent fragile

woman and carries her through the sky.

Why that is the image that we have here.

It's the Avengers fighting to save little planet Earth.

Full of dependent week people and we pay lots of money to go

and see that because it's so compelling to us and in the far,

more glorious manner. God has done this for us in

Christ. He's used his power, his

strength, his Justice to send Jesus to weaken undeserving

Sinners and to take God's wrath upon himself.

To protect us rather than put it upon us.

So that there's no judgments over us.

He used his power to defeat gods and oppressors of other nations

and drive out their influence and power.

He's protected us. He's exalted us and lifted us up

out of our judgments and notice in verse 15.

He's presence here, drives out fear.

You shall never again fear evil. He says there, R.

In chapter 1 and verse 17. His presence is bringing death

and by some amazing Miracle here, it is driving out fear.

This is the first of many reasons to rejoice and there's a

lot of the Earth, but they're this itself is a reason to shout

and to sing. You have no more judgments over

you. In Christ, that is the most

exciting thing, whether you know it or not, that you are that

That Could Be Imagined. The god of the universe has used

his power to preserve you from judgment.

It's unbelievable. You are safe to be humble and

lowly before him. He's not going to exploit you,

but also in verses 16 and 17, the second thing we see is the

makes the weak and the humble, strong, and verses 16, and the

beginning of 70s. And 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.

One of the reasons we don't like being humbly dependent is that

we know that if we make ourselves vulnerable in that

way, a stronger person or a person higher position might use

that vulnerability to cut us down further to just push our

face deeper into the dirt and look how God handles the humbly

dependent when they're vulnerable.

He takes weak hands and he makes them strong.

He gives strength to the week. When we are afraid we grow weak

and God acts to steal up our spine and strengthen us, he

doesn't work to push us down further, but to lift us up.

This is why Matthew chapter 23? And verse 12 says it, like this.

Matthew 23 · chapter mention

Jesus speaking, he says, whoever exalts himself is going to be

humbled and whoever him humbles himself as what exalted, he is

going to give strength and lift up.

Those who are down, God uses his strength to strengthen the

weaker to up. Lift the lowly and to bind up

the broken, he is not looking to exploit our weakness, but to

heal it and Jesus knew that God was like this Jesus knew.

And this is why he was playing. He's pleased to take the road of

humility and to suffer death on a cross.

It's white, Jesus was willing to be spat upon, it's why he was

willing to be beaten. It's why Jesus was willing to

experience human weakness, because he knew that as he laid

in a tomb, on the other side of death, That God would raise him

up from the dead and give him strength and give him life.

And God is pleased. We should know.

God is pleased. He is happy to bring strength to

the week. If you're not self-reliant this

morning, if you are humbly dependent upon God, and Jesus

know this, he's using here or humility to show himself, strong

in you. This is the reason, this is

reason for you to worship. You don't have to pretend to be

strong. You don't have to figure out

somehow how to overcome, you don't have to find a strategy to

figure out and to be flourishing in life, in verse 17, God is

coming. He's coming into your midst.

He's coming into your life to bring you his strength.

He is strong for you. He is the one who will save you

and this is how the Apostle Paul in second Corinthians

experienced. It should be up here on the

screen. Yes, listen to Listen to Paul

described this in his life. God said to him, my grace is

sufficient for you for my power is made perfect in weakness.

And he goes on to say for the sake of Christ, then I am

content with weakness, insults, hardships persecutions and

calamities for. When I am weak, then I am

strong. God uses his strength not to

push us down, but to make us strong, he is strong in our

weakness. This is why this is why God

calls us to shout in worship and not in war.

Anymore. God is strong for us.

He goes before us we don't have to strategize to figure out a

way to be effective in life. Humility sounds like a horrible

strategy for Effectiveness in life lowliness and Brokenness

seem like a horrible strategy for Effectiveness in life.

And yet with God it is the pathway to strength and is the

pathway to life and flourishing and no this no this you do not

I'd have to be strong. When Jesus rose from the dead

and ascended into heaven, he sent the Holy Spirit to do what

verse 17 says to be in your midst, he is giving you the holy

spirit for this purpose to make a home inside of you.

So that his power would be made perfect in you to uplift you and

to give you the strength that he demands from you and what more

would you want need than God being in?

You giving you his strength? What more do you need?

What more Um, do you need to worship to get loud and shout

and worship. Third, reciprocal.

Rejoicing verse 17 means is this verse 17.

Goodnight, this is too much. He will rejoice over you with

gladness. He's going to quiet you with his

love. He's going to exalt over you

with loud singing. That means we're not singing to

a wall. God's not in heaven, sitting

there thinking to himself. These annoying people won't shut

up. He's not sitting there thinking

these irritating. People need to chill.

He's singing back and your joy in him is reciprocated by his

joy in you. There's a great Seinfeld episode

George Costanza. I feel like him most days of my

life. He takes the risk to tell a girl

that he loves her on a second date, I think.

And she says, thank you. What a nightmare, right?

I love you. Thank you.

Horrible nightmare situation. And sometimes we feel like that

with our relationship with God, right?

He's like, I've been having I guess.

Thank you. Look at what he says he's doing.

He's going to Rejoice over. Your joy, is reciprocated by

him. You're singing, you're shouting

is reciprocated by him. This is, I mean, good night.

This is amazing. This is God showing us that he

is, as he is more interested and more in love with you than you

will ever be with him. This is why John 3:16 is the

John 3:16

verse that we all look to the decentral.

Verse that most people not even Christians have been said.

Football games. People know this verse that God,

so loved the world that he sent his only son.

And he's proven it to us. He's proven his love.

He doesn't just say it here. He's proven it to us in sending

his son, Jesus to die for us. And to be our propitiation for

sin. He did it, he sent his son, he

sent Jesus as an expression of his love for us before we were

ever born. Before we ever did anything good

or bad, he chose to love you despite everything he knew you

would be. He loves you period.

And his love is expressed not in some mealy-mouthed.

I mean, imagine this if you saw God singing to you the way

sometimes, you sing to God, you'd be scared for your

eternity, right? I would be sometimes, right?

God is shouting. His lungs out over you because

he loves you and he loves you, deeply and profoundly.

God doesn't have to fight to love for you.

He does it out of who he is. And he loves you deeply.

And, and so if there's any danger of a lack of

reciprocation, it's God's saying I love you and you looking up at

him and saying, thank you. Right?

And sometimes that's what we do with our singing, but we should

understand, we should understand.

God loves us and that should lead us to Great worship.

With our joy is reciprocated. By him.

Or we are to reciprocate the joy that he has over us their last

then last then we see that God's work for the humbly dependent

should give should be a ground for our joy.

With it comes Restoration in verses 18 to 20, those three

last three verses that come down to this.

God is going to restore his people.

He's not going to leave us in the dirt.

He's not going to leave us on the ground.

Our eternity is not to be spent forever in the dirt, but he is

going to exalt us, he is going to lift us up out of the dirt

and he is going to To exalt us. I will gather those of you who

mourn for the festival, so you will no longer suffer reproach.

I'm going to deal with all your oppressors oppressors.

I'm going to save the lane, the lame are no longer going to be

laying the outcast. Their shame is going to be

turned into praise. I'm going to bring you in and

when I gather you together, everyone's going to look at you

and they're going to be like whoa.

The way we look at people who are independent self assured and

stand with their back straighten the world, while we're in our

face, in the dirt, they're the ones that are going.

Jesus says, and what we find here are going to be the ones

suffering reproach. And while we will be lifted up

by God through his strength and his grace, and exalted, that is

what Matthew 23:12 means. But the humble will be exalted,

Matthew 23:12

that God is not going to leave us in.

We are going to be forever dependent upon God, but we

aren't going to be left in the dust before.

God. Now, Prosperity preachers, the

preachers on TV, that you see, they like to take this and twist

this and use it as a means to get money from you.

And by Jets, But note this the reason why God tells you this is

not too, so you give a bunch of money to the church.

The Reason God tells you this because he wants you to be

excited about your future with him and that Future Would

motivate you and fill your heart with joy.

So that you would sing loud, praises to Him.

If I were to tell you that everyone in this room, when you

walk out of here, is going to be handed a check for a million

dollars. All of you would be like, we're

singing. Right.

Well, in Christ you're getting you're guaranteed much more than

that. God has a future for you that

you can't begin to imagine. and because of that, Because that

reality is there, it transcends all of the pain and suffering

and difficulty of being lowly and dependent?

Upon God, God has given you the capacity to see with Clarity the

joy that is set before you because of what Jesus has done

for you so that you can enter into lowly dependents.

With unbelievable joy and in the midst of it party, knowing, but

on the other side, well, Jeff Bezos.

Ain't got nothing on it. Know this, if you want to

flourish as a parent, in your home with your spouse and kids,

humble dependence upon God and quiet weakness with shouts of

loud. Praise to God, is the pathway to

flourishing. The most difficult moment as a

mother, when your kids are crying and waking you up at 4:00

in the morning and you're angry, God has given you the capacity

to worship a loud. Shouts of Praise in that moment.

And that is the pathway to flourishing in your home.

If you want to flourish as a single person know that humble

dependence upon God and quiet weakness with shouts of Praise

is the pathway to flourishing in your life.

Is the pathway to flourishing when you feel lonely and

isolated? It's to feel that loneliness and

in it to receive the ground of your hope in Jesus, and be

filled with joy and singing. That is the pathway to

flourishing, not to improve your circumstances.

But in the midst of the circumstances that suck, To

enter into Joy. It's crazy.

It's amazing. You want to flourish it work?

Humble dependence upon God and quiet weakness in the face of a

really crappy boss. With sounds of loud.

Praise and your heart to God is the pathway to Joy and

flourishing in your work. And the good news is that our

humble dependence upon God is for is for our joy is reason for

us to stand up and shout and exalt and sing praises to God,

there is more than sufficient reason to find joy, in the face

of death. Then you would ever dream.

And so I'm I'm one of my, one of the great things about preaching

this sermon as my last sermon, here is one of your pastures.

Is I get to say that that fight for Joy thing.

On the back of your wall, it means something for you.

And my hope is that every time you walk out of this church

going into the future that you remember this and that you see

that phrase across the back as the call to you in the midst of

the most hot harrowing circumstances.

Um stances of your life that there's hope there's hope that

in the middle of that pain. There is joy unspeakable.

That is sufficient for you to stand up and worship.

No matter the circumstance. And I hope that that would

motivate you and that would do, as it's done for me.

Challenge me to use my lungs. The way God created them to be

used to worship and blow my throat out in the process of

doing. So let's pray and ask him for

help to do that. Lord, we thank you for your word

and God, I admit that. When I look at humble

dependence, it seems unimpressive. and I admit that

when I think about a life of joy in the midst of pain, my heart

is just so easily convinced that that's just Not only weird but

like impossible. So I just ask that your spirit

would now. Help us to see things that are

weak, lowly unwise and silly Minds.

Just don't have the capacity to grasp speak to our hearts.

Lord, not just help us solve this in our minds, but I pray

that our hearts would be convinced that your power is

made perfect through our weakness and that, that would

shape our life, and it would cause our worship.

To become ridiculously loud. We pray and ask this in Jesus

name, amen. To become ridiculously loud.

We pray and ask this in Jesus name, amen.