SCRIPTURE: Zephaniah 3:14-20
TEXT: 15The Lord has taken away the judgments against you, he has turned away your enemies. The king of Israel, the Lord, is in your midst; you shall fear disaster no more. THEME: No Judgment because God loves us. INTRODUCTION This is the Third Sunday of Advent The Reign of Love. On the first Sunday of Advent, we started with the Reign of Peace, where God interrupted a civil war between the Israel and Judah with the invading Super Power of Babylon. This settled their divisions with each other and unified their focus on God for their survival. This is not the way we think about peace. Last Sunday we looked at aspects dealing with The Reign of Hope. Prophetic voices of the still speaking God, of the God who is on the move, of the God whose dreams are built on the foundation of the faithful. The past need not be repeated but faith finds its foothold into the future in something new. This is not the way we think of hope. This Sunday being Loved by God is different from what we think. Love is more powerful than we think. SCRIPTURE When we begin our identity, with disobedience in the garden of Eden, we become the sin that needs to be fixed. We have to go back further, the Bible begins with Creation, where everything that was created was pronounced “Good”, by God. We are not a problem that needs to be fixed, but created in the image of God. This is where our identity begins; Created lovingly. Loved by God. Enjoyed by God, Marveled by God for our creativity, laughing together at the unexpected, having fun together, participants in the stewardship of creation. When we begin with Creation, we begin with relationship. There is nothing to be fixed, there is no sin problem, no judgement, just the relationship quirks that need to be fixed. This is what we get in the Family Story of Abraham and Sarah and their kid, their grandkids and great grandkids. There is hurt, anger, trickery, envy, favoritism, manipulation, status, forgiveness, covenant and family. So, verse 15 takes the fear of judgement away to reset the requirement of our relationship with God back on love. We are not a problem but an evolving relationship of growth and discovery in covenantal love. This is a change in the way we think about our righteousness and being worthy of God. When we play the debt and payment game with God, we are always counting score and never doing enough to merit the grace that would bring us acceptance into God’s eternal family. But what if it is love and not judgment that forms our relationship with God because God loves us and does not judge us? A relationship with God is something that is nurtured, fostered and grows, not perfect, filled with grace, but persisted during hard times and good. Seeing our relationship with God in the light of this kind of love, gives us room to enjoy each other. Look at the description of God in verse 17. When we take away God’s role in our relationship together as judge, then our perceptions of God and who we are changes. God is present and wants to spend time with us. God is our warrior or Tiger Mom, fighting for our cause, not trying to keep us in our place as an embarrassment. When God is with us there are shared moments of amazement, joy and gladness. We will laugh at dad jokes together. When we spend time together it strengthens our bond. God will be an encouragement to us. A positive influence, singing loudly about the Good God sees in us. This is great as our time with God is described as “on a day of festival”. It must be like going to Disneyland with God, riding rides, eating treats, singing songs, marveling at the wonders of Imagineering, being part of a community of shared joy. And resting in each other. Cycles of fun, discovery, excitement, thrills, nourishment, rest and enjoyment. How does this make us feel, knowing that God loves us like this? This is where the gratitude feelings inside of us, are so great that they begin to over flow the fountain in loud splashing noises and expression. Sing out loud, we are God’s children in God’s dwelling place. Shout out loud, we are God’s people. In my observation, this kind of shouting is accompanied with running around in circles with arms going round and round. The uncontrollable laughter of rejoicing as every dimple in our face is shown. You feel, this good feeling down in your heart. This is how verse 14 describes us as those living in the city of God’s family. The thought that keeps repeating for me is “absent father”. In so many ways the families of today are robbed of having fathers detached away from their families by; work, drugs or alcohol, incarcerations, selfishness or feelings of inadequacies, fatigue or just plain failing to show up. We are mistaken to think that God is absent and we should not act as if this is the model of fatherhood. In God’s care, there is nothing to fear. God will turn our enemies away, disaster will be removed from us, we are gathered in and our oppressors dealt with. There is healing and our shame will be changed to praise and renown, just by loving God because God loves us. Let that wash over us because, this it is not what we think about ourselves. This is what God thinks about you. We will never think that we are good enough. And you are right, but God never requires us to be good enough. God already proclaims that we are ‘Good’ because God created us. God just wants our relationship together to begin. We can worry about the details along the way. APPLICATION When we stop being driven by the fear of perishing. And relax into the fact that God loves us just for who we are. How does that change in the way we live our faith from being good enough towards enjoying God’s company or finding our sense of fulfillment by being with God? Verse 20 has this one phrase, “At that time I will bring you home”, that brings into focus What being loved by God is all about. Being at home with God. The CTEL class I took on Christian Education had us begin each post with answering the question of “Where is home?” It changed a little bit each time we answered it; with family, where we grew up, with those who love me now. Not so much place as people. Those who know who I am and still have a bond with me. This is the next thing we can work on, with our relationship with God. Not living to escape being judged, but to live with God, in a way that we can feel at home. Belonging, accepted. Renowned, loved, knowing that God is glad that we are here. O daughter of Zion, O daughter of Jerusalem, we are at home. CONCLUSION The Reign of Christ, brings a Reign of Love that is not about how hard we love God, but about how hard God loves us. This is the flip, from coming to God because of fear and sin. to a coming to God because God Loves us. Pronouncing us ‘good’ from the very beginning and working with the details along the way. If God does not accuse us of anything, then what should any body’s accusations of us matter? They don’t. Lame, shamed, outcasted, oppressed, welcome home. Sing loudly, shout with joy, be at home, you are at home.
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