A VISION OF A GOD WHO IS SO HAPPY THAT HE SMILES AND SINGS OVER YOU!

"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 exult over you with loud singing. I will gather those of you who mourn for the festival, so that you will no longer suffer reproach." Zephaniah 3:16-18

Did you know that God is the happiest being in the universe? Did you know that God is happy when He thinks about you and the work He is doing in, to, through, and over your life? Do you believe this? Perhaps if you did, it might launch your life into dimensions and levels of joy and delight previously unknown in your experience. Do you know that God loves you so much that He actually sings when He thinks of you?

We desperately need a sharpened biblical focus of whom God is and what He is really like. Because, when we know the truth, the truth sets us free! One of the reasons our witness to God’s reality is minimal is because our understanding of God’s reality is minimal. Like J.B. Phillips said earlier this century,” Your God is to small.” Oh how diminished God can often be by our little or ignorant understanding of Him! What we need is a big picture of a great God who is utterly committed to happily demonstrating His greatness in doing us good.

"I will never stop doing good to them…I will rejoice in doing them good and will assuredly plant them in this land with all my heart and soul." (Jeremiah 32:40-41)
"Do not fear, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom." (Luke 12:32)

Oh dear reader, do you see the majesty of God and the splendor of God overflowing with enthusiastic, joyful, omnipotence over you? J.I. Packer writes, "The people who know God, think great thoughts about God." He desires you to experience this magnificence as the explosion of God’s joy, happiness, and pleasure towards you.

This week I desire simply to lift up God’s singing voice over you and magnify His supreme beauty, majesty, goodness, greatness, and happiness!

Let me give you a little background to this stupendous statement that the prophet Zephaniah makes from God to you.

According to Zephaniah 1:1, "The word of the Lord came to Zephaniah the son of Cushi . . . in the days of Josiah the son of Amon, king of Judah."

Josiah had begun to reign in Judah about 80 years after the northern kingdom of Israel had been swept away by the Assyrian invaders. During those 80 years the southern kingdom of Judah had not learned the lesson of the northern kingdom, and sank deeper and deeper into sin and rebellion against the law of God. In the 18th year of Josiah's reign Hellish the priest found in the Temple a copy of the book of the law that had been ignored for decades. When he read it to the king, Josiah was broken. He humbled himself before the Lord and rent his clothes and wept (2 Kings 22:19).

Over the next thirteen years Josiah led an amazing reformation in Judah based on the law of God. He renewed the covenant between God and his people (2 Kings 23:3). He took all the vessels of Baal and Asherah out of the Temple and burned them in the fields of Kidron (23:4). He deposed the idolatrous priests (23:5). He broke down the houses of the male cult prostitutes (23:7). He removed the horses that the kings of Judah had dedicated to the sun (23:11). And he re-instituted the Passover that had been ignored since the days of the judges (23:22).

These were the days of Zephaniah according to 1:1. So when we read this little book we can picture it as part of the call for reformation that Josiah was pursuing. No doubt the prophet and the king teamed up to try to draw the people back to God. most of the book is a warning and a prediction of the coming judgment in wrath upon the nations. . Why was God's wrath so kindled? Because God had ceased to be a practical reality in their lives. At the end of the book a great ray of hope bursts through. It seems that in spite of the worldwide outpouring of his wrath God is going to do two great acts of mercy described in Zephaniah 3:9-20.

1.God is going to cause a global awakening so that people from all the nations turn to him. In verses 9-20, a global awakening with people from all the nations calling on the Lord and serving him.

2. The other act of mercy in these verses is the revival and purification of his people Israel. He is going to remove the proud and leave only a people who are humble and lowly, who trust in the name of the Lord. (Verses 11-12). The last word is the promise of a worldwide turning to God and a revival of true faith among his people Israel. "At that time I will gather you; at that time I will bring you home. I will give you honor and praise among all the peoples of the earth when I restore your fortunes before your very eyes," says the LORD" (verse.20).

So when when we read Zephaniah 3:17, " 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 exult over you with loud singing.", we know that it refers not only to all believing Jews but also to all of Gentiles who have become heirs of the promise through faith in Christ, the seed of Abraham.
From this amazing verse I want to give you a new, fresh way of seeing your God as the singing, happy God. God does not do you good out of some constraint or coercion. He is free, and in his freedom he overflows in joy to do you infinite, inimitable, incomparable, good. He rejoices over you with loud singing.

I was thinking about this. When I am happiest in my life I sing. What is in my heart, the joy, the delight, must be expressed. And there is no more completion of my joy than to sing it out! Sometimes a give a live performance of my joy when I get into the shower and sing my heart out because I am so happy. When I am driving my car with the windows up and I end up at a stop light, people can see me with a big grin on my face, singing in my joy. When I think of the girl I love, I love to sing songs to her. Most of all, when I gather together with other Christians, I love to stand, lift my hands, and sing my heart out to God. I cannot think of anything that expresses when I am happy inside more than singing.

Now imagine that magnified many more times and think of what Zephaniah says of the happiness that God has over you that causes Him to sing! Please slowly, openly, prayerfully read this verse again and apply it to your life at this moment. Put your name in it.

The Lord your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice over _______(Put your name there to make this a personal promise to you) with gladness; he will quiet _______(Put your name there to make this a personal promise to you) by his love; he will rejoice over _______(Put your name there to make this a personal promise to you) with loud singing.

Can you imagine what it would be like if you could hear God singing? The truth is that God smiles and His heart sings with delight over you.

When I hear this singing I stand dumbfounded, staggered, and speechless that he is singing over me- one who has dishonored Him so many times and in so many ways. He is rejoicing over my good with all his heart and with all his soul (Jeremiah 32:41)! He virtually breaks forth in song when He thinks about us!

God’s unbridled joy in this passage reminds me of a good musical. I’ve watched enough to know how you get this feeling when a song is about to break out? The interaction builds, the characters look into each other’s eyes, and you just know somebody is going to start singing. And sure enough, somebody does!

That is the feeling I get in this text. God is looking over His people (You!) and He can’t help but break into song. He doesn’t closet Himself away in a shower or in His car like I do, however. In full view of the angels, or anyone who is watching, God lets out a praise-filled chorus.

Can you feel the wonder of this today? That God is rejoicing over you with loud singing?

In your guilt
"No," you say, "I can't, because I am too guilty that God should rejoice over me." But will you not believe verse 15: "The Lord has taken away the judgments against you!" Can you not then feel the wonder that the Lord exults over you with loud singing today, even though you have sinned? Can you not feel that guilt and condemnation has been lifted because He bruised His own Son in your place, if you would only believe?
In the midst of your trials
"No," you say, "I can't because I am surrounded by enemies, and obstacles beset me on every side. There are people who never let me believe this. There are people at work who make me miserable if I make God my treasure. There are people in my family who reject me. I have friends who want to drag me down. " But will you not believe Zephaniah 3:17, "The Lord is a mighty one who will save" and verse 19: "Behold, at that time I will deal with all your oppressors;" and verse 15, "He has cleared away your enemies"? Can you not then feel the wonder that the Lord is doing everything He needs to do for you to enjoy Him and love Him? Can you see that no enemies are too strong for God? That nothing can stop Him who exults over you with loud singing?
When God seems distant
"No," you say, "Still I can't because he is a great a holy God and I feel like he is far away from me." I am small and insignificant, a nobody. But will you not believe verse 15: "The king of Israel, the Lord, is in your midst;" and verse 17: "The Lord, your God, is in your midst"?

He is not far from you. God is personally present to all who come to Him and believe in Him. HE IS GOD! Say it to yourself, HE IS GOD! What shall stop God from being close to me if He wants to be? HE IS GOD! The very greatness that makes Him seem too far to be near, is the very greatness that enables Him to do whatever He pleases, including being near and close to me.
Has he not said for that very reason in Isaiah 57:15, “For this is what the high and lofty One says-- he who lives forever, whose name is holy: "I live in a high and holy place, but also with him who is contrite and lowly in spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite.”

Has he not said in Rom 8:35-39, “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written: "For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered." No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Can you not then feel the wonder that the Lord exults over you with loud singing?

When you feel shame
Still do you say, "No, because I am enslaved to shame. I have been scoffed at and threatened and manipulated and slandered. Inside this cocoon of shame even the singing of God sounds faint and far away and indecipherable." But again I ask dear reader, do you not know that God Himself promises at the end of verse 19: " I will save the lame and gather the outcast, and I will change their shame into praise and renown in all the earth"? Can you not then feel the wonder that the Lord rejoices over you with loud singing? And let yourself awaken to the wonder that the Lord, the King of kings, rejoices over you with gladness and exults over you with loud singing.

Oh what a singing, happy God you have! Listen to these words:
Isaiah. 62:5, “as a bridegroom rejoices over his bride, so will your God rejoice over you.”
Psalm 35:27, "The LORD be exalted, who delights in the well-being of his servant."
Psalm 149:4, For the LORD takes delight in his people; he crowns the humble with salvation. ”
Psalm 147: 10-11, "His pleasure is not in the strength of the horse, nor his delight in the legs of a man; the LORD delights in those who fear him, who put their hope in his unfailing love."
God is singing over you right now! Can you hear Him? oh do not let the discordant cacophonies of the world, your flesh, and the devil drown out the sweet ineffable melody that God is singing over you! Do you love hearing this sweet sound? Oh that we might believe it and savor it and bring it to our minds again and again until it is our very nature to feel its truth and thus do what the prophet Zephaniah encourages us to do in verse 14,
Sing, O Daughter of Zion; shout aloud, O Israel! Be glad and rejoice with all your heart, O Daughter of Jerusalem!

What an appropriate response to this blog today! Because God allows Himself to be moved, we have the opportunity to move Him. Yes, in a way we can make Him happy, joyful, and bring out a song from His lips. We can bring this out of God when we delight in Him, treasure Him, believe in Him, love Him and are happy in Him.

A prayer

Oh God, my hope, my heavenly rest, my all of happiness below, Grant my importunate request, To me, to me, Thy goodness show; Thy beatific face display, The brightness of eternal day. Before my faith’s enlightened eyes, Make all Thy goodness pass; thy goodness is the sight I prize; Oh might I see Thy smiling face; Thy nature in my soul proclaim, Reveal Thy love, Thy glorious name.” Charles Wesley

Singing in joy over His joy over me,

Pastor Bill