Covered With Joy

You are listening to a message from Thrive Community Church, a church located in Southwest Florida. For more info, visit us at thrive-fl.org. Shame is something that's a little different and I think here's some reality about it. We all all experience shame whether we call it shame or not. Some of you might be embarrassed about things. Some feel vulnerable about some things. We talk about being disrespected. That's also shame talk. Honor and shame runs through culture in a lot of ways. What's interesting is we've all experienced both just the temporary kind of propriety shame, which we should have. I mean you should be like, there are times I should be ashamed of myself about some of the things I've said or done. But then there are other times where we experience the chronic shame, kind of this lingering feeling of being unworthy or unacceptable or something is wrong with me. Not that I did something wrong. So shame, we all experience it. We all deal with it and we all hate to talk about it. We're ashamed of our shame. Isn't that ironic? But we are. We don't know what to do with it. We don't know how to get rid of it. Guilt, I know how to deal with. There's some way to repair it. But shame, not so much. And the real truth is the scriptures are filled with talk about shame and also how God deals with it. And we're going to be dealing with that today. So the question we're asking this week in our series is going to be, we're moving into the book of Zephaniah for this, of all the prophets. I don't think I've ever preached on Zephaniah. It's only a three chapter book. You may have never read it. But there's some wonderful passages in it. And the question that we're asking is, what do you believe God's default, like what is his base foundational attitude is toward you? Okay. What's that? Is that, is he disappointed? Or is he not really concerned? Is he kind of disconnected in some way? Is he just kind of objective of viewing everything kind of from on high? I think that's a lot of people's attitudes about God. They think he's just kind of there, but not really here. In fact, I don't know if you realize this, but there are a lot of people who believe like God has a lot of bigger cosmic fish to fry, in a sense, than to deal with my trivial life. In fact, some of the great thinkers of the world thought that way. Cicero, by instance, this Roman poet laureate, almost, and philosopher, he said, the gods attend to great matters, they neglect the small ones. And you happen to be one of the small ones, in his mind. Aristotle said the same thing, that basically got the gods, plural, you know, in the Greco-Roman world, the gods were not focused on human justice or human issues at all. They were not focused on human beings. They were much more wrapped up in their own lives and in the lives between all the different gods and goddesses, but not you. Wow, the Bible is so different than that. The big, you know, the prophet Zephaniah is going to tell us today that God's greatest concern, his focus, is you. You. That's what the prophets were all about. They were not prophesying some philosophical, esoteric vision of God. They weren't doing some systematic theology of some type that just kind of describes God in some abstract fashion. Their whole focus was on how God had concern for you. And that's not even being, like, narcissistic or egotistical to talk this way. I know it sounds like, oh, God's all concerned about me, would be kind of, but that's what the scriptures and the prophets say. And we're going to be reading that today in the book of Zephaniah, chapter 3, and we're going to be looking at two things. And the Hebrew Bible students here, that we've got a couple of them that are here that I'm teaching this, will recognize the first point. That is God's pathos. We just so happen to be covering this at the same time. But then also God's joy over you. So we'll get to that. "...neither 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 exult 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 exult over you with loud singing. I will gather those who mourn for their festival, so that they 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 outcasts, and I will change their shame into praise and renown on all the earth. At that time I will bring you in. At that time when I gather you together, for I will make you re...