God Sings

Thanksgiving Rooted in God’s Character and the Warning Against Ingratitude

Old Testament scripture reading this morning will be found in Habakkuk chapter three, verses 17 through 19. Please stand. Though the fig tree should not blossom, nor fruit beyond the vines, the produce of the olive fail, and the fields yield no food.

The flock be cut off from the fold, and there be no herd in the stalls. Yet I will rejoice in the Lord. I will take joy in the God of my salvation. God, the Lord, is my strength. He makes my feet like the deer's.

He makes me tread on my high places. To the choir master with stringed instruments.

Today's New Testament reading is in Luke 17, verse 11 through 19. On the way to Jerusalem, he was passing along between Samaria and Galilee, and as he entered a village, he was met by 10 lepers who stood at a distance and lifted up their voices, saying, Jesus, master, have mercy on us.

When he saw them, he said to them, go and show yourselves to the priests. And as they went, they were cleansed. Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice.

And he fell on his face at Jesus' feet, giving him thanks. Now he was a Samaritan. Then Jesus answered, we're not 10 cleansed. There are, where are the nine? Was no one found to return to give praise to God except this foreigner?

And he said to him, rise and go your way. Your faith has made you well. May be seated.

Let's join together in prayer. Father, so often we find the grounds for our thanksgiving and praise and adoration of you so shallow. It is too often built on the things that we have received, rather than seeing your character and what you're like.

It is shallow, and so when things are not what they, what we would like them to be, or we become ungrateful, we find ourselves, because of our ingratitude, falling into sin, not just the sin of grumbling, but other sins as well.

And so, Father, we come to you and ask that you would help us to be those who praise you and thank you, who show our gratitude to you because of who you are. We're thankful, Father, because, can I say to you that I'm excited to preach today without you thinking that I'm glad that Andrew is sick?

Because he and I texted one another this morning. It's like, he's really bummed that he can't preach. He says, well, that's probably rooted in my pride.

I don't think so.

I think he loves to minister the word of God to you, as do I. You know, one of the things that we've noted as Andrew has preached through Ephesians is Ephesians chapter five, where it talks about sexual immorality, and it talks about the fact, you ever notice it says, have thanksgiving, in the midst of that whole section on sexual immorality, it talks about having thanksgiving, and you wonder, why is that there?

You used to wonder that. Well, it's there because when you're not thankful for the position God has given you, you're gonna be led into sin. Your ingratitude will lead you to sin. And someone who's involved in sexual immorality is not thankful for being single, or is not thankful for the spouse that God has given them, and that's why that's there.

And so I wanna talk about thanksgiving this morning. I wanna talk about where our thanksgiving can be rooted. So if we're gonna be thankful in order to avoid and be pure, then let's find out a root for that thanksgiving, and that's what I want to do this morning.

So before we look into the text of God's word, let's just pray and ask him to open his word for us. Father, thank you again for the opportunity of looking into your word. We're thankful, Lord, that we can be thankful.

We can be thankful, and our thankfulness can grow out of rich soil, so that we are not covetous, we don't covet, and thus we don't become involved in impure activities. We're thankful that our praise and worship and thanksgiving can grow out of your character.

Help us to see that this morning, and we'll give you thanks because of it. In Jesus' name, amen. Many of you have had experiences with different coaches when you were in high school, when you're involved in any kind of athletics, or maybe you had coaches in some other endeavor like debate or the quiz team or something along those lines.

Jeremy Treat, a pastor in Los Angeles, writes about a coach he had when he was in high school, and he wrote this. My basketball coach was a classic old school screamer who motivated with fear and shame.

His voice was powerful, but I heard it only when I did something wrong. If I turned the ball over on offense or blew my assignment on defense, practice would stop and the shaming would begin. Red in the cheeks and foaming at the mouth, he would scream until I had to wipe the spit off the side of my face.

I never really knew him outside of basketball practice, but I know he was an angry man. Now, many people think of God that way. He's an angry old man who demands that things go his way, he will shame and guilt and scare people to line things up.

He's the God who's just waiting for me to mess up, and then he's gonna lower the boom. Now, if that's the way you think of God, then you'll have a difficult time in worshiping and praising and giving thanksgiving.

In fact, your thanksgiving won't be very long lasting if that's the view of God that you have. You'll find your thanksgiving rather shallow and not able to stand against the hardships and sorrows that life inevitably brings in a fallen world.

It will last only as long as the good times. You see, your ability to give thanks depends on your view of God. How do you see God? And if we're gonna praise, we're gonna worship, if we're gonna give him thanks, we need to have the right view of who God is.

So I would ask you this morning to open your Bible to the prophet Zephaniah. I'll wait a few minutes. By the way, there's an HZ, HZ in the Minor Prophets, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah. So there's a little bit of a clue.

If all else fails, look at your table of contents. Zephaniah, Minor Prophet, three chapters long. I'm gonna put our attention on Zephaniah chapter three verses 16 and 17. On that day it shall be said in 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. I know already the objections creeping into some of your minds this moment.

Okay, here we go again. God loves everyone, so God never gets angry. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I've heard it. You're gonna make us all feel good by telling not to worry about it. God's nothing but love. Well, if you think that this verse describes this kind of God, then you'd be absolutely wrong.

This is not a Hallmark card from God with nice handwriting and doves in the margins jazzing up the thing. It's not like that at all. Reading this verse as an inspirational pick-me-up cheapens it and obscures its meaning.

That, if that's all you think this verse is about, it'll produce a shallow view of God and the resulting thanksgiving and praise will be shallow as well. And it will not last in the difficulties and sorrows of life.

But if we understand this passage in its Old Testament context and the context in which it is given, you will find a rich message from God that produces deep, rich thanksgiving and praise that lasts. First of all, you need to understand what you're saved from.

If you want deep, lasting thanksgiving, the kind of thanksgiving that will keep you from impurity, the kind of thanksgiving that will move you towards holiness, then you must understand what you're saved from.

Now, our text here in Zephaniah 3, this text of God's joy comes at the end of a book that speaks almost exclusively of God's justice, his righteousness, his judgment, and his wrath. The book opens with a declaration of God's anger at all of creation.

Look at chapter one, verses two and three. I will utterly sweep away everything from the face of the earth, declares the Lord. I will sweep away man and beast. I will sweep away the birds of the heavens and the fish of the sea and the rubble with the wicked.

I will cut off mankind from the face of the earth, declares the Lord. Look down at verses 17 and 18. I will bring distress on mankind so that they shall walk like the blind because they have sinned against the Lord.

Their blood shall be poured out like dust and their flesh like dung. Neither their silver nor their gold shall be able to deliver them on the day of the wrath of the Lord. In the fire of his jealousy, all the earth shall be consumed for a full and sudden end he will make of all the inhabitants of the earth.

That is the judgment of God. No one, the whole earth, will escape this unbelievable judgment. But it moves on to his covenant people. In verse four, he says, I will stretch out my hand against Judah and against all the inhabitants of Jerusalem.

It's even gonna come against his covenant people. Look at chapter one, verses 10 through 13. On that day, declares the Lord, a cry will be heard from the fish gate. That's in Jerusalem. A wall from the second quarter, a loud crash from the hills.

Well, all inhabitants of the mortar, for all the traders are no more. All who weigh out silver are cut off. All that time I will search, at that time I will search Jerusalem with lamps and I will punish the men who are complacent, those who say in their hearts, the Lord will not do good, nor will he do ill.

Their goods shall be plundered and their houses laid waste. Though they build houses, they shall not inhabit them. Though they plant vineyards, they shall not drink wine from them. Do you see what he says here?

Do you ever notice that in these places in the world where there's conflict, right? What do we see? We see people going about their normal ways of life. Even in the small quarters where they are, they still go to the shop.

They still do these things. They get along, but here God says, it's not gonna happen. He says, even those of you who are apathetic and indifferent, ah, God doesn't do good and he doesn't do ill. You're apathetic, you don't care the least bit about God.

It's just not in your thinking. He says, all of you, I'll be like someone going through the streets. I will bring judgment on my covenant people. Zephaniah goes on to describe that day of judgment as a day that is bitter, where impressive mighty men will scream in anguish.

Distress and anguish will overtake people in their comfort. Ruin and devastation will be visited upon. All that's familiar. Their cities, their homes, their farms, their places of business, even the temple.

Darkness and gloom, clouds and thick darkness is what he says about his judgment. And if that's not enough, in this book, he says this devastating judgment will sweep like a tidal wave over the nations that have been against his people and thus have defied God.

The Philistines, he says, will be destroyed so that no inhabitants remain. The proud, taunting Ammonites will be judged like Sodom and Gomorrah and their land become a wasteland of nettles and salt pits.

The Cushites will drown in their blood. And the Assyrians whose mighty cities have conquered the world will be nothing but desert where only owls and hedgehogs live. And their buildings become nothing more than the lairs for wild beasts.

That's the kind of judgment he describes. Look at chapter three, verse eight. Therefore, wait for me, declares the Lord, for the day when I rise up to seize the prey, for my decision is to gather nations, to assemble kingdoms, to pour out upon them my indignation, all my burning anger, for in the fire of my jealousy, all the earth shall be consumed.

The righteousness that is the very person of God demands justice. It is not like God is this ticked off old man who says, I'm done, I'm gonna wipe everything out. It is a God who is absolutely incorruptibly righteous and when he sees evil, he will deal with it because he's righteous.

He's angry because his righteousness, the righteousness, justice has been perverted. That's the reason why. He's not just ticked off, but justice has been perverted. That's the issue. He is so righteous that people continually over and over sin against him and so judgment and justice must be served.

Now, God's justice and consequent anger should not embarrass us or make us uncomfortable. Everyone knows deep down that justice is a good thing. That's why we cry out for justice when the weak and the oppressed are hurting and when someone is wronged, when someone who is weak, but he's oppressed, he can't stand up for himself, right?

We're angry, we get angry about that and we bristle when the guilty go free. We hate that and we grieve when wrongs are ignored. When wrongs are just ignored, we grieve and all of us know this. You know this at your work.

This guy gets special preferential treatment.

And this guy does not.

You get angry about that, rightfully so. We get angry when some murderer is set free on some technicality. See, where is justice? We look around us and we're hearing people say this now. Hey, we have a two-tiered justice system in this nation now.

If you've got money and influence, you'll get off with a slap on the wrist. But if you don't have the money, if you're just like us, it's gonna be harder on you, right? We bristle at that, we get angry at that.

So we should understand then when pure righteousness without a hint of corruption brings perfect justice to mankind, sets all the wrongs right and meets out judgment in perfect measure for every sin and injustice.

This isn't an old man losing his temper. This is the kind of justice that perversion requires, that sin requires, that infractions must have. And so you bow before God's just majesty, expecting to receive the just payment for your corruption and evil.

Here's our problem. We say, where is justice? God, see that justice is done, but somehow we think we'll escape it. Those people are evil.

Those people, God, deal with them.

But don't use that same standard of justice on me. You see, that's the problem. That's why we get embarrassed. God's justice is such that everyone gets what they deserve. You see, I can imagine hearing this for the first time and thinking there is no hope, there is no hope.

That's gonna wipe out everybody and rightfully so. But as you're near the end of the book, you find hope. You see that God will save. He will remove his judgment against sinners. Look at verses 14 and 15 in chapter three.

Now watch what happens here. Sing aloud, O daughter of Zion, shout, O Israel. It's like, what, what are you talking about here? You just said you're gonna wipe everybody out. 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 has cleared away your enemies. The King of Israel, the Lord, is in your midst. You shall never again fear evil.

If God, the very embodiment of perfect justice, requires that every infraction receive exactly what justice requires, is there any hope? And the answer is yes.

What does he say?

He says, I've come, I'm in your midst now. You know there is rescue. In fact, you know more than Zephaniah did. You know how God's gonna accomplish that. Because of the Savior that God himself sent to rescue us from his judgment.

I love what the Apostle Paul says in 1 Thessalonians chapter five when he writes, for God has not destined us for wrath, but to salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ. Do you hear that?

All this wrath, I'm gonna wipe out.

All the inhabitants of the earth. Because God hasn't destined you for wrath, but salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us so that whether we are awake or asleep, we might live with him.

Isn't that wonderful news? That's the wonderful news of the gospel. Even though God says, I'm gonna wipe out all evildoers, my justice demands judgment. He says, but for you, a justice is met in a Savior, Jesus.

His justice is satisfied in the death of Jesus for you. And so when you embrace him by faith, God then is just and still can save you from wrath. And so we are saved from judgment. If you want deep, lasting thanksgiving, the powerful kind of thanksgiving that will change you, then you need to see God as the one who has saved you from his wrath.

You need to understand you are saved from this judgment and this wrath. However, if all you see is your rescue from God's just wrath, you may still have an inaccurate view of God. Intellectually, we know that God loves us, yet we believe in our hearts.

God is still disappointed, maybe irritated, maybe just indifferent to us, right? We know that we're forgiven, but we think of our standing before God only in negative terms. I'm not guilty, so at least he accepts me.

I'm forgiven, so he's not mad at me, right? Maybe that's as far as it goes. Imagine if someone asked me, how do you feel about your children and your grandchildren? And I responded with, well, I don't hate them.

Would that be true?

Yeah, it'd be true, but it's not enough. It's not enough. Do you love your grandchildren and your children?

Yeah, oh, I don't hate them.

No, no, I love them. I take delight in them most of the time, right? I take delight in them. It's fun to have the grandkids over. I have a picture of all my adult children sitting around the table in the places they sat at when they were growing up.

They all sat in the same place. I love that picture, right? I delight in when my adult children are around and we get to talking, right? And my grandchildren, I delight in them. That's a more accurate picture than, well, I don't hate them, right?

And we have that perception of God because we overemphasize what we're saved from. That's how it is with God, though. Here's how God is. Our text says that he delights in us. Our text says, you notice, God sings over us.

Is that the view of God that you have? Is that how you think of God? Isn't that marvelous? So if we're gonna have that deep-seated kind of thanksgiving that transforms us, then we have to understand what you're saved for.

Not just what you're saved from, but what you're saved for. And Zephaniah chapter three, verse 17, declares that God is mighty to save and he tells us what he saves us for.

Let's look at it.

Verse 16, 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.'". First of all, he saves us for our joy.

He saves us for our joy. He says, don't fear and don't lose heart. Fear not, O Zion, let not your hands grow weak. He's talking about the pictures of hands that are just drooping, right? Drooping because we're hopeless.

"'You will fear and lose heart when you see God "'only as a relentless agent of justice "'who does not overlook sin.'". He is the mighty warrior and this is one of those prophetic books. This is a picture of God that's often used in the prophets.

God is a mighty warrior who in this book has revealed himself as the one who executes God's judgment, God's sentence on the nations, even on the entire world. But now that mighty warrior is in our very midst.

That mighty warrior has come to not execute judgment but he arrives to save you. This mighty warrior who will wipe out the whole earth is now in your midst to save you, to use his might, not against you, but to use his might for you.

You can, he's arrived in your midst to bring salvation from that judgment. You can almost hear the echoes of Emmanuel here, God with us in this text. He's in your midst. He's gonna use his might to save you.

But it's fascinating to me to see how this mighty warrior arrived. He arrived as a baby, as a weak baby in a stable. He ministered as a meek and gentle teacher. He won the battle against sin while appearing weak and powerless.

Don't miss that. This mighty warrior arrives in a way that doesn't appear mighty at all but accomplishes what God's might can only accomplish. By the way, that's how you need to read your Bible. God accomplishes things just the opposite of the way we would, always.

He always is turning the world upside down. He's always taking our understanding and just going turn it upside down and ramming it in the ground. He just doesn't operate the way we would. This mighty warrior, this warrior who's mighty to save comes in a way that we would never expect yet accomplishing by his might our very salvation.

And he will yet finish that salvation from sin when he appears again on a white horse striking down the nations with the sword of his mouth and ruling them with a rod of iron, smashing them to pieces as Revelation 19 says.

He's going to accomplish our deliverance from sin and judgment.

He will do it.

He's already begun to do it. He will finish the job on that day. So he saves us for our joy but most importantly, he saves us for his joy. He saves us for his joy. He will rejoice over you with gladness.

He will quiet you by his love. He will exalt over you with loud singing. This description of God's delight sparkles with the emotion of love. In fact, it says he loves us, does it not? He loves us. He will quiet you by his love.

He actually says he loves us. Now, this is not the word normally used for God's love in the Old Testament.

There's a Hebrew word.

It's the word chesed, all right? Now, you won't see that in your Bible but here's how you will see it. Almost always, it's translated as steadfast love. That's the Hebrew word. That's what it means, steadfast love.

And what it means is God's covenant love. That is to say, God's love is committed to his people by covenant, that unfailing love that God expresses it because he promises it in the covenant. This is the love, as one has written, this is the love that issues in commitment, the fidelity of love, love that lives in the will as much as in the heart.

So this is not the word for steadfast love. Rather, it's the word that's used, for example, of Jacob's passionate love for Rachel. That's the word that he uses here. It's a passionate love. So in marriage, on the day in 1977, when Beck and I stood together, we both promised before God that we would abandon all others, be committed to this one, right?

And how am I gonna show my love? I'm gonna show my love by staying faithful, even when I'm tempted to be unfaithful. If I really love my wife, even when temptation is to be unfaithful, I will shut that down because I made a promise and I will love her by being committed to her.

Love is that commitment, right? But you know what? You know what? That's not the only thing, is it? There's still that passionate love that enjoys one another. And here, here, that's the kind of love that God has for us.

This is a love that rejoices over you with gladness. God actually delights in us. He rejoices with a glad heart. Okay, come on, get it in your head. Can you see God doing this? He's rejoicing over you.

He's glad that you belong to him.

Can you see that?

He's glad that you're his. All of you here who've had children, before the baby arrives, you're going, I don't know, do I have enough love for this? You know, I've got love for my wife, but we're gonna add somebody here.

I don't know if that's gonna work.

And when the baby arrives, what? And you're more than glad. I mean, you're just overjoyed. You have this new person, and especially you dads, you know, you're beaming. You're going like, wow. Well, I mean, you know, you women, they're wiping the sweat off your brow now and helping you recover while dad's just sitting there.

It's like, wow, this is amazing. I love this, right?

That's the kind of gladness that he's talking about here. You see, God doesn't see you, his people, he doesn't see you as someone he's committed to, and now he's stuck with you. You see, that's not what he's, I'm committed to you.

I'm stuck with you, I made a promise. No, he's glad that you belong to him. He's not a reluctant giver with a limited amount of grace that he gives sparingly, but he's abounding in love and faithfulness.

He overflows with love for us. God does not tolerate his people, God delights in them, okay?

Do you hear that?

Now, I'm almost tempted to say, raise your hand if you think God tolerates you. I would guess that if you're honest, all of you would do that. Yeah, God tolerates us. I mean, he gave his son for us and he saved us and he tolerates us now.

No, he actually has gladness that you belong to him. He delights in you. And he says, this is a love that is quiet. This is a love that is quiet. He will quiet you by his love. Matthew Henry says, he will rest in his love.

He'll be silent in his love. The New International Version says, in his love, he will no longer rebuke you. You may say, well, that can't be true. God still rebukes us, that's what the New Testament says.

God still rebukes us. Well, that's not exactly what he's saying. What he's saying is that, like a husband who truly loves his wife, he's not a nagging and pushing and demanding perfection in order to gain, in order to gain his affection.

He's not pushing you, he's not nagging you in order for you to gain his affection. That's not the way he operates. He's not like the husband who comes home in the evening, is surly for the rest of the night, because you didn't have the house, the kitchen is still a mess.

And, you know, the supper just isn't what it should be and you don't look real good either. And so he kind of nags you and says, how long is it gonna take to do the dishes?

Come on.

And you know what? How hard is it to fry bologna, okay? It's cold. And, you know, and the next day you're complaining again and pretty soon she has the idea, like, well, if only I get it together, maybe he'll love me like he should or like I want.

That's not God. That's not the way he does it, right? Zephaniah does not say that God's character has changed, by the way. His character hasn't changed, but your status has. Your status has. And so he loves you because of what he's done for you.

See, this is an emotion rooted not in shifting emotions, but in the unchanging, lasting covenant he makes to us through Jesus. Listen, he has that kind of passionate love for us because of his steadfast love.

I want you to think about this. I have more affection, if I can put it that way, more emotional attachment to Becca.

After, oh man,.

After 40 plus years, after 40, just shy of 50 here, just shy of 50, okay? Our affection for one another is much deeper than when we were young. You know why? Because this passion, this kind of affection grows out of the soil of commitment.

You know what I'm talking about. And God's passionate, glad love for us grows out of his covenant. He's promised to remain faithful to us. And so we are no longer under his judgment, but we are under his care.

We are under his care, not judgment. He's like the husband who still loves you in all your imperfections. Instead of getting on you about not washing the dishes, he steps in and starts doing the dishes when he comes home.

And he's still gonna help you become what you need to be, but he's not gonna be nagging, he's not gonna lower the boom, he's not gonna just browbeat you into the woman that you ought to be, no. God loves in a quiet, deeply affectionate way.

And then lastly, this love exalts with loud songs. This is the part of it that just blows my mind. First of all, imagine God singing. Then, imagine God singing over you. It says he sings over you. You ever notice that most of the songs you listen to are love songs?

So, you know, every once in a while when I want to, I get nostalgic, which is quite a bit. I go to YouTube and I go to, you know, 1967 Top 100 Billboard Hits, right? When I, yeah, that's nostalgia for me, folks, 67, okay?

And so all these songs, the top 100 start playing, right? All those songs are about what? Love, right? This is about all the songs that are popular about loving someone or, you know, whether it's, whatever, it's about love or losing love or something, right?

And whenever you're in love, it seems that the normal ways of expression aren't adequate enough, and so song comes out. What a unique view of God. He's not a God who merely tolerates you as if you're a pesky, dirty, poor child who he just cleaned up, right?

It's as if words are not enough to express his feeling, so he puts his feelings to music. The God of the Bible sings, and he sings over his people. If you would have Thanksgiving that lasts, think about what God has saved you for.

He saved you for your joy, and he saved you for his joy. Now, if you see God as a cosmic police officer, then you live in fear of punishment. Thanksgiving will be rare. If you see him as a heavenly firefighter, and you talk to him only when you're in trouble, then there's very little Thanksgiving then.

If you see him as a universal candy man that gives you everything that you expect, and you expect every good thing that comes your way, there's definitely not gonna be Thanksgiving. But if you see God as an unerring, incorruptible, all-knowing, righteous judge who has every right to punish you, but who declares you righteous through the work of his son, the Lord Jesus, and now delights in you and sings over you, then there will be Thanksgiving, a deep-rooted kind of Thanksgiving, a Thanksgiving that can last, even in the difficult times.

You see, true, transforming Thanksgiving comes from the miracle of grace that God can be just and joyful. Father, thank you for this word of this unbelievable word that you delight in us, you rejoice in us, you're glad in us.

Lord God, we confess a sin, the fact that we see you as tolerating us. Oh God, help us to see the glory of your grace in that you are just and joyful. Lord, help us to lay hold of that truth so that we will be a thankful, praising, worshiping people.

Thank you for this marvelous revelation of your character, in Jesus' name.