Preparing for the Coming of Christ Pt 1 (Zephaniah 1.1-18)
{If you find this sermon and series useful and chose to use it, please give credit where credit is due; and let me know. Thanks, Mike}
Preparing
for the Coming of Christ
Zephaniah
1.1-18
Mighty
God, your servants the prophets – like Zephaniah – spoke of the grace that was
to be ours, inquiring what person or time the Spirit of Christ in them was
indicating when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent
glories, and so they were serving not only their day but us (1 Peter 1.10-12).
Therefore, give us ears to hear in Zephaniah what the Spirit is saying to the
Church (Revelation 2.6); for Christ’s sake. Amen.
Sometimes sobering words
in the middle of gaiety and joviality are important. Though I’d rather talk
about things that make our heads swim with happiness and glee, yet happy things
are not always healthy or holy. Christmas time is one of those seasons in which
the whole flow of the culture serves to muddle up and clog our hearts with “donning
our gay apparel” and “decking our halls with boughs of holly” “Fa la la la la
la la”. But the story that lies behind Christmas, in reality, is about something
far more joy-filled and somewhat terrible: It’s about the coming of Christ the
King, both the initial coming and the final coming of Christ. And so for the
next 3 weeks we will be focusing on: Preparing
for the Coming of Christ.
Hearing this word of
God. You’ve
just heard this horrible, unnerving account from the Prophet Zephaniah read. It
seems a shame to waste all this ink and breath reading some harsh words about
the coming of the tumultuous Day of God, when Christmas is just around the
corner. But there are 2 things to keep close to your mind while reading this or
any other Biblical prophet. (1) 1 Peter 1.10-12, and (2) 1 Peter 4.17-18.
Pondering this Word
of God.
Zephaniah served during the days of the reforming King, Josiah. Zephaniah’s
work appears to have been primarily done as preparation for the reformational
actions of the King. His main theme is the Day of the LORD is near and the Church
of God best arrange her affairs, for judgment is about to come to the household
of God. V.2-3 we see that the judgmental actions of God will
reverse creation (man, beast, birds, fish is the reverse of Gen. 1.20-28, days
5 and 6). V.4-13 The prophet denounces the varying degrees of
compromisers, from the blatant to the bland (4-6) and from the “greats” to the
“grassroots,” from the faith-breaking leaders (8-9) to the misbehaving
merchants (10-11) to the luxury-laden complacent (12-13). What is startling is
God’s lumping the bland of v. 6 with the blatant of v. 4 & 5, and the
luxury-laden complacent with the faith-breaking leaders of 8. These folks of
v.6 and 12-13 were as bad off as the out-and-out rebels…. Comprise can be done
blatantly or blandly. During this commercially heightened season, maybe we also
need to hear how dangerously close to the edge we can come if we allow
ourselves to dulled and numbed by the hustle, bustle, stuff and accumulation
(12-13). // He then ends the chapter by painting the gloomy picture of
experiencing God [as compromisers and complacent-17b!] (14-18).
The most obvious theme of
this serious prophecy is the coming of the day of the LORD (about 14xs in this
chapter alone), that it is a water-shed moment in time/space/history. To be
sure, the working-out of this prophecy momentarily crashed into Judah’s history
as Babylon [God’s hand against Judah] doled out God’s judgment. But the day of
the LORD permanently blasted into the world, quietly and humbly at the Lord
Jesus’ first coming, and the Day of the LORD will unfold in full display when
the Lord Jesus comes one last time. He came, as the saying goes, to comfort the
afflicted and to afflict the comfortable. Prepare
for the Coming of Christ!
Shaped by this Word
of God.
·
1st-
I find it very interesting that John, in Revelation 1.10, calls Sunday “The
Lord’s Day”. The allusion may be to the thought that each and every Sunday is
the taste of the Day of the Lord, because it divides people (Ps. 1.5: “Therefore
the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of
the righteous”).
·
2nd-
It may be that for some of you, some of us, there is a need to be pulled out of
the sentimentalism that blankets and suffocates Christmas, with its rustic crèches,
and the dullingly repetitious background noise of “buy more” “gather more” “collect
more” hurry, hurry, hurry. And instead you need to be prompted that the story
behind Christmas is about the coming of the Lord, and that coming of the Lord
ushered in the day of the Lord against those who turn away
from Him, and ushered in the Day of the Lord for those who longingly look
for the Lord Jesus, the One who will turn all wrongs to right. 1 Thessalonians
5.1-10. Prepare for the Coming of the
Christ!
·
3rd-
It may be that for others the reminder needs to be made that blatant and bland
compromisers, faith-breakers and forgetful, are in the same trouble. They are doing
the same things, either by commission or by omission. “Whoever believes in
[Jesus] is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already,
because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God” (John 3.18). Therefore
Seek the LORD while He may be found; call
upon Him while He is near. Prepare
for the Coming of Christ by believing in the Christ who has come!
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