God Loves You More Than You Love Him

God is more excited about your redemption than you are. Zephaniah 3:14–20 prophesies of the coming day of redemption for God’s people through the gospel of Jesus. It is a day of great joy. And, the joy of some is greater than others. In short, God’s joy in and love for you so outshines your joy in and love for him that when you finally witness it in full, it will quite literally take your breath away. Consider some bits of the passage.

 

The Joy of the Redeemed
Zephaniah 3:14 exhorts you to express your joy fervently:

 

Sing aloud, O daughter of Zion; shout, O Israel! Rejoice and exult with all your heart, O daughter of Jerusalem! (Zephaniah 3:14)

 

God through his prophet gives you three commands: (1) Sing aloud, (2) Rejoice, and (3) Exult. God’s people are a people who must sing and sing loudly! They are a people who must rejoice and exult with all their hearts. In the same way the Great Commandment exhorts you to love the LORD your God with all your heart, Zephaniah exhorts you to sing loudly as you rejoice and exult with all your heart.

Why? Two categorical reasons. Because of your redemption and because of your redeemer. The next verse makes this clear.

 

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. (Zephaniah 3:15)

 

The three commands of sing aloud, rejoice, and exult have three reasons that we can shuffle into the two categories of redemption and redeemer: (1) the LORD has taken away the judgments against you; (2) the Lord has cleared away your enemies; and (3) the King of Israel, the LORD, is in your midst.

 

Your Redemption
First, you sing, rejoice, and exult because of your redemption. Consider the first two reasons that make up your redemption. (1) “the LORD has taken away the judgments against” you, and (2) the LORD “has cleared away your enemies.” Zephaniah makes a word play here that we don’t get in our English translation. The Hebrew word that we translate “take away” conveys the meaning of turn aside. We could translate then, “the LORD has turned aside the judgments against you.” Similarly, the Hebrew word we translate “cleared away” conveys the meaning of turn to. So we could translate “he has turned to your enemies.”

The full effect here is this. In your sin, you were an enemy of God under his rightful judgment. Yet, the promise of redemption in Jesus means that God has turned aside his judgments against you because they have all landed on Jesus. No more wrath for sins remains for you. Thus, as a result, the LORD now turns to all your enemies—sin, Satan and his demonic forces, and death itself—in order that they may feel the full weight of his divine judgment. Because of Jesus, the LORD has turned aside his wrath from you and has turned toward your enemies in his hot, blazing wrath. This is enough in and of itself to lead to great joy. But there’s more.

 

Your Redeemer
Second, you sing, rejoice, and exult because of your redeemer. The third reason in Zephaniah 3:15 doesn’t describe your redemption but your redeemer—the King is in your midst. Notice how the prophet describes the king. He is not merely “the King of Israel.” He is “the King of Israel, the LORD” who is in your midst. This King is YHWH. That is, Jesus Christ your King, the Son of God, dwells in the midst of his people now spiritually, and he will dwell in the midst of his people forever in the new heavens and new earth.

The reasons for joy have piled up so high that you should be boiling over with loud singing, rejoicing, and exulting! You who are in Christ should be the most joyful people because of your redemption and your redeemer. And you should be experts at expressing it with passion. However, there is one whose excitement for your redemption outpaces even your own. Look at what else the prophet has to say.

 

The Joy of Your Redeemer
In Zephaniah 3:17, the prophet moves away from describing the joy of the redeemed and begins to describe the joy of the redeemer.

 

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. (Zephaniah 3:17).

 

The command to you is to sing loudly, rejoice, and exult with all your heart in your redemption and in your redeemer. And yet, what you read here is that your redeemer—the King, the LORD who is in your midst—also rejoices. And notice what or rather who he is rejoicing in—“he will rejoice over you with gladness.” Specifically, the prophet says (1) he will rejoice over you, (2) he will exult over you, and (3) he will sing over you. The prophet begins to paint a picture for you here.

As you come to the LORD, singing, rejoicing, and exulting with everything you have, he is doing the exact same thing. And what is the result? Is it a joyful back and forth of singing? Surprisingly, no. The prophet says you will actually stop your singing at the sight of the LORD—he will quiet you by his love. The Hebrew word for “quiet” here does not convey the idea of calming down or comforting like you might comfort and quiet a fussy or sad child. Rather, the word conveys the idea of keeping silent. The picture suddenly takes on more color. You come to the LORD with great joy, singing loudly, rejoicing and exulting with all of your heart. But you quickly find that the LORD’s joy completely eclipses yours. God’s delight in you, whom he has redeemed, is so great that it moves you to shocked silence.

 

Stand in Awe of Your Redeemer
God is more excited about your redemption than even you are. And his joy in and love for you will so outshine your joy in and love for him that it will quite literally take your breath away. What does this mean for you? Well, it means that right now for you in Christ, you should worship him with all you have. Specifically, according to Zephaniah, (1) you must sing and sing loudly, (2) you must rejoice with all of your heart, and (3) you must exult with all of your heart. You should express the entire scope of your joy and happiness in your redemption and in your redeemer. But it also means that you should expect in foretaste now and in full flavor in eternity to be moved to shocked silence—hand over your mouth, awe—when you see, experience, and know God’s joy and love for you in Christ that surpasses knowledge (Ephesians 3:17–19). It also means that even when you are not delighting in and rejoicing in him or when you may be tempted to doubt his love for you, he has not ceased to delight in and rejoice in you.

As excited as you may be about your redemption, and as much as you might delight in and love your redeemer, his excitement over, delight in, and love for you far surpasses it. Look at the joy and love of your redeemer, and be moved to silence. Stand in awe of King Jesus, the LORD your God, in your midst.

God Delights to Redeem His People

“Praise our triune God, who delights to redeem us!” That was our service theme last Sunday. Through Jacob’s sermon and our reading of Ruth chapter 3, we saw Boaz’s delight in serving as Ruth’s redeemer – and subsequently recognized the picture of God’s delight in redeeming His people.

We face constant temptations to think differently about God. When we sin, when we fail, when we neglect prayer or Bible reading, we often feel as if God is annoyed with us, frustrated with us, ready to have nothing more to do with us.

But our God is the happy God. Whatever He pleases, He does (Psalm 135:6). He overflows with joy within the Trinity.

God is pleased to spread His joy by redeeming a people for His own possession, who will receive and then display and proclaim His love and mercy, His grace and truth (1 Peter 2:9-10). We His people become His intimate family, sharing in His joy (Psalm 16:11, Matthew 25:21, 1 Peter 1:8-9).

But we all are sinful, are fallen, while God is holy; He is “light and in Him is no darkness at all” (1 John 1:5). He thus is the God of perfect justice; every sin must be paid for. So if we are to be in His family, there must be a payment for our sins – the redemption price.

So Jesus provides that payment. Indeed, through the sorrow and pain of the cross, Jesus knew the “joy set before Him” (Hebrews 12:2), the joy of redeeming God’s people for His glory.

Thus, our redemption is God’s work from beginning to end. He delights to accomplish that redemption. He knows our frame; He remembers that we are dust, that we are fallen (Psalm 103:14). And so through the Gospel He provides a way for us, sinful as we are, to be His delight. We become like Him in hating sin – we must be holy, for He is holy (Leviticus 11:45). Yet when we commit sin, we come to Him in confession and repentance, relying on Jesus’ sacrifice, knowing that in Him the Father accepts us completely (1 John 1:9-2:2, Romans 8:1).

Reflect on these great truths. Meditate on the God who delights to redeem His people. And – whatever you do, however you fail – know that God delights to redeem you for Himself.

To help you in those reflections and meditations, here are additional Scriptures on this theme. (Unless otherwise indicated, all Scriptures are ESV. Emphasis added.)

  • Micah 7:18-20 Who is a God like you, pardoning iniquity and passing over transgression for the remnant of his inheritance? He does not retain his anger forever, because he delights in steadfast love. 19 He will again have compassion on us; he will tread our iniquities underfoot. You will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea. 20 You will show faithfulness to Jacob and steadfast love to Abraham, as you have sworn to our fathers from the days of old.
  • Jeremiah 32:37-41 Behold, I will gather them from all the countries to which I drove them in my anger and my wrath and in great indignation. I will bring them back to this place, and I will make them dwell in safety. 38 And they shall be my people, and I will be their God. 39 I will give them one heart and one way, that they may fear me forever, for their own good and the good of their children after them. 40 I will make with them an everlasting covenant, that I will not turn away from doing good to them. And I will put the fear of me in their hearts, that they may not turn from me. 41 I will rejoice in doing them good, and I will plant them in this land in faithfulness, with all my heart and all my soul.
  • Psalm 35:27 Let those who delight in my righteousness shout for joy and be glad and say evermore, “Great is the LORD, who delights in the welfare [shalom] of his servant!”
  • Psalm 147:10-11 His delight is not in the strength of the horse, nor his pleasure in the legs of a man, 11 but the LORD takes pleasure in those who fear him, in those who hope in his steadfast love.
  • Psalm 149:4 For the LORD takes pleasure in his people; he adorns the humble with salvation.
  • Isaiah 43:25 “I, I am he who blots out your transgressions for my own sake, and I will not remember your sins.”
  • Isaiah 1:18 “Come now, let us reason together, says the LORD: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool.”
  • Psalm 103:13 As a father shows compassion to his children, so the LORD shows compassion to those who fear him.
  • Psalm 130:7-8 O Israel, hope in the LORD! For with the LORD there is steadfast love, and with him is plentiful redemption. And he will redeem Israel from all his iniquities.  (NET 7b-8: [He] is more than willing to deliver. 8 He will deliver Israel from all the consequences of their sins.)
  • Ephesians 2:4-7 But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ– by grace you have been saved– 6 and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7 so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.
  • Mark 1:40-42 NET Now a leper came to [Jesus] and fell to his knees, asking for help. “If you are willing, you can make me clean,” he said. 41 Moved with compassion, Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him, saying, “I am willing. Be clean!” 42 The leprosy left him at once, and he was clean.

So join the leper in saying to Jesus, “If you are willing, you can make me clean!” He will gladly say to you: “I am willing! Be clean! Welcome to my intimate family!”