Judging Disobedience

I’m not that bad. Really. I’m not.

I’m a good person. God loves me. I’m sure of it. He blesses me too.

I try hard. Ask anyone who knows me.

I’m nice. Even to people who make it hard.

I don’t hate people. Other’s do, but not me. I’d never hate. That’s bad.

I’ve never done anything really wicked like murder or bad stuff like that.

I pray lots. When I need something. And I read my Bible. It’s not too dusty.

I go to church. All the time. And I serve there. I even give there.

I’m a real good guy. God would never judge me.

Oh, really?

How sinful is your goodness?

How wicked is your self-righteousness?

How deceived is your self-justification?

God does judge. 

God’s love for us is greater than our ability to deceive ourselves. Our sin does not go unnoticed. By Him. No matter what we think other people see or think about us. He is Sovereign.

Zephaniah was a prophet to Judah in the mid Seventh Century BC. Zephaniah was a member of Judean royal household. And as a member of the royal household he’d know first hand about the righteousness to sinfulness roller coaster his people had been on with his ancestors over the last decades. Good kings to bad kings. Following the God to following false gods. He prophesied early in the reign of Josiah (640-609 BC). The righteous king’s reforms must not have taken too good a hold yet, as Zephaniah fearlessly confronts the pervasive idolatry of his people.

God’s people Judah had seen Israel, their Northern Kingdom counterparts, carried off to slavery by God’s judgment in 722 BC. Yet Judah persisted pandering to the same idolatrous gods. All the while the people of Judah seemed to think, “We’re not as bad as those guys. We’re really God’s people. We have Jerusalem here. God won’t judge us.”

Oh, really? 

Our position before God is not determined by our parentage, but our devotion.

Our position before God is not determined by our church membership, but our righteousness.

Our position before God is not determined by any matrix of our own, but by the blood of Jesus.

Seek the LORD, all you humble of the land, you who do what He commands. Seek righteousness, seek humility; perhaps you will be sheltered on the day of the LORD’s anger. Zephaniah 2:3 

God judges disobedience no matter who or where. Even so, God extends His grace to a remnant.

The LORD your God is with you, he is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing. Zephaniah 3:17

What stands out to you as you read or listen to the 53 verses of Zephaniah?

What does Zephaniah teach us about God’s character?

What does Zephaniah teach us about human nature?

How can you apply these truths from Zephaniah to your life?

Judging Disobedience is the ninth in the series Major Stuff from the Minor Prophets. You can read previous posts here or listen to previous week’s related sermons here.

Following Faithfully

Have you ever complained to God?

Sure you have.

Have you ever asked Him why?

You are human.

Have you ever questioned His character or plan?

Most probably.

Habakkuk does. And he gives us an example of how to have a conversation with God that is honest. Straight up. Even confrontational.

God is big enough for any question you have. God is big enough for you to give Him your best shot, your worst day, your biggest challenge, your greatest need, your deepest heartache. Your disgust, your discouragement, your distress. God can handle it.

Go for it. 

If you need to that is.

Go for it. Let God know how you really feel. And maybe in your getting real, letting down the “I’m fine” facade, you’ll be more open to His reply & intervention. 

Read Habakkuk and see how its done. Habakkuk comes to God on behalf of the people of Judah with two big questions. Really complaints recorded in 1:1-4 & 1:12-17. God’s first answer in 1:5-11 that He will punish Judah. Not encouraging to Habakkuk since it would come at the hands of the ruthless Babylonians. God answers the second complaint in 2:2-20 with comfort. His response will come. It will come in God’s time. “Though it linger, wait for it,” states 2:3. Because “the LORD is in His holy temple; let all the earth be silent before Him.” 

God is saying to Judah 2600 years what Frank Gaebelein says to Christ followers today, “The Lord Jesus Christ is not only necessary; he is enough. If we have him, we have all, potentially and actually.”

Habakkuk 3 is a psalm of praise. From complaints and rightfully so in chapters one & two, to praise of God’s greatness once He honestly offered his complaints to God is where Habakkuk goes in just 56 total verses.  

The Minor Prophet Habakkuk can teach us some major stuff.

Follow faithfully. No matter your circumstances.

Trust God. Even when you fail to understand Him. 

Stand firm. God enables you anywhere. 

The righteous will live by faith.

Have faith. Follow Jesus.

What do you need to be honest with God about?

Where can God strengthen your faith?

This is the eighth post in a series, Major Stuff from the Minor Prophets, complimenting my current sermon series. Please comment, share or subscribe.

Exercising Sovereignty

What is the biggest challenge in your life?

What are you tempted to think even God can’t do? 

In the 7th Century BC, the nation of Judah knew that God had sovereign power over them. They were His people. He’d created them, called them His own, and cared for them through the centuries. He’d even warned them, sending prophets to tell them they would be judged for following after false gods. And they were judged. Even as Nahum prophesied to them, they were under subjugation to Assyria.

Yet it seemed that God’s people were not quite so sure that God was truly sovereign over all nations. Yes, God could allow or cause Assyria to judge them. But, would God judge Assyria, a foreign nation who were not His people, for their wickedness as well. Nahum pronounced it.

“The LORD is slow to anger and great in power; the LORD will not leave the guilty unpunished.” Nahum 1:3a

We know little of Nahum himself, but we know plenty of the situation he spoke into. From biblical & extra-biblical sources we know specifics of the rise and fall of the wicked Assyrian Empire. The Assyrians who practiced despicable, defiling acts against other nations. The Assyrians who were so hated that 100 years earlier the prophet Jonah had refused to go preach there lest they repent and be spared. The Assyrians did repent, but apparently only shortly.

Nahum does not prophesy to them but about them. He preached between 663, when the Egyptian capital of Thebes fell (Nahum 3:8), and before the Assyrian capital of Nineveh fell to Babylon in 612. Using colorful language and engaging style the poet laureate of the Minor Prophets, Nahum, describes the soon-coming downfall of Nineveh. It was most powerful city in the known world at the time with unrivaled architecture and unparalleled wealth. With an eight-mile long wall, encompassing 1850 acres, with 15 gates, and encircled completely by an impressive mote, Nineveh seemed impregnable. Nahum called it.  

Nineveh was so utterly destroyed by the surprising, conquering Babylonians and Medes that it was never rebuilt. It's known today by an Arabic word meaning, "The mound of many sheep."

Amidst the prophesied destruction, we see God’s amazing compassion and tender, gracious care for his people as well as the Assyrians. Remember Jonah, the God-given, whale-born missionary God had sent to Nineveh a century before. In addition to compassion, we clearly see God’s sovereignty. God, confounding normal human thinking, is both a righteous judge and a compassionate father. 

Nahum teaches that God is sovereign—in absolute, able control—over all people. Individual or nation. His people or not. Here or there. This language or the other. God is sovereign.  

No matter what you face.

No matter how great.

No matter how long.

No matter how hard.

Nothing stands versus the sovereignty of God.

Take hope, Dear Friend. Where human power or ingenuity ends, God’s begins. He is sovereign. 

“The LORD is good, a refuge in times of trouble. He cares for those who trust in Him.” Nahum 1:7

This is the seventh in my series, Major Stuff from the Minor Prophets. Feel free to share this post or subscribe to follow this blog. Illustrated by The Prophet Nahum by James Tissot, 1888 watercolor.

Pleasing God

Who is a God like you, who pardons sin and forgives the transgression of the remnant of his inheritance? You do not stay angry forever but delight to show mercy. Micah 7:18 NIV

If you believe God is real.

If you believe God is good.

If you believe God is righteous.

If you believe God wants to be know.

If you believe God rewards those who seek Him.

If you believe God desires righteousness in us.

Then you will want to please Him.

Want to.

Want to & do. Two separate things.

I may want to run fast enough—for 26.2 miles—to qualify to run in the iconic Boston Marathon. I may not have either the incredible physical ability or nor the long-term, hardcore training regimen to get there in the years ahead. 

You may want to lose weight—those 20 stubborn pounds—so you’ll be healthier and feel better. You may not have habits of diet and exercise to get there or the self-discipline to execute those habits for as long as 20 pounds takes.

Want to.

I assume that as Christ follower you will want to serve God. Yet I know as a Christ follower I do not always do what I want (Romans 7:15). My selfish desires or my sin nature get in the way of doing what I know is right. Doing what pleases God.

The nations of Israel & Judah, in the midst of the Divided Kingdoms as God’s People, both knew better. Yet both, at this time between 750-722 BC, didn’t even seem to want to please God much less to really, earnestly serve Him. As one commentator said, “Israel was rebellious, Judah was religious, but sin is sin.” No matter its form: Sin is sin. 

Micah, whose name meant “Who is like Yahweh,” was a contemporary of Amos & Hosea. He was quoted by Jeremiah. We can date his ministry since he names the kings whose reigns he served in (1:2). 

As you read the book of Micah you get a sense of its structure. From bad to good. From judgment to hope. From justice to joyfulness.

BAD, Pronouncement of Judgment (1:2-2:11)

Good, Restoration of a Remnant (2:12-13)

BAD, Indictment of Leaders (3:1-12)

Good, Announcement of Future Hope (4:1-5:15)

BAD, Charges of Unrighteousness (6:1-7:7)

Good, Triumph of God’s Kingdom (7:8-20)

How are you doing? In the pleasing God department?

Do you just want to? Or do you not even care?

Do you want to but need more help to just do it? 

Confess your shortcomings to God. He pardons. He forgives. He restores.

Please share this post or share a comment. This is the sixth in a weekly series, Major Stuff from the Minor Prophets. 

Extending Grace

On a warm, summer South African January evening in 1994, I realized something. Three quarters of my two year missionary term was complete. Only six months remained. I was entering the fourth quarter of ministry with a people I could not now imagine leaving so quickly. 

If God would grant any request, if I could do anything that would make a lasting difference beyond my too short two years, what would it be? 

Officially, with the then Foreign Mission Board now International Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention, I was a Regional Youth Worker Missionary. Responsible for strengthening youth ministry in our 40 partner churches in the sprawling Johannesburg area of four million people, I had developed some amazingly close relationships with a handful of people.

What would be my legacy? What difference had I made? Had I done the missionary’s work as I been advised upon arrival of “working myself out of a job” since I’d raised up others to do my job?

Frankly, on that night, fourth quarter ahead, and difference made in question, I grieved. I knew in arriving that I’d be leaving. But I hadn’t enough life experience to have discerned how quickly I could grow to love folks so deeply. Leaving would be harder than I’d imagined. Yet, what would I be leaving?

I fretted. I wondered. I prayed. I wrote. And, yes, I cried. “Oh, God, would you be so gracious as to show me that my time here has been worth it? Would you let me see I made an eternal difference?”

In the days that followed, I muddled half-hearted through my commitments and must have seen not-so-much-myself to those who knew me. Then a meeting that changed my heart and opened the way for even greater things.

Our regional youth council was planning it’s next quarterly youth rally that would occur just six weeks before I was to return to America. They wanted me to preach. Four sermons. Would I be willing? 

“Of course, yes, I am honored,” I replied while immediately praying in my spirit, “Oh, God you have to help me know what in the world to preach on.”

Jonah.  A four sermon series, What Does God Ask of Me?, on the reluctant prophet is where God clearly led me. Our regional youth council had identified that few young people were answering the call to ministry, and all our pastors, though wonderful men, were older. I’d countered that in a year and a half I hadn’t heard a sermon or even an invitation inviting youth to surrender to vocational ministry. Jonah, in addition to confronting pride and sinfulness, allowed that invitation to ministry. 

Jonah was a prophet. He had been for some time by the time God called him to go preach to Nineveh. He knew how to recognize God’s voice. He knew how to deliver God’s message. He knew that God was gracious to save. And he knew that he didn’t like the wicked Ninevites and he wanted no part of their salvation. 

In disobedience to God, Jonah went the other way. Instead of overland to Nineveh to the east he boarded a ship to the way out west port of Tarshish.  

You know the story. Storm struck. Who you? Chucked overboard. Fish swallowed. Three days. Fish spewed. Repentance preached. Wicked turned. Preacher pouts. God rebukes, “Nineveh has more than 120,000 people who cannot tell their right hand from their left hand... Should I not be concerned about that great city?”

God’s grace extends even to the lowly likes of Nineveh. 

God’s grace extends to you. No matter what you have done. No matter where you have been. No matter what has been done to you. God loves you (John 3:16-18) 

And, let me not forget to finish my Africa story before you finish dealing with God’s message from Jonah for you. At that "six weeks to go what it God going to do" youth rally, six youth committed their lives to Christ for eternal salvation and SIX young adults surrendered their lives to vocational ministry! God was so present. So good to me. So strong among my dearly loved African friends. One dear brother who surrendered to ministry then, Thabiso Chapole, is still in touch today. What a blessing!

I thank God for extending His grace to me and my South African friends. He will extend that same amazing grace to you. Consider these questions: 

• How many times have I sought to run from God’s plan?
• How has that worked out for me?
• What did/will it take for me to get back to obedience to God’s plan?
• Am I willing to do obey now?

Pictured above is Matshepo Chapole, the wife of my dear brother, Thabiso, and founding member of the world-renowned Soweto Gospel Choir. Be sure to read or even listen to Jonah this week. And, of course, freely share this post and your comments with others. Extending Grace is the fifth post in a 12 week Minor Prophet series.