“For then I will give to the peoples purified lips, that all of them may call on the name of the Lord, to serve Him shoulder to shoulder. Zephaniah 3:9.
Zephaniah speaks very much of the day of the Lord. Israel had a spiritual resurgence under Josiah but had drifted from that spiritual awakening to become stagnant.
“It will come about at that time that I will search Jerusalem with lamps, and I will punish the men who are stagnant in spirit, who say in their hearts, ‘The Lord will not do good or evil!’ (Zeph. 1:12).
Judah was warned that God would discipline His children if they continued to ignore Him and chase after the idols of the surrounding nations. They had lost their spiritual compass and aligned themselves with the spiritual darkness of the nations around them. God was going to bring the Babylonians to severely discipline His people. God loved them “too much” to just let them continue to wander off into a dark place. They had stagnated and God was doing everything to provoke His people to return to Him. It is interesting that they were united together but against God’s wishes. The majority had abandoned the heart of God and chased after things to replace God. Being relationally committed is helpful only when we are going in the right direction.
Seek the Lord, all you humble of the earth who have carried out His ordinances; seek righteousness, seek humility. Perhaps you will be hidden in the day of the Lord’s anger. (Zeph. 2:3).
This is the warning God gave to His people about God’s looming judgment. God’s appeal through Zephaniah was sobering. But God is holy, and He cannot allow His people to simply carry on like He did not exist. They were blaspheming His name by allowing themselves to be corrupted by the cultures around them. They refused to obey, they refused to repent, they were set on doing what was right in their own eyes.
“For then I will give to the peoples purified lips, that all of them may call on the name of the Lord, to serve Him shoulder to shoulder (Zeph. 3:9).
The hope God promised was to call out for Himself a people from all nations. He will purify them so they will in one voice call on the name of the Lord. They will, in a deeply committed relationship with one another, serve the Lord “shoulder to shoulder” (NASB). The phrase literally says, “with one shoulder”. The power of being relationally committed, unified together to serve the Lord as one people is amazing. Who would have thought that was possible?
The power of unity was a powerful element of the Lord’s Prayer in John 17. Unity, oneness, and being a community that is fully committed to each other and everyone who calls on the name of the Lord is His prayer.
Just think what we all could do if we caught a vision for working together to help others succeed and flourish and we had a chance to be part of what God was doing, not only in our own context but truly invest in what God was doing through one of our churches.
If you want to hear a powerful story about the power of committed relationships, listen to Engage from 09.26.23. Dave Genberg, Associate Pastor at Discovery Church in St. Cloud, MN, has seen God do an amazing thing through the power of relationships. It is an hour long, but watch if you can. https://youtu.be/l9eCDybUR1w
In His grace,
Brad Little
