[01:00:00:00 - 01:00:10:00]
 (Music Playing)

[01:00:13:03 - 01:00:17:12]
Chris
 That's why we've got to know God's word. And my theology really, truly does matter.

[01:00:19:10 - 01:00:38:22]
Chris
 Why I love to preach God's word and why I try to do it so passionately, because it's not just facts or things that don't really matter to the day-to-day of our lives. They literally matter in everything we do, every environment we live, every relationship that we are in.

[01:00:43:01 - 01:00:46:23]
Brenton
 Welcome back to Further. I am Brenton Grimm. Got another full house today.

[01:00:48:05 - 01:00:55:06]
Brenton
 We'll just start on my left, Matt Mitchell. Welcome. Greetings. Preached in Fort Madison this week. We got Paul Fishbach in Burlington. How you doing?

[01:00:55:06 - 01:00:56:12]
Paul
 Glad to be here. Thank you.

[01:00:56:12 - 01:01:03:00]
Brenton
 Good. And then Andrew Weis, he preached in Danville. Welcome. Thank you. Yeah. Thanks for coming in, guys.

[01:01:04:11 - 01:01:10:16]
Brenton
 So Zephaniah this week, how familiar were you guys with this book before a week or two ago?

[01:01:11:23 - 01:01:15:05]
Paul
 I had never taught it before. I've read it, but I never taught it.

[01:01:15:05 - 01:01:23:21]
Andrew
 I remember having to do something with it in seminary. But beyond that, I had never taught. Studied deeply beyond that.

[01:01:23:21 - 01:01:31:19]
Matt
 Yeah, I was going to say not very. I would have been lucky if I flipped to Zechariah.

[01:01:31:19 - 01:01:33:13]
 (Laughter)

[01:01:33:13 - 01:01:34:14]
Matt
 I didn't make that differentiation.

[01:01:35:23 - 01:01:38:02]
Matt
 But it was awesome. It was a blessing that we got into it.

[01:01:38:02 - 01:01:39:04]
Brenton
 Yeah, it's good.

[01:01:40:07 - 01:01:44:06]
Brenton
 So I guess kind of in that vein, let's start with a question for all of you.

[01:01:46:07 - 01:02:00:09]
Brenton
 I'd like you to kind of summarize your sermons just quickly. And maybe that's just the main points. But you guys all had fairly different sermons coming out of this. And then your biggest takeaways. I'm kind of curious if there's anything really,

[01:02:01:18 - 01:02:18:13]
Brenton
 from your perspective after studying it, really different from any of the other minor profits that we've been looking at. Or if it's kind of just in line with the rest of them. But yeah, just kind of give us a brief overview of your sermon. And then what was your biggest takeaway?

[01:02:22:17 - 01:02:23:04]
Paul
 Well, I'll start.

[01:02:25:00 - 01:02:32:09]
Paul
 I used this line a couple of times in my sermon. But if I were to kind of summarize it in a sentence, I'd say God's judgment is near, but His grace is nearer.

[01:02:34:00 - 01:02:36:21]
Paul
 And that's kind of how I tried to summarize it for people.

[01:02:38:10 - 01:02:45:02]
Paul
 Zechariah obviously speaks a lot about God's judgment coming, how severe it's going to be, and all of that.

[01:02:46:16 - 01:03:05:21]
Paul
 But I think on a cursory reading of the book, you can get kind of a doomsday kind of perspective of like, man, this is all bad news. But there's so much good news in this book. And the fact that God even warns His people beforehand

[01:03:06:22 - 01:03:09:11]
Paul
 is an act of grace and love.

[01:03:11:01 - 01:03:22:00]
Paul
 And so yes, it's very severe language. As I talked about Zechariah, he's pulling no punches. He's very harsh. But yeah, that's how I'd summarize it. Cool.

[01:03:23:01 - 01:03:28:06]
Andrew
 Yeah, God's judgment is coming. It's inevitable.

[01:03:29:09 - 01:03:32:13]
Andrew
 But there's a way of escape that He provides.

[01:03:34:05 - 01:03:37:12]
Andrew
 And then the last point,

[01:03:38:14 - 01:03:40:12]
Andrew
 just this emphasis on celebration,

[01:03:41:12 - 01:03:44:06]
Andrew
 celebrating God and God celebrating us.

[01:03:44:06 - 01:03:45:12]
Speaker 5
 Mm-hmm.

[01:03:45:12 - 01:04:45:21]
Matt
 Mm-hmm. Yeah, as I was doing my research and starting a really big picture with like the 12 minor prophets as a unit and getting my head around that, and I don't want to preach an isolated sermon from Zephaniah that doesn't make sense with the themes of the 12 minor prophets, it just seems so clear to me that I think I read somewhere in a summarization, it's judgment, purification, and restoration. And that's kind of this theme in most of the minor prophets. And I came across like the fire imagery, like God's burning anger and the fire of my jealousy. And then I just tried to alliterate it as a preacher would. And I came up with, you know, God's fire consumes and purifies, not purifies, but cleanses that sea and then comforts with the end of chapter 3. And I just got that in my head to make it simple for myself, and I was hoping it would serve the congregation in that way.

[01:04:45:21 - 01:04:46:15]
Speaker 5
 Yeah, that's good.

[01:04:48:08 - 01:05:00:19]
Brenton
 I guess coming back to a little bit what Paul said, Zephaniah is incredibly blunt in how he comes about talking to Judah here. Mm-hmm.

[01:05:02:04 - 01:05:13:19]
Brenton
 And he doesn't ease into his message, and he doesn't soften God's warning at all. My question, I guess, for you guys is what can we learn from the way that he confronts sin?

[01:05:15:22 - 01:05:27:07]
Brenton
 I'm sure there's some practical applications out of this. Like how do we speak honestly about sin without, I guess, wall remaining humble?

[01:05:29:18 - 01:05:37:21]
Andrew
 Yeah, I know, actually Paul, I want to appreciate your start, because I was listening to yours actually this morning.

[01:05:39:18 - 01:05:43:15]
Andrew
 And, or no, it was last night. I listened to Matt's this morning. Anyway,

[01:05:45:09 - 01:05:51:12]
Andrew
 and it started playing. I was like, did I skip forward? Like, did it start in the middle?

[01:05:51:12 - 01:05:57:10]
Brenton
 I had already heard it once, and I just started it earlier. And I was like, "Zeph, I think you did this wrong."

[01:05:57:10 - 01:06:12:13]
Andrew
 Yeah, I thought it was an error or something. And then I kept listening, and then he explained. I was like, yeah, because I thought about starting my own sermon in a similar way, just jumping right in and blunting to the point, because that's what he does.

[01:06:13:23 - 01:06:14:23]
Andrew
 It's right there.

[01:06:16:21 - 01:06:20:05]
Andrew
 And he doesn't back off either. It's just all throughout.

[01:06:22:08 - 01:06:37:20]
Andrew
 And so I think a big thing we can learn is just God's really serious about sin, and He's really serious about dealing with it in the short term, but especially a final victory,

[01:06:39:05 - 01:06:40:02]
Andrew
 a cleansing,

[01:06:41:18 - 01:06:44:04]
Andrew
 a sweeping away of all sin.

[01:06:45:08 - 01:07:00:20]
Andrew
 And He's got His purposes and why He deals with some immediately in some longer term. But I gleaned that seriousness that God has toward all sin from Zephaniah.

[01:07:01:22 - 01:07:03:04]
Paul
 Yeah, that's really good.

[01:07:04:14 - 01:07:19:09]
Paul
 The way that God confronts sin, I think, is in stark contrast to how we often do it. And we are so quick to quickly justify ourselves, or right off our sin is not that bad.

[01:07:21:03 - 01:07:27:03]
Paul
 And I just don't think we take it as seriously as God does, myself included.

[01:07:29:06 - 01:07:51:19]
Paul
 I'm reminded of 1 John 1, 8, that says, "If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us." And if we're living the Christian life, we should continually be examining ourselves and looking at the center of our life honestly, and saying, "Do I see this like God sees it, or am I excusing myself here?"

[01:07:53:03 - 01:08:04:22]
Paul
 And I think Zephaniah is a great reminder of, "Hey, God takes sin very, very seriously." And your violation against him is worthy of great judgment.

[01:08:06:22 - 01:08:46:21]
Matt
 Yeah. And the theme that Pastor Chris chose to summarize our whole series, Return to Me, is just so fitting because all of them, we need to return to God because we've wandered from God, we've wandered into sin, into worshiping other gods, other things. And we're not going to cover Jonah, but Jonah needs to return to God too, because he's wandering, and he doesn't want to be obedient to what the Lord wants, and he has his own idols and sins. But whether it's God's people, or just one isolated prophet who's wandering, like, "Return to me." And that's a message we need to hear as pastors for ourselves, and then obviously our flock needs to hear that too.

[01:08:46:21 - 01:09:33:13]
Brenton
 Yeah. From the other perspective though, like, how can this help us to point sin out in other brothers and sisters, right? So we have like, Ephesians 5, "Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them." Right? And so this is a call to expose the sin of others, like Zephaniah is doing here. How should we think about that responsibility of us, like, that we have to expose sin, but not, you know, to do that in a humble way, recognizing that we are as guilty as they are?

[01:09:35:04 - 01:10:26:20]
Matt
 I could maybe hop in here real fast. I found comfort in studying this passage this week because I kept being reminded it's thus saith the Lord. And so this isn't Zephaniah being this like zealot, like, you know, like, "What are you guys doing? You need to follow the Lord." The Lord is telling him, "This is what I'm going to do. These are the sins I've observed." Like, tell them this message. And so, you know, there's no place for self-righteousness, or like, "I'm coming up with this on my own." It's like, the Lord has identified this sin and this darkness this people are falling into, and I'm supposed to be his mouthpiece. And in our case, we're using God's written word. It's already there. And so I just found all I comfort in that. Like, this isn't the prophet's words. This is God's words through this prophet. So.

[01:10:27:23 - 01:10:38:06]
Brenton
 Yeah, I agree. Much like we have his revelation today, right? Yeah. Andrew, you quoted a commentator,

[01:10:40:01 - 01:11:11:15]
Brenton
 Alec Motier, saying, "Wherever excitement and religion becomes an end in itself, and wherever the cult of what helps replaces joy in what's true, veil is worshiped." And this quote was kind of taking the worship of Baal, you know, back in Zephaniah and applying it to today. Can you expand on this thought for us? And how do you see this typically play out in the church today?

[01:11:11:15 - 01:11:16:23]
Andrew
 Sure. Yeah, I think, I think,

[01:11:18:06 - 01:11:38:07]
Andrew
 Baal worship had a lot of complexities, and this is part of a longer quote, but I think this is the one that probably applies more to today than the other part. And I think he's getting to the heart behind our worship.

[01:11:39:23 - 01:11:55:13]
Andrew
 And so, you know, we can get excited at worship. It's good to get excited at worship and excited about worshiping God. But if we're going to worship so that we get excited for the experience, for the spiritual high,

[01:11:57:06 - 01:12:36:12]
Andrew
 then we've kind of taken what is a pure thing, worshiping God, and twisted it for our own purposes and means. And it's, we're now going to church to gain something for ourselves, like this experience, this feel good. And then the second part with a cult of what helps replaces joy in what's true is there's a lot of things in culture that we can do, or we can kind of marry to our faith or how we live out our faith

[01:12:38:06 - 01:13:17:01]
Andrew
 that is no longer true, but it sure is convenient. And I think we see that play out a lot in either politics or just cultural trends. And I think we got to be careful that we don't just jump on with the bandwagon of this is what's relevant in our culture today. And so, we should just go along with it. We can't unhitch ourselves from truth. And I think we see this in a lot of different areas. And there's a lot of pressure to do it, whether it has to do with sexuality or gender,

[01:13:19:11 - 01:13:51:13]
Andrew
 or roles in the home, or whatever it may be. And there's some good changes that have come about through looking at God's word and looking at our culture and going, "Here's a faithful way to interact with this." And then there's some other things that I think the church has done and certainly the culture has done that the worship's in the spirit of Baal isn't just like, "We're just going to do this because it's convenient or it's easier or it works."

[01:13:52:22 - 01:14:11:23]
Andrew
 I guess I stirred up a little bit of controversy, and I think it's a great example of this. So, I've had some, I've had probably more conversations about this sermon than I have in some other ones I've done. And it has to do with me rocking my babies to sleep at night. That was an illustration I gave.

[01:14:13:06 - 01:14:36:11]
Andrew
 And apparently there were some guys in the church who couldn't really connect with that. And the more conversations I had, I realized it's a little bit of a generational thing. And it seems like younger dads are helping out more with post-nursing or, and maybe bottle feeding has contributed to that as well,

[01:14:37:16 - 01:15:10:00]
Andrew
 that husbands and wives can certainly share equally in that. But I think that's a good thing that dads are helping out with caring for infants in the home. And we're not un-hitching ourselves from any biblical truth by doing that. So, that's a cultural change that we're not at risk of confronting truth in any way or, like I said, un-hitching from it.

[01:15:11:00 - 01:15:48:14]
Andrew
 But then there's other things where it's like, men are called to lead, certainly spiritually and their families. And for whatever reason, it's like, "Oh, she's a better leader. So I'm just going to let her do that." And we're abdicating a responsibility as husbands in the home. Because it helps, it's convenient, but it's not based on truth. And I think that then would be worshiping in the spirit of Baal and just saying, "Yeah, we're going to do that because it's easier or maybe better in the world's eyes, but it doesn't honor God."

[01:15:51:10 - 01:15:58:00]
Brenton
 Matt, you talked about fire quite a bit in your sermon.

[01:16:00:00 - 01:16:09:12]
Brenton
 But specifically, I want to talk about the purifying function of fire that you talked about or cleansing for keeping with your sees.

[01:16:11:11 - 01:16:19:04]
Brenton
 Can you explain what you meant by that? What is the purification that comes through fire?

[01:16:19:04 - 01:16:32:00]
Matt
 Yeah. Well, first of all, I want to give credit to the Bible project. It was actually really helpful for me in understanding this, this time around, and kind of how I came into the theme.

[01:16:33:05 - 01:17:22:16]
Matt
 In their real short video describing the Old Testament book of Zephaniah, they pulled that fire theme out and it's pure, it's not just to consume, take away the bad, but it's also to purify it so that this good can come. And so it kind of got developed that way. And I was just reading the book again and studying and preparing for the sermon. I was like, this is a really good theme to point out and understand what's going on with God's wrath. He's consuming all this pagan worship and this syncretism and this astrology worship and these practices that God's people aren't supposed to be participating in. But then he wants to wipe those things away so that his character and attributes can shine again through his people.

[01:17:23:18 - 01:17:27:04]
Matt
 And then I also in my sermon,

[01:17:28:08 - 01:17:49:19]
Matt
 I had to link in our New Testament theology of the Holy Spirit and how that's one of the primary roles of the, or the primary role of the Holy Spirit is to indwell us, consume sin, purify our hearts, and then comfort us as well. And the Holy Spirit's called the comforter. So all those can deal with fire and fire's purpose. It's multifaceted.

[01:17:51:01 - 01:18:05:17]
Matt
 I didn't use this in my sermon, but I think it is helpful for thinking of this idea. But 1 Corinthians 3 is a pretty well-known passage, but the Apostle Paul was talking to the Corinthian church and saying, "I've laid a foundation, but that foundation is Jesus Christ."

[01:18:06:23 - 01:18:11:20]
Matt
 And basically you can build on that foundation with these different things that happen in your life.

[01:18:13:15 - 01:18:21:12]
Matt
 He says in verse 12, chapter 3, "Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw,"

[01:18:23:02 - 01:18:52:07]
Matt
 he goes on and says, "Each will become manifest, for the day we'll disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done." And it's just good imagery to show that Jesus is the foundation of our faith, but then there's these things in life that we can do that are good, profitable, precious, that will last through, you know, this purifying fire of God. And there's these things that are worthless that will get burned up because they don't need to stick around. And

[01:18:56:08 - 01:19:18:01]
Matt
 in context, he's talking about kind of like the last day, like God will purify us, but he's doing that now through the work of the Spirit. And that's, I think, something it's good for us to keep in mind that he's going to finish the job one way or the other. And that passage even says that we'll suffer loss, but a believer will be saved, but only as through fire. So.

[01:19:18:01 - 01:19:19:20]
Brenton
 Yeah. Right.

[01:19:21:04 - 01:20:00:12]
Brenton
 This topic of, and maybe it's a little different, but the topic of discipline, has come up a couple of times as we've gone through these minor prophets. And I'm kind of curious to get you all of your thoughts on this too. Like what does this purification look like? And you mentioned like maybe in context of Zephaniah, this was more of an eschatological truth, but now, like right now, what does that purification practically look like in our lives? And maybe some of it is like, how do we recognize it for what it is instead of seeing it as like punishment or even just coincidence?

[01:20:03:02 - 01:20:03:08]
Andrew
 Yeah.

[01:20:04:22 - 01:20:31:18]
Andrew
 God's trying to conform us to the image of His Son. And a great illustration I heard, I don't remember where I heard it. It's been a while back, but it's this idea that, you know, God's kind of like a sculptor and we're a rough piece of wood or stone and He's chipping away at all of the bad things that don't fit, that don't look like Jesus.

[01:20:33:03 - 01:21:18:03]
Andrew
 And as He does that, that's a painful or uncomfortable process, but His goal in doing it is ultimately then what will look like Jesus. And that's kind of stuck with me. And I think been kind of a helpful way for me to process challenges, difficulty in my life because of my sin or because, just because, not necessarily even sin related, but just doesn't fit what my life doesn't fit what it needs to look like to be conformed to the image of Christ. And so that's gotta go. And so yeah, that's just kind of stuck with me and I think been a helpful visual.

[01:21:18:03 - 01:21:33:12]
Paul
 When I think about when you're asking that question on two pictures came to mind. One was Jesus talking about in John that He is the vine and we are the branches. And He talks about the Father having to prune and pruning is painful,

[01:21:34:12 - 01:21:37:05]
Paul
 but it's good for us so that we would bear fruit.

[01:21:38:14 - 01:22:06:06]
Paul
 And so when God is disciplining us, I mean, another picture that came to mind was Hebrews and a Father disciplining His Son. And that at the time, no discipline is enjoyable, but it's for our benefit. It's for our good. Both of those are pictures from God for us that whether it's fire or pruning or whatever illustration you want to give it, God is doing that out of love. It's not out of frustration or just pure anger.

[01:22:07:21 - 01:22:08:02]
Paul
 Yeah.

[01:22:09:15 - 01:22:12:05]
Matt
 Yeah. I'm thinking of a personal example even recently where

[01:22:15:11 - 01:22:28:10]
Matt
 even a few weeks ago, I was stirred up and I was just stuck on a couple of particular things. I had no peace, I had no joy, and I was just like frustrated by a situation and

[01:22:31:08 - 01:22:45:23]
Matt
 the Lord graciously brought me through that. And there's a few things. I went on vacation and I was restless going into vacation, but then through that time, I had enough space with Him and I was being reminded of His Word. I had enough time to pray and reflect that

[01:22:47:00 - 01:23:06:03]
Matt
 by the end of vacation, it was like I had peace and joy again. It was like I'd surrender that to the Lord. And I would say that's even this lower grade dimension of I think my Heavenly Father bringing some discipline into my life, but like not in this heavy-handed way, but in this kind of gracious,

[01:23:07:07 - 01:23:31:22]
Matt
 I can give that thing out that can be consumed really like in the fire of His love, you know, like He's better than the thing I'm stewing about. And so, and I'm sure if community groups or whoever got together, everybody could walk around the room or share in the room of these things in life where it was like, yeah, I was really focused on this. It was an idol or it was to steal my joy. I wasn't focused on God and God led me through that.

[01:23:33:03 - 01:23:44:12]
Andrew
 And I think there's a sense of the harder we dig in, the more uncomfortable for us that pruning process is going to be. You know, if we're resisting the easy discipline,

[01:23:45:21 - 01:23:58:14]
Andrew
 then, you know, as a parent, it's like the first line of, you know, correction is some kind of statement, right? Hey, don't do that.

[01:23:59:20 - 01:24:10:22]
Andrew
 And sometimes that works and sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes one of my kids digs in and then it escalates from there in terms of what needs to be said or done to correct the behavior.

[01:24:11:22 - 01:24:27:16]
Andrew
 And it gets pretty ugly sometimes when the child chooses to dig in. And we're just like that. I think the more we dig in with or resist whatever loving correction the Lord is trying to do in our lives,

[01:24:29:05 - 01:24:37:18]
Andrew
 I think sometimes we can really complicate, you know, what methods He chooses to use for us.

[01:24:37:18 - 01:24:56:21]
Paul
 Well, we see that in Zephaniah. You know, in Zephaniah chapter three, God tells Judah, like, I punished all these nations around you. And I thought you'd get the message. Like, I thought you'd see, like, you should change and correct. But you didn't. You're still a stubborn people. You just kept doing what you're doing. You have no shame. Yeah.

[01:24:56:21 - 01:25:03:14]
Brenton
 Paul, you spent some time talking about God's jealousy as an expression of His love.

[01:25:05:04 - 01:25:20:12]
Brenton
 Jealousy typically is not seen as a good thing for us, right? Because, yeah, we pervert everything. But what makes God's jealousy fundamentally different from ours? And why is understanding that difference so important?

[01:25:22:15 - 01:25:33:05]
Paul
 Yeah, I actually did a fairly deep dive into kind of the whole jealousy thing. And I did talk about it for quite a bit, but there was a whole bunch that I left out of my sermon because I just didn't have time to talk about it.

[01:25:34:06 - 01:25:53:21]
Paul
 But the Scriptures talk a lot about God's jealousy. Yeah. Matter of fact, in Exodus 3414, I didn't quote this, but it says, "For the Lord, whose name is jealous is a jealous God." Even gives Him the name jealous, which is striking to see that.

[01:25:56:00 - 01:26:00:12]
Paul
 So, God's, a lot of times I think for human jealousy, we think about,

[01:26:02:06 - 01:26:04:08]
Paul
 we're jealous because we're insecure.

[01:26:06:03 - 01:26:10:17]
Paul
 We're afraid of losing something or something like that. But God's not jealous out of insecurity.

[01:26:12:02 - 01:26:20:10]
Paul
 He's jealous because He's completely holy and worthy of all worship and praise and glory, and we give it to something else.

[01:26:21:14 - 01:26:23:12]
Paul
 And that arouses His jealousy.

[01:26:24:22 - 01:26:26:19]
Paul
 Rightly so, not wrong.

[01:26:28:11 - 01:26:33:01]
Paul
 And then yet, we also see in Scripture that He's jealous for His people.

[01:26:34:15 - 01:26:40:00]
Paul
 He wants us in relationship. That's why He loved us so much, to send His Son to die in the cross for us in the first place.

[01:26:41:12 - 01:26:43:09]
Paul
 He's that jealous for us.

[01:26:44:13 - 01:26:52:00]
Paul
 So, there's some incredibly powerful pictures there of God's jealousy that's motivated out of love, not about insecurity.

[01:26:53:10 - 01:27:17:23]
Paul
 And when we realize how, I would just say it's so beautiful to see that when we realize how beautiful it is, we don't look at God's jealousy as a negative thing or something that we should despise. But it's a precious gift and magnifies, I think, God's glory even more because of who He is.

[01:27:20:12 - 01:27:26:14]
Brenton
 As we kind of start to wrap up, I'm going to talk more about chapter 3. All three of you finished

[01:27:27:15 - 01:27:35:22]
Brenton
 in Zephaniah 3.17, where God just rejoices over His people with singing. I'll just read it real fast.

[01:27:37:12 - 01:28:18:12]
Brenton
 It says, "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 think many Christians have an easier time believing that God will forgive them, maybe even kind of just tolerate them, you know. And maybe this isn't spoken, but I think this is a lot of the time how we can look at our relationship with God. But to see, you know, I think in Scripture over and over again that He really delights over His people.

[01:28:21:08 - 01:28:33:22]
Brenton
 That changes how we look at that relationship. And so I'm curious why you guys think this is so hard for us to believe. Like, why are we so quick to run away from this truth?

[01:28:35:22 - 01:28:39:22]
Paul
 There's a great book called The Ragamuffin Gospel by Brennan Manning,

[01:28:41:21 - 01:29:02:18]
Paul
 and he talks about how the human heart has such difficulty accepting the fact that we can be fully known and fully loved. And I think our natural tendency is that once we're fully known, we will not be loved because of who we are. And we realize our own corruption in that.

[01:29:04:09 - 01:29:14:18]
Paul
 And that's the beauty of the gospel is that God fully knows us inside and out, and loves us and wants us. And we have a hard time accepting that. We have a lot of self-loathing,

[01:29:15:19 - 01:29:30:14]
Paul
 I think. And it's hard for us to forgive ourselves and to know that God knows us as much as we do actually even better than we know ourselves and then still loves us is it sounds too good to be true.

[01:29:31:21 - 01:29:40:18]
Paul
 And it's also the beauty of the gospel. It's the good news that we have to share that, yes, God loves you anyway.

[01:29:41:19 - 01:29:46:06]
Paul
 It's not conditional about on your behavior. He created you and He loves you.

[01:29:48:13 - 01:30:19:20]
Brenton
 We'll wrap with this one. If someone listening today feels like they've wandered a long way from God, or maybe they've become complacent, you know, kind of how Judah has in this book, and maybe we'll kind of touch on this too, Andrew. You brought up Manasseh, right, who was the king's dad, right, and seen as maybe the worst king throughout Scripture.

[01:30:20:23 - 01:30:29:20]
Brenton
 In 2 Chronicles 33, you brought up this kind of restoration or at least humbling story here.

[01:30:31:01 - 01:30:45:21]
Brenton
 My question is, based off of that, based off the end of Zephaniah, what hope do we have? What hope does someone in that spot feeling hopeless, feeling complacent? What hope is brought to them through this week?

[01:30:47:04 - 01:30:58:00]
Andrew
 Yeah, I think Manasseh's story in Zephaniah, the whole book really, just reminds us that until God's judgment comes,

[01:30:59:10 - 01:31:02:22]
Andrew
 like when it hasn't today, we're still here, it hasn't come yet,

[01:31:04:06 - 01:31:05:04]
Andrew
 not in completion,

[01:31:06:06 - 01:31:18:03]
Andrew
 there's time. Today you can repent and turn to Him. And I think that's the hope I see in Manasseh's story. You know, he was given lots of chances.

[01:31:19:13 - 01:31:36:00]
Andrew
 Actually, so he was Josiah's grandpa. Josiah's dad didn't have that much time. He was removed very quickly from his reign. Manasseh, interestingly enough, reigned for a really long time compared to a lot of the kings of Judah and Israel.

[01:31:37:17 - 01:32:08:20]
Andrew
 Amnon, Josiah's dad did not. And so we don't know how long God's going to give us. So there's a warning in that, I think. But if you're hearing this today, today you can repent and turn to the Lord. And I think that's super encouraging, super comforting, especially when we look back and see that God is patient, He is long suffering. He does give lots of chances. That's not so that we take as much time as we can,

[01:32:10:18 - 01:32:24:11]
Andrew
 but it's so that we do actually turn to Him. So I find great comfort and encouragement in that, that the wickedest guys can turn, and God has delayed a long time.

[01:32:26:01 - 01:32:44:17]
Matt
 That's really good. I'm encouraged by that. You've been listening, you articulate that, Andrew. And I was thinking about the beauty of the thief on the cross, who dies in the 11th hour, 59th minute, you know? But it's this amazing example of this guy realizing by God's grace,

[01:32:45:22 - 01:33:06:02]
Matt
 "I deserve to be up here. This man doesn't. This man's a king. He's holy up here. I'm not." And he says, "Remember me?" And Jesus says, "I will, and I'll tell you to be with me in paradise." And, you know, the person who hears that and thinks, "I'll wait until the very end."

[01:33:07:21 - 01:33:21:23]
Matt
 There's probably not a lot of hope for them, if they're thinking, this is like my get out of jail free card at the end, but there's all the hope in the world for the person who feels like, "I feel like I'm at the end, but they believe." Like, that's what it's there for.

[01:33:23:12 - 01:33:25:23]
Matt
 And then I always find comfort in Romans chapter 4,

[01:33:27:11 - 01:34:05:18]
Matt
 Abraham's the father of faith, but not because of any merit of his own. And it just says in verse 3, "Abraham believed God. It was counted to him as righteousness." Excuse me. "Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift, but as due. And to the one who does not work, but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness." And it's just beautiful because it's one moment you can be completely against God, but then say, "Lord, I need you. I believe. I believe in your son, what he's done for me." And God makes you right with him. That's awesome.

[01:34:08:18 - 01:34:20:12]
Paul
 I think God is constantly calling us to come and return to him, to seek him. We see that over and over in the minor prophets. And if someone's listening today and they become complacent,

[01:34:21:23 - 01:34:43:10]
Paul
 God's calling you now. And if you continue to be complacent and not listen, he's going to speak to you in ways that are louder and maybe more difficult for you in the future. But all of those things are for you to come back to him. I have a friend of a brother of ours here in our church.

[01:34:44:13 - 01:34:49:18]
Paul
 And he's told me the story several times in his life where he had become complacent. And

[01:34:51:17 - 01:35:17:02]
Paul
 it took a car accident that he almost died in to get his attention to come back to the Lord. And I hope that we don't wait that long before we listen to God's warnings and calling back to us to say, "Follow me. I love you. I want a relationship with you." And I just hope everybody responds to that in faith.

[01:35:18:09 - 01:35:18:23]
Paul
 Yeah.

[01:35:18:23 - 01:35:30:15]
Brenton
 All right. Well, great. Thanks, guys. Thanks for your work this week. And if you guys at home have any questions, ask at furtherpodcast.com. We'll talk to you next week.