Monday, August 13

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Zephaniah 1:1

The Word of the Lord that came to Zephaniah son of Cushi, the son of Gedaliah, the son of Amariah, the son of Hezekiah, during the reign of Josiah son of Amon king of Judah.

Like most of the known world that owns a television, I’ve spent the last couple of weeks more or less glued to the 24/7 coverage of the Olympic Games in London. I love the Olympics butI’m amazed and somewhat concerned about my capacity to suddenly pay great attention to sports that I not only do not watch regularly, but sports about which I don’t even know the rules. I’m talking about sports like fencing, badminton, table tennis (O.K., I know the basic rules of the sport but that is NOT the same game of ping-pong I played growing up!), and gymnastics. I mean, after watching four nights of tiny but spectacularly gifted human beings cavorting about on the balance beam, uneven bars and floor exercise, I found myself saying things like, “Oh, she didn’t point her toes – that’s a deduction!”

I pay attention to the Olympics; I pay attention to athletes I don’t know and will never meet because I perceive them to be important. 

As we have worked our way through the minor prophets this summer we have learned at least one thing with great certainty: God is paying attention! He pays attention because the world he created and the people he loves are important to him! Sometimes we think of God as being distant and aloof; that he created the universe then just kind of let it go to run on its own. That’s not the God we see in books like Zephaniah. Notice the detail in the opening verse:

The Word of the Lord that came to Zephaniah son of Cushi, the son of Gedaliah, the son of Amariah, the son of Hezekiah, during the reign of Josiah son of Amon king of Judah.

How many of us come up with the first name of our great-great-grandfathers without help from some extended family member or from ancestry.com? Here we see that God not only has spoken to Zephaniah, whose name, by the way, means “defended by God”, but he knows his father, grandfather, great-grandfather and great-great-grandfather. You get the sense that God has been preparing Zephaniah for this moment for four generations!

We also see that God is paying attention not just to Zephaniah’s life but also to the people of Judah. Josiah was only 8 years old when his father, King Amon, was assassinated. Young Josiah inherited a kingdom that had been in spiritual decline for decades under the idolatrous reigns of both his father and grandfather (Manasseh). At the time he ascended to the throne, Judah was surrounded by hostile enemies like Assyrian king Ashurbanipal and Babylonian king Nabopalassar, and was therefore extremely vulnerable and needed strong leadership. 

Into this specific historical and spiritual situation God sends a specific prophet named Zephaniah, a man who he has been preparing for this moment for at least three generations, with a specific message for his people who are on the brink of destruction.

And so we learn in the very first verse of the book of Zephaniah that God is paying attention. This fact may seem somewhat trivial at first glance, but the truth is, nothing could be more significant! For if God is paying attention to Zephaniah’s life as well as his family tree; if God is paying attention to the people of Judah and the surrounding nations; then God is also paying attention to your life and to my life. And if God is paying attention then two things are equally true. First, we are all accountable to him for our lives and behavior; and second, he is present and available to us if we seek him.

Do you live with an awareness of God’s attentiveness? Do you know you are important to him? Do you know your life matters in the eternal scheme of things? 

Ask God by his Spirit to help you be more and more aware of his presence in, and attentiveness to, your life.

Pastor Brian Coffey