Zephaniah 3:17 The Lord your God is with you, he is mighty to save Zephaniah 3:17 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. Prize winner – Jill W did guess words last week To really understand this verse we need to read it in context so we are going to study the whole book of Zephaniah today! Colouring exercise on table

Creation – sin - fall Abraham – God calls 1 man & family Go to Egypt and end up in bondage Moses out of Egypt and back to promised land Judges then Kings Kingdom divides – Israel north, Judah south Prophets speak: shape up or ship out Assyria scatters Israel Prophets – shape up or ship out Babylon takes Judah into exile Restoration rebuild temple and walls 400 year silence Jesus Where in this time line is Zephaniah?

Group work 1 – bible reading and discussion You have only 5 minutes to complete your tasks Open the envelope marked “group work 1” The envelope also tells you your group number Try to include everyone on your table in the tasks Each table has a different passage to read and different questions You will not need to feedback to the whole congregation, your answers are background for the second group yask Go around and give out second envelope to each group -

Group work 2 - presentations You have a message to present to the rest of the congregation based on the passage you read earlier Discuss in your group different ways you could present the message – ask everyone Written headline Picture Word mime Freeze frame (with voice over ?) Act out as TV news Choose one method of presentation and practice it – include as many of group as possible You have 10 minutes in total to prepare Your presentation should be no longer than 2 minutes

Zephaniah 3:17 The Lord your God is with you, he is mighty to save Zephaniah 3:17 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. Just a reminder this is the verse we are focusing on but we haven't got there yet!

What we see in early part of Zephaniah is God is very angry about sin Because God is holy he has to punish sin, he cannot just let us off, there has to be a price paid.

Punishment in the old testament this was done by sacrificing animals which people literally had to buy and take to the temple but another sin required another sacrifice Then Jesus died on the cross to be the complete payment for sin for all of us for ever, but it wasn't cheap it cost him dear

Discipline What was the message of all the prophets? Shape up or ship out This was Zephaniah's message to Judah Did they shape up? What happened next in the time line? The exile was God disciplining Judah

Repentance The bible tells us we all sin – even those of us who love Jesus and try to follow him The bible also tells us what to do when we mess up: basically say sorry to God We are going to do this now

we have wandered from your ways like lost sheep. Almighty God, merciful Father, maker of all things, judge of all people, we have wandered from your ways like lost sheep. We confess the wrong things we have done, said or thought, and the good things we should have done but did not. You alone can save us. Have mercy on us: wipe out our sins and teach us to forgive others. Bring forth in us the fruit of the Spirit that we may live as disciples of Christ. This we ask in the name of Jesus our Saviour. Amen.  In a few minutes if you feel you want to we are going to say these words together. Read through them quietly to yourself and see if God brings anything to mind that you need to say sorry to him for. If there is anything specific you could write or draw it on a piece of paper and bring it to the front and shred it

Zephaniah 3:17 The Lord your God is with you, he is mighty to save Zephaniah 3:17 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. So at last we get to this verse, where God the warrior righting wrongs becomes God the father cooing over a much loved child. Lets read it together God sings over us and we can sing back to him