100 years or so after Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to the castle church door in Wittenberg Germany a group of English Protestants called Seekers emerged. The Seekers, like the Lutherans, had become dissatisfied with Catholicism and could no longer tolerate the corruption they saw in that church. However, unlike the Lutherans who sought to reform the church based on God’s word, the Seekers decided to throw the baby out with the bathwater. The Seekers denied the effectiveness of the means of grace or what they called external forms of religion such as the Baptism, the Lord’s Supper, and Scripture. They sought an inner faith unfettered by reliance on the Scriptures, the Sacraments, preaching, and the dogma of organized religion. In short, the Seeker wanted nothing to do with organized religion.
Considering the Seekers aversion to organized religion, it is not surprising that they never became an organized group. However, the spirit of the Seeker still lives on today. The modern-day Seeker is serious about their faith, but they see their faith as more of a fluctuating feeling than a foundation built on fact. Modern day seekers are drawn to the nondenominational mega church where Word and sacraments are marginalized, teachings are intentionally vague and ambiguous, and the worshipers identify as spiritual but not religious.
Ironically the 17th century Seeker did not do a great deal of seeking. Due to their rejection of external forms of religion there was no liturgy to guide them, no music to inspire them, and no Scripture to teach them. The Seeker just sort-of sat there in silence waiting to receive a miraculous revelation from God that would lead them to personal enlightenment. Likewise, the modern-day Seeker does not do a great deal of seeking. Instead, they let their inner intuition and personal opinions guide them. They open themselves up to the possibility of the divine in the hopes that he (or she or it) will show himself (or herself or itself) to them and give them personal purpose.
Today we are taking a closer look at Zephaniah 2:3. Three times in that one verse the Holy Spirit calls upon us to be seekers. But the Holy Spirit has something different in mind than the 17th century seekers of England or the modern-day seekers that fill many mega churches. When the Holy Spirit calls upon us to be seekers, He intends that we should actually seek. The seeking we are called upon to do is not to be the passive pursuit of a docile Christian. Rather, our seeking is to be a diligent, intense, and exhaustive effort. Think about how you look for your keys when you are late for work. Or better yet, think about how you would search for the remote control if the T.V. was off and the SEC championship game was starting in five minutes. You would tear your house apart. Couch cushions would be flung across the room, lazy boys would be toppled, you would be on your knees with your phone flashlight looking under every piece of furniture and frantically yelling at all your family members to do the same. That is the kind of seeking the Holy Spirit calls upon us to do.
The reason our seeking is to be so intense is made clear when we read the rest of Zephaniah. The book of Zephaniah is thankfully only three chapters long. I say “thankfully” because the book of Zephaniah is kind of scary. The heading written in my bible at the beginning of the first chapter of Zephaniah is “Warning of Coming Destruction”. I don’t know who chose that heading, but it is accurate. The verses following that heading are full of words like “rubble”, “wrath”, “anguish”, “gloom”, “darkness”, “distress”, “ruin”, “demolished”, “deserted”, “destroyed”. The book of Zephaniah is a series of warnings about what is going to happen on what Zephaniah describes in verse three as “the day of the LORD’s anger”. The reason our seeking is so intense is because we are not seeking inner enlightenment or personal purpose, we are seeking to “be sheltered” from the destruction Zephaniah warns us about.
We further differentiate ourselves from the 17th century and mega church seekers when we allow the Holy Spirit, as He speaks to us from the pages of scripture, to guide us in our search. In Zephaniah 2:3. the Holy Spirit there are three things we need to seek if we want to be sheltered on the day of the LORD’s anger. In Zephaniah 2:3. we read, “3 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.”
I think it makes most sense to talk about the three things we are to seek in reverse order. Which means the first thing we are to seek is “humility”. So that it is clear what we are seeking we should probably make a distinction between “humility” “humiliation” and “humiliating”. Something that is humiliating is typically something that is done to you against your will which reveals your faults and failings to others. It is humiliating when your mom posts pictures of you as a baby in the bathtub on Facebook. Humiliation is something you inadvertently do to yourself that reveals your faults or failings to others. Getting pulled over for speeding in the front of the church on a Sunday morning might cause you to suffer humiliation. Humility, however, is something you have when you intentionally reveal your faults and failings to yourself.
Humility needs to be sought out because it can so easily be hidden in the shadows of successes, accomplishments, and comparisons. You are a group of people to whom God has given a generous amount of talent and ability. Your faithful use of those talents and abilities has brought you both personal and professional success. Therefore, it is no surprise that you have earned a number of trophies, ribbons, certificates, and plaques. Compared to other people, you have done well for yourselves. Which is why you are going to have to seek harder than most to find humility. You see, the devil, the world, and your ego are going shine a spotlight on your successes, accomplishments, and comparisons. Which is going to make it difficult for people like you to find humility.
Thankfully, the light that shines from God’s Law shines brighter than the spotlight controlled by the devil, the world, and your ego. The more time we spend in the light of God’s Law the easier it is to search for humility because the light of God’s Law reveals more than our faults and failings, it reveals our sin. It shines a light on the perfection God demands of us. It shines a light on how far we have fallen short of that perfection. It shines a light on just how much we deserve the destruction described in the book of Zephaniah. The light of God’s Law shows us even the most successful and accomplished people have reason to be humble.
After we find humility the next thing we are to seek is “righteousness”. Now, having just found humility, it is easy to understand why we must seek for righteousness. The light that shines from God’s Law has made it abundantly clear righteousness cannot be found among us. As the writer of Ecclesiastes once wrote, “There is not a righteous man on earth who does what is right and never sins.”[1] Passages such as this show us God’s Law is very helpful when seeking humility but not so helpful as we set out to seek righteousness. Thankfully, we read in Paul’s letter to the Romans that “21 a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. 22 This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe.”[2] From God’s Gospel another light shines forth. That light helps us to find righteousness because that light does not shine on us. The light of the Gospel shines on Jesus. It shines on His perfect obedience to God’s Law. It shines on His innocent suffering and death that paid for your sins and mine. It shines on His resurrection from the dead and His ascension into heaven where He waits to wrap His robe of righteousness around you and around me. In Jesus even the humblest of sinners finds righteousness.
Having found humility in our sins and righteousness in our Savior, the third thing we are to seek is “the LORD”. Notice the capital letters that make up the word LORD. Our English bibles do that to indicate that the one being referred to is Yahweh, Jehovah, the great “I AM”. This is no lord of the manor that we seek. This is the LORD of lords. This LORD is the creator who laid the earth’s foundations, hung the stars in the sky, and formed every living thing. This is the LORD of the covenant who has kept His promise to save us, is keeping His promise to provide and protect us, and will keep His promise to deliver us from this world to the next. This is the LORD we seek.
This LORD is not hard to find. Because of the work of the Holy Spirit, who has led us to find humility in our sins and righteousness in our Savior, this LORD who is both the creator of all things and the keeper of the covenant is already inside us. But still the Holy Spirit calls upon us to seek Him because when we set out to seek the capital L O R D what we are really seeking is service. We seek to serve the LORD in our worship where we offer Him our prayers and praises. We seek to serve the LORD in our lives as we accept His corrections and obey His commands. We seek to serve the LORD in our hearts where we trust His plans to prosper us and put our faith in the future He has promised us. Because of Who He is, what He has done, and what He has promised to do for us, we seek to serve the LORD.
Today the Holy Spirit calls upon us to be seekers of humility, righteousness, and the LORD because when the Holy Spirit leads us to find these three things, we find shelter from the destruction Zephaniah warns us about. The ending of the book of Zephaniah is not so scary for those who seek humility, righteousness, and the LORD. For such seekers the book of Zephaniah ends with words like “sing”, “glad”, “rejoice”, “save”, “delight”, “love”, “rescue”, restore”. The book of Zephaniah ends with a series of comforts for seekers such as yourselves.
The seekers of 17th century England never found the enlightenment and purpose they were looking for and as long as the seekers that fill the mega churches today depend on their inner intuition and personal opinion to guide them, they will never find it either. Thankfully, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit we are not looking for inner enlightenment or personal purpose. We seek something far more important than that. We seek to be sheltered on the day of the LORD’s anger. And because of the Holy Spirit who has called upon us to seek humility in our sins, to seek righteousness in our Savior, and seek service to the LORD, we have found what we are looking for. Amen.
[1] Ecclesiastes 7:20
[2] Romans 3:21-22