1 Meeting God Again
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1 Meeting God Again - Zechariah, Part 2 - Sermon Manuscript If you have your Bibles, turn with me to Zechariah chapter 7. And while you get there, I have to say... I’ve learned a lot as a parent. One of those things is that kids are born with the natural capacity to make knucklehead decisions. “Not My Johnny!” They tend to learn the hard way HOMEWORK ● When I was a kid, I learned the value of doing my homework the hard way ● Now we’re trying to teach our kids why doing their homework is so important. I want to spare them the troubles that I went through. But it’s inevitable; they’re going to make the same mistakes… as parents we just hope they learn quicker than we did ● I’ve learned that at some point you just need to let your kids fail ● But when they finally get it, praise them for it! This is pretty much the story of the Israelites in the Old Testament. They constantly chose the hard way when it came to loving and serving God. He would ask them to do something, or tell them not to do something, but they wouldn’t listen. Except, their disobedience and disloyalty had far greater consequences than I ever had for not doing my homework. Not doing your homework is one thing… not listening to the Almighty God who created the universe is quite another! If you remember from previous weeks, God’s nation suffered destruction and 70 years of Babylonian captivity for disobeying Him. Now it’s the year 520BC and those 70 years have passed. God’s people returned to Jerusalem to rebuild, but the real question was whether or not they were willing to return to Yahweh God. 2 Their problem was that they consistently had to learn obedience to God the hard way. So, Zechariah’s purpose for writing was to communicate God’s message to His people so that they would be motivated back to proper worship. Here we go… Zechariah 7:4-7 - Then the word of the LORD Almighty came to me: 5 “Ask all the people of the land and the priests, ‘When you fasted and mourned in the fifth and seventh months for the past seventy years, was it really for me that you fasted? 6 And when you were eating and drinking, were you not just feasting for yourselves? 7 Are these not the words the LORD proclaimed through the earlier prophets when Jerusalem and its surrounding towns were at rest and prosperous, and the Negev and the western foothills were settled?’” There’s three questions here that I’d like to focus on. They’re actually a response to a question back in verse 3. What was happening was that people from the town of Bethel came to visit Jerusalem, and they asked the priests and the prophets: “Should I mourn and fast in the fifth month, as I have done for so many years?” The reason they were fasting in the fifth month was because they were remembering the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple. That’s why they would mourn and fast. So, they were basically asking: “Now that we’re back in Jerusalem and starting to rebuild, do we really have to continue doing an out-dated ritual?” God responded to their question with three questions of His own: Q#1 - When you fasted and mourned in the fifth and seventh months for the past seventy years, was it really for me that you fasted? The whole purpose of fasting is to deny ourselves the pleasures of this world, so that we can learn to depend and focus on God. It’s a spiritual practice that helps us put God first in our lives. 3 So, when someone fasts, they’re setting aside something they would normally do for themselves (like eating), and they would replace those activities with things like prayer and studying God’s Word. And in God’s first question, He’s questioning whether or not they were fasting for the right reasons. The thing is, serving God is all about the intention of our hearts. It’s always a good thing to ask ourselves what I like to call: heart check questions. In the New Testament, Paul encourages us to examine ourselves to see if we’re actually following Jesus for the right reasons (2 Corinthians 13:5). Because if we’re not, maybe our hearts are far from God and we didn’t realize it? Here’s an example of a heart check question: “Am I part of this service today because that’s what I’m supposed to do on Sundays?” Why do we gather? Why do we bother putting our sermons online? What’s the point of this ritual that we do on Sunday mornings? The purpose for meeting together should be so that God is glorified. Your participation in this service, even if you’re just listening, is an act that should be glorifying God and not ourselves. This is why I have a problem with churches that like to put on a show on Sunday mornings. Obviously we’re not about “the show” here at Refton! And it’s for good reason. Because the last thing we want is to facilitate an experience that glorifies ourselves. If you’re coming to church because you want an experience, you might as well be saying that you’re here to see what you can get out of it. But the truth is, those of us who put our faith in Jesus don’t need this building to experience God! This is why I don’t understand why worship songs try to ‘invite’ the Holy Spirit. If you’ve put your faith in Jesus, scripture passages like 1 Corinthians 6:19 tell us that you already have the Holy Spirit inside of you! 4 Again, we don’t meet together to see what we can get from God. We meet together so that we can give to God the glory He deserves. So, maybe we need to check our hearts. We shouldn’t be here simply out of obligation or for the Sunday morning experience. Our purpose for getting up this morning, getting ready, and gathering together (online or in person) as a church family… our purpose is to glorify God. Q#2 - And when you were eating and drinking, were you not just feasting for yourselves? In Zechariah’s day, God’s people were only concerned about themselves. Whether they were fasting from food or enjoying it, they were doing it for themselves. They weren’t giving any thanks or recognition to God. God was the one providing for them! But they didn’t care... And there’s the root of the problem… The problem of disobedience stems from selfishness. There’s really no way around that. When we disobey God, we’re putting ourselves before Him. We’re saying that we matter more than Him. We might try to say that we didn’t know any better… kids try this tactic all the time! They’re experts at it! Imagine telling your son to clean his room. An hour later you check on him and find that his room is just as dusty as when you first asked him to clean it. So you say, “Son, I thought I told you to clean your room.” The boy says, “I did!” But you say, “Then why is it so dusty in here?” And the boy proclaims, “Well, you didn’t tell me I had to DUST my room! I didn’t know!” For those of you that are parents, I know what you’re thinking... You’re thinking, “Well what did you think I meant by CLEAN your room?!” Kids pull that card all the time. And they’re kids - so in a way, they have an excuse. But God’s people had no excuse. They couldn’t say that they didn’t know any better. That’s leads us to God’s third question: 5 Q#3 - ‘Are these not the words the LORD proclaimed through the earlier prophets when Jerusalem and its surrounding towns were at rest and prosperous, and the Negev and the western foothills were settled?’ Any Parks & Rec fans out there? What do you think Perd Hapley would say to this? - “The answer to that question, is yes!” Yes! God’s people were warned again and again through the words of His prophets! They were constantly warned about the destruction that would come if they didn’t return to God. They were warned so much that... you could really build a case for God’s patience! Remember what the prophet Joel said (2:13-14)? Listen to this… he said, “Rend your heart and not your garments. Return to the LORD your God, for he is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love, and he relents from sending calamity. Who knows? He may turn and relent and leave behind a blessing” Jeremiah would prophesy the same message. Here’s one example from Jeremiah 18:8: “If that nation I warned repents of its evil, then I will relent and not inflict on it the disaster I had planned.” The prophet Jeremiah lived not long before God’s judgment finally came on His people; maybe about 100 years before Haggai and Zechariah. When the Word of the LORD came to Jeremiah, God said that His people only followed the stubborn inclinations of their evil hearts. They went backward, not forward.