In the eighth month of the second year of Darius, the word of the Lord came to the prophet Zechariah son of Berekiah, the son of Iddo:
“The Lord was very angry with your ancestors. Therefore tell the people: This is what the Lord Almighty says: ‘Return to me,’ declares the Lord Almighty, ‘and I will return to you,’ says the Lord Almighty. Do not be like your ancestors, to whom the earlier prophets proclaimed: This is what the Lord Almighty says: ‘Turn from your evil ways and your evil practices.’ But they would not listen or pay attention to me, declares the Lord. Where are your ancestors now? And the prophets, do they live forever? But did not my words and my decrees, which I commanded my servants the prophets, overtake your ancestors?
“Then they repented and said, ‘The Lord Almighty has done to us what our ways and practices deserve, just as he determined to do.’” (Zechariah 1:1-6 NIV)
Our sermons this summer will be based on the Old Testament book of Zechariah. When you hear that, I bet I know what you’re thinking: “Zechariah? Why?” Do you know anything about Zechariah? I doubt it. Zechariah is one of the books in the Old Testament that are easy to skip over. Like Malachi or Hosea or Ezekiel… Do we really need those? Sometimes we Christians talk like the Old Testament isn’t as important as the New Testament. “Let’s just focus on Jesus. On the Gospels. The Old Testament doesn’t matter that much anymore, right?”
Wrong! Do you know how much of the Bible is God’s Word? All of it! So how much of the Bible matters? All of it! The Old Testament too. Every word of the Bible is important for you and me, because every word is the Word of God. There’s more: Jesus once said to the Pharisees, “You study the Scriptures diligently because you think that in them you have eternal life. These are the very Scriptures that testify about me” (John 5:39). Do you know what “Scriptures” Jesus was talking about? The Old Testament! According to Jesus, whom is the Old Testament all about? Jesus! We need to know it! So we’re going to spend the next seven weeks on Zechariah.
Zechariah lived a long time ago. That’s what can make the Old Testament seem so foreign to us. It’s full of names and places that we can’t relate to. So let’s remember the basics. God created two people. They were… Adam and Eve. Good start! After sin corrupted the world, God sent a big flood, but he saved… Noah. Yes! After Noah, God chose one man’s family to be his special people. That man was… Abraham. Abraham’s descendants ended up as slaves in Egypt. Whom did God use to free them? Moses. After getting to the Promised Land, the Israelites started to have kings. Their greatest king was… David. When did King David live? 1000 B.C. That’s not complicated! Are you following along? Adam and Eve. Noah. Abraham. Moses. King David…
After King David is when it gets complicated. David’s son Solomon was the wisest person in the history of the world. But, sadly, Solomon fell away from God. Because Solomon turned away from God, God said that the kingdom of Israel would be divided. God’s people were split into two countries. The northern country was called Israel. The southern country was called Judah. Both were God’s people, but they were now divided into two nations: Israel and Judah. Got it?
Of all the kings of Israel in the north, do you know how many believed in God? Zero. Not a single one. They all turned away from God and worship idols. Golden calves. Baal. Like wicked King Ahab and wicked Queen Jezebel. Finally, in 722 B.C., God allowed the Assyrians to attack and destroy Israel, and it never became a country again. That was it! So all that was left of God’s people was the southern kingdom: Judah. Do you know how many good kings they had? A few. Maybe you’ve heard of good kings like Hezekiah and Josiah. Judah had a few good kings…
But, in the end, Judah turned away from God too. It’s not okay to turn away from God. God wants us to love him with our whole hearts and souls and minds. So God sent the Babylonians to conquer Judah. In 586 B.C., Jerusalem was destroyed, the temple was burned, and the people were taken as exiles to Babylon. Follow all that? Remember my Old Testament dating system? Abraham: 2000 B.C. Moses: 1500 B.C. David: 1000 B.C. About 500 B.C.: Jerusalem destroyed.
But that wasn’t the end of the story. God is a God of grace! Even though his people had turned against him, he didn’t give up on them. Even though he allowed other nations to punish them, he didn’t stop loving them. In fact, God promised that one day his people would get to go back to their land of Israel. Do you think God kept his promise? Of course! In 539 B.C., King Cyrus of Persia conquered Babylon, and he allowed the Jews to return to Israel. So a group of Jews went back to Jerusalem, rebuilt the altar to the LORD, and laid the foundation of a new temple.
But, before they finished the temple, they got discouraged. A whole bunch of things went wrong. Most of the Jews decided to stay in Babylon and didn’t go back to help them. They had enemies all around who threatened them. They got distracted by building their own houses instead of God’s house. They were poor. Do any of these things sound familiar? They got discouraged. After they laid the foundation of the temple in 537 B.C., they didn’t do anything for 17 years.
That’s when the word of the LORD came to the prophet Zechariah. Did you notice the very specific date in our lesson? “In the eighth month of the second year of Darius.” This is real history! In October or November 520 B.C., God gave Zechariah a message for his people. Given how discouraged they were, we might expect the Lord to speak a word of encouragement. Something like, “I’m fixin’ to bless y’all.” A “feel good” message, right? Instead, “This is what the LORD Almighty says, ‘Return to me.’” What was God calling his people to do? Repent.
This is so important for us to see. The biggest problem for those Israelites was… Their sin. The biggest need for those Israelites was… To repent. They looked around and thought, “The big problem is that the temple isn’t built. That so many people didn’t come back with us. That there are enemies all around us. That we are poor. That we don’t have good houses for ourselves.” They saw so many problems, but none of them was really the big problem. What was the big problem? Their sin. “Do not be like your ancestors.” “Return to me, and I will return to you.”
I said this is so important for us, because it’s true for us today too. We look around and see so many problems, don’t we? We think, “The problem is the trees down in my yard. Is the bills I need to pay. Is the government. Is the pain in my body. Is the conflict with that other person…” Did I mention the government? We have lots of problems! But according to the Word of God, our biggest problem is… Our sin. What is our biggest need? Repentance. Return to the LORD!
Do you realize that the foundation of the Bible’s message is repentance? John the Baptist was sent to prepare people for Jesus. What did he preach? “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near” (Matthew 3:2). Jesus himself began to preach. Know what he preached? “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near” (Matthew 4:17). Sound familiar? After he rose from the dead, Jesus told his disciples, “Repentance for the forgiveness of sins will be preached in my name to all nations” (Lk 24:47). On Pentecost, Peter preached, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you…” (Acts 2:38). Notice a connection? From the Old Testament to the New Testament, this is God’s message: Repent of your sins. Turn away from them! Return to the LORD!
What does that look like? An ancient pastor—Augustine—said that us standing before God is like wax in front of a fire. People make some pretty impressive wax sculptures today, right? But what happens when wax is in front of fire? It melts. That’s us. We feel strong. We feel good! But then we’re confronted with God’s Word. And we start to melt. The façade starts to drip away. Repentance is standing in the presence of God, watching all of our false loves drip away, and confessing, “God, have mercy on me, a sinner” (Luke 18:13). God melts us like fire does to wax.
That’s what happens when we hear God’s Word. Jesus said, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind” (Matthew 22:37). That sounds good, doesn’t it? It sounds nice. Have you done it? Have you loved the Lord more than money or football or your friends or success or sex or … everything? What happens when we’re confronted with the truth of God’s Word? We melt. Our false front fades away. What’s left? Nothing. Repentance is to turn from all those empty sins and stand before God with nothing but the humble cry: “God, have mercy on me, a sinner”. That’s repentance. Like wax in front of fire.
Here’s another way to think about it: Repentance is God showing us our own face. There was a queen of England long ago who refused to have any mirrors in her presence. Know why? She didn’t want to see herself aging. For the last 20+ years of her life, she never looked in a mirror. She imagined herself as a beautiful queen, while her hair fell out and her teeth turned black. Isn’t that us? We want to think we’re good. To ignore the bad. Forget about the sin. God doesn’t allow us to do that. God’s law—his commands—show us our sin. Like looking in a mirror. “Oh. That’s what I’m like? I need forgiveness. I need saving!” That’s repentance. Return to the LORD!
Maybe you think, “I’ve done that already. I’ve already repented!” I don’t think you understand yet. Have you heard of the 95 Theses? Martin Luther wrote the 95 Theses at the beginning of the Reformation and changed the whole church. Here is the 1st of the 95 Theses: “When our Lord and Master said, ‘Repent,’ he willed that the entire life of a Christian be one of repentance.” Repentance isn’t a one-time thing. It’s an everyday thing. How often do we sin? Every single day. How often do we need to return to the LORD for his grace and forgiveness? Every single day. Repentance is the heartbeat of a Christian. Every day, “God, have mercy on me, a sinner.”
Why would we do that? It doesn’t sound fun! Here’s why: God loves you! Did you notice in our lesson how often it says, “The LORD says…”? Five times! Even though his people had turned away from him and rejected his prophets, what did God still do? Reach out to them. Call them. Invite them. Why? He loved them. Just like he loves you! Their sin had not changed God’s faithfulness. Their sin had not changed God’s grace for them. No matter what the people had done, God’s promises were not dead. He still longed for a relationship with them by grace.
When God calls you to repent, he isn’t just calling you to turn from your sins. He’s calling you to him. To find in him true love and true forgiveness and true peace and true joy. Do you remember the story of the Prodigal Son? The son who takes his father’s money and goes off and wastes it? When he repented and returned to his father, what did his father do? He wrapped his arms around him and kissed him. Do you know why God calls you to repent? Because he wants you. In his arms. As his son or daughter. Always. God longs to forgive you even more than you long to be forgiven. Return to the LORD! Your God is waiting with open arms to welcome you home.
All because of Jesus. Remember how I said that the Old Testament tells us about Jesus? Zechariah is going to tell us how Jesus would remove all our sin in a single day. Zechariah is going to tell us how Jesus would ride into Jerusalem on a donkey as our King. Zechariah is going to tell us how Jesus was betrayed for thirty pieces of silver, so that we know God will never leave or forsake us. When you know Jesus and his love and cross, do you know what that leads you to do? Repent. Turn from your sins. Return to the LORD. He’s always waiting for you.
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