August 28, 2022 – Sunday Service Live Stream

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August 29, 2022

Join the congregation of Ascension Presbyterian Church for our livestream of this week's worship service. This week, Pastor Christopher Brenyo is preaching on Zechariah 1:1-6. Visit us: https://www.ascensionpresbyterian.com/ Follow us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AscensionPre... Follow us on Gab: https://gab.com/ascensionchurchlongwood

00:04: Grace and peace to you in the name of the
00:26: Lord Jesus Christ. Welcome to the corporate worship of our God. Please stand.
00:35: The Lord reigns. Let the earth rejoice. Let the multitude of isles be glad.
00:45: Clouds and darkness surround him. Righteousness and justice are the foundation of his throne.
00:51: A fire goes before him and burns up his enemies round about.
00:57: His lightnings light the world. The earth sees and trembles.
01:03: The mountains melt like wax at the presence of the Lord, at the presence of the Lord of the whole earth.
01:10: The heavens declare his righteousness and all the peoples see his glory.
01:16: Let all be put to shame who serve carved images, who boast of idols. Worship him, all you gods.
01:24: Zion hears and is glad. And the daughters of Judah rejoice because of your judgments,
01:31: O Lord. For you, Lord, are most high above all the earth. You are exalted far above all gods.
01:38: You who love the Lord hate evil. He preserves the souls of his saints.
01:46: He delivers them out of the hand of the wicked. Light is sown for the righteous and gladness for the upright in heart.
01:53: Rejoice in the Lord, you righteous, and give thanks at the remembrance of his holy name.
02:01: Amen. Please pray with me. Father, Son and Holy Spirit, we joyfully come to you assured, confident because of Christ and his righteousness and his love for us.
02:17: We pray that you would attend our prayers, that your spirit would fill us, that you would enlighten our eyes, that we might see more and more and more of the glory of Christ.
02:33: And we pray that this worship would be acceptable and pleasing in your sight.
02:40: We have great confidence because of the merits of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, and whose name we pray.
02:47: Amen. Please kneel if you're able for the corporate confession of sin.
03:01: Let us join together with one voice and confess our sins. Almighty and most merciful
03:08: Father, we have erred and strayed from your ways like lost sheep.
03:14: We have followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts.
03:20: We have offended against your holy laws. We have left undone those things which we ought to have done.
03:28: And we have done those things which we ought not to have done. And there is no help in us.
03:35: O Lord, have mercy upon us, miserable offenders. Spare those,
03:41: O God, who confess their faults. Restore those who are penitent. According to your promises, declare them to mankind.
03:50: In Christ Jesus, our Lord, grant that we may hereafter live a godly, righteous, and sober life.
03:58: To the glory of his holy name. Amen. Please stand. This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, declares the
04:09: Lord. I will put my laws in their hearts and inscribe them on their minds.
04:15: Their sins and their lawless acts I will remember no more. O people of God, if you be in Christ, take heart today.
04:24: In him your sins are forgiven. Amen. Take up the hymnal and turn to number 173.
04:33: Praise him. Praise him. Please take up the insert.
07:35: Find the one that says 270 in the left corner, Psalm 134. Alyssa is going to play through one time, and we are going to sing through it twice since it's so short.
07:45: Psalm 134. And it happened in the same year, at the beginning of the reign of Zedekiah king of Judah.
10:02: In the fourth year and in the fifth month that Hananiah, the son of Azur, the prophet, who was from Gibeon, spoke to me in the house of the
10:12: Lord, in the presence of the priests, and of all the people, saying, Thus speaks the
10:17: Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, saying, I have broken the yoke of the king of Babylon.
10:23: Within two full years I will bring back to this place all the vessels of the Lord's house that Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, took away from this place and carried to Babylon.
10:34: And I will bring back to this place Jeconiah, the son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, with all the captives of Judah who went to Babylon, says the
10:44: Lord. For I will break the yoke of the king of Babylon. Then the prophet Jeremiah spoke to the prophet
10:50: Hananiah in the presence of the priests and in the presence of all the people who stood in the house of the
10:55: Lord. And the prophet Jeremiah said, Amen, the Lord do so. The Lord perform your words which you have prophesied to bring back the vessels of the
11:04: Lord's house and all who were carried away captive from Babylon to this place. Nevertheless, hear now this word that I speak in your hearing and in the hearing of all the people, the prophets who have been before me and before you of old prophesied against many countries and great kingdoms of war and disaster and pestilence.
11:26: As for the prophet who prophesies of peace, when the word of the prophet comes to pass, the prophet will be known as one whom the
11:33: Lord has truly sent. Then Hananiah the prophet took the yoke off the prophet
11:39: Jeremiah's neck and broke it. And Hananiah spoke in the presence of all the people saying,
11:44: Thus says the Lord, even so I will break the yoke of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, from the neck of all nations within the space of two full years.
11:54: And the prophet Jeremiah went his way. Now the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah after Hananiah.
12:00: The prophet had broken the yoke from the neck of the prophet Jeremiah saying, Go and tell Hananiah saying,
12:07: Thus says the Lord, You have broken the yokes of wood, but you have made in their place yokes of iron.
12:13: For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, I have put a yoke of iron on the neck of all these nations, that they may serve
12:21: Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, and they shall serve him. I have given him the beasts of the field also.
12:28: Then the prophet Jeremiah said to Hananiah the prophet, Hear now Hananiah, the Lord has not sent you, but you make this people trust in a lie.
12:36: Therefore thus says the Lord, Behold, I will cast you from the face of the earth. This year you shall die because you have taught rebellion against the
12:44: Lord. So Hananiah the prophet died the same year in the seventh month.
12:50: Now these, this is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. I'm going to ask
12:59: Miss Zahra to come forward and everyone else to be seated. Come stand here so we can hear you next to me.
13:17: Zahra, we're very thankful for you and your participation in the life of our church.
13:23: So I'm going to ask you some questions and if you can affirm these things, you should say
13:28: I do or I will. Zahra, as you enter into the privileges and responsibilities of membership, we ask you to assent to the following declarations and promises by which you enter into a solemn covenant with Christ and his church.
13:48: Do you acknowledge yourself to be a sinner in the sight of God, justly deserving his displeasure and without hope save in his sovereign mercy?
13:59: Do you? Do you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ as the son of God and savior of sinners?
14:07: And you receive and depend upon him alone for salvation as he is offered in the gospel.
14:13: Do you? Do you now resolve and promise and humble reliance upon the grace of the
14:21: Holy Spirit that you will endeavor to live as become the followers of Christ?
14:27: Do you? Do you promise to serve Christ and his church by supporting and participating in its worship and work to the best of your ability?
14:37: Do you? Do you submit yourself to the government and discipline of the church and promise to further its purity and peace?
14:46: Do you? I'm going to ask the entire congregation to stand and I'm going to ask the members of Ascension to respond with we will or we do.
14:59: Congregation of Ascension Presbyterian, do you resolve to remember your membership vows and resolve to hold this new member accountable to covenant membership for the glory of God and the peace and purity of Christ's church?
15:18: Do you? We do. Amen. That testimony of faith of this your servant.
15:42: Sarah, oh Lord, we pray that you would bless her and her
15:48: Christian walk and that you would use her mightily for your kingdom work and that she would revel today in the love that you have shown her, not only in taking her as your daughter, but putting her into a local expression of your church, a body of believers who love her, who will serve alongside with her, will bear her burdens with her and encourage her to walk in your righteousness.
16:20: Oh, Lord, we pray your blessing on this your servant today. In Jesus name.
16:26: Amen. Let us now confess our faith in the singing of the
16:32: Apostles. Please take up the red handle and turn to number 32.
18:24: Great is thy faithfulness. Number 32. Make arrangements for the prayers of the people.
22:07: Please kneel if you're able. After this manner, therefore, pray ye.
22:34: As it is in heaven, give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.
22:43: Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever.
22:54: Pray that we may glorify God in all that we do as we live and work in the creation that displays his power and be pleased to dispose all things to his glory.
23:07: Lord, hear our prayers. Pray that Satan's kingdom may be destroyed and that the kingdom of grace advanced.
23:46: Ourselves and others brought into it and kept in it and the kingdom of glory hastened.
23:53: Lord, hear our prayers. Pray that Satan's kingdom is finally crushed,
24:02: Lord God, and that your kingdom is hastened here on earth. Father, I pray that you would use us as your servants to do your work and to,
24:10: Lord God, expedite your will for your church and your world that you created, your creation.
24:18: Father, I pray that you would use all of us as tools in this great mission and that we would understand the importance of serving you with our lives.
24:27: Pray that God, for Christ's sake, would freely pardon all our sins. We are encouraged to ask this because by his grace, we are able from the heart to forgive others.
24:39: Lord, hear our prayers. ...which is worthy of you.
24:50: We often, given the temptations of the flesh, we act more like the world than followers of you.
25:00: We pray, Father, that you would forgive us for these trespasses.
25:05: We pray, Father, that you would cleanse us of our unrighteousness, that we may better love and serve you, that we would do right by one another, that we would love our neighbor as ourselves.
25:22: Father, be with us as we walk our lives day to day. Help us to earnestly seek you, to seek justice, love, mercy.
25:37: Pray that God would either keep us from being tempted to sin or support and deliver us when we are tempted.
25:47: Lord, hear our prayers. Against the world, the flesh, and the devil, we always strive for what...
26:00: I pray, Lord, that emboldened in you, and that always be facing towards you, reminded of the spirit that is in us, that you will give us the strength, as Paul says, that we can always have the power to face you.
26:15: And that we may be converted in this time of need that you will be with us. Our Father, taking encouragement and prayer from you alone, in our prayers we praise you, ascribing kingdom, power, and glory to you, and to testify of our desire and assurance to be heard, we say together,
26:37: Amen. Please stand. This is the
26:49: Psalm of the month. And this will be the last time we'll be singing it in August. Psalm 76.
29:40: Please remain standing for the reading of the word. I'm going to ask you to turn to the book of Zechariah.
29:48: And it is the next to last book of the Old Testament. I know it's hard to find sometimes, but it's very easy when you know that.
29:57: Zechariah. Our attention will be on verses 1 -6, but I'm going to read the whole chapter.
30:09: Zechariah chapter 1. This is God's holy and infallible word.
30:17: In the eighth month of the second year of Darius, the word of the
30:23: Lord came to Zechariah, the son of Berechiah, the son of Iddo, the prophet, saying,
30:30: The Lord has been very angry with your fathers. Therefore say to them,
30:37: Thus says the Lord of hosts, Return to me, says the Lord of hosts, and I will return to you, says the
30:46: Lord of hosts. Do not be like your fathers, to whom the former prophets preached, saying,
30:55: Thus says the Lord of hosts, Turn now from your evil ways and your evil deeds, that they did not hear nor heed me, says the
31:06: Lord. Your fathers, where are they? And the prophets, do they live forever?
31:14: Yet surely my words and my statutes, which I commanded my servants, the prophets, did they not overtake your fathers?
31:23: So they returned and said, Just as the Lord of hosts determined to do to us according to our ways and according to our deeds, so he has dealt with us.
31:37: On the 24th day of the 11th month, which is the month of Shabbat in the second year of Darius, the word of the
31:45: Lord came to Zechariah, the son of Barakai, the son of Ido the prophet. I saw by night and behold a man riding on a red horse and it stood among the myrtle trees in the hollow and behind him were horses, red, sorrel and white.
32:03: And I said, My Lord, what are these? So the angel who talked with me said to me,
32:09: I will show you what they are. And the man who stood among the myrtle trees answered and said,
32:15: These are the ones whom the Lord has sent to walk to and fro throughout the earth.
32:20: So the answered the angel of the Lord, who stood among the myrtle trees and said,
32:26: We have walked to and fro throughout the earth and behold all the earth is resting quietly.
32:33: And the angel of the Lord answered and said, O Lord of hosts, how long will you not have mercy on Jerusalem and on the cities of Judah against which you were angry these 70 years?
32:45: And the Lord answered the angel who talked to me with good and comforting words.
32:51: So the angel who spoke with me said to me, Proclaim saying, Thus says the Lord of hosts,
32:58: I am zealous for Jerusalem and for Zion with great zeal. I am exceedingly angry with the nations at ease, for I was a little angry and they helped it, but with evil intent.
33:12: Therefore, thus says the Lord, I am returning to Jerusalem with mercy. My house shall be built in it, says the
33:20: Lord of hosts, and a surveyor's line shall be stretched out over Jerusalem.
33:27: Again, proclaim saying, Thus says the Lord of hosts, my cities shall again spread out through prosperity.
33:35: The Lord will again comfort Zion and will again choose Jerusalem. Then I raised my eyes and looked, and there were four horns.
33:44: And I said to the angel who talked with me, What are these? So he answered me,
33:49: These are the horns that have scattered Judah, Israel, and Jerusalem. Then the
33:55: Lord showed me four craftsmen, and I said, What are these coming to do? So he said,
34:00: These are the horns that scattered Judah, so that no one could lift up his head. But the craftsmen are coming to terrify them, to cast out the horns of the nations that lifted up their horn against the land of Judah to scatter it.
34:18: May the Lord be pleased to bless the reading and hearing the proclamation of his word.
34:24: Please pray with me. O Lord, I ask that you would be pleased to do a mighty work in our hearts as we consider your prophet, your servant,
34:38: Zechariah's words. I pray that more and more of the glory of Christ would be unveiled to us, that our hearts would take comfort in the victory that you have won in him.
34:56: And, O Lord, I pray that today that we would heed the simple message, that we would repent, that we would return to you.
35:06: And we ask these things in Jesus' name. Amen. Please be seated.
35:28: I'd like to offer only one point of outline for you today.
35:35: The message is going to be the easiest, probably, that I'll be preaching through Zechariah. The problems start for me next week in the night visions.
35:46: But today I'd like you to write down, if you're taking notes, repentance and recommitment to the covenant is the foundation of God's kingdom work.
36:08: Repentance and recommitment to the covenant is the foundation of God's kingdom work.
36:21: You probably have never heard a sermon series on the book of Zechariah.
36:31: It's considered by many to be one of the two hardest books of the Bible to interpret.
36:37: And to apply is going to be difficult, but I think it's going to be a very fruitful journey for us to consider this great prophet of God.
36:47: We often misunderstand the title. This is the longest of the 12 minor prophets.
36:53: And we often mistake the idea that the minor prophets are somehow inferior.
36:59: But that designation, minor, is really in terms of length in comparison as we see as we're reading through the book of Jeremiah, very lengthy works in the major prophets.
37:10: And you might ask yourself, why would we today study the book of Zechariah?
37:16: Well, I'll remind you, it's very important for Christ's church to be under the whole counsel of God.
37:23: You might also ask yourself, where is Jesus in the book of Zechariah?
37:29: Are we going to hear anything about Jesus in Zechariah? And the answer is,
37:36: He is everywhere in its pages. The Old Testament ultimately is about Jesus, just as the
37:45: New Testament is. And in fact, the gospel writers quote chapters 9 through 14 of Zechariah extensively, and probably more than any other biblical source in relationship to His suffering and death on the cross.
38:02: Another more familiar section to us is found in Matthew's account of the triumphal entry.
38:08: You remember the king on that Palm Sunday comes in on the full occult of a donkey,
38:15: Zechariah 9 -9. That comes from our book that we're studying here. The language that John used to describe the crucifixion is taken from Zechariah 12.
38:27: In reference to that, he says and points to Jesus' suffering and says, they looked upon Him whom they have pierced.
38:36: Zechariah very well articulates the coming betrayal of the
38:42: Good Shepherd Messiah and the rejection of Him by Israel. Zechariah also develops some other important things, that grand messianic allusion to the branch, which sees a union of the offices of priest and king.
39:01: The crowning of Joshua will be an important thing for us to consider is nothing short than a glorious picture of the
39:08: Lord Jesus Christ. It points us directly to Him. You should be reminded that Jesus' name is really
39:17: Joshua. It's the same name. Jesus, Iesus, is the Greek derivation of that.
39:24: Yeshua would be the Aramaic form of that. But Jesus' name was
39:30: Yeshua. His name was Joshua. So this picture is a direct connection to the
39:37: Lord Jesus. The king -priest Joshua of Zechariah will point us to Christ.
39:47: But then there's some other remarkable things. All of this would be profound and delightful.
39:54: What about the night visions? The man in the midst of the myrtle trees, who is he?
40:01: What about these horses? What about the four horns and the four craftsmen that we just read about?
40:09: What about the plumb line, the man in the measuring line? What about the garments, the clean garments necessary for a high priest?
40:21: What about the golden lampstand and the two olive trees? And children, there's even in Zechariah a flying scroll.
40:30: How wonderful is that? There's a woman in a bushel basket.
40:37: And there are, at the ending of those visions, four chariots. All of these things,
40:42: I believe, will help us to see more and more of Christ. And at the end of the book, even the bells of the horses will be inscribed holiness unto the
40:56: Lord. Every pot and every bowl in Jerusalem and Judea shall be holy to the
41:03: Lord of hosts. What does that mean? Every implement, every beast of the field, everything is going to be consecrated to the
41:14: Lord in holiness in his service. Is this merely hyperbole?
41:21: Is it hyperbolic language? Is it merely symbolic languages? Or does it speak of something about our future?
41:30: I believe that Zechariah prophesies nothing less than the full realization of Christ's kingdom.
41:38: The historical background of Zechariah is the same as Haggai. It's the people following Cyrus' decree, nearly 50 ,000 of them have returned to Israel after captivity, and they're rebuilding the temple.
41:54: Haggai's focus is more on the work of the temple building, and it seems that Zechariah's focus is on the rebuilding of the hearts of the people, that they might have a future lived in faith and covenantal obedience.
42:16: So let us begin, praying that this will be a transformative season in our lives as a church, in your family, you individually, that the
42:29: Lord would use what the world and the church today sees as an obscure book to change our lives.
42:35: It is the very words of God coming out of his mouth to us, the prophet
42:41: Zechariah. Let's look again at verse 1 of Zechariah.
42:49: There are three important timestamps, and I'm going to save some of this more for next week.
42:55: So I'm not going to talk a lot about verse 1, but we have a very decisive timeline for when
43:01: Zechariah's prophecy was written. It was written after Haggai's prophecy started and before Haggai's prophecy ends, so it is entirely enveloped in the timeline of Haggai's prophetic work as well.
43:18: Ido's name pops up in places like Ezra and Nehemiah to give you a context of where this falls.
43:26: His grandfather was a notable high priest, prophetic man, I should say, in the history of Israel.
43:34: They're going to talk more about that in relation to the vision, the night vision next week.
43:41: So what does Zechariah begin with? What is the body of the language that he uses in his prophecy?
43:50: Look at verse 2. The Lord has been very angry with your fathers.
43:58: If you come off of I -4, there's a church called Grace Church, and it says the Lord is not angry.
44:03: I don't know if it's still there. Have you seen the billboard ever? Saw it this morning. I am here to tell you the
44:10: Lord is angry with the wicked every moment of every day. The Lord's wrath is kindled against all the sons of disobedience.
44:25: We have soft -pedaled the gospel to make it no gospel at all.
44:30: It is a terror to fall into the hands of the living God. Our God is a consuming fire and he will mete out his justice.
44:44: Now, contextually, I've already alluded to this. The people have been set free from the exile of the
44:52: Babylonians. The Persians under Cyrus and now Darius have treated them very favorably.
44:58: It's a very wonderful time in their history. The oppression, the boot of Babylon is now off of their neck and they've returned to the land.
45:08: Why does he start with a call to repentance? This is a time of happiness and joy.
45:15: He wants to remind them of something very important. The Lord has been very angry with your fathers.
45:29: The call to repentance. You can go back to the land. You can rebuild the temple.
45:38: And these are certainly emblematic of a greater purpose. Faithful, obedient communion with God.
45:45: You can have all the accoutrements of religion. You can have the great forms of prayer.
45:52: You can have a sound liturgy. But you can miss the substance.
46:00: The rebuilding of the temple is to reflect the hearts of the people that they've turned back to God and that he has come to them.
46:09: You can build a structure and God not be there. You can go through with exacting detail all the precise elements of worship and never invest your heart in it.
46:25: It's the danger that Zechariah is warning the people who've come out of exile.
46:36: It should be no surprise to us that the foundation stone of Zechariah's prophecy is repentance.
46:46: When you deeply study the idea of repentance, you realize that it is at its heart.
46:55: Genuine repentance is, therefore, in this regard, a return to God.
47:02: We talk a lot about repentance. I wonder if you are hearing me say, we got to repent.
47:08: Your eyes glaze over. You might say, I know that I'm a sinner. I don't need the pastor to tell me
47:14: I'm a sinner again. It's a normal response for people. I think we have that response to messages of repentance because we have a deficient understanding of what repentance is.
47:29: We do need to turn away from our sin. We need to mortify the flesh.
47:34: We need to purge all in our life that is displeasing to God without exception, without qualification.
47:41: That must be true. But the call of Zechariah, the call to repentance, is deeper and better than we imagine.
47:51: Christ's call to us to repent and believe the gospel is deeper and better than we can imagine.
47:57: It's not merely reforming our behavior. It's returning to God.
48:04: That's what real repentance is. My heart longs after God.
48:11: Therefore, I have to get rid of all of this. We have to put this in the right order.
48:17: To repent truly is to run back to God in faith and love and obedience.
48:24: It's relational. It's covenantal. It's not merely behavior modification.
48:29: Many authors have said, using different words, different phrases, they say something to the effect, and I've created my own little statement regarding it.
48:44: Christian obedience and faithfulness is the perfecting of repentance.
48:51: You say, what? Christian obedience and faithfulness is the perfecting of repentance.
49:00: What do I mean by that? As we grow in our Christian maturity, we repent quicker and more comprehensively.
49:13: When thoughts of pride enter into my head, the mature Christian should be putting that to death that it might not manifest itself in the mistreatment of wife and children and brethren and sisters in Christ.
49:29: The Christian life and maturity and godliness is the perfecting of repentance.
49:37: It's spotting sin early. It's turning swiftly.
49:43: It's repudiating and feeling it's repugnant because it distorts my vision of God and my union with him.
49:53: I don't want to sin because that muddies the waters of the communion and fellowship
49:58: I have with God. That should be the mature response. When we look at our sin,
50:09: Christian obedience, faithfulness is the perfecting of repentance, consistent, quick, comprehensive repenting.
50:19: And we have to acknowledge today we even have to repent of our repenting.
50:25: So what do you mean by that? We must repent of our repenting because our repentance has been halfway.
50:36: We have been content with coming back to God partway, not all the way.
50:44: So even the repenting that we've done requires repentance. The history of Israel is one of their failure to keep covenant.
50:58: I often think as Christians we unnecessarily discriminate against Israel and their failures because we look at them and say
51:06: I can't believe they do that. I encourage you to look into the mirror because you do the very things that you mock in them.
51:17: We look upon them with disdain. How could they do it? We have to look at ourselves and say we do those kinds of things as well.
51:29: Israel continues to fail. God has unveiled a glorious covenant.
51:36: He's bound himself to the people. And when they fail, he is relentless in his pursuit of them.
51:45: He bids them continually to come back to him. He is more eager and more zealous to forgive and to restore than we are to be unburdened by our sin and to be restored.
51:59: Did you catch that? He's more willing to unburden us of our sin and restore us than we are eager to have that.
52:10: It should be the opposite. We're the penitents. We're the ones who have fallen. We should be zealously clinging to God and say please forgive us.
52:19: Please cause my heart to repent and turn back to you. But he's the one it seems that does the pursuing.
52:28: This call of repentance, better stated returning, extends to the wayward church of the new covenant.
52:42: He's given us eternity and blessing and we forget. We return to our sinful passions and our self -interest.
52:53: It's true on the micro level as well. It's not only the story of Israel. It's not only the story of the church.
52:59: It's not only the story of your family. It's your story. So the message today is very simple.
53:07: Return to him. Return to God and faith.
53:14: Look at verse two again. Setting the stage. They are standing in the land, the land of promise, and they see all the ruins.
53:27: So when Zechariah says, the Lord has been very angry with your fathers. All they have to do is look out upon the landscape.
53:36: The walls of Jerusalem, her strength, the sign of her protection and God's protection and hedge around them had been toppled over.
53:45: The prosperity of the land flowing with milk and honey is desolate. The temple is in ruins.
53:56: So the words of Zechariah are accompanied with this sensory experience of they see with their eyes the consequences of a failure to keep covenant with God.
54:09: The Lord has been very angry with your fathers. And in the Hebrew, there is an interesting thing that's employed here.
54:18: The verb form of angry its root, I should say, and the noun of angry are woven together.
54:25: So we get this translation, which is not great English. You don't want to use a very a lot to describe something, but it says here, the
54:35: Lord was very angry with your fathers. That should give us pause.
54:41: I believe the Lord has been very angry with our spiritual fathers as well.
54:48: Our spiritual fathers have compromised the authority, sufficiency, inerrancy, infallibility of the scriptures.
54:58: Our spiritual forefathers, the continuing Presbyterian Church, the
55:04: PCA, they have beside Christianity. We have some of this in our tradition too.
55:12: We have a lot of failure in our past. So the words to Zechariah, they're timeless.
55:19: We can read the pages and we'll read a little summary statement of the failures in just a moment.
55:25: We can read these pages and say these are things for the past. Zechariah, that's a long time ago. That's ancient history.
55:32: Zechariah speaks clearly to us today. The Lord has been very angry with your fathers.
55:39: This is what you should go tell them. He says to Zechariah, say to them, thus says the
55:46: Lord of the hosts. This is the word of the Lord. This is the word that proceeds out of God's mouth.
55:54: Three words. Return to me. What an incredible thesis of the life we have with God.
56:09: Return to me. The returning means that there is a people who belong to God and they have a propensity for waywardness.
56:21: This speaks to his ownership of them and of us. He says, you're my people.
56:27: You're being fools. You're reaping the consequences of your unbelief and you're and you're transgressing my holy laws.
56:36: I love you so much. Come back to me and experience the warm embrace of perfect fellowship with me.
56:46: Have you thought of sin that way? Boy, it promises so much.
56:55: As a Christian, you have fellowship, close communion.
57:02: You somehow can walk into the holy of holies into the presence of God because of Christ.
57:11: Have you thought of that recently? The holiest men of God can't enter in and you and I rank and file ordinary
57:19: Christians. We can walk into the throne room of heaven because of what
57:24: Christ has done. What a loving father whose wayward children run away and rebel and they're obstinate and they're hard hearted.
57:36: He says, return to me. Come back to me. He says, in doing this,
57:46: I will return to you. I'd like you all to turn with me to the book of Acts.
57:55: In chapter seven, there is a faithful man named
58:20: Stephen. I'm going to read a sizable portion of this because it gives an accounting for some of the reasons that the
58:29: Lord is very angry with our fathers. This is
58:40: Stephen's incredible little sermon. It's a condensation, really, of the history of Israel.
58:47: I'm going to read it quickly. I want you to stay with me. We understand the basis of God's anger and judgment.
58:55: He says, brethren and fathers, listen. This is verse two of chapter seven.
59:03: The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia before he dwelt in Haran and said to him, get out of your country and from your relatives and come to a land that I will show you.
59:20: Then he came out of the land of the Chaldeans and dwelt in Haran. And from there, when his father was dead, he moved him to this land in which you now dwell.
59:34: The place that they are standing, the audience is hearing Zechariah is at least a significant realization of the
59:46: Abrahamic promise regarding the land. They've just been in exile.
59:52: They've just been under the tyranny. They've not lived in the land. Their place has been torn up and vandalized, and they've been away from their land.
01:00:02: And now God has brought them back. Verse five,
01:00:10: God gave him no inheritance in it, not even to set his foot on. But even when
01:00:16: Abraham had no child, he promised to give it to him for a possession and to his descendants after him.
01:00:25: But God spoke in this way that his descendants would dwell in a foreign land and that they would bring them into bondage and oppress them 400 years.
01:00:35: That's Egypt. So we have Egypt, Assyria and Babylon.
01:00:42: Right now, we have a friendly relationship contextually with Zechariah, with Persia and Cyrus, now
01:00:50: Darius. But there's going to be another oppressor called Rome. They're going to come in.
01:00:57: You could say the church today lives under the oppression of hostile regimes against God, wouldn't you say?
01:01:06: This is not unusual for the people of God to experience this. His descendants are dwelling in a foreign land.
01:01:17: They would bring them into bondage, oppress them 400 years. And the nation to whom they will be in bondage,
01:01:23: I will judge, said God. After that, they shall come out and serve me in this place.
01:01:31: Remember, that's how it's posed in in Exodus. They've got to be released from Egyptian bondage that they might return to the
01:01:42: Lord and worship. That's why they have to return. They have to get out of there because under that heavy system, they couldn't freely worship the
01:01:52: Lord. Verse eight, then he gave the covenant of circumcision.
01:01:57: And so Abraham begot Isaac and circumcised him on the eighth day.
01:02:03: And Isaac begot Jacob and Jacob begot the twelve patriarchs. And the patriarchs becoming envious, sold
01:02:11: Joseph into Egypt. But God was with him and delivered him out of all of his troubles and gave him favor and wisdom in the presence of Pharaoh, king of Egypt.
01:02:24: And he made him governor over Egypt and all his house. Now, a famine and great trouble came over the land of Egypt and Canaan, and our fathers found no sustenance.
01:02:35: But when Jacob heard that there was grain in Egypt, he sent out our fathers first. And the second time
01:02:43: Joseph was made known to his brothers and Joseph's family became known to the Pharaoh. And Joseph sent and called his father,
01:02:51: Jacob and all his relatives to him. Seventy five people. So Jacob went down to Egypt and he died.
01:02:57: He and our fathers. Now I want to stop here and a reminder about how we look at history.
01:03:05: If you're Joseph. And you love your family and you love your brothers and they sell you into slavery.
01:03:14: And you're thrown in prison and accused by Potiphar's wife and all these things. It all looks bad.
01:03:24: The next to last brother, the son of Jacob. His imprisonment and slavery and trial became the salvation of the nation of Israel.
01:03:37: Our God works in mysterious ways. On the surface, things could look very bad, but we don't know what
01:03:45: God is doing to redeem it into to plan for the future. Down to verse 17.
01:03:53: When the time of the promise drew near, which God had sworn to Abraham, the people grew and multiplied in Egypt till another king arose who did not know
01:04:02: Joseph. This man dealt treacherously with our people and oppressed our forefathers, making them expose their babies so that they might not live.
01:04:14: At this time, Moses was born and was well pleasing to God and he was brought up in his father's house for three months.
01:04:21: When he was set out, Pharaoh's daughter took him away and brought him up as her own son. And Moses was learned at all the wisdom of the
01:04:28: Egyptians and was mighty in words and deeds. When he's 40 years old, it came into his heart to visit the brethren, the children of Israel and seeing one of them suffer wrong.
01:04:41: He defended and avenged him who was oppressed and struck down the Egyptian presuppose that his brethren would have understood that God would deliver them by his hand, but they did not understand.
01:04:52: And the next day he appeared to two of them as they were fighting and tried to reconcile them saying, men, you are brethren.
01:04:58: Why do you wrong one another? But when he did this, his neighbor who did his neighbor wrong, pushed him away saying, who made you a ruler and judge over us?
01:05:08: Do you want to kill me as you did the Egyptian yesterday? And at the saying,
01:05:14: Moses fled and became a dweller in the land of Midian where he had two sons.
01:05:20: It doesn't seem like a very good life for Moses. Verse 30, when 40 years had passed, the angel of the
01:05:27: Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire and a bush in the wilderness of Mount Sinai. When Moses saw it, he marveled at the site and as he drew near to observe the voice of the
01:05:37: Lord came to him saying, I am the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, of Isaac and of Jacob.
01:05:42: And Moses trembled and dare not look. The Lord said to him, take your sandals off your feet for the place where you stand is
01:05:49: Holy ground. I have surely seen the oppression of my people who are in Egypt.
01:05:55: I've heard their groaning and have come down to deliver them. And now come, I will send you to Egypt.
01:06:02: God allows his people to suffer and to tarry under oppression for a time, but he always delivers them.
01:06:10: Always. Skipping down to verse 38,
01:06:19: I should say we read verse 37 because it's Christological importance. This is that Moses who said to the children of Israel, the
01:06:27: Lord, your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your brethren, him you shall hear. This is he who was in the congregation, the wilderness with the angel who spoke to him on Mount Sinai and with our fathers, the one who received the living oracles to give to us.
01:06:42: And here it is, whom our fathers would not obey, but rejected.
01:06:50: And in their hearts, they turned back to Egypt. You see, exile happens because the people of God turn their hearts away from God and they go back to Egypt and they go back to Assyria and they go back to Babylon and they go back to Persia.
01:07:07: They go back to Rome and God cries out, return to me.
01:07:15: Come back to me. Skip down to verse 44.
01:07:24: Our fathers had the tabernacle of witness in the wilderness as he appointed instructing
01:07:30: Moses to make it according to the pattern which he's seen. He had seen which our fathers having received it in turn also brought with Joshua into the land possessed by the
01:07:39: Gentiles, whom God drove out before the face of our fathers until the days of David who found favor before God asked to find and asked to find a dwelling for the
01:07:50: God of Jacob. But Solomon built him a house. However, following some of our thesis in Zechariah, the most high does not dwell in temples made with hands.
01:08:02: As the prophet says, heaven is my throne and earth is my footstool.
01:08:12: What house will you build for me? Says the Lord. What is the place of my rest?
01:08:17: Has my hand not made all these things? Do we need a temple to worship the
01:08:25: Lord? Stephen closes and this message should be applied to Zechariah.
01:08:35: It should be applied to his generation, to our generation. You stiff necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears.
01:08:42: You always resist the Holy Spirit as your fathers did.
01:08:50: So did you. Which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute?
01:08:58: Some of Zechariah's listeners and their children.
01:09:05: They rejected the coming of the Messiah. You see, the
01:09:11: Pharisees were like the people of Zechariah and Haggai's time.
01:09:16: They, they like the idea of the external form of religion. They wanted to conform to that, but their hearts were far from God.
01:09:26: They, they have not returned all the way back to God in their hearts. Stephen asked, which of the prophets is your father's not persecuted?
01:09:36: They killed those who foretold the coming of the just one referring to Jesus. And now the fullness of time has come.
01:09:44: The person of Christ, the glorious Messiah, Jesus has come. And now you have betrayed him and become murderers.
01:09:54: You receive the law by the direction of angels and you have not kept it. They heard these things.
01:10:04: They were cut to the heart. They gnashed him with their teeth. But he being full of the
01:10:11: Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God.
01:10:18: And said, look, I see the heavens opened and the son of man standing at the right hand of God.
01:10:26: That's authority. That's glory. That's power. Stephen sees it. And they ran at him with one accord.
01:10:34: They, they don't want to return to the Lord. The heavens crack open and Stephen peers into the glory throne room of God and the people in their hard heartedness.
01:10:46: Don't want to hear it. You and I have received the benefits of salvation.
01:10:53: We have known what it means to be in communion with God. And yet we are pulled away again to go back to Egypt, to Babylon, into captivity.
01:11:05: Let's turn back to Zechariah. I have to improve my timing here a little bit. I was angry with your fathers.
01:11:19: Very angry. Three times, he says, the Lord of hosts says, this return to me.
01:11:28: And I will return to you, says the Lord. I have a word for you today.
01:11:34: If you are in rebellion and disobedience against God today, our loving father bid you to return to come back.
01:11:49: The spectacle, the failure, he knows it all. He and his love and his forgiveness and his grace say, you return to me.
01:11:57: You come back to me. I will restore you to myself. You turn back to me.
01:12:03: You come back to me. Return to me, says the
01:12:09: Lord of hosts, and I will return to you. See, the temple is supposed to be the place where God's presence dwells, but it would be crazy to have an arc and a temple and a priestly service and to have hearts that are far from God.
01:12:30: It'd be crazy for us to have a liturgy that's well thought out, and it's got a redemptive arc, and it's got a lot of important features.
01:12:38: It's got confession and forgiveness, assurance. All of these things. And for us to not be fully invested in it, the time for half measures in relationship to God are over.
01:12:53: Now is the time that we are full on all in for Christ. No halfway there.
01:13:00: Repentance, no halfhearted devotion, 100 % comprehensive consecration and allegiance to our
01:13:08: Lord, our savior, our king, Jesus. This is what God is calling us to.
01:13:18: He says in the text, turn now from your evil ways and your evil deeds, but we have from there to acts and into the epistles and into revelation.
01:13:33: We didn't hear or heed his voice. They did not hear me nor heed me, says the
01:13:43: Lord, and he asked the question to close a couple of them. Your fathers, where are they?
01:13:50: Well, the answer is they're dead. They no longer have an option or an opportunity to walk in obedience.
01:14:00: You and I, the time is running short for us. What is the legacy going to be that we pass down to our children and our grandchildren?
01:14:09: What will they say about us? They say mama and daddy were 100 % totally committed without compromise following Jesus.
01:14:21: Or would they say there was a lot of complicating things in their religious life, their life of faith.
01:14:29: There's a lot of syncretism. There's a lot of half heartedness. Where are your fathers?
01:14:37: They're dead. Do the prophets live forever? No, we're six.
01:14:46: Yet. Surely my words, my statutes, which I command you commanded my servants, the prophets.
01:14:53: Do they not overtake your fathers? The grass withers, the flower fades.
01:15:05: But the word of our God stands forever. We will be dead and gone and rotting in the ground.
01:15:12: And this word will stand. And so they look around.
01:15:22: And then the people who perished in their captivity, some of them in wisdom, they, they, they see it for what it is.
01:15:29: And they say, surely we are here in this bondage because we have forsaken our God, just as the
01:15:38: Lord of hosts determined to do to us according to our ways and according to our deeds.
01:15:45: So he has dealt with us the ruins, the barren fields, the lack, the loss of honor, all of that.
01:15:57: They can attribute and said, surely the Lord of hosts has performed this because we have been disobedient.
01:16:06: He's dealt with us according to our ways and according to our deeds. This is how he has dealt with us.
01:16:17: Friends, the story for us and the new covenant is a little different. He's not really entirely dealt with us according to our ways or according to our deeds.
01:16:33: I look back upon my failures in my life. The Lord has always, it seemed, provided a soft landing for me.
01:16:41: The full weight to the consequences don't fall. How can we account for this?
01:16:53: This is a world of extreme precision. Obedience, perfect obedience is required.
01:17:02: The nations are judged because of their disobedience. That the Jewish people, Israel is, is, is finally seeing the reality of their disobedience and, and hope for tomorrow, a future of a rebuilt temple and prosperity and Judea and even the coming of the
01:17:18: King. But today you and I stand here, not judged according to our ways and according to our deeds, but viewed through the lens of the righteousness of Christ.
01:17:43: Christ was punished for us according to our deeds and our ways. And we've not been punished.
01:17:52: The Lord will chase in us. The, the full enjoyment of covenant blessings can be forfeited and disobedience.
01:18:01: But ultimately, the people of God in Christ, God has not dealt with us in this way.
01:18:08: They've, we've been dealt with in a very much more generous and loving and gracious way.
01:18:19: The Lord has not dealt with me according to my deeds. He's dealt with me according to Christ. It's astounding.
01:18:29: Well, I got into my, through my introduction. So I'll try to conclude here.
01:18:39: Repentance, this call to turn back to God, to return to him is primarily first and foremost, a relational and therefore covenantal act.
01:18:50: It's not just about repairing deviant behaviors which need to happen, but it's about a renewal of the relationship.
01:19:00: Does anything in your life compete with the love of God? You're missing it.
01:19:09: If it is, you're making a bad trade more than your family, more than your wife, more than your husband, you should love
01:19:20: Christ more than your pleasures, more than the ease, more than cigars and golf and all any entertainments, more than any recreations.
01:19:32: Does the twinkle in your eye, does it sparkle for Christ or for something else?
01:19:38: Today, we need to repent and make that be Christ for the covenant community emerging out of exile.
01:19:48: There had to be more than simply rebuilding a temple. Their efforts at reconstruction had to be an overflow of their heartfelt return to the
01:20:00: Lord. What if things started changing in America and it was more Christian?
01:20:07: Wouldn't that be wonderful? Abortion was really abolished and all those things.
01:20:13: Can you imagine the tragedy that would accompany those political gains? If our hearts were not turned to God, that he gave us some of those external things and we didn't have hearts that beaded and burned for God in Christ, we need a reconstruction of the temple of our person.
01:20:41: We need to be those who return to the one who seeks a deep covenantal relationship with him.
01:20:49: Brethren, God has a desire. He has a lawful claim on the entirety of our beings.
01:21:01: God wants all of our hearts and all of our lives. I think we should give it to him freely and fully every bit of it.
01:21:11: Let's give it to him. We'll consider more of this in the weeks ahead.
01:21:22: Let's pray together. Oh Lord, we say with the psalmist, search me,
01:21:42: Oh God, and know my heart.
01:21:51: Try me and know my thoughts and see if there be any wicked way in me and lead me in the way everlasting.
01:22:12: Oh Lord, I pray in the power of your Holy Spirit that you would take these, your people, that you would draw them with those loving cords, bonds of love, that you would grant them full repentance of wickedness in their lives, not so that they would be externally perceived as holy, but they would find themselves drawn near to you.
01:22:48: Safe, satisfied, delighted, filled with joy because they are in communion with you.
01:22:57: Oh Lord, we are an obstinate and stiff necked people. We pursue secondary pleasures all the time and fail to appreciate the greatest treasure, which is union with you.
01:23:12: There's nothing better than to be loved by you, to be in fellowship with you, to have our sins forgiven.
01:23:18: Oh Lord, I pray the power of your spirit that you would press this into our hearts and we would say amen and that we would walk a new pattern of holiness.
01:23:29: Not out of fear of punishment, but because we have returned to you.
01:23:37: Oh Lord, our nation, the world needs this message of your gospel. We thank you that like the prodigal father, you always receive us back.
01:23:48: Oh Lord, help us to proclaim the good news that Jesus Christ came to save sinners and that God, you love to turn people from their evil and wicked ways and show them what real pleasure and satisfaction and joy is.
01:24:04: Lord, I pray we would be zealous for those things that our hearts would be filled with joy that we would radiate the love of Christ and the glory of God and the nations would flood into our midst as a result.
01:24:20: And we ask these things in Jesus name. Amen. Let's continue our worship through the presentation of tithes and offerings.
01:25:00: I'm gonna ask you to stand with me, please. Oh Lord, we, we thank you for the good gifts you've showered us with.
01:25:20: Help us today to put our heads on our pillows tonight when we go to bed, giving thanks for all that you've done for us.
01:25:30: Lord, we're discontent. We're, we're some of the richest people who've ever lived on the earth and we want more.
01:25:38: I pray that you give us hearts of contentment. We're also pray that you would make us industrious and hardworking and ambitious for your glory and that our work and our life and our vocation, our time, our talent, our treasure, as we have learned again today, all of it belongs to you,
01:25:58: Lord. And I pray that we would be faithful and how we use all of it for your glory. And we ask that you would use these offerings for the bold proclamation of your gospel and for the building up of your church.
01:26:11: And we ask this in Jesus name. Amen. Let's give glory to God and the singing of the glory of pottery.
01:26:30: The Lord be with you.
01:27:15: Lift up your hearts. Let us give thanks to the
01:27:20: Lord. It is right and a good and joyful thing that we should at all times and in all places.
01:27:30: Give thanks to you. Oh, Holy Lord, father, almighty, everlasting God, because you sent your beloved son to redeem us from sin and death and to make us heirs in him of everlasting life, that when he shall come again in power and great triumph to judge the world, we may, without shame or fear, rejoice to behold his appearing.
01:27:54: Therefore, with angels and archangels and with all the company of heaven, we praise and magnify your glorious name evermore, praising you and singing, have seen something of our sinfulness again today and ask and wonder why, do you invite me as a guest?
01:30:00: Why do I have unencumbered fellowship at your table?
01:30:06: I look at your holiness. I look at my sin. It all seems so impossible, but we have
01:30:16: Jesus because he is the air because he is the righteous one and we have been united to him.
01:30:26: We have a place at the table. Oh Lord, I pray that you would cause us, your church to be nourished by this sacrament, that we would consecrate these ordinary things, which are bread and wine, that we would see in them the body and blood of Christ crucified for us and that we would derive strength and encouragement and nourishment for being united to him.
01:30:57: And we ask all this in the name of Jesus. Amen. Our Lord, on the night in which he was betrayed, took bread, blessed and broke it and gave it to his disciples saying, take, eat.
01:31:15: This is my body. Likewise, he took the cup after supper saying, this cup is the new covenant in my blood.
01:31:23: Drink from it. All of you, for as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the
01:31:29: Lord's death. Therefore, we proclaim the faith.
01:31:42: Let's humbly approach the table by praying this together. We do not presume to come to this your table.
01:31:51: Oh, merciful Lord, trusting in our own righteousness, but in your manifold and great mercies, we are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under your table, but you are the same
01:32:06: Lord who always shows mercy. Grant us, therefore, gracious Lord.
01:32:11: So to eat the flesh of your dear son, Jesus Christ, and to drink of his blood that our sinful bodies may be made clean by his body and that we may evermore dwell in him and he and us.
01:32:31: Amen. Christ, our Passover was sacrificed for us. The gifts of God for you, the people of God.
01:33:49: So to the presence of the
01:40:17: Lord, our sin is great, but his forgiveness is greater.
01:40:23: Still, you heard from his word. We feasted at his table.
01:40:29: It seems fitting that we would make a sincere and earnest commitment to him and faith. Let's do that together now.
01:40:36: Almighty. Thank you for feeding us with the spiritual food.
01:40:43: Precious body and blood of your son, our savior, Jesus Christ, and for assuring us in these holy mysteries that we are living members of the body of your son and heirs of your eternal kingdom.
01:40:59: And oh, Lord, grant us this other benefit that you will never allow us to forget these things, but having them imprinted on our hearts, may we grow and increase daily in faith, which is our work and every good deed.
01:41:15: And now, Father, send us out to do the work you have given us to do, to love and serve you as faithful witnesses of Christ, our
01:41:23: Lord, to him, to you, and to the Holy Spirit, the honor and glory, now and forever.
01:41:31: Amen. Please stand. We now have the privilege of giving glory to God for what he has done.
01:41:39: Let's sing earnestly to him. Receive now the blessing of our
01:42:23: God and King, the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the communion of the