Key Principle: God’s process of challenging us to face our sinful lives with honesty (and often tears) and allowing God to pull us close changes our view of ourselves and the world we live in. It is essential to restart life.
The Problem: Zech. 7:2 Now the town of Bethel had sent Sharezer and Regemmelech and their men to seek the favor of the LORD, 3 speaking to the priests who belong to the house of the LORD of hosts, and to the prophets, saying, “Shall I weep in the fifth month and abstain, as I have done these many years?”
The problem came down to this, “We did wrong and God brought us into discipline. We weep in remembrance of each of the disciplines of God – the time of the breach of the walls of Jerusalem (the fourth month fast), we weep again at the remembrance of burning of God’s Temple (the fifth month fast), we weep at the remembrance of God’s removal of our leaders (Gedaliah’s assassination is the seventh month fast), we weep at the memory of the beginning of the end of our capital city (Nebuccadnezzar’s siege began in the tenth month). Now we are on the road back. Should we keep recalling our discipline with weeping, or should we put it behind us? Should we keep the sorrow to show the seriousness of the sin, or can we celebrate the path back to renewal?
God’s answer came to the men of Bethel in ten truths that would carefully lift the burden of the discipline and replace it with the rejoicing of a soul set free. Why is that so important? Because for many people the forgiveness of God is less difficult to accept than to forgive myself. I was wrong and everyone knows I was wrong. I was probably selfish when I committed the wrongs – so think of how natural it is for me to turn pity to myself and maintain my selfishness.
Truth One: We can have a real walk with God if we will be honest and give up pretense and any religious show!
4 Then the word of the LORD of hosts came to me, saying, 5 “Say to all the people of the land and to the priests, ‘When you fasted and mourned in the fifth and seventh months these seventy years, was it actually for Me that you fasted? 6 ‘When you eat and drink, do you not eat for yourselves and do you not drink for yourselves? 7 ‘Are not these the words which the LORD proclaimed by the former prophets, when Jerusalem was inhabited and prosperous along with its cities around it, and the Negev and the foothills were inhabited?’”
Shows won’t do what God wants done. Recently, I saw a letter written by a relatively new Christian to the person whose life had influenced hers so greatly in a book called Being a Contagious Christian. Listen to some of what she wrote: You know when we met; I began to discover a new vulnerability, a warmth, and a lack of pretense that impressed me. I saw in you a thriving spirit – no signs of internal stagnation anywhere. I could tell you were a growing person and I liked that. I saw you had strong self-esteem, not based on the fluff of self-help books, but on something a whole lot deeper. I saw that you lived by convictions and priorities and not just by convenience, selfish pleasure, and financial gain. And I had never met anyone like that before. I felt a depth of love and concern as you listened to me and didn’t judge me. You tried to understand me, you sympathized and you celebrated with me, you demonstrated kindness and generosity – and not just to me, but to other people, as well. And you stood for something. You were willing to go against the grain of society and follow what you believed to be true, no matter what people said, and no matter how much it cost you. And for those reasons and a whole host of others, I found myself really wanting what you had. Now that I’ve become a Christian, I wanted to write to tell you I’m grateful beyond words for how you lived out your Christian life in front of me. From Becoming A Contagious Christian by Bill Hybels and Mark Mittelberg
Religion is about externals. Jesus is about real change that will eventually show on the outside. We needed SAVING from the inside out – nothing religious could do the work! I agree with the man who wrote: “If our greatest need was for information, God would have sent an educator.” “If our greatest need was for technology, God would have sent a scientist.” “If our greatest need was for pleasure, God would have sent an entertainer.” “If our greatest need was for money God would have sent an economist.” BUT SINCE OUR GREATEST NEED IS FOR FORGIVENESS, GOD SENT A SAVIOR. (Dynamic Preaching Disk, Winter 1992 “A”–What Do We Need For Christmas? Rev. Eric Ritz) an>
Truth Two: We must come to grips with the pain of our past distance from God – and accept the responsibility for our choices!
8 Then the word of the LORD came to Zechariah saying, 9 “Thus has the LORD of hosts said, ‘Dispense true justice and practice kindness and compassion each to his brother; 10 and do not oppress the widow or the orphan, the stranger or the poor; and do not devise evil in your hearts against one another.’ 11 “But they refused to pay attention and turned a stubborn shoulder and stopped their ears from hearing. 12 “They made their hearts like flint so that they could not hear the law and the words which the LORD of hosts had sent by His Spirit through the former prophets; therefore great wrath came from the LORD of hosts. 13 “And just as He called and they would not listen, so they called and I would not listen,” says the LORD of hosts; 14 “but I scattered them with a storm wind among all the nations whom they have not known. Thus the land is desolated behind them so that no one went back and forth, for they made the pleasant land desolate.”
The world would make you believe that freedom and responsibility are opposing values. It is not true. One writer said it well, but you must listen closely to follow the point: So what should we do about people who won’t take responsibility for their own actions? I believe the answer is simple: Set them free. Give them the freedom to make their own decisions, to face the consequences of their own acts, to see for themselves what their actions do to others and how others respond to them. Only free people have an incentive to be virtuous. Only people who bear the consequences of their own acts will care about those consequences and try to learn from their mistakes. A free society rewards virtue and punishes irresponsibility. Government does just the opposite – subsidizing irresponsibility while taxing work and responsibility. What do we do about people who might not plan for their own retirement? Set them free. Let each person know that his future depends largely on his own actions. If younger people see older people who haven’t planned ahead and have to rely on charity, the young will be more likely to provide for the future. Today when someone plans poorly, the only consequence people see is a demand for more government. What do we do about people who are insensitive to other people? Set them free. Let other people shun them or respect them for what they do. Let each person bear the results of being civil or uncivil. It’s often said that freedom and responsibility are two sides of the same coin – that if you want freedom, you must first accept the responsibility that goes with it. The truth is simpler. Freedom and responsibility aren’t interconnected things. They are the same thing. Freedom is responsibility. Responsibility is experiencing the consequences of your own acts – not the consequences of others’ acts or making others pay for what you do. And that’s what freedom is. Without government to force others to pay for your pleasures or mistakes, and without forcing you to pay for what others do, you are a free, responsible human being. Freedom and responsibility are inseparably linked – not because they should be, but because they are. Responsibility accompanies freedom, whether or not you want it to. So the only way to induce people to be more responsible is to set them free…” (SOURCE: How to make people more responsible Posted: February 21, 2002 By Harry Browne, © 2008 WorldNetDaily.com)
I must face the fact that what made the distance between God and I was my choice. I must change my choice to close that gap. It is not God’s to do, and I must own all my own daily choices. Blame means nothing but continued irresponsibility – and that means more distance and pain.
Truth Three: We must trust God that His promises are true – and we can rejoice NOW for what we have not YET SEEN!
8:1 Then the word of the LORD of hosts came, saying, 2 “Thus says the LORD of hosts, ‘I am exceedingly jealous for Zion, yes, with great wrath I am jealous for her.’ 3 “Thus says the LORD, ‘I will return to Zion and will dwell in the midst of Jerusalem. Then Jerusalem will be called the City of Truth, and the mountain of the LORD of hosts will be called the Holy Mountain.’ 4 “Thus says the LORD of hosts, ‘Old men and old women will again sit in the streets of Jerusalem, each man with his staff in his hand because of age. 5 ‘And the streets of the city will be filled with boys and girls playing in its streets.’
It is time for believers to LOOK UP! God causes me to exchange what I see now for what He promises. What was true for Abraham and Moses is still true – the great FAITH EXCHANGE” is still in effect.
In spiritual terms. God says our sin was cared for. God says that if you accepted Jesus by faith, HE was satisfied. If you reject Jesus, HE is not going to forgive. Let me illustrate: About the year 1830, a man named George Wilson killed a government employee who caught him in the act of robbing the mails. He was tried and sentenced to be hanged. However, President Andrew Jackson sent him a pardon. But Wilson did a strange thing. He refused to accept the pardon, and no one knew what to do. So the case was carried to the Supreme Court. Chief Justice Marshall, perhaps one of the greatest justices ever, wrote the court’s opinion. In it he said, “A pardon is a slip of paper, the value of which is determined by the acceptance of the person to be pardoned. If it is refused, it is no pardon. George Wilson must be hanged.” And so he was. Similarly, the value of Christ’s offer of forgiveness of all sin, of eternity in heaven and of the presence of the Holy Spirit to live in you depends upon whether you humble yourself and accept that. If we believe, we have life, Heaven and a future – because GOD WHO CREATED ALL THINGS SAID SO. If we reject His gift – we have NOTHING. Rejoice if you have Him – for your full redemption draws near!
Truth Four: We must learn to trust God’s heart! God shares the pain of our lives!
6 “Thus says the LORD of hosts, ‘If it is too difficult in the sight of the remnant of this people in those days, will it also be too di
fficult in My sight?’ declares the LORD of hosts. 7 “Thus says the LORD of hosts, ‘Behold, I am going to save My people from the land of the east and from the land of the west; 8 and I will bring them back and they will live in the midst of Jerusalem; and they shall be My people, and I will be their God in truth and righteousness.’
God is not immune to our pain and loss. He wants better for us. He wants a pliability that only seems to come when our world is falling apart. “The intensive care waiting room is a different world. No one is a stranger. They help one another. They grieve with one another and shed tears of joy together. There is no distinction of race or class. Vanity and pretense vanish. Everything focuses on the next doctor’s report or the next telephone call. Here in this anxious stillness it becomes clear that loving someone else is what life is all about. Why does it take the intensive care waiting room to teach us to forget our irritations and love one another?” (Herb Miller. Actions Speak Louder Than Verbs. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1989, p. 71). There is NEVER a time we hurt that God does not hurt beside us.
Truth Five: We must grasp the truth of our identity. We will only truly understand our worth when we see that we have it because of God’s value stamped upon His people.
9 “Thus says the LORD of hosts, ‘Let your hands be strong, you who are listening in these days to these words from the mouth of the prophets, those who spoke in the day that the foundation of the house of the LORD of hosts was laid, to the end that the temple might be built. 10 ‘For before those days there was no wage for man or any wage for animal; and for him who went out or came in there was no peace because of his enemies, and I set all men one against another.
We have value because God made us and says we have it. His is the only eternal opinion! He sees promise and a future where the world sees nothing but a mess! Let me illustrate this by something I read recently: “Technically speaking, David Ring was born dead. Quick acting medical personnel were able to get him breathing, but oxygen deprivation left him with cerebral palsy. He suffered from a speech impediment, hands that don’t cooperate, and a limp. As if that wasn’t enough adversity for one person, both his parents died by the time he was fourteen years old, and his hemophiliac brothers subsequently dies of AIDS. David’s remaining family members feared that David would never have a normal life, because they assumed he would never marry, have children, drive a car, earn a living or take care of himself. As a young teenager, David came surrender his life to God and came to see his disability as a gift. Once he began to see his circumstances as being chosen for him by God, he began moving forward. Today he is married, had four beautiful children, drives a car, and speaks to more than 250 audiences a year. At his speaking engagements he sells T-shirts bearing the slogan “Don’t Whine…SHINE!” David ring has taken responsibility for his life—the bad, the difficult and the wonderful. And he continues to celebrate the difference he is able to make in the lives of others. When people wrestle with difficult life experiences, the why question often gets in the way. One of David Rings Axioms is “Don’t ask God why. Ask What. What do you want me to do with this?” SOURCE: Stephen Arterburn and David Stoop, Seven Keys to Spiritual Renewal (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., 1989), pp. 85-86.
Truth Six: When God’s people live their identity, we see His promises lived out in God’s rich blessing that we are given to SHARE!
11 ‘But now I will not treat the remnant of this people as in the former days,’ declares the LORD of hosts. 12 ‘For there will be peace for the seed: the vine will yield its fruit, the land will yield its produce and the heavens will give their dew; and I will cause the remnant of this people to inherit all these things. 13 ‘It will come about that just as you were a curse among the nations, O house of Judah and house of Israel, so I will save you that you may become a blessing. Do not fear; let your hands be strong.’
Dick Staub wrote this in his fascinating book on sharing Christ: “Many years ago I attended a birthday party for my gay friend and co-worker, Julian. Sixty gay men and four straight women had gathered to celebrate in a high-rise penthouse with a dramatic sweeping view of San Francisco Bay. Greeting me warmly, Julian exuberantly kissed me on both cheeks (something that never happened at the office, I assure you). I took a deep breath and ventured into a scene that was well outside my comfort zone. I chuckled quietly, asking myself a familiar question: “What in the world am I doing here?” Actually, I knew why I was there. I had prayed with some friends about this occasion just a few hours earlier. I’ve always thought of events like Julian’s party as “wedding feast of Cana” situations. As so often happens when I follow Jesus into the world, opportunities appeared. Because I listened as the partygoers told me about their journeys, by 2:00 AM five of them were gathered with me in a corner talking about spiritual things. Dick Staub, “Please Pass the Salt: What We Can Learn From Jesus About Engaging Our World” from Discipleship Journal (Issue 122 Mar/Apr 2001), 47.
When we grow up in Christ, we start to realize that the original message – that Christ came to set us free – is just the beginning. We begin to realize that we were blessed to become a blessing! We were rescued and now have the status of an ambassador for Christ. Paul wrote of himself: Ephesians 6:18 …”With all prayer and petition pray at all times in the Spirit, and with this in view, be on the alert with all perseverance and petition for all the saints, 19 and pray on my behalf, that utterance may be given to me in the opening of my mouth, to make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel, 20 for which I am an ambassador in chains; that in proclaiming it I may speak boldly, as I ought to speak.”
Truth Seven: When we recall our former distance from God, we celebrate that it is now replaced by a deliberate intimacy!
14 “For thus says the LORD of hosts, ‘Just as I purposed to do harm to you when your fathers provoked Me to wrath,’ says the LORD of hosts, ‘and I have not relented, 15 so I have again purposed in these days to do good to Jeru
salem and to the house of Judah. Do not fear!
I did wrong and I suffered distance from God. NO LONGER! I can walk in the newness of life: 2 Corinthians 5:17 Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.”
Truth Eight: When God reaches a person – their behavior changes! It is characterized by truth, the desire to maintain peace, and contentment.
16 ‘These are the things which you should do: speak the truth to one another; judge with truth and judgment for peace in your gates. 17 ‘Also let none of you devise evil in your heart against another, and do not love perjury; for all these are what I hate,’ declares the LORD.”
We must leave behind the old shell of bad behavior. “From time to time, lobsters have to leave their shells in order to grow. They need the shell to protect them from being torn apart, yet when they grow, the old shell must be abandoned. If they did not abandon it, the old shell would soon become their prison–and finally their casket. The tricky part for the lobster is the brief period of time between when the old shell is discarded and the new one is formed. During that terribly vulnerable period, the transition must be scary to the lobster. Currents gleefully cartwheel them from coral to kelp. Hungry schools of fish are ready to make them a part of their food chain. For a while at least, that old shell must look pretty good. We are not so different from lobsters. To change and grow, we must sometimes shed our shells–a structure, a framework–we’ve depended on. Discipleship means being so committed to Christ that when he bids us to follow, we will change, risk, grow, and leave our “shells” behind.” (sermon central illustrations)
Truth Nine: When the Lord is enthroned by His people – the defeats of the past will become the joy of the present!
18 Then the word of the LORD of hosts came to me, saying, 19 “Thus says the LORD of hosts, ‘The fast of the fourth, the fast of the fifth, the fast of the seventh and the fast of the tenth months will become joy, gladness, and cheerful feasts for the house of Judah; so love truth and peace.’
I won’t forget how hard life was without Jesus. I needn’t ignore the years of pain and loneliness. I have a new life now, and I also needn’t live like I did before. I can rejoice. I can face life and death with confidence! I can do all that because Jesus experienced and took my pain: “John Stott wrote, “I could never believe in God, if it were not for the cross. In the real world of pain, how could one worship a God who was immune to it? I have entered many Buddhist temples in different Asian countries and stood respectfully before the statue of Buddha, his legs crossed, arms folded, eyes closed, the ghost of a smile playing round his mouth, a remote look on his face, detached from the agonies of the world. But each time after a while I have had to turn away. And in imagination I have turned instead to that lonely, twisted, tortured figure on the cross, nails through hands and feet, back lacerated, limbs wrenched, brow bleeding from thorn-pricks, mouth dry and intolerably thirsty, plunged in God-forsaken darkness. That is the God for me! He laid aside his immunity to pain. He entered our world of flesh and blood, tears and death. He suffered for us. Our sufferings become more manageable in light of his. There is still a question mark against human suffering, but over it we boldly stamp another mark, the cross which symbolizes divine suffering.”
Truth Ten: God’s change in us will raise a testimony that will show that He is in their midst!
20 “Thus says the LORD of hosts, ‘It will yet be that peoples will come, even the inhabitants of many cities. 21 ‘The inhabitants of one will go to another, saying, “Let us go at once to entreat the favor of the LORD, and to seek the LORD of hosts; I will also go.” 22 ‘So many peoples and mighty nations will come to seek the LORD of hosts in Jerusalem and to entreat the favor of the LORD.’ 23 “Thus says the LORD of hosts, ‘In those days ten men from all the nations will grasp the garment of a Jew, saying, “Let us go with you, for we have heard that God is with you.”’”
God’s process of challenging us to face our sinful lives with honesty (and often tears) and allowing God to pull us close changes our view of ourselves and the world we live in. It is essential to restart life.
Satan’s worldwide convention: “Satan called a worldwide convention. In his opening address to his devils, he said, “We can’t keep Christians from going to church. We can’t keep them from reading their Bibles and knowing the truth. We can’t keep them from forming an intimate, abiding relationship with Jesus. Once they gain that connection with Jesus, our power over them is broken. So, let them go to their churches, let them have their conservative lifestyles, but steal their time, so they can’t gain that relationship with Jesus. This is what I want you to do. Distract them from gaining hold of their Savior and maintaining that vital connection throughout their day!” “How shall we do this?” shouted the devils. “Keep them busy in the nonessentials of life and invent innumerable schemes to occupy their minds. Tempt them to spend, spend, spend and borrow, borrow, borrow. Persuade the wives to go to work for long hours and the husbands to work 6 to 7 days each week, 10-12 hours a day, so they can afford their empty lifestyles. Keep them from spending time with their children. As their family fragments, soon, their home will offer no escape from the pressures of work! Over stimulate their minds so that they cannot hear that still, small voice. Entice them to play the radio or CD player whenever they drive. To keep the TV, VCR, DVD, PC, Game Boy, and their XBoxes going constantly in their home. See to it that every store and restaurant in the world plays non-biblical music constantly. This will jam minds and break that union with Christ. Fill the coffee tables with magazines and newspapers. Pound their minds with news 24 hours a day. Invade their driving moments with billboards. Flood their mailboxes with junk mail, catalogs, sweepstakes and every kind of newsletter and promotional offering free products, services and false hopes.
Keep skinny, beautiful models on the magazines so their husbands will believe that external beauty is what’s important and they’ll become dissatisfied with their wives. That will fragment those families quickly! Even in their recreation, let them be excessive. Have them return from their recreation, exhausted, disquieted and unprepared for the coming week. Bombard them, day and night, with unbiblical values expressed in every direction. Rob their peace. Press them and they will slowly shrink away from freedom back into the lifestyle they were bought out of. They will be free, but they will live like the enslaved.“
God’s process of challenging us to face our sinful lives with honesty (and often tears) and allowing God to pull us close changes our view of ourselves and the world we live in. It is essential to restart life.
