God’s Vision For Israel – Part 1
Zechariah 8:1-3
January 8, 2017
I know it’s been a few weeks since we last studied together here in the book of Zechariah, but I’m confident we can get back in the flow.
At this point we are 2 years away from the completion of the temple.
As it was being rebuilt we saw in chapter 7 an event that prompted this most recent sermon by Zechariah.
• A group of delegates traveled from Bethel to Jerusalem to seek the favor of the LORD.
• Their question had to do with a ritualistic fast they had been keeping in memory of the destruction of the temple by Nebuchadnezzar.
Continuing in this fast seemed strange for them for a couple of reasons.
1) It seemed strange to continue fasting for losing the temple when the temple was very close to being rebuilt.
2) It didn’t appear that this fast was working anyway since they couldn’t see that they were reaping much benefit from their faithfulness to keep it.
And you will remember that this reality
Sparked a sermon from Zechariah about seeking God’s favor.
We saw the LORD confront this group of delegates
(and really the entire land of Israel)
With three very important truths involved in seeking God’s favor.
1) Consider Your Real Purpose
Why do you do it? Is it for God’s glory or for your benefit?
2) Consider Scriptures Reiterated Prophecies
If you want to please God, then you should start by reading the word and seeing what things He has clearly revealed as pleasing to Him. Don’t invent some new uncommanded ritual and then assume that God will honor it if you remain faithful to it.
3) Consider God’s Revealed Passion
That is to say, you should look at the past and see how God has responded to various behaviors throughout history and there you will learn a great deal about what things are important to Him.
And that is good advice for any believer
In search of living a life that is pleasing to God.
But in all of that there is something else you should know, and it is this:
THE FAVOR OF GOD IS ULTIMATELY NOT A RESPONSE TO YOUR BEHAVIOR, BUT IS IN REALITY A CONSEQUENCE OF HIS SOVEREIGNTY.
In short, God shows favor to His children not because they deserve it,
But because He has chosen to show them favor.
If we were to put it another way, we could say that
God’s favor is a consequence of grace, not works.
So, while God did answer the question as to how to seek His favor (which we should all do)
Now God is going to reveal that His favor on Israel
Has always been a certainty based upon His grace.
And regarding Israel, I think I can prove this rather quickly.
There is no doubt to us who is considered the father of Israel.
It is Abraham. (actually the grandfather of the man God named Israel)
Remember what God said to Abraham?
Genesis 12:1-3 “Now the LORD said to Abram, “Go forth from your country, And from your relatives And from your father’s house, To the land which I will show you; And I will make you a great nation, And I will bless you, And make your name great; And so you shall be a blessing; And I will bless those who bless you, And the one who curses you I will curse. And in you all the families of the earth will be blessed.”
I hope you remember this from our study of Genesis, but what did this Abram ever do to deserve such tremendous blessing from God?
-Nothing
Abram was a greedy slave owner, whose only objective was to make a buck.
He wasn’t a particularly devoted man or even a moral man.
And yet we have there the God of the universe deciding, by grace alone,
To take this Abram and make him a tremendous object of blessing.
Now some would quickly say that this blessing
Was contingent upon Abram’s obedience.
After all God did tell him to first leave his country and his relatives
And go this special land before God would bless him.
Let’s consider that:
• Abram did leave his own land, but if you’ll remember, he didn’t leave his
relatives. He actually took his nephew Lot with him which proved to be a
problem God had to solve.
• He did go to the land, but if you’ll recall he only stayed until it became difficult,
for in the first famine Abram bolted.
• And these mistakes were only followed by others such as an adulterous
affair and even a debate with God regarding the source of his descendants.
The point is that the only reason God showed favor to Abraham
Was because God wanted to show favor to Abraham.
And even Abraham’s mistakes could not nullify this decision.
Now that is NOT TO SAY that Abraham’s mistakes did not come with discipline or even difficulty, they surely did.
There is a lot of hardship and difficulty throughout the patriarchal family
And it is all a result of sin and bad decisions,
But none of that sin, and none of those bad decisions
Ever changed God’s mind about His decision to bless this family.
That blessing flowed from Abraham to Isaac to Jacob
And all throughout the generations.
And for these refugees it should still be clearly in view.
Think about their situation.
• Against all odds, after 70 years being absent from their land, and living in a foreign nation…
• Not only have they returned to Israel, but they are also rebuilding their temple with the blessing of the king who formerly ruled over them.
There is no reason this should have happened and no explanation
Except that God was choosing to show favor to these undeserving people
To make sure that these refugees understand this
They are given this remarkable chapter here in the book of Zechariah.
Zechariah 8 outlines 10 remarkable revelations from God
Regarding His plan for Israel.
So let’s begin to work our way through it tonight.
#1 GOD REVEALS HIS PASSION
Zechariah 8:1-2
You’ll find it is rather simple to identify each of these revelations
Since they all begin the same way, “Thus says the LORD”
In most cases “Thus says the LORD of hosts”
And the first one is vitally important to our understanding.
God says, “I am exceedingly jealous for Zion, yes, with great wrath I am jealous for her.”
I love this statement.
I love the emotion.
I love the implication.
God says that He is “exceedingly jealous for Zion”
Thank about that for a second.
We do have other passages of Scripture which reveal God’s “jealousy”
Exodus 20:4-6 “You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth. “You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me, but showing lovingkindness to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.”
Exodus 34:12-17 “Watch yourself that you make no covenant with the inhabitants of the land into which you are going, or it will become a snare in your midst. “But rather, you are to tear down their altars and smash their sacred pillars and cut down their Asherim — for you shall not worship any other god, for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God — otherwise you might make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land and they would play the harlot with their gods and sacrifice to their gods, and someone might invite you to eat of his sacrifice, and you might take some of his daughters for your sons, and his daughters might play the harlot with their gods and cause your sons also to play the harlot with their gods. “You shall make for yourself no molten gods.”
Joshua 24:19-20 “Then Joshua said to the people, “You will not be able to serve the LORD, for He is a holy God. He is a jealous God; He will not forgive your transgression or your sins. “If you forsake the LORD and serve foreign gods, then He will turn and do you harm and consume you after He has done good to you.”
God puts His jealousy on clear display there.
We might say that “He is jealous regarding His glory.”
That is to say, He does not share His glory.
Isaiah 42:8 “I am the LORD, that is My name; I will not give My glory to another, Nor My praise to graven images.”
God is jealous regarding His glory.
Would we say that God has proven that throughout the ages?
Yes, I think we can say He has more than proven that.
• We saw what God did to the false gods of Egypt through the humiliation of
the plagues.
• We saw how God punished Israel with their neighboring nations every time
they stepped into idolatry during the times of the Judges.
• We saw how God eventually kicked Israel out of the Promised Land
throughout the period of the Kings for their willingness to give God’s glory
to false gods.
Scripture makes it abundantly clear that you should not cross God there.
It is an areas where He is jealous about something.
Well here God takes that exact same language and instead of applying it to His own glory, HE APPLIES IT TO ZION.
“I am exceedingly jealous for Zion”
God has the same kind of passion for His people
That He has for His own glory.
In fact, He says, “with great wrath I am jealous for her.”
That is to say, I get angry when anyone messes with Zion.
I get very angry when anyone touches My people.
Did we not already read in this book..?
Zechariah 1:14-15 “So the angel who was speaking with me said to me, “Proclaim, saying, ‘Thus says the LORD of hosts, “I am exceedingly jealous for Jerusalem and Zion. “But I am very angry with the nations who are at ease; for while I was only a little angry, they furthered the disaster.”
Zechariah 2:8 “For thus says the LORD of hosts, “After glory He has sent me against the nations which plunder you, for he who touches you, touches the apple of His eye.”
We saw this jealousy on display throughout those night visions.
• We saw Him talk of destroying those nations which plundered Israel.
• We saw Him rebuke Satan for accusing Joshua.
• We saw Him coming to the aid of Zerubbabel to finish this temple.
• We saw His promise to purify His people.
Those delegates came from Bethel to seek the favor of the LORD.
What they failed to realize was they clearly already had it.
You’d have to be blind to not be able to see how much God cares for her.
In fact, there is a word in the Hebrew that I really love.
I first came across it when we were studying Genesis.
The word is not used in this passage,
But I definitely see the evidence of it all over the chapter.
That word is CHESED in the Hebrew.
Most commonly it is translated “lovingkindness” or “kindness”
But it is more than just God being nice to someone.
I tend to think a better use of it is “loyalty” or “faithfulness”
I think you could even call it “preference”
In fact, in Hosea 6 it is translated “loyalty”
Hosea 6:6 “For I delight in loyalty rather than sacrifice, And in the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.”
God didn’t just want His people to be kind to Him,
God wanted loyalty or faithfulness from His people.
I first became acquainted with that word in our study of Genesis
Because it became evident that whatever it actually meant,
It was obvious that Abraham had it.
Abraham clearly had the CHESED of God on His life.
And whether or not Abraham recognized it,
What is evident is that those around him certainly spotted it.
Let me show you.
It became evident on the day when Abraham began to look for a wife for Isaac and Abraham sent his servant back to Mesopotamia with strict orders not to take a wife from among the Canaanites.
It was quite a mission to be on.
Go to a foreign country and find a woman who will marry your master’s son sight unseen and who will then accompany you back to this foreign land to be with him.
Because of the difficulty of this task Abraham’s servant prayed to God,
And I want you to see what this servant prayed.
Genesis 24:10-14 “Then the servant took ten camels from the camels of his master, and set out with a variety of good things of his master’s in his hand; and he arose and went to Mesopotamia, to the city of Nahor. He made the camels kneel down outside the city by the well of water at evening time, the time when women go out to draw water. He said, “O LORD, the God of my master Abraham, please grant me success today, and show lovingkindness to my master Abraham. “Behold, I am standing by the spring, and the daughters of the men of the city are coming out to draw water; now may it be that the girl to whom I say, ‘Please let down your jar so that I may drink,’ and who answers, ‘Drink, and I will water your camels also’ — may she be the one whom You have appointed for Your servant Isaac; and by this I will know that You have shown lovingkindness to my master.”
Abraham’s servant prayed that God would show “lovingkindness” (CHESSED)
To Abraham by revealing a wife for Isaac.
You know the story. At that time Rebecca showed up
And did exactly what the servant had prayed for.
After it was over the servant prayed again:
Genesis 24:26-27 “Then the man bowed low and worshiped the LORD. He said, “Blessed be the LORD, the God of my master Abraham, who has not forsaken His lovingkindness and His truth toward my master; as for me, the LORD has guided me in the way to the house of my master’s brothers.”
He reiterated that God “has not forsaken His lovingkindness”
I don’t know if it was obvious to Abraham,
But it was certainly obvious to everyone around him
That God was faithful to him; that God was loyal to him.
This servant even banked on the fact
That God always seemed to be loyal to Abraham.
And again I remind you that this was not based upon Abraham’s works,
But upon God’s sovereign grace.
Now the reality is that this loyalty always stuck with Israel.
See Jacob:
Genesis 32:10 “I am unworthy of all the lovingkindness and of all the faithfulness which You have shown to Your servant; for with my staff only I crossed this Jordan, and now I have become two companies.”
See Joseph:
Genesis 39:21 “But the LORD was with Joseph and extended kindness to him, and gave him favor in the sight of the chief jailer.”
Listen to Moses sing after God led Israel through the Red Sea:
Exodus 15:13 “In Your lovingkindness You have led the people whom You have redeemed; In Your strength You have guided them to Your holy habitation.”
Perhaps the most famous place this is used in Psalm 136
TURN TO: PSALMS 136
Do you see what the Psalmist is doing?
He is recounting every aspect of Israel’s history the fact that God has never ceased to be faithful.
And I think this gives us a better understanding of when God says, “I am exceedingly jealous for Zion, yes with great wrath I am jealous for her.”
• We could say, that He is so jealous in fact that He would drown the Egyptians after crushing them with plagues.
• We could say that He is so jealous in fact that He would uproot the Canaanites and give their land to Israel.
• We could say that He is so jealous in fact that He would thoroughly punish any and every nation that ever laid a finger on Israel.
DO YOU SEE THAT?
NOW LET ME TAKE IT ONE STEP FARTHER.
• No one in here has the slightest difficulty recognizing God’s faithfulness to Israel.
• No one in here has the slightest difficulty recognizing that God is in fact jealous for Israel.
• We could go on and on and on and on about all the supernatural ways that He has cared for them and delivered them and worked for them.
• Even today the fact that they are back in their land is an unfathomable miracle.
We can see it, it’s obvious.
DO YOU KNOW WHAT WE HAVE TROUBLE SEEING?
God’s faithfulness to us…
God’s jealousy for us…
That was the problem of this delegation that came from Bethel.
They were seeking God’s favor as though they didn’t have it.
• Could they not recognize that God had liberated them from exile in Babylon?
• Could they not see that God had given them back their land?
• Could they not see that God was protecting them from the enemy?
• Could they not see that God was helping them rebuild the temple?
God’s jealousy for them and faithfulness to them was all over the place,
And yet it appears they had difficulty spotting it.
I think we do the same sometimes.
We see God’s favor on others
And seem to have a much greater difficulty seeing it in our own lives.
But rest assured:
“Great is Thy faithfulness, O God my Father. There is no shadow of turning with Thee. Thy changest not, Thy compassions; they fail not. As Thou hast been Thou forever wilt be. Great is They faithfulness, Great is Thy faithfulness, morning by morning new mercies I see. All I have needed, They hand hath provided. Great is Thy faithfulness, LORD unto me.”
And that is the first thing God reveals here in His vision for Israel.
IT ALL STARTS WITH HIS JEALOUSY FOR HER.
God has a passionate love for His people.
A love not born out of merit, but grace,
And not only is evident, but it is also absolutely unchanging.
And of course we can carry this out as far as we absolutely want to.
• We actually have the benefit of seeing God incarnate coming to earth and
dying upon a cross simply so that He might redeem these people whom
God so dearly loves.
• We can fast-forward into the book of the Revelation and study chapters like
the one we studied this morning (Revelation 12) and see God’s faithful
protection of the woman Satan so desperately wants to destroy.
It is obvious.
• God loves her
• God cares for her
• God is faithful to her
• God is jealous for her
You’d have to be blind to miss it
So, God reveals His passion.
#2 GOD REVEALS HIS PLAN
Zechariah 8:3
Because God is so jealous and passionate for this people,
We next get into the revelation of His plan for them.
“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.’”
You see God’s plan there outlined in three steps.
1) I WILL RETURN
“I will return to Zion”
2) I WILL REMAIN
“and will dwell in the midst of Jerusalem”
3) I WILL RENOVATE
“Jerusalem will be called the City of Truth, and the mountain of the LORD of hosts will be called the Holy Mountain.”
The simple point being that Israel
Is at the very center of all of God’s plans going forward.
And to them this must have been a great piece of information.
Go back to the book of Ezekiel
• See Ezekiel fascinated with the glory of the LORD.
• Then go to chapters 10 and 11 and see God’s glory depart from Israel.
It is absolutely heart breaking and gut wrenching.
It gives the picture of absolute abandonment.
And certainly it must have felt this way since after God left,
Babylon entered and Israel was exiled.
God’s commitment to Israel must have been questioned
By more than one person over the next 70 years.
And of course it was not that God had “unchosen” Israel,
It is merely that she needed to be disciplined for her sin
And purified through that discipline.
God punished Israel, but He never forsook her.
• Watch Him protect Daniel and those other Hebrew boys time after time.
• Watch Him use Esther to protect them from Haman.
God hadn’t forsaken them, even though it must have felt that way.
The beauty here is that God has now promised to:
• “return to Zion”
• And “dwell in the midst of Jerusalem”
• And turn that city into “the City of Truth”
What is He referring to?
JESUS
I would imagine that when God said He would return to Zion,
That most of the Jews probably expected another cloud.
You remember the glory cloud that filled Solomon’s temple and forced everyone out…
I would imagine that this is what these Jews probably expected.
They probably figured another cloud was coming.
But God has something much better in mind than a cloud.
God wrapped His glory in human flesh.
John said:
John 1:14 “And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.”
The glory did come, not in a cloud, but in the form of a bond-servant.
God did return, and He returned to renovate Israel
And redeem Israel into the nation for God’s own glory.
Of course you know how the story unfolded…
• Israel rejected their Messiah just as they had rejected God’s glory in the Old Testament.
• And Israel nailed Jesus to a cross and killed Him, thus delaying the fulfillment of this promise.
And many have said that because of this God is now finished with Israel.
It is called Amillennialism.
But those who hold that view seem to have forgotten that
God’s favor to Israel has never been performance based.
In fact shortly after Jesus rose and ascended to heaven we have Peter preaching in Jerusalem and he says:
Acts 3:17-26 “And now, brethren, I know that you acted in ignorance, just as your rulers did also. “But the things which God announced beforehand by the mouth of all the prophets, that His Christ would suffer, He has thus fulfilled. “Therefore repent and return, so that your sins may be wiped away, in order that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord; and that He may send Jesus, the Christ appointed for you, whom heaven must receive until the period of restoration of all things about which God spoke by the mouth of His holy prophets from ancient time. “Moses said, ‘THE LORD GOD WILL RAISE UP FOR YOU A PROPHET LIKE ME FROM YOUR BRETHREN; TO HIM YOU SHALL GIVE HEED to everything He says to you. ‘And it will be that every soul that does not heed that prophet shall be utterly destroyed from among the people.’ “And likewise, all the prophets who have spoken, from Samuel and his successors onward, also announced these days. “It is you who are the sons of the prophets and of the covenant which God made with your fathers, saying to Abraham, ‘AND IN YOUR SEED ALL THE FAMILIES OF THE EARTH SHALL BE BLESSED.’ “For you first, God raised up His Servant and sent Him to bless you by turning every one of you from your wicked ways.”
• Peter reminds these Jews in Jerusalem that Jesus had done everything necessary to fulfill the prophecies regarding His suffering and atoning death.
• The only thing now delaying the promise is the repentance and faith of Israel.
• But once they repent and turn to Christ God will again send Him from heaven to do in Jerusalem exactly what He is promising here in the book of Zechariah.
WHY WOULD GOD STILL DO THAT FOR THEM?
Well listen to what Peter said:
(25-26) “It is you who are the sons of the prophets and of the covenant which God made with your fathers, saying to Abraham, ‘AND IN YOUR SEED ALL THE FAMILIES OF THE EARTH SHALL BE BLESSED.’ “For you first, God raised up His Servant and sent Him to bless you by turning every one of you from your wicked ways.”
It is because God is passionate about you.
God is jealous for you.
He made promises regarding you
He is loyal to you and those promises.
Paul said the same thing:
Romans 11:25-29 “For I do not want you, brethren, to be uninformed of this mystery — so that you will not be wise in your own estimation — that a partial hardening has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in; and so all Israel will be saved; just as it is written, “THE DELIVERER WILL COME FROM ZION, HE WILL REMOVE UNGODLINESS FROM JACOB.” “THIS IS MY COVENANT WITH THEM, WHEN I TAKE AWAY THEIR SINS.” From the standpoint of the gospel they are enemies for your sake, but from the standpoint of God’s choice they are beloved for the sake of the fathers; for the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.”
God’s plan for Israel hasn’t changed, because God is jealous for her.
• He promised to return to her and He will.
• He promised to dwell with her and He will.
• He promised to purify her and He will.
This is all part of the plan because God is faithful, God is loyal.
And, according to the theme of Zechariah, THE LORD REMEMBERS
Now we’ll stop here for tonight,
But I think some great points are made here for you and me.
• No, we are not Israel.
• We are Gentiles.
• We are a wild olive shoot that has been grafted in.
But we are, just as they, great recipients of God’s amazing grace.
We also are recipients of God’s favor, God’s loyalty, God’s jealousy.
And like Israel we receive those things not based upon our own works
But because the sovereign God of heaven chose to be gracious to us.
And just as God is seeking to quiet the anxiety of these refugees
Who are living in an unsettling time,
We can take great comfort in exactly the same way.
GOD IS FOR US,
And if you’d open your eyes you’d see that His favor is obvious.
That may not mean the absence of hardship (it didn’t for these refugees) but it certainly does mean the presence of grace.
• God was watching them as He is watching you.
• God was defending them as He is defending you.
• God was atoning them as He is atoning you.
• God was aiding them as He is aiding you.
They came questioning God’s favor and in reality
That is the last thing they should have ever questioned.
And it is the last thing you should ever question too.
God has been nothing but faithful, our entire lives are a testimony to it.
He is at work on our behalf continually.
It is not to say that we do not seek God’s favor, or seek to do the things that please Him; we most certainly do.
What you must understand however,
Is that His favor is not conditional upon our faithfulness.
Rather He shows us favor because He is faithful.
Rest in that for a little while.
Romans 8:28-31 “And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren; and these whom He predestined, He also called; and these whom He called, He also justified; and these whom He justified, He also glorified. What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who is against us?”
