Seeking God’s Favor – part 3
Zechariah 7:1-14 (11-14)
December 18, 2016
We are now in a new section here in the book of Zechariah.
• It has been two years since those night visions and the temple is about half-way finished.
• And during this period we had an incident occur that sort of inspired this new section.
• We had a group of men travel to Jerusalem from Bethel with the intention of seeking God’s Favor.
(2) “Now the town of Bethel had sent Sharezer and Regemmelech and their men to seek the favor of the LORD.”
Literally “to soften the face of the LORD”
And their question gave us a little more insight there as well.
They wanted to know:
(3) “Shall I weep in the fifth month and abstain, as I have done these many years?”
We noted that they had been fasting in the fifth month
In remembrance of the destruction of the temple and the burning of Jerusalem.
But there were two main reasons why that was no longer making sense.
• One was because the new temple was half-way finished and frankly it seems strange to fast about a destroyed temple when you’ve nearly got a new one.
• But perhaps the bigger issue was that it didn’t seem like that fast they had been so faithful to participate in had brought about the type of favorable response from God they had anticipated.
So now they are going to Jerusalem to see what’s up.
• God, are you just not interested in this fast?
• God, why are you not rewarding this fast like we expected?
So we are talking about what it means to seek God’s favor.
How you do it…
Why you do it…
What you should expect when you do it…
The first thing God addressed with them was in regard to their motive.
#1 CONSIDER YOUR REAL PURPOSE
Zechariah 7:1-7
What God revealed was that they weren’t fasting to please God,
They were ultimately fasting to please themselves.
They were only fasting as a means to manipulate good things out of God.
That is an absolutely wrong motive.
The things we do can only be done for one purpose and one purpose only
And that purpose is for the glory of God.
And even when we do receive reward from God we must understand that
It is only because He is generous, not because we have earned it.
Since everything we get from God is the result of His generosity
We have to quit looking at our service as a means to earn reward
And instead look at it as a means in which to glorify God.
Jesus spelled it out really clearly:
Matthew 5:16 “Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven.”
So the first issue you need to look at regarding a life
that seeks to please God or earn His favor is that you ask yourself:
Why you are doing it; what is your motive?
Is it for God’s glory or your benefit?
One is a true sacrifice, one is not.
So first we said to Consider Your Real Purpose
Then last week we started looking at the next truth to consider if you really desire to live a life that pleases God.
#2 CONSIDER SCRIPTURE’S REITERATED PROPHECIES
Zechariah 7:9-10
And this is really such a good and important point that is made.
(9) “Thus HAS the LORD of hosts SAID…”
In other words Zechariah points them
Not to a new revelation from God, but to an old revelation.
In this case it is a revealed word
That God has said over and over and over and over again.
“Dispense true justice and practice kindness and compassion each to his brother; 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.”
We do need to look at that command in its specific nature,
But first we need to recognize that this is not a new command.
In fact, we looked at nearly every Old Testament prophet
And found that they were all saying this.
The problem was that Israel continually ignored those sermons
In favor of continuing on in their religious traditions.
And to that we were making this point.
IF YOU ARE INTERESTED IN SEEKING THE FAVOR OF GOD
AND IN DOING THE THINGS THAT ARE PLEASING TO HIM;
IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO DO THAT WITH A CLOSED BIBLE.
God has not kept His desires for how you should live your life a secret.
In fact in most cases He has said it over and over and over.
These people were going through strenuous religious ordinances
In order to try and earn God’s favor;
How much easier it would have been to just read the Bible
And see what God had already said He wanted?
AND HOW INSIGHTFUL THIS IS FOR US.
How often we come wanting God’s favor, wanting to please God,
AND LIKE THESE PEOPLE WE SEEK IT THROUGH A MEANS
WHICH GOD HAS NOT COMMANDED
Let me give you a New Testament example:
TURN TO: MATTHEW 15:1-9
• Did you hear Jesus there?
• It’s the same thing isn’t it?
You got all caught up in some religious ceremony
And totally disregarded what I’ve been saying for years.
Let me show you another New Testament church that got off track here.
The church at Colossae obviously wanted to please God,
But the problem was that they were trying to please God
Without knowledge of the truth that God had revealed.
That is why Paul prayed for them like this:
Colossians 1:9-10 “For this reason also, since the day we heard of it, we have not ceased to pray for you and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so that you will walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, to please Him in all respects, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God;”
What were they doing?
How were they trying to please God?
Colossians 2:16-23 “Therefore no one is to act as your judge in regard to food or drink or in respect to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath day — things which are a mere shadow of what is to come; but the substance belongs to Christ. Let no one keep defrauding you of your prize by delighting in self-abasement and the worship of the angels, taking his stand on visions he has seen, inflated without cause by his fleshly mind, and not holding fast to the head, from whom the entire body, being supplied and held together by the joints and ligaments, grows with a growth which is from God. If you have died with Christ to the elementary principles of the world, why, as if you were living in the world, do you submit yourself to decrees, such as, “Do not handle, do not taste, do not touch!” (which all refer to things destined to perish with use) — in accordance with the commandments and teachings of men? These are matters which have, to be sure, the appearance of wisdom in self-made religion and self-abasement and severe treatment of the body, but are of no value against fleshly indulgence.”
Someone had told them that it was all about their religious routine.
Their festivals and new moons and Sabbaths and what they handled and tasted and touched and even more than that, what they abstained from.
And Paul said “These are matters which have, to be sure, the appearance of wisdom in self-made religion and self-abasement and severe treatment of the body, but are of no value against fleshly indulgence.”
In other words, those things all look good, but they really don’t help at all.
You would be better off to have a true knowledge of what God actually wants so that you know how to really please Him in the way you live.
Which is why Paul went on in chapter 3. (reminding what God wants)
Colossians 3:5-10 “Therefore consider the members of your earthly body as dead to immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed, which amounts to idolatry. For it is because of these things that the wrath of God will come upon the sons of disobedience, and in them you also once walked, when you were living in them. But now you also, put them all aside: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and abusive speech from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, since you laid aside the old self with its evil practices, and have put on the new self who is being renewed to a true knowledge according to the image of the One who created him”
See, it’s not confusing.
Just learn to do the things that God has said to do in His word.
WHAT IS MY POINT?
• If you are serious about seeking the favor of the Lord…
• If you are serious about living in a manner that pleases the Lord…
• Then read your Bible and do what He says.
It is IMPOSSIBLE for someone to claim that they are seeking God and desiring to please Him WITH A CLOSED BIBLE.
1 John 2:3-6 “By this we know that we have come to know Him, if we keep His commandments. The one who says, “I have come to know Him,” and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him; but whoever keeps His word, in him the love of God has truly been perfected. By this we know that we are in Him: the one who says he abides in Him ought himself to walk in the same manner as He walked.”
It is also IMPOSSIBLE to claim to seek God and desire to please Him if a person DOES NOT DO what their Bible says.
James 1:19-25 “This you know, my beloved brethren. But everyone must be quick to hear, slow to speak and slow to anger; for the anger of man does not achieve the righteousness of God. Therefore, putting aside all filthiness and all that remains of wickedness, in humility receive the word implanted, which is able to save your souls. But prove yourselves doers of the word, and not merely hearers who delude themselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks at his natural face in a mirror; for once he has looked at himself and gone away, he has immediately forgotten what kind of person he was. But one who looks intently at the perfect law, the law of liberty, and abides by it, not having become a forgetful hearer but an effectual doer, this man will be blessed in what he does.”
You get the point?
If you really are serious about living a life that pleases God
You cannot do this apart from studying and obeying the word of God.
These people want to please God,
Zechariah merely tells them that they should
Do what God has been saying for years.
With that being said, it is important that we not skip over those specifics.
We need to pay attention to those things as well,
Lest we end up just like the Israelites of old.
Look at the list:
“Dispense true justice”
(Treat your brother the way God says to treat him)
“practice kindness and compassion each to his brother”
(sounds like the golden rule here doesn’t it?)
“do not oppress the widow or the orphan, the stranger or the poor;”
(that is refusing to take advantage of those who are easy to take advantage of)
“do not devise evil in your hearts against one another”
(that is focusing on self and how to get ahead of your brother)
I actually heard Joel Olsteen on TV this week say that
“You cannot love your brother if you do not love yourself.”
That is the exact opposite of what Scripture says.
Scripture says you cannot love your brother if you do love yourself.
You’ll naturally love yourself, you have to choose to love your brother.
Now none of those commands are surprising to us,
We’ve seen them continually.
These are the types of things that God has commanded if you want to please Him.
WHY?
Because all of these commands
Are a direct contradiction to the natural desires of the flesh.
• The flesh will cheat and lie to get ahead.
• The flesh will take advantage of people less powerful.
• The flesh will look out for itself before it ever cares about anyone else
• The flesh will constantly look for a way to get ahead, even by plotting evil
The ONLY reason a person would walk in “true justice”
The ONLY reason a person would “practice kindness and compassion”
The ONLY reason a person would care for “the widow or the orphan”
The ONLY reason a person devises good in their heart instead of evil
IS BECAUSE GOD HAS COMMANDED IT
Let me give you a New Testament equivalent here.
TURN TO: ROMANS 12
Everyone is familiar with that opening verse about worship being
When you present your body a living sacrifice to God.
But what does that mean really?
(READ 9-21)
There is something like 27 individual commands there
And none of them is easy and none of them is automatic.
The only reason you would do any of those things
Is because they please God.
And now you are starting to understand what worship is,
And what it means to seek God’s favor,
And what it means to live to please God.
We seek God’s favor…
We live to please God…
When we do the things that God has commanded, for God’s glory alone,
Even if those things don’t naturally appeal to us at all.
Make sense?
So you want to please God…
• Consider the Real Purpose (motive)
• Consider the Revealed Prophecy (what God has said)
But there is a third thing we need to understand as well.
#3 CONSIDER GOD’S REVEALED PASSION
Zechariah 7:11-14
We just looked at everything God had been saying throughout history
To His people through His prophets.
• It didn’t take us long to figure out what things really mattered to God.
• It didn’t take us long to figure out how to really please Him and seek His favor.
However, those in the past
Ignored all that God said through those prophets.
In short, God told them to drop the religion and start obeying from the heart and they ignored Him.
(11-12a) “But they refused to pay attention and turned a stubborn shoulder and stopped their ears from hearing. 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;”
The question is:
HOW DID THAT WORK OUT FOR THEM?
(12b) “therefore great wrath came from the LORD of hosts.”
Really, what did His great wrath look like?
(13-14) “And just as He called and they would not listen, so they called and I would not listen,” says the LORD of hosts; “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.”
So let me ask you a question.
• Would you say that these things actually mattered to God?
• I know God said to do all those things, but did He really care whether or not you did them or was He just sort of cool about the whole thing?
I’d say it really mattered.
GOD’S REVEALED PASSION speaks volumes about how to please Him.
God was really angry. So angry in fact that He scattered Israel, destroyed their temple, ignored their prayers and made their land desolate.
• Time and time again God told these people to do justice and walk
humbly and love their brother.
• Time and time again they ignored those commands and sought
instead to bring sacrifices to God as an appeasement.
In response to their stubbornness God “refused to listen to them”,
He “scattered them…among all the nations”,
And He “desolated” their land behind them.
And apparently 70 years later, they still haven’t figured that out.
I know we looked at part of it last week, but let me take you a little further:
TURN TO: JEREMIAH 7
Last week we read (1-7), let’s go a little further.
(READ 8-16)
• Before Jerusalem there was Shiloh.
• It was were God first dwelled in Israel.
But God had no qualms destroying that place because Israel didn’t get it.
Now TURN TO: 1 Samuel 4
Here was Shiloh, where God’s ark dwelled.
(READ 4:1-11)
Now notice what Jeremiah was doing in Jeremiah 7.
He was asking people who were currently missing the point
To consider people who had previously missed the point.
Jeremiah was asking the religious people of Jerusalem
To consider how God previously destroyed the religious people of Shiloh.
In effect, he was telling them to Consider God’s Revealed Passion.
That is the same thing Zechariah is now doing 70 years later.
He is asking these refugees to consider the revealed passion of God back in the days of Jeremiah.
Do you see how angry God was back then?
• Just as Jeremiah told them they should learn from the previous destruction of Shiloh.
• Zechariah is telling them they should learn from the previous destruction of Jerusalem.
See, you learn what people want in the present,
By the way they responded to similar situations in the past.
I had a dad that could teach you how to read minds.
• Because if you didn’t learn to read his mind you were going to get in a lot of
trouble.
• I learned from past experiences how to please him in the present.
When Carrie was pregnant with Zek and we were living in Crawford,
• I was pouring a glass of tea, and after I finished pouring a glass of tea some
tea ran down the front of the pitcher. I grabbed the dish towel and wiped it off. Carrie looked at me and said, “I know you didn’t just wipe that tea off with my dish towel.” I’ve never done it again since!
YOU SHOULD LEARN FROM RESPONSES IN THE PAST.
(Israel didn’t)
And incidentally we should as well.
TURN TO: 1 Corinthians 10:1-11
Learn from the past.
• If you really want to please God, then find out what sort of things pleased Him in the past.
• If you want to avoid irritating God, then find out what sort of things irritated Him in the past.
Consider God’s Revealed Passion
WHAT IS THE POINT?
We have here a delegation of people who have been fasting for 70 years
And they have come to God to find out what their sacrifice is worth.
And to answer them God reveals that
• Although their sacrifice may have in fact been very difficult,
• It was actually no different than what their ancestors continually
did.
• They totally ignored what God said was important in order to do
the things they thought should earn them the most reward.
This never worked in the past,
So why would you expect that it would work now?
Listen to Jesus on the issue:
Matthew 23:23-28 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cummin, and have neglected the weightier provisions of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness; but these are the things you should have done without neglecting the others. “You blind guides, who strain out a gnat and swallow a camel! “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and of the dish, but inside they are full of robbery and self-indulgence. “You blind Pharisee, first clean the inside of the cup and of the dish, so that the outside of it may become clean also. “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs which on the outside appear beautiful, but inside they are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness. “So you, too, outwardly appear righteous to men, but inwardly you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.”
It’s the same issue isn’t it?
If you want to please God…
If you are really interested in seeking God’s favor…
• Then open your Bible and read about what He says pleases Him and do that.
• But don’t invent your own system of religious works and then take them to God expecting Him to reward you for it.
• God is a generous and gracious God who does promise many times to reward His children with good things.
• But it is important to understand that those rewards are NEVER earned, but are always given out of God’s grace.
• In response to this grace, we then seek to do the things that God says please Him.
• Not because these things gain us more earthly treasure, but because these things bring God more glory.
If you want to seek God’s favor…
If you want to please God…
• Do it with a pure heart.
• Do it with an open Bible.
• Do it with a historical context of how God has responded before.
2 Corinthians 5:9 “Therefore we also have as our ambition, whether at home or absent, to be pleasing to Him.”
