sermon 10-03-10

I want to go back to Zechariah 8 today and expand upon what I said last week. I’m going to use the New American Standard version this week to get a different perspective. I will start with verse 2: Thus says the LORD of hosts, 'I am exceedingly jealous for Zion, yes, with great wrath I am jealous for her.' If you remember from last week, the New Living translates it this way: My love for Mount Zion is passionate and strong; I am consumed with passion for Jerusalem! The word used there can mean to be jealous or to be zealous.
What the passage is saying is really twofold. First, God wants you all to himself. He doesn’t want you cheating on him with sin and second, he is filled with passion for you, his passion is marked by fervent devotion to you. In some sense it is an unreasonable devotion to you. He loves you so much that even though you treat him like garbage sometimes with your flirtation with sin he remains devoted to you. Now that doesn’t mean that he will just take your abuse forever. Even God has limits just ask all those that were slain in the wilderness, or that went into captivity because of their love for sin. You need to pay attention when the passage in Zechariah says that he is also zealous for you with great fury. He loves you so much that when you cheat on him he will pour out hot displeasure.
God gets emotional about you. He loves you so much that when he finds you cheating on him with sin he gets filled with a hot hot heat. Too often we view such things as abuse in our day and age but really what the passage is saying is that God loves you so much that when you get out of line he will bring discipline into your life to bring you back to him. He is love is not a passive love or a pretend love. He loves us so much that he won’t let us get away with rebellion.
I think God is letting us know that because He is passionate in his devotion toward us we shouldn’t get cocky and say he needs us and think that we can get away with murder. God is not like us; he doesn’t confuse pity and love. God loves us enough to give us what we need to grow up regardless of how painful it is. He’s not worried about you being angry at him or that you will leave him. God doesn’t need you. He is self sufficient. You don’t complete him. He is not lonely or empty when you are gone. But He wants you and that’s a big deal. He is pouring out his love upon you. Reject that love and he will reject you. Embrace that love and he will pour out wonderful things upon your life: Things that you can’t begin to imagine.
Let me read the rest of what we touched on last week and then finish the chapter: 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.' 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 difficult 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; 8and 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.'
If you remember from last week I spoke about when God humbles our hearts before him he will allow us to grow into maturity and he will cause new believers to be born in our midst. Those things are still true this week. God is going to save his people. He knows who those people are that are his and he will save them. What is our job? To walk humbly with our God in his commands.
Look at what he tells us in verse 9 “This is what the Lord of hosts says: Be strong and finish the task! Ever since the laying of the foundation of the Temple of the Lord of hosts, you have heard what the prophets have been saying about completing the building. 10 Before the work on the Temple began, there were no jobs and no money to hire people or animals. No traveler was safe from the enemy, for there were enemies on all sides. I had turned everyone against each other.
What is he saying here? Think back on your journey to the faith. Was it an easy one? No there were enemies on all sides trying to stop you from becoming a part of the temple of God, the body of Christ. But God put a call out, he made a plan before the foundation of the world and said this person is going to be a part of my temple. He is mine and I will make sure that he or she makes it in.
Now that you’re in is it an easy journey? Are you kicked back by the pool living the good life waiting for the end of the world? I hope not. We haven’t arrived yet God is still working on his building. Now I don’t’ know about you but I get frustrated sometimes because it seems like there is a lack of wages for all the work that I’m doing. I think I’m working really hard at doing what’s right but then the enemy comes and just rips it all down and it gets so frustrating. I get tired of the enemy sticking his ugly face in my business all the time.
I’ll be honest with you sometimes I blame God for what the enemy does. I’ll take a step forward and then find myself taking to steps or ten steps backwards and I will say: God why are you doing this to me? Do you know that feeling? I get so focused on the sovereignty of God and his total plan for all of life that I immediately jump all over his case but that is wrong.
When I do that I am bringing God down to my level and saying his plan comes about the way my planning comes about. I have to do everything and be responsible for everything but God’s ways are not my ways. And I must remember that. That is one of my frustrations with some of the people that call themselves Calvinists they bring the sovereign God’s plan down to the level of man and that is wrong.
We had a bit of this discussion on Wednesday night. And I want to make sure you understand where I’m coming from on this matter: the scripture is clear that God’s ways are so much beyond our comprehension that even though he has planned all that is: He has done it in such a way that he is beyond responsibility. God doesn’t make you sin. In fact, on Sunday nights a while back we came a cross the verse that says that everything is permitted but not all things are lawful. What that means is that you are free to do anything you want to do, EVEN SIN but if you sin there will be repercussions from that. This is God’s world and it runs according to his laws.
The law of God says you will reap what you sow. Covenant breaking brings covenant curses. Covenant keeping brings covenant blessings. If you don’t incorporate all of the word of God into your understanding of the faith then you will make some dreadful mistakes. You might become arrogant and think that you know everything that is important, you might think you know how things really work but that is impossible for human beings. We cannot know the mind of God; we can only know what he reveals to us in his word.
We can see what neglecting part of the word or adding to the word of God can bring about by looking at the theology wars that rage in the church today. Some who call themselves Calvinists would make John Calvin turn over in his grave by the things that they believe. They try to give God the responsibility for people ending up in hell. But the scripture is clear any one that ends up in hell goes their because of their choices. No one will be able to say it’s God’s fault I’m here. Others in that same camp have been known to say we don’t need to do anything because God is going to save who he wants to save. Once again you have to deny the scripture in order to say that. We are called to proclaim the good news. We are called to be ready in season and out of season. We are called to go into all the world with the good news of Christ.
Now those on the other side of the theological fence from Calvinists are just as guilty. The scripture clearly says that God has chosen the elect from before the foundation of the world. It also says that we can make all the plans we want but God determines the outcome. God does not need us to do anything for him but he expects us to do our duty in keeping the commandments. Many times those in this theological camp try to limit the work of God to Salvation as if that is all that God was concerned about but that is not true. God created us to take dominion over every area of life from business to agriculture, education to politics, from nations to local governments God requires every area of life to be submitted to his law word.
The point in all of this is that it is not what you think or your theology says that makes things right. It is what the word of God says. And if the word of God says something that your brain can’t handle trust the word of God over your brain. The word of God is the only foundation upon which all of life can be built. It is the path of life and to stray off of the path of life because it doesn’t make sense to you is to turn from life unto death.
This is where faith comes in. Do you trust God enough to believe his word even if you don’t like it? Even if it makes you mad? That is where the rubber hits the road in our day and age. I say all that because we need to understand that there are enemies about that are trying to destroy the work of God. That is a large part of where our frustration in building the body of Christ comes from. We are being attacked from within and without in an effort to make us turn from the path of life and wallow in death.
We must pray for the grace of God to give us the strength to believe God and his word regardless of what reason says or logic, or anybody says. We must pray to the living God and beg him stop the enemies from disrupting the work that He has called us to do. We must beg him to let us stay on the path of life.
For instance, I knew at the age of 13 or 14 that God had called me to the ministry. I knew that, I can’t tell you how I knew that but I did. It was like a burning ember in my heart. And yet over the course of the next 30 years the enemies of God disrupted the work. Most of that time the work that was done on me was done without pay. By that I mean that there was no real profit for me being a Christian. It was a struggle. It was difficult. I didn’t see many of the promises of God come to fruition. But what God did was use the work of the enemy to stir me up and purge material from my heart that wasn’t suitable for building. God used those thirty years to get me ready to both be the building and to work on the building.
You see ever since you came to the faith the enemy has been doing everything in his power to keep you from making it to where you are supposed to be. Why? Because you used to be on his side and you defected. That makes him mad and he wants nothing more than to show God’s plan to be a failure. His only goal in life is to prove God to be a liar and if he can make you fall down he thinks he’s making headway. Even if all he can do is make you get mad at God for doing all this stuff to you instead of him he thinks he’s won a little victory. I mean he knows deep inside that he has lost the battle but that doesn’t stop him from making as much trouble for you as he can.
I’ll tell you the truth there have been plenty of times in the last thirty years that I turned my back on what I knew God had called me. Life got hard. The enemy played dirty. There was so much pain that I just figured that I had heard God wrong when I thought he had called me into the ministry. But I hadn’t. I just didn’t know what ministry really was. It took thirty years of growing up for me to begin to grasp what God meant when he said he was calling me to the ministry. It took thirty years of him ministering to me in the midst of the attacks of the enemy for me to have a heart to minister to you in the midst of the attacks that you are facing.
I had given up on the ministry. I had turned my back on it. I never wanted to lead a bunch of stupid, hard hearted Christians again. I was finished with the church. I gave away all my books. I tried to get into a new calling. I was done.
My heart was hard toward the ministry and then the funniest thing happened – God softened it. The weird thing was he had to take me all the way to the other side of the world to do it. In 2004 I found myself in Malawi Africa as a maintenance man working on a building for a Christian orphanage run by the Rafiki foundation. It was there in the midst of poverty and deprivation, a nation ravaged by Aids so badly that there were no middle aged people – an entire generation wiped away by sin that I saw joy, the joy of the Lord, and my hard heart was softened. And I was reminded of my calling. I was reminded of who I was meant to be and what I was meant to be. It took three more years and a lot of pain and frustration before I found myself here at Immanuel. This wasn’t on my radar screen. I thank God that it was on his.
Let’s look again at the text starting with verse 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.' 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, 15so I have again purposed in these days to do good to Jerusalem and to the house of Judah Do not fear! 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."
I believe that God is in the process of changing our hearts so that he can begin to pour out his goodness upon us and not his discipline. It is the goodness of God that leads to repentance. Now if you want you can chose to look backwards. You can be mad at God for what you think that he has done to you. But let me ask you something: Why would a loving God do something to you just to be mean? You see if God is the God of scripture and you are mad at him because of some injustice or some wrong thing that has been done to you then maybe; just maybe, you need to change the prescription in you glasses so that you can see things from God’s perspective and not your own. If all things work to your good to those who are called according to his purpose and you are mad at God for something you think he’s done then only one of two things is going on either your looking at that event wrongly and therefore missing the goodness of God in your life because you can’t see straight or you’re not called according to his purpose.
It’s time to let go of the grudges you are holding against God because guess what you’re only hurting yourself. You keep nursing that grudge against God but you are the one that’s suffering not God.
Listen to me. God knows if you’re angry at him. How are you going to hide anything from God? Why don’t you take a risk this week and let him know just how angry you are. Why don’t you find a place where you can just let loose on God and scream and yell at him to your hearts content? Quit playing around with God. Quit pretending you’re a believer all the while your hating God in your heart.
I’ll be the first to admit that I had built up thirty years of anger at God while I was doing his work. I had been in church my whole life. I was a good boy who rarely let a bad word out of his mouth, never touched a cigarette or dope, never drank, never caused any trouble for my family. But I was so angry at God on the inside that I could have spit nails at him. I was just like the older son in the parable of the prodigal. I thought I was being good for nothing. Everybody else got to do what they wanted to do but I had to be good.
I couldn’t see straight. I had bad vision. I thought God was bringing all of this bad stuff into my life and I was mad at him for making my life the way it was. His sovereignty was making me sick.
Finally, when I lost everything that I held dear, my wife, my family, my business, my pride and I had nothing left to lose I just started unloading all the anger and hatred I could muster upon the living God. I gave him the what for over the course of several years. In the process I discovered that it was me that was causing all of these messed up things in my life. All God was doing was saving me from myself.
I want you to understand that this is what the scripture means when it says the truth will set you free. You can know all the truths in the world and still be in bondage. Until you embrace the truth about who you are and how you feel inside towards God and others you will never be free. God demands a brutal honesty from us. He demands that we shine the light of his law upon every nook and cranny of our hearts. He demands that the inside of the cup be clean. So if you are only skimming off the top layer of crud and not letting the truth get all the way down to the bone you are never going to be free.
You have got to let go of the precious little lies that you cherish so dearly. I believe with all my heart that this is where God is taking us. If we are to have a victorious future in our personal lives, in this church, in our communities then it must begin by embracing the truth about ourselves and our attitude towards God and the people around us. Scripture is clear how can you say you love God and hate your neighbor? That applies to God and yourself as well. The way we live our lives reveals the true condition of our hearts.
The future begins with each and every one of us learning to embrace the true condition of our own hearts and believing that God only wants the best for us. If that is true then whatever has happened in your past that is making you so angry was sent by God to do good in your life if you are God’s possession. You have to decide if you are going to see that through your eyes or God’s.
What does God want to birth in you with that thing that’s eating you alive? What are you so afraid of?
It is my prayer that as we grow together as a community of believers that you will be able to embrace brutal honesty toward yourself. That is nothing more than letting the light of heaven shine in the dark recesses of your life so that you can give up death and walk in life.

Let’s pray. Oh father give us the grace to be brutally honest about the content of our hearts. In Jesus’ name I ask this. AMEN.