God's Kingdom Established

Dog training

Most of you will know that I have a dog called Bentley, who this week will turn 2 years old. When we got Bentley, we knew we wanted a well trained dog, and so I started him along to the Dog Obedience school that is run every Saturday at the Anglican church at Mallabula.

So, is my 2 year old dog well trained? Well, kind of. You see, they recommend at the training that you only need to spend about 5 minutes a day going through the training drills and your dog will catch on. Now that sounds easy. I can easily fit 5 minutes into my day. But do you think I actually do that every day?

Unfortunately not. Somehow I seem to get to every Saturday morning when I’m about to go to dog school and I think - oh no! I haven’t done any training at all this week.

And it shows. You get to training and you can tell which dogs get those deliberate instructions throughout the week and which ones don’t.

But there’s an exception to this story. You see, back in August, the school decided to run a mock trial. It was all run in-house and just this school involved, so it wasn’t too formal - but you still had the judge with his clip board marking each dog as they go through their paces.

Now, here’s the thing. I suddenly find motivation. I’m motivated partly from not wanting to be completely humiliated. But I’m also motivated because I’m reminded - I actually want a well trained dog that I can be proud of.

And so that week I put in the effort.

Now Bentley certainly didn’t win. But yet I was proud of his effort and we weren’t a complete disgrace.

Unfortunately, after this event, I’ve gone back to my slack ways of forgetting to practice, but for that brief moment, I saw the difference it makes of being reminder of the bigger picture of why I’m there.

You see, sometimes we need to be reminded of this bigger picture in life. Life gets busy and we sometimes forget what we’re trying to do.

It’s a bit like that phenomenon that I’m sure many of you experience where you walk into a room only to stand there and think - now why did I come here. Only we’re not talking about walking into a room. I’m talking about getting to a stage of life and then going - what am I trying to achieve in this life.

It’s the thing that drives what we often call a mid-life crisis.

People often fill that unknown with things - but perhaps whats actually needed is a reminder of the bigger picture.

This happens on our Spiritual journey. Things get stale and we can think - what is this all about. Perhaps whats needed is a reminder of that bigger picture of what God is doing.

And so that is what I want to try and achieve today. A reminder that there is something very special happening and you’re a part of it.

And it is my hope that it will be that spur to persevering strongly to live that life worthy of the gospel.

Context

So let’s dive into Zechariah.

If you were with us for the message last week, then the historical context is essentially exactly the same as last week. Haggai and Zechariah were contemporaries of each other and were essentially ministering in the same space.

But I love how one commentator put it. If we think of Haggai as the builder, then Zechariah is like the artists who fills in that space.

Now I recognise it’s been a week since I gave the message on Haggai, and so even if you were here, maybe you’ve forgotten, so let me do a quick recap.

The Southern Kingdom had gone into exile and their temple had been destroyed in 586 BC at the hands of the Babylonians. But the Babylonians had were later defeated by the Persians in 539 BC, and the change in regime meant a change in policy towards the exiles, and so the Jews were allowed to return to their land.

First thing on the agenda was to rebuild the temple, and they promptly laid the foundations - only for the opposition to start and the rebuild faltered.

Fast forward to 520 BC, some 18 or so years after the commencement of the rebuild, things still hadn’t restarted, but that was were we met Haggai last week who gave them the proverbial kick up the back side and told them to get rebuilding.

Now it was alongside Haggai that Zechariah joins in, but he speaks in a very different way.

Haggai was pretty much straight to the point and the message was fairly clear.

Zechariah on the other hand - well here we get strange visions and grand pictures.

In fact it is the largest of all of the so-called minor prophets - and if you came here hoping I would expound each of the images of this prophecy, the reality is this would have to be a very long sermon, so I’m really just going to try and show the direction that the prophecy is moving in.

Because what we’re going to see, is that like Haggai, he’s going to be encouraging the people to keep building the temple, but he’s going to do so much more than that. He’s going to show them that this is part of an act which is going to culminate in the much grander kingdom of God becoming fully established.

Start and End

To show what I mean, let me start by showing where Zechariah starts and where he finishes.

So let me start at chapter 1 verse 16:

Zechariah 1:16 (NIV 2011)

‘Therefore this is what the Lord says: “I will return to Jerusalem with mercy, and there my house will be rebuilt. And the measuring line will be stretched out over Jerusalem,” declares the Lord Almighty.

You see, as this book starts, the focus is on the return to of the exiles and how God will return with them, and the temple will become the centre piece of it all.

Remember that the temple is the dwelling place of God. This is why the temple rebuild is so important. It’s not that God physically needs a building to dwell in - a fact that even they were fully aware of - but symbolically, it meant everything.

And so the book starts with something big - but quite localised all the same.

But then, let’s skip all the way to the end (and yes, I am aware that people usually say not to spoil a book by reading the end first - but I’m going to give the spoiler anyway.

So look at Zech 14:9 “The Lord will be king over the whole earth. On that day there will be one Lord, and his name the only name.”

What we see is that while the book starts with God returning to Jerusalem, by the end, he’s not just in Jerusalem, he’s over the whole earth.

You see, what we’ve got here is that bigger picture that I was talking about earlier.

Remember, Haggai motivated them to get back into the rebuild of the temple, but Zechariah is saying, look, the temple is actually only the beginning - what God has in store is so much bigger.

And the great thing is - we here today actually fit into this as well. We might not be rebuilding the temple, but we’re playing a small part in seeing God’s kingdom being established.

Okay, so we’ve seen essentially the start and the finish, where does Zechariah take us throughout the rest of the prophecy. Well, let me tell you that it’s quite the ride.

It’s the longest of all of the minor prophets, and I think it is fairly safe to say that it has by far the most bizarre imagery.

And unless we want to be here until well into the afternoon, I’m not going to be exploring each image in detail.

So instead I’ll pick out a few highlights and show how it fits into this bigger picture of seeing God’s kingdom moving from a temple rebuild in Jerusalem to a worldwide kingdom.

God moves in - sin moves out

Well, the bulk of the interesting imagery comes between chapters 1 to 6. There are in fact 8 main images depicted.

As I go over them very quickly, I want to highlight one particular aspect about them.

That is, as God moves in - sin moves out. God will essentially be moving into a place, and sin is carried away.

So, let’s see how this works...

Four horses

The first of these images start at chapter 1 verse 7. A man is riding a red horse and an additional three horses are behind him. These horses have gone throughout the earth.

Don’t get too carried away with trying figure it all out - the point of it comes in verse 16 which I read earlier. This is an image of God preparing the world for the establishment of his temple.

Four horns and craftsman

We next find four horns - something which represents strength. It is these horns that have scattered Judah. But while this opposition exists, God brings four craftsman. These craftsman stand against the opposition.

God is providing a way for the temple to be built.

You see, in these first two visions, God is establishing the ground work necessary to build the temple.

Measuring line

Chapter 2 starts the third vision - Jerusalem gets measured.

What’s particularly interesting about this is that it is not the walls that will be the protection - rather God himself, as he takes up residence, will be the protection. Something that is vividly described for us in verse 5 as God being a wall of fire around the city.

God has now moved in.

Joshua and Zebubabbel

And then comes perhaps what could be described as the pivotal images in this series of visions.

Firstly in chapter 3, Joshua, the high priest - someone we met last week, is symbolically told to have his filthy clothes removed, and replaced with something clean.

The fifth vision in chapter 4, contains the other person we met last week, Zerubbabel. In a picture of two olive trees which provides oil for a lamp, Zerubbabel is essentially identified as one of the trees, with Joshua being the other.

What’s going on here? Well, in short, we’re seeing a foreshadowing of Jesus - but done by looking at two key players in all of this.

Flying scroll

So God has moved in, but as I said before, the second half to the idea I just presented is that sin moves out.

And we start to see this in the sixth vision in chapter 5 where we find a flying scroll.

This scroll essentially pictures God’s word going out and taking care of sin.

Woman in the basket

The seventh vision carries a similar idea. Bizarrely a woman is carried away in a basket carried of course by two winged women. What’s going on? Well, it’s wickedness being taken out.

Remember, as God moves in, sin moves out.

Four chariots

These series of visions end with something very similar to where we started. The four horses, only this time they have chariots. Again, they’re told to go out throughout all the world.

Now if you were to take your time, and go through all these visions slowly, you’ll undoubtedly have many questions. But the main idea I want you to take is the idea I’ve already stated - as God moves in… sin moves out.

Application

And as we think about how we fit into this bigger picture, it is this idea that we need to remember. There is necessarily an ethical component as we see God’s kingdom being established.

We see this come out in chapter 7 of the prophecy. In this chapter, there are questions about feasting and fasting.

But God is clear - it’s not in this things that are going to bring God joy - rather, and look at chapter 7 verse 9: “Administer true justice; show mercy and compassion to one another. Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless, the foreigner or the poor. Do not plot evil against each other.”

As you let God move into your sphere, then changes will occur. The Spirit will transform you, but you also make an effort to live in accordance to God’s character - something that we as New Testament believers have the benefit of seeing Christ put perfectly into practice for us.

Day of small things

Before I move on to the final half of the prophecy - I actually want to briefly come back to one verse in chapter 4. It is here, in chapter 4 verse 10 that we read: “Who dares despise the day of small things...”

I highlight this verse because of this phrase “day of small things”.

In the context, it’s talking about the meagerness of the temple compared with it’s former glory.

It seems small. So often the task we do seems small. We’re not called to be Billy Graham speaking to millions across the world. We’re not William Wilberforce bringing down the slave trade. In the scheme of things, what we do seems very small.

But don’t dare despise the small things. Just as the small capstone of the temple started something monumental - so you can see your small work as part of a much bigger work of God - ultimately part of his establishment of his kingdom on earth.

A kings entrance

But let me get back to the second half of the prophecy - and we’ll find that there is less bizarre imagery now.

In chapter 9 we’ll find some words which we most likely find a bit familiar. They’re the words we’ll often here when we come to Palm Sunday.

Look at Zechariah 9:9 “Rejoice greatly, Daughter Zion! Shout, Daughter Jerusalem! See, your king comes to you, righteous and victorious, lowly and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.”

But let’s just picture this in the context of Zechariah.

This city is being established. This city now needs a king.

And so the king comes in. Only, he doesn’t come in on a war horse with a big show of strength. Rather, it’s on a donkey - in a lowly state.

Because the protection that comes from God is not in physical strength - but in God’s very being.

The king has entered.

And of course - this image became not just a symbol, but a reality when Jesus very literally rode into Jerusalem on a donkey - on the Sunday before his crucifixion.

A kingdom established

As we then come to the last three chapters, that is, chapters 12 to 14, we’ll again find many of the themes that we’ve seen throughout the prophecy.

The God who created the world is the one who is now recreating his people.

As God moves in, sin moves out. There’s a cleansing of his people.

And then comes chapter 14, where this really starts to take a much more whole-world approach.

A pictures a fight ensuing - but essentially, I’d suggest that this is actually a reckoning that God is doing.

And I just love the image that comes in verse 8 of the last chapter. It describes living water flowing out from Jerusalem. This phrase ‘living water’ in some ways can just mean fresh flowing water, but as we see in Jesus later, there is a spiritual dimension to it.

When we drink of the living water that comes from Jesus, we will never thirst again.

Conclusion

So here is the big picture that we need. At times we may wonder why in the world are things seeming to go so slow? We can find ourselves in a bit of a rut.

Last week, Haggai reminded us that actually, God is with us and he will bless us and he will make a way for us.

But today we see even more. We get a glimpse of a bigger picture. We can see what we are working towards.

And it is amazing. God’s kingdom is being established and we are a part of it.

As I mentioned last week, Zerubbabel did finish the temple a few years after Zechariah and Haggai finished prophesying.

But that temple gets destroyed again - some forty or so years after Jesus. But the physical temple was never meant to be the be all and end all. It was always pointing to something bigger. A time when God’s kingdom is established over the whole world. Something that happened when Jesus came.

Jesus came and was the sacrifice for the whole world. As he rose to new life, he enabled us to rise with him. Jesus was the living water flowing out of Jerusalem. And you can taste it today.

If you have tasted it, then you are part of this bigger picture.

But by being part of this bigger picture, it also means that we need to live like it too.

We are to live lives worthy of the gospel - living in constant adoration of the one who holds all things together.

So let me pray...