Building God's House #4: Return to God, Zechariah 1:1-6

Intro: Sin will take you farther than you want to go, Sin will keep you longer than you want to stay, Sin will cost you more than you want to pay. I’ve heard that quote for most of my life. I remember hearing my dad say it when I was a kid, but I didn’t know where it came from.

This week I learned that particular quote is frequently attributed to Ravi Zacharias. Ravi was an internationally known Christian apologist who passed away in 2020. Shortly after his death it was proven that Ravi had engaged in sexting, molestation, spiritual abuse, and rape. If anyone knew the truth of the quote that he so often said, it was Ravi Zacharias.

But you and I know the truth about it too, don’t we? We know by experience that if we ride with sin, it will take us, keep us, and cost us. What can we do about it? That’s what we’ll talk about today.

Zechariah 1:1-6, In the eighth month of the second year of Darius, the word of the Lord came to Zechariah the son of Berechiah, the son of Iddo the prophet, saying, 2 “The Lord has been very angry with your fathers. 3 Therefore say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord of hosts: “Return to Me,” says the Lord of hosts, “and I will return to you,” says the Lord of hosts. 4 “Do not be like your fathers, to whom the former prophets preached, saying, ‘Thus says the Lord of hosts: “Turn now from your evil ways and your evil deeds.” ’ But they did not hear nor heed Me,” says the Lord.

5 “Your fathers, where are they? And the prophets, do they live forever? 6 Yet surely My words and My statutes, Which I commanded My servants the prophets, Did they not overtake your fathers? “So they returned and said: ‘Just as the Lord of hosts determined to do to us, According to our ways and according to our deeds, So He has dealt with us.”

We’re in a series of messages about building God’s House, for the OT people a reference to the temple they were rebuilding, but for New Covenant Christians, we’re talking about building up ourselves as individuals and the church collectively. You may notice that our 1st two sermons were in Haggai, but today we are in Zechariah. The reason is because of the order of these messages. God sent both Haggai and Zechariah to deliver His Word to the remnant of the exiles so that they would get back to work rebuilding His house, i.e., the Temple.

Zerubbabel, Joshua, & the people got to work but that wasn’t the end of the messages. There are five messages- 4 from Haggai and 1 from Zechariah. In the timeline, Haggai delivers his 1st message in the 2nd year, 1st day of the 6th month of king Darius. His 2nd message came in the 7th month, & his 3rd & 4th messages in the 9th month. Between Haggai’s 2nd & 3rd message, in the 8th month, Zechariah delivered this message, the text that we’re studying today. 

What we find in this passage is that, even though the people were building God’s House, their hearts were far from Him. You see, we can be engaged in the work of God without a heart for God. When we do that, it’s always because of our sin. This text gives us three insights into our sin problem, and the answer, which is to Return to God.

1.     We need to turn from the EFFECTS of Sin, Vss. 1-3

The LORD of Hosts (3x in vs. 3)- a title that emphasizes Yahweh’s role as commander in chief of the heavenly armies (hosts of heaven), evoking the image of Jehovah God as a warrior. He fought against His own people. They were disobedient to His commands, idolatrous, spiritually adulterous, chasing after other gods, trusting in other things, not keeping His Sabbaths, etc. So, God sent them into captivity in Babylon for 70 years. Then God raised up Cyrus king of Persia to send back a remnant to rebuild His House. They started on it, but when opposition arose they left it laying there in ruins. For 16 years they built their own houses and lives and left God’s House in shambles. That’s when God sent them Haggai and Zechariah to get them going again.

Even now, 16 years back in Jerusalem and 2 months into the renewed project, something still isn’t right. They’ve returned to the land, but they haven’t returned to God.

Return (Heb. shuv)- to turn back, carries the sense of repentance; it means to turn away from sin, and return to God. Physically, their bodies were back in the land, but spiritually their hearts haven’t returned.

God invokes His anger against their forefathers. Very angry- lit. angry with anger. ILL: Avengers movie, after Bruce Banner learns the secret of turning into the Hulk whenever needed, they ask him how- That’s my secret, I’m always angry. Psalm 7:11, God is a just judge, And God is angry with the wicked every day.

Because of God’s anger with their forefathers, they needed to turn back to God. What’s the implication? They’ve come back, but they haven’t come all the way back. They are still carrying the lingering effects of the sins of their fathers. Sin is natural to us.

You’ve never had to teach a child how to be a sinner. Romans 5:12, Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned. We are not sinners because we sin, we sin because we are sinners.

Sin is in us; it is our nature. Don’t mistake this explanation as an excuse for sin or think that I am saying that we are always as sinful as we can be. We were designed to be in close fellowship with God, but sin entered the picture, severed our relationship, now we are born into this world as lost sinners separated from a good and holy God. Romans 3:23, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

The lingering natural effects of sin, even for Christians, teaches us that we need to turn back to God- that’s repentance.

2.     We need to turn from the EXAMPLES of Sin, Vs. 4

God very plainly tells them to not be like their forefathers. The prophets preached the word of God to them- Turn from your evil ways and your evil deeds. But they didn’t listen or obey, they didn’t hear or heed God’s call to repentance.

Sin is not only natural to us, because we are born sinners, sin is generational to us, we often do the same things that the ones who came before us did. Exodus 20:5-6- I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me, 6 but showing mercy to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments. This verse doesn’t mean that future generations are punished because of the sins of previous generations. But it does mean that the effects of their sin & their sinful examples have consequences that carry over from generation to generation. God’s forgiveness doesn’t erase the consequences of sin.

For these people in our text, the slow departure from God’s commands happened generations earlier, during Solomon’s reign.

In biblical accounting, a generation is about 100 years. God told Abraham that his people would be enslaved for 400 years and be brought out in the 4th generation. The text we read earlier, Exodus 20:5-6, that the iniquity of the fathers would be visited upon the children to the 3rd or 4th generation (i.e., 300-400 years). From Solomon’s Temple to this newly rebuilt temple is about 440 years, i.e., 4 generations. With each passing generation, Israel and Judah slipped further and further into the degradation of sin.

All along the way, God sent them prophets to turn them back: Elijah, Elisha, Obadiah, Amos, Hosea, Isaiah, Micah, Nahum, Zephaniah, Jeremiah. The prophets preached for them to turn from their evil ways and deeds, but they did not hear or heed (i.e., listen or obey). Hear- the word Shema; Deuteronomy 6:4, Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one!” Out of that covenant relationship with God they were to obey His covenant regulations. I think the idea is apparent. The relationship was fractured because they broke His regulations.

I guess they could say- that wasn’t us, that was our forefathers. Anytime we inherit the conditions, we must own the solutions. It’s this way in life, society, government, education, church. It may not be our fault, but it is our responsibility. It doesn’t matter who came before us, we must deal with the fallout that carries over to us. Think about it-

How often do we end up repeating the same faults & failures as our parents? Sin carries over from generation to generation. But God is saying- it can stop with you! You can break the cycle of generational sin. Turn from the deadly examples of sin & turn back to God.

If we are going to turn from the natural effects of sin, and the generational examples of sin, then we need to know how to make a deliberate and informed escape from sin.

3.     We need to turn toward God to ESCAPE from Sin, 5-6

Notice that the LORD asks a rhetorical question- your forefathers (ancestors) where are they? Those former prophets who preached to them, do they live forever? The answer to both is no. Their forefathers, the ones who got them in this predicament, had long since passed away. The prophets who preached repentance to them, have also died.

God’s words and statutes, delivered by the prophets, finally overtook (befell) the people. So, who’s left? The remnant. The ones who returned from Babylon, that’s who is left. Mama & daddy are gone, grandma and grandpa, they passed away, it’s just these people- who are responsible for themselves, and the ones who will come behind them.

So, what did they do? They returned! They turned back to God! In modern Christian parlance we may say they repented. In fact, 7 English translations use repentance in place of returned here. I think our vocabulary for repentance is limited, so I did a shallow dive on the word shuv to see how the Septuagint translated this word. I found an online resource called Hebrew for Christians that gave me some clarity. In an article called “Thoughts on Repentance,” it says that the Septuagint translates shuv with the Greek strepho- to turn around or turn back to God. A related Hebrew word is nacham- regret or repentance, usually translated by the Greek word metanoia- a change of mind leading to change of heart, behavior, & direction.

Using these 4 words, there are 4 steps for returning to God:

Step 1- Forsake our SIN. Proverbs 28:13, He who covers his sins will not prosper, but whoever confesses and forsakes them will have mercy.

Step 2- Regret the SEVERANCE. Sin makes a breach in our relationship with God and others. Psalm 51:3-4, For I acknowledge my transgressions, and my sin is always before me. 4 Against You, You only, have I sinned, And done this evil in Your sight— That You may be found just when You speak, And blameless when You judge.

Step 3- CONFESS our sins to God and others. Admit the truth & make amends. 1 John 1:9, If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. James 5:16, Confess your trespasses to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much.

Step 4- Accept FORGIVENESS and move forward in faith. David describes the blessing of the person whom God imputes righteousness apart from works- Romans 4:7-8, Blessedare those whose lawless deeds are forgiven, And whose sins are covered; 8 Blessed is the man to whom the Lord shall not impute sin.

In his 95 Theses, the reformer Martin Luther wrote- “Our Lord and Master when he says, ‘Repent,’ desires that the whole of life of believers should be a repentance.” What does that mean for us today?

If we are going to be engaged in building God’s House, both in our personal lives and here as His church, then we must turn from sin and return to God. However often it is that we turn from Him, however far it is that we get from Him, it only takes one step to turn back.

If we do not turn from sin, God’s Word will eventually catch up with us, and the sin that holds us so tightly, will cost us so dearly.