Light from the Lord

Introduction:

Zechariah 4:1–14 ESV

1 And the angel who talked with me came again and woke me, like a man who is awakened out of his sleep. 2 And he said to me, “What do you see?” I said, “I see, and behold, a lampstand all of gold, with a bowl on the top of it, and seven lamps on it, with seven lips on each of the lamps that are on the top of it. 3 And there are two olive trees by it, one on the right of the bowl and the other on its left.” 4 And I said to the angel who talked with me, “What are these, my lord?” 5 Then the angel who talked with me answered and said to me, “Do you not know what these are?” I said, “No, my lord.” 6 Then he said to me, “This is the word of the Lord to Zerubbabel: Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, says the Lord of hosts. 7 Who are you, O great mountain? Before Zerubbabel you shall become a plain. And he shall bring forward the top stone amid shouts of ‘Grace, grace to it!’ ” 8 Then the word of the Lord came to me, saying, 9 “The hands of Zerubbabel have laid the foundation of this house; his hands shall also complete it. Then you will know that the Lord of hosts has sent me to you. 10 For whoever has despised the day of small things shall rejoice, and shall see the plumb line in the hand of Zerubbabel. “These seven are the eyes of the Lord, which range through the whole earth.” 11 Then I said to him, “What are these two olive trees on the right and the left of the lampstand?” 12 And a second time I answered and said to him, “What are these two branches of the olive trees, which are beside the two golden pipes from which the golden oil is poured out?” 13 He said to me, “Do you not know what these are?” I said, “No, my lord.” 14 Then he said, “These are the two anointed ones who stand by the Lord of the whole earth.”

The Vision of the Lampstand (1.1-5)

Zechariah receives the fifth of his eight visions in chapter four. The angel that is delivering the message comes to him and wakes him up out of a dead sleep with something to say (4.1). He asks Zechariah what he sees, and he describes what he sees which is a lampstand with two olive trees on either side of it (4.2-3). The angel asks Zechariah if he understands what he is seeing to which Zechariah responds, “No.”

The angel is simply a messenger from God in this scene. Some have speculated that this messenger is a type of Christ, but the text gives us no evidence that this is the case, so for the sake of this discussion we will simply see the angel as just an angel delivering a message from God to Zechariah.

The first thing we are introduced to in this scene is the lampstand. We must be careful here not to read into this because of our knowledge of scripture as a whole and not confuse this with Revelation chapter 1. This lampstand is nothing more than a lampstand that is representative of God. It has seven lamps and seven sprouts which is traditional of a Jewish menorah, and we see that it has two key attributes:

The first attribute of this lampstand is one of power. Zerubbabel is the designated receiver of this particular message(4.6), and it is meant as encouragement to finish the task he has assigned to him which is rebuilding the temple. This vision is a vision of promise to Zerubbabel that he will finish the rebuilding of the temple (4.9), and the second attribute of the lampstand is divine observation. In verse ten, we read, “these seven are the eyes of the Lord, which range through the whole earth,” and when we put these two together, we get a picture of divine power given to Zerubbabel.

Explanation of the Lampstand (4.6)

God, in His infinite wisdom doesn’t often want to leave things to misinterpretation, and here is not exception. In verse six, the angel explains the meaning of the lampstand by saying, “This is the word of the Lord to Zerubbabel (the audience): Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, says the Lord of hosts.”

What the message to Zerubbabel is that his mission will be accomplished, but it will not be because of anything he has done (not by power or might), but it will be because of what God has done (My Spirit).

Application of the Message (4.7-10)

As we move into the next section, we see an encouragement and a promise to Zerubbabel. Verse seven says, “Who are you, O great mountain? Before Zerubbabel you shall become a plain. And he shall bring forward the top stone amid shouts of ‘Grace, grace to it!’” And then we see the promise to Zerubbabel that he will finish his task that he has been given.

Here we see the second attribute of the lampstand, and that is the divine observation. The last part of verse ten says, “These seven are the eyes of the Lord, which range the whole earth.” This shows us the omniscience of God and is reminiscent of

2 Chronicles 16:9 ESV

9 For the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to give strong support to those whose heart is blameless toward him. You have done foolishly in this, for from now on you will have wars.”

God sees everything. The past, present, and future, and it is because of that there is a hope that when God tells us something, we can rest assured, He is not just blowing smoke.

Explanation of the Olive Trees (4.11-14)

The angel then asks Zechariah if he understood the olive trees, and like before, the response was, “no” so the angel explains the meaning behind the olive trees. He tells Zechariah that they are “the anointed ones who stand by the Lord of the whole earth.”

Now before you jump to a Christological conclusion (meaning that it has something do do with Jesus), let’s look at what this really is. Remember that this vision is being spoke to Zechariah and he was supposed to take it to Zerubbabel. So the olive trees in this case are God’s chose (anointed) here on earth and that would be Zerubbabel and Joshua in this case (the governor and priest) and then Ezra and Nehemiah will eventually take that position later.

God chose and placed leaders in the early history of His people of Israel, Jesus chose his twelve apostles that were to carry His message to the world, and even today God calls leaders to His different churches. He equips those leaders for the tasks they have been assigned to, but more than that He anoints those leaders. He picks them out. That are basically God’s gift to His people.

Ephesians 4:7–14 ESV

7 But grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ’s gift. 8 Therefore it says, “When he ascended on high he led a host of captives, and he gave gifts to men.” 9 (In saying, “He ascended,” what does it mean but that he had also descended into the lower regions, the earth? 10 He who descended is the one who also ascended far above all the heavens, that he might fill all things.) 11 And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, 12 to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, 13 until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, 14 so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes.

I want you to see something here for just a few moments before we get into what this all means. Leaders are God’s gift to the church. Grace is the gift we all get as individuals (), and then the word gift is used again in the context of all people, and then if we look down at verse 11, we see what gifts he has given to the corporate body, and look at the progression of how this works: first Paul lists apostles and prophets, these were the foundational leaders, then there are the evangelists, and these are the ones that are specifically given the gift of evangelism to win the lost, and I would even suggest church planters to an extent (but that’s a stretch of the text), and then ones that are give the task of seeing the work through are the shepherds (pastors) and teachers, and now look at the tasks they have been assigned: to preach Sundays and Wednesdays, make house calls, attend meetings, etc. Not by a long shot. The biblical role of a pastor and a teacher is to “equip the saints (those that sit in the pews) for the work of the ministry.” There is a clear mandate from God that the role of the leader within the church body are to build up the body so that they can be strengthened in their faith. Why? Look at verse 14 “so that we may no longer be children, tossed, to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine...” Remember, your spiritual leaders are given to you by God, and they are anointed by God for a purpose, and before you criticize your spiritual leaders for not doing what you think they should be doing, please remember that God has put those leaders here for a specific reason, and that is equip you for the work of the ministry. Sometimes that comes from teaching and sometimes that comes from hands-on training, and God has chosen (anointed) those leaders and equipped and empowered them to see their assigned task through to the end.

We fulfill our function only as we depend on God’s empowerment.

So now we get to the, “So what?” moment. Was does this mean for us. One, simple thing: we fulfill our function only as we depend on God’s empowerment. The key verse in this passage is verse 6:

Zechariah 4:6 ESV

6 Then he said to me, “This is the word of the Lord to Zerubbabel: Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, says the Lord of hosts.

It is not by our might, not by our power, but only by the power of the Holy Spirit that we can accomplish what has been set out for us by God. In the New Testament, we see a recurring statement (especially in Acts): full of the Holy Spirit. When we are filled with the Holy Spirit, and when the Holy Spirit becomes our driving force it is then and only then that we can begin to see just how much we can accomplish through God’s power. This is the very same power that rose Jesus from the grave.

Romans 8:11 ESV

11 If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.

Once we realize what kind power that is that we have access to, our faith is strengthened and we learn this very important fact:

Philippians 4:13 ESV

13 I can do all things through him who strengthens me.

And we can tap into the promise of Jesus when He told His disciples in :

John 14:12–14 ESV

12 “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father. 13 Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. 14 If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it.

The implications of this power is tremendous, and I want to give you just a few points to take home with you today:

Believe that God is sufficient to overcome all obstacles.

Life will throw us curves. Life is not always kind. Even Jesus gave us a heads up about this:

John 16:33 ESV

33 I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.”

Jesus, fully God, fully man, became like us so that we could have the example of how we can accomplish anything through the power of the Holy Spirit. Many of you may be facing turmoil today, it can be anything, but the truth is through God, we can overcome anything.

Now let’s move from individuals to a corporate setting for a moment. Many of us (myself included) have said many times, “We just don’t have the resources for that.” We look around and get filled with a sense of discouragement. Many of us may even look back to the “good old days” or even compare ourselves to other churches and get filled with the same sense of discouragement, but take this to heart. We can overcome anything. Look back at verse 7 for just a moment:

Zechariah 4:7 ESV

7 Who are you, O great mountain? Before Zerubbabel you shall become a plain. And he shall bring forward the top stone amid shouts of ‘Grace, grace to it!’ ”

There’s a promise here: The mountain shall become a plain, and eventually we will be able to put the finishing stone on top of what God has called us to do. Nothing can stand against the power of God.

God gives us His power in order to spur us on

God gives us His power in order to encourage us. God doesn’t want to see us fail. He is our biggest cheerleader. It is God’s desire that we succeed in anything we do, because when we succeed, God is glorified in what we have done. Look at verse 10

Zechariah 4:10 ESV

10 For whoever has despised the day of small things shall rejoice, and shall see the plumb line in the hand of Zerubbabel. “These seven are the eyes of the Lord, which range through the whole earth.”

It’s hard not to make comparisons. It’s hard not to “keep up with the Joneses.” We may feel small and inadequate at times. Especially in times of struggle. We barely make ends meet, we aren’t sure how we can face another day of stress, but in the end, we we stand victorious, we will all rejoice when we see God’s hand at work.

God’s aim in our work is for us to have an increasing understanding Him

God wanted His temple rebuilt, but more than that He desired that worship be restored. It is through our worship of Him that we come to a deeper understanding of Him and His will for our lives. When we focus on the works that God has for us, and we pursue a life of obedience, that is the greatest form of worship that we can ever give God, and it is through that, that we can learn more about His character and deepen our relationship with Him.

Conclusion:

No obstacle is too big for God. In fact, I think God likes the big obstacles in our lives because we rely on Him more to get past those obstacles, and it is through those times that God is most glorified through us, and it is through those obstacles that we learn to trust in God more and lean on Him for His power and not ours, and when we finish the task we have been assigned. When we come out on top, we can all rejoice knowing that it God as the source of our power and we can rest assured that He knows the outcome, and we can cling to his promise that we are more than conquerors through Jesus Christ.