Return to the Lord
Sermon • Submitted
0 ratings
· 8 viewsReturn to the Lord
Notes
Transcript
A Call to Return to the LORD
In November of the second year of King Darius’s reign, the LORD gave this message to the prophet Zechariah son of Berekiah and grandson of Iddo:
2 “I, the LORD, was very angry with your ancestors. 3 Therefore, say to the people, ‘This is what the LORD of Heaven’s Armies says: Return to me, and I will return to you, says the LORD of Heaven’s Armies.’ 4 Don’t be like your ancestors who would not listen or pay attention when the earlier prophets said to them, ‘This is what the LORD of Heaven’s Armies says: Turn from your evil ways, and stop all your evil practices.’
5 “Where are your ancestors now? They and the prophets are long dead. 6 But everything I said through my servants the prophets happened to your ancestors, just as I said. As a result, they repented and said, ‘We have received what we deserved from the LORD of Heaven’s Armies. He has done what he said he would do.’
Introduction:
For the past year or so, I have been focusing in my prayer time having the heart of God. What is His passion? What is His heartbeat? What breaks His heart? I have found that when you ask Him such questions, He will show you. Our country and our world are so broken and lost. I have found some interesting statistics. On avgerage, 8500 american people die each day. I also found that some research groups say very conservatively, maybe 75% of those deaths were Christians. That would mean 1625 people a day are dying and going to hell. I believe that number is way off. This has to break God’s heart. Todd Starnes tells us that 43% of millennials believe that God doesn’t exist. Covid hasn’t help either. Churches are closing faster than we can open new churches. Sadly, we are a post Christian nation. We are so divided as a country. We are either red or blue. Now if whatever side you are on, if you don’t agree with them, you are called a racist or even worse. Even as Christians when we stand up for what the Word of God says, we are called out. We can’t stay silent any longer. If God’s word says it’s a sin, then it is a sin!! The only hope for our world and our country is not from the UN or Washington. The only hope for the world is Jesus. There needs to be another great awakening and the church needs God to revive it. In the passage that we are looking at today, Israel is coming out of 70 years of exile because their forefather’s did not listen to God or His word. Israel’s forefathers mocked His prophets and despised the word of the Lord. Isn’t strange how history repeats itself even today. The call today is the same as was in the day of Zechariah. Return to the Lord!!
1. If we will return to the Lord, God will return to us. (v.3)
3 Therefore, say to the people, ‘This is what the LORD of Heaven’s Armies says: Return to me, and I will return to you, says the LORD of Heaven’s Armies.’
To get a better picture for what was going on, let me set the stage of the story. Because of Israel’s constant turning away from God, God allowed the destruction of Jerusalem. He also allowed them to go into exile.
One would think that people would learn from the mistakes of the past and not repeat the damaging disobedience of their ancestors. Unfortunately they would repeat what their ancestors had done.
In a quite famous passage 2 Chronicles 7:13-14 “When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or command the locust to devour the land, or send pestilence among my people, if my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.”
Solomon was dedicating the temple and God spoke these words. We quote verse 14, but we forget verse 13. When His creation turns from Him, there will be consequences. There will be droughts (both physical and spiritual). There will be famines to remind His people to return.
Only when His people return to Him will He forgive and heal our land.
2 Chronicles 15:2 “and he went out to meet Asa and said to him, “Hear me, Asa, and all Judah and Benjamin: The Lord is with you while you are with him. If you seek him, he will be found by you, but if you forsake him, he will forsake you.”
God is a personal being capable feeling love and even anger.
God’s anger comes from His holiness. He hates sin. His anger is just. Why does He pass judgment on His creation? It’s because of our sins and transgressions.
What does returning to God mean? It means a change or shift in loyalty away from sin and self toward God, a reorientation to God and His commands.
On the human side of things, returning to God and turning away from evil was essential for the forgiveness of sin.
On God’s side of things when we return to Him, in His love and compassion accepts our repentant heart, He stays His anger, averts judgment and brings healing to those who had broken covenant relationship with Him.
Ill: In his book Revival Fire, Geoff Waugh lists nine similarities among
Biblical revivals:They occurred in times of moral darkness & national
depression. Each began in the heart of a consecrated servant of God
who became the energizing power behind it. Each revival rested on
the Word of God and most were the result of proclaiming God’s Word
with power. All resulted in a return to the worship of the One true
God. Each witnessed the destruction of idols where they existed. In
each revival, there was a recorded separation from sin. In every revival
the people returned to obeying God’s laws. There was a restoration of
great joy and gladness. Each revival was followed by a period of
national prosperity.- Geoff Waugh
2. My Love is passionate and strong v.14
New Living Translation (Chapter 1)
14 Then the angel said to me, “Shout this message for all to hear: ‘This is what the LORD of Heaven’s Armies says: My love for Jerusalem and Mount Zion is passionate and strong.
God is jealous for you! Joshua 24:19 “But Joshua said to the people, “You are not able to serve the Lord, for he is a holy God. He is a jealous God; he will not forgive your transgressions or your sins.”
This refers that God is jealous for us as a husband is jealous for his wife.
He desires you!!
He wants to spend time with you!!
He wants to have a relationship with His creation.
Through all that His creation has done to disobey Him, He still loves us!
No matter what we have done, He will welcome us with open arms just like the father in the prodigal son parable.
Ill: I love what the old hymn says Softly and Tenderly
Softly and tenderly Jesus is calling
Calling for you and for me
See on the portals He's waiting and watching
Watching for you and for me
Come home, come home
Ye who are weary come home
Earnestly, tenderly Jesus is calling
Calling, "O sinner come home"
O for the wonderful love He has promised
Promised for you and for me
Though we have sinned He has mercy and pardon
Pardon for you and for me
Come home, come home
Ye who are weary come home
Earnestly, tenderly Jesus is calling
Calling, "O sinner come home"
He is calling the church, the nation and the world to come home!!
Romans 8:38-39 “For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
God has not forgotten us. Even in the midst of our disobedience, God has not forgotten us. Is 49:15-16 ““Can a woman forget her nursing child, that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you. Behold, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands; your walls are continually before me.”
Ill: The Love of God
Could we with ink the oceans fill
And were the skies of parchment made
And every stalk on earth a quill
And every man a scribe by trade,
To write the love of God above
Would drain the oceans dry,
Nor could that scroll contain the whole
Though stretched from sky to sky
Frederick M. Lehman, author and composer, wrote a pamphlet, in 1948, entitled History of the Song, The Love of God. It tells about the origin of this beloved hymn—
While at camp-meeting in a mid-western state, some fifty years ago in our early ministry, an evangelist climaxed his message by quoting the last stanza of this song. The profound depths of the line moved us to preserve the words for future generations.
Not until we had come to California did this urge find fulfillment, and that at a time when circumstances forced us to hard manual labor.
One day, during short intervals of inattention to our work, we picked up a scrap of paper and, seated upon an empty lemon box pushed against the wall, with a stub pencil, added the (first) two stanzas and chorus of the song.
Since the lines (3rd stanza from the Jewish poem) had been found penciled on the wall of a patient’s room in an insane asylum, the general opinion was that this inmate had written the epic in moments of sanity.
Actually, the key-stanza (third verse) under question as to its authorship was written nearly one thousand years ago by a Jewish songwriter, and put on the score page by F.M. Lehman, a Gentile songwriter, in 1917.
3. The Lord will return and show mercy and My house will be rebuilt v.16
Therefore, thus says the Lord, I have returned to Jerusalem with mercy; my house shall be built in it, declares the Lord of hosts, and the measuring line shall be stretched out over Jerusalem.
What does mercy mean? In the truest form it is unmerited favor.
Mercy is a relational expression of His character and flows from His attributes of goodness and love.
God’s mercy is evident whenever He delays punishment or judgment when His creation are lost in sin and not aware of consequences of sin.
When Christians return to God they will receive mercy and the favor of God
When sinners come to have a relationship with Jesus they will find mercy and pardon!!
Ill: How merciful our great God is! While we deserve the severest judgment, He has instead offered us His grace.
Oppressed by the noonday heat, a tired farmer sat under a walnut tree to rest. Relaxing, he looked at his pumpkin vines and said to himself, “How strange it is that God puts such big heavy pumpkins on a frail vine that has so little strength it has to trail on the ground!”
And then looking up into the cool branches of the tree above him, he added, “How strange it is that God puts small walnuts on such a big tree with branches so strong they could hold a man!”
Just then a breeze dislodged a walnut from the tree. The tired farmer wondered no more, as he rubbed his head ruefully and said, “It is a good thing there wasn’t a pumpkin up there instead of a walnut.”—SOURCE UNKNOWN
And it is a good thing for believers that eternal mercy and grace awaits us, as we cannot imagine what life would be like if God gave us what we really deserved.
b. Judgment is coming to this world. The good news is if we return to Him, we will be shown mercy!!
Whoever conceals his transgressions will not prosper,
but he who confesses and forsakes them will obtain mercy.
While God was speaking of rebuilding the temple or the house of God in this passage, we are His house.
Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?
God’s presence dwelt in the temple.
Now His spirit dwells in our temples. Which means that He lives and dwells in us!!!
Conclusion: What is God’s passion? What is His heartbeat? What breaks His heart?