Well Emanuel, it is good to be back with you.
Sharing God's word. I am very very thankful that you
guys did partner with us for lessons and carols.
One of the challenges that we've had is that we've had some,
some, some funding for our, for our school program, kind of that
funding had dried up. So to receive your gift was such
a blessing, it was refreshing or us very, very helpful,
significant and important. So thank you for your gifts for
believing in work or CPL. Helping us love those who are
sometimes, a lovable and That was showing Mercy to those who
often don't get Mercy shown to them.
I am so thankful for your pastor, he's a friend.
I want you guys to know he loves y'all.
He prays for y'all help me celebrate, father, Aaron.
I'm excited to get into the word of God.
My prayer is that I'm not too long today but if I am this
passage was given to me. So it's not my fault.
What a wonderful reading we heard from Zechariah 7.
But I invite you, if you have your Bibles or whatever
electronic device you use, I won't invite you to open it up
to Zacharias 7. Let's talk to father.
Lord, you told us to be still and know that you are God.
Goddess. Nice Sunday, Gatherings As We
Gather, mr. People of God. what a time it is
for us to be still and to remember that you are God, that
you are sovereign. that you are in control of all things and you
are God and we are not And God is come before you today.
We, we don't come as those. Who have it all together, but we
come is those who are poor in spirit and our hands and our
hearts are outstretched asking, Lord, that that you father,
would feed us that you would nourish us from your word.
We ask God that you would meet us in a unique way through the
preaching and the proclamation of your word, and I pray father
than you would free us from distractions.
If you would give us ears to hear what the spirit is saying
to the church, And father, I pray that we would be drawn
closer and closer to you. I pray that you would hide me.
Father behind the cross. Help me to speak with Simplicity
Clarity and power. I ask father that you were
breathe on this meager manuscript and Lord that you
would be to all of our heart. We love you Lord and we pray
this all in Jesus name, amen. It can be somewhat annoying to
get the wrong message, it could be annoying to totally miss the
message for instance. My office phone, we have a
system where if you were to call me and leave a voice message, it
would transcribe your voice message and it was send me an
email, it would say something like Carrie.
I'm just balling you today. Because we have a mutual friend.
Name porch. And when you get an opportunity,
can you ball me again? and then, when I call back, Last
week, the forge. Who I'm sorry.
Do you mean George? And it's sometimes when even
when I'm out of town has just recently was on a cruise and the
problem is, if you're in the middle of the ocean, you can't
get phone calls and then people call you and you can't return
that call or you don't know that they're called in, they're all
angry and upset either because they was annoying.
If we don't get the message, it actually reminds me of a story
that was Oklahoma couple and they decided that they wanted to
take a look. Weekend away.
They wanted to get away from the e Key weather and go to Florida
where it was nice and sunny. This couple worked rigorous
hours so the wife she was unable to get off on the Thursday
night, but the husband was so he left a day earlier and when he
got there, he arrived at his hotel.
He checked in got into his room. He said, I'm gonna send my wife
and female I'ma let her know I'm checked in.
I'm settled and I can't wait for her to get here.
So he pulled together to email, he typed it, he sent it, but
there was one problem. He left out a letter in her
email address. that was another lady in Texas, this lady had
just come from a funeral. Her husband was a pastor.
And after coming back from the funeral, she decided I'll sit
down. I'll read my email.
No, family. And friends they sent me knows
to encourage me and the season. As she was sitting reading her
emails that was a thought. She fainted her son rushed in.
See his mom, fainted looked at the computer to see what was she
reading? It was the email to my loving
wife from your departed. Husband subject.
I've arrived. Message.
I just arrived. I'm checked in.
I see that everything has been prepared for you arriving
tomorrow. I'm looking forward to seeing
you. I hope your journey is as
uneventful as mine was. PS.
It's hot down here. It can be frustrating.
It can be frustrating not getting the message.
It can be frustrating. This understanding the message,
it can be frustrating. Receiving the wrong message.
Matter of fact, it can be painful, it can be challenging.
It could cause some major and minor problems in our lives.
If we don't get the message, we misunderstand the message or we
receive the wrong message. And you as I say that there are
some of you you are already Thinking about communication
breakdowns that you are experiencing your thinking at
work, you thinking about the communication breakdown between
other employees, the communication breakdown, with
your boss. Some are you thinking about your
argument, get your car, the communication breakdown with
your husband, or with your wife, the communication breakdown with
your children. We want to get the message the
subject that is clear. In this text today.
Is a question or a statement that we always say when there is
communication breakdown, we often say when there's a
communication breakdown, we say they are just not getting it.
We think of our spouse, they're just not getting it.
I co-worker, they are just not getting it.
You're talking to the person on customer service.
They are just not getting it. Sometimes we look in the mirror
and we say, just not didn't use the case of Zechariah 17.
And I getting it. That they are not getting it.
And God has a word for them. Hopefully, this with this word,
they will get it. But not only will they get it?
Hopefully we will get it. Hopefully we will get the
message that God has for them as well as the message that God has
for us. So, in the time that I have
left, we want to talk about why they didn't get it.
Oh, what was it? They didn't get.
And hopefully, as we look at what they didn't get.
Hopefully, we walk away and we get, but they didn't get.
And then the first thing that we actually see that they didn't
get was that they didn't get the lesson from the past, the first
thing that they did not get, they did not get the lesson from
the past. We see that in verse 7, we also
see that in verses 11 through 14 18.
King Darius, he is in his fourth year as King and King Darius in
his first year, issued a decree that the Surrey build the
temple, the temple that was ruined.
And we know that the June that the walls of Jerusalem were also
ruined and these physical ruins was symbolic of the ruin that
the children of Israel that they felt within their soul.
See, their lives had fallen apart and the nation of Israel.
They were Like Humpty Dumpty that had been sitting on the
wall and Humpty Dumpty, that had a great fall, they had been
broken and Scattered apart, they had dealt with so much pain and
so much lost. But watch this their pain and
their loss was not a result of evil people that paid and lost
was a result of their rebellion. And their sin is there, it was a
result of their love for idolatry and self-gratification
they were intoxicated. Skated with their own
independence and they acted as if they had him.
Nisha told us the god of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, The
God Who had promised them in Deuteronomy 8, T that if you
keep all of my Commandments, you will be blessed in the city and
you be blessed in the field. But if you fail to obey my
commands, you going to be cursed in his City and you're going to
be cursed in the field. Look at worth what verse 11 says
hearing the passage. But they refused to pay
attention, and turn and turned a stubborn shoulder and stop their
here that they may not here. The people have become stubborn.
They refuse to listen to God's commands.
They were no longer interested in God's wisdom and his counsel.
They only desire to pursue the lust of their flesh and the
pride of life. Their ears were stopped and now
hard were hard. The Bible teaches us that God's
anger was kindled. He punished he scattered them,
he stripped them. They were sent into exile.
To be in Exile, e, it means that you were taken away taken
captive forced to live under the rule and authority of another
system when the children of Israel when they were taken
captive. It was all because they failed
to obey God's command. They didn't get it.
And it blows my mind that they didn't get it.
And I after seeing all that God had done, they still didn't get
it. When God shows up in each of
their and he proposed all of these claims to show that he is,
greater than the gods of Egypt, they still didn't get it.
Wait, won't God, delivers them and they walk across the red Co
dry ground. They feel didn't get it.
When the armies of federal drowning, they still didn't get
it. When God, let them in the
wilderness by a pillow. A fire and the cloud, they they
still didn't get it where God calls us, isn't it?
So rain down and hasn't it water to come figures out.
That they steal, they get it, God sets them up as a nation.
You would think they would get it.
They never got it. You find the nature of this
text? It's what God tells them after
they are coming out of Exile. You're still not getting it.
You still haven't learned the lessons of the past, and we know
that if we don't learn the lessons of our past, then we
will repeat the prayer. I love what I ver arnstein says
he says, you can't solve a problem with the same thinking
that caused the problem. That's so good.
I'm gonna say it again. Let's hey, Albert Einstein said
that you can't solve a problem with the same thinking that
caused the problem. It could be natural for us to
find ourselves getting Circle or life.
To find ourselves, not going anywhere.
Repeating the same mistake, it repeating the same offices, and
we keep getting the same results because we haven't learned from
the lesson of our past. If you are frequent flyer.
You may have. Been on the plane in the air.
When word, from the Watchtower gets to the plane plane is
flying with passengers. And the message to the pilot is
that you are in a holding pattern.
And and the plane is in the holding pattern, there in this
holding pattern simply because there's an issues on the ground.
And unless the issues on the ground are resolved, then you go
have to stay in this holding pattern until things on the
ground, get fixed, and the people that's in the air, they
keep seeing the same landmarks, they keep seeing the same old
things that and it feels like that that point is circles and
it's not only that they feel like they're going to circles,
they are going in circles because they are you not holding
pattern and they go to remain in his hold.
Her pattern until the proceedings on the ground are
fixed. It sort of things on the ground
resolved and I believe that that could be the case for us, even
as Believers that we may find ourselves in a holding pattern,
we may find ourselves going on in this circle of life and not
moving forward. In the way, God would have us to
move forward because we still got issues on the ground.
We still got lessons that we haven't learned.
We keep making a Same mistakes. We keep doing the same offenses
and I lines continue to go about in a circle because we haven't
the lessons from our You know what's so beautiful about the
church? It's that is that in the church.
There are other people who had who had to learn the same
lessons that we need to learn right now.
And we can lean all them and say, how did you learn?
What did you do? What were the steps that you
took? And you know what else is
beautiful? Is that you don't have to make
the same mistakes that somebody else may because I can sit with
them, and I can hear that I'm going to steaks, and I can say,
thank you for telling me that because I was just about to do
the same thing. Not only do I need to learn the
lessons from my own path, but I can learn lessons from your past
that will help benefit me and benefit the kingdom of God.
They didn't get it. I didn't get the lessons from
the pack. The second thing that they
didn't get is that they didn't get the true meaning or
motivation for fast. They didn't get the true meaning
or motivation for fasting. We see that clearly in verses 2
through 6. At the end of Zachariah, six we
say, people are coming from afar to finish the rebuilding of the
temple. We know that the temple is close
to being rebuilt because as a retains us, that the temple is
completed by the six year of the reign of Darius.
And here, we also see this delegation from some faint
Bethel, that shows up, and he needs to end.
Dividuals. They that they are
Representatives transcend death. Oh but what if we watch what
they ask and what they suggest as they want to entreat the
favor of the Lord, look what it says.
In verse 3, they saying to the priest of the house of the Lord
of hosts. And the prophetess, should I
weep and I'm staying in the fifth month as I have done.
For so many years. It's almost as if they want some
kind of affirmation. It's almost as if they are
looking to to be celebrated because they have been keeping
up with the fast foot so many years.
However the words of the Prophet does not seem to break
confirmation or celebration. Actually the worst of the
prophets they seem to be bubble busted jaw dropping.
Surprisingly, they are words of conviction.
Seeing fasting. What was the time in?
Which people will humble themselves?
Sometimes, they will lie on the ground.
They will cover themselves with we're ashes.
They were refrain from food and maybe some social activities and
even relationship. And it was believed that that if
you was too fast at this will be a way that you would capture
God's attention, so that he will give you what your heart's
desire. And it was the thinking that,
that surely God would see my sacrifice.
And he would be moved. Grant me my request.
But but, but listen, listen to what God's word says, in verse
5, say to all the people of the land and the priest, when you
fasted and more than the fifth lat.
And in the seventh for these 70 years, I said, four Chief.
These words are not words of Celebration, kind of Pierce at
Yucca. God is saying that that
sacrifice was selfish. That that sacrifice was more
like a cincher and sacher focusing more on themselves
instead of focusing on the god that they were sacrificing for,
I didn't get it but they didn't get the real motivation for
fasting. That's this.
Shouldn't be about receiving a building.
It should be about receiving new walls restoring dignity when you
know Wayne wealth The fast should be mostly people as
motivation. The motivation 54s should be
that we will draw nearer and closer to God.
See, they wanted to get stuff. But they wasn't focus on the
stuff for her. If you get the stuff fire, do
you get all of the stuff? See, they were doing a good
thing, a righteous thing, but they were doing it with the Wang
Motors and attention attention. And it was still difficult for
them to understand the problem of their path.
Was it the matter of them losing thing?
The problem of their past was that their relationship with God
was Staffing. The Jews had gotten so entangled
in the blessings of God that they have forgotten The God Who
bless them. They were so entangled and stuff
that they were fasting for stuff, instead of fasting for
God. Their priorities had gotten this
Alliance and if you and I, if we are not careful, there are
priorities will get out of whack that we achieve.
We found ourselves in tank need with the blessing.
Feed at night with the questioner that we'll find
ourselves seeking a surgery for stuff and not the stuff fire,
that will be fasting for things and not fasting to draw closer
to God. That priorities had got
misaligned. I was a husband and wife that it
went to the county fair. While they were there, they
encountered a pilot who had a small plane that was offering
rods $20 a piece. The couple thought, how can we?
But that's the situation, the price a little lower.
They said listen why don't you try just twenty dollars for the
both of us since we have to cram into this small plane pilot said
I'm sorry I'm unable to do that but I'll make you a deal.
If we go up in the air and you don't say a word, I will refund.
You, your money back, husband and wife with that, they each
other, they said deal. The pilot took off, he re tricky
new in the book he world. He Liu, he flew the plane upside
down, he did many other thing. When he landed.
He turned around, look back at the husband.
Ted, congratulations, here's some money.
You didn't say a single word. Husband reply.
Nope, but you almost got me when my wife fell out.
I priorities can get a little skin.
I have flowered is kick ticket misaligned.
C4. His fasting is not about losing
weight. If you just refrain from him.
But you are not spending time with God.
That's a diet. That's not fast.
Our goal is Christians and are fasting is to get closer to God.
I go as Christians, it should be to be performed to to the image
and likeness of Jesus and maybe in this Lenten season your
fasting, it you're giving up something you are refraining for
from food, or from some activity, or some lifestyle.
Make sure that you are spending time with.
Make my face, sure that, that, that the true Devotion to God
increases. And as we spend time with God,
and as I Devotion to God increases, Hopefully, God will
change us and they'll be transformation in US. how goal
is not to know more but to know him more See, I did not get the
lessons from their back, they didn't get the real meaning and
motivation for fasting. but lastly, they didn't get the God
had a greater expectation. We re verses 8 and 10, we read
God's expectation says, in the word of the Lord, came to
Zechariah saying thus says the Lord of hosts.
Render true, judgments show, kindness and mercy to one
another. Do not oppress, the Widow, the
fatherless, The Surge owner. Well, the poor and let none of
you devise evil against another in your heart.
The Lord has expectation. I got many friends who are
farmers. and and my friend to a farmers, they spend an insane
amount of time working on their equipment, preparing their
ground and planting seeds, simply because they are expect
Free from their hard work, they are expecting to reap a harvest
and I believe what we read in verses eight through ten, these
are the fruits that come from a devoted life.
These are the fruits that come from spending time with God.
These are fruits that come from real sincere fasting.
It says, fasting, draws us closer to God that, that, that
we should have desires after God.
It says fasting, draws us closer to God.
That means that we should look more like God in our action.
It means that we should care about the things that God cares
about and what the Lord gives us in this in these verses if he
gives us these that these categories and means list of
things that that we should care about that, that should be
active and visible in our lives. It used to be a public display
but finding yelling He says one real true judgment a real true
Justice. The word for justice.
Here's one that is somewhat complex.
It is a word that is related to righteousness.
Wait for us to think about this concept of Justice here.
It is simply to make all things right in the Bible days.
They had judges. But judges were not only
assigned to have Minister raft to criminals, who have
committed, some kind of crime. But ultimately judges had the
responsibility to ensure that the voiceless had Voice that the
powerless has support that. The poor was care for that.
Nobody was kicked down and pressed out the idea of Justice
here. It speaks to Bringing Shalom and
orderliness to humans and creation.
This was also the work of Jesus. We see that in the prophecy in
Isaiah 52 and 53. We see this.
When Jesus stands up in the temple, and he reads from the
book of Isaiah, and he says, the spirit of the Lord is upon me
because he has anointed me to Proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to Proclaim Liberty to the captives.
The recovery of sight to the blind to set at Liberty, those
who are oppressed to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.
Her family. It is the work in the call of
all believers to bring order to chaos to bring right, where
there is wrong. To pre-salt where there's
bitterness to bring light. Where there is Darkness I call
things. Get what you're saying.
Stir that is 2 over. Wow.
Yes, it is overwhelming. And we should feel that kind of
bird. We wish you feel that that kind
of overwhelmingness, the world of his broken and it's a calls
us for more. It's a call this soup.
It's to be a reason why we fast. Do you think Jesus felt?
When he was there outside of Lazarus tomb, people were crying
and weeping. And the manifestation of death
was on display. And the shortest first, in all
of the Bible shows, our Lord, whose overwhelmed problem, okay?
Weights. Do we cry?
Do we shed tears for Injustice, or do we somehow dismiss it?
Because it feels like it's too much to bear.
God, always wants to do a supernatural exchange an hour.
He wants us to give him a bird. He wants to give us his Burger.
It's burden is that we would make all things right.
Second thing he shows us here is that we should have mercy toward
one another, in Hebrew, this word.
Mercy is God's. Covenant of faithful love.
Its faithful love. It is a loyal love.
He's saying that we have this faithful loyal, unconditional
kind of love for each other. So often we may be guilty of
lusting each other and not loving each other, and let me
give you this acronym. For lust, it is low of under
selfish terms. That doesn't wind up week that I
can love you as long as you do for me as long as you don't
upset me as long as you don't harm me.
But I plugged used to be loyal to one another like God's love
his loyal to us. He says kind of have mercy for
teacher. Number three, your shoulders
here in this list. He says we should not oppress
push down squash the Widow, the fatherless, the refugee, or the
poor. These are all individuals that
were marginalized in their society.
They are marginalized in our society.
The reason why these individuals can be pushed down and squash
and oppressed. Because we can't have a
transactional relationship with them. this is what James talks
about, any talks about the sin of favoritism, We give attention
to those. We assume we will receive a
return on our relationship investment and we ignore those
who appear to only be takers and not givers or participated in
this relationship. That's why the see enough
favoritism is such a horrible sin.
The reason why the central Hall will see.
It is because it ignores the gospel. when we, as Believers
commit, the sin of favoritism, we are forgetting that we have,
nothing nothing to offer, God, That there's no one that's good,
they're all have turned away. And we, we have nothing to offer
him and he has absolutely everything to offer us also
book, totally depraved wretch. It You got the God of Justice.
He comes into our life. It makes everything.
All right. This God who is faithful in
love? He has this loyal love, he loves
us. The poor wretch.
The oppressed he expects for us. Tomorrow.
Actual press at the build-up. Lastly, he shares that we should
not devise evil against one another.
It is not our responsibility to fight.
Hey, we'll hey, but we fight hate with love.
We don't seek Vengeance. We, we seek blessings Pray for
my enemies for those who persecute us.
He called God's let things for them.
We look at Zechariah 7. The word of the Lord through the
mouth of the prophet. Simply they didn't get.
And then get the lesson from the past and you get the real
meaning that the motivation asking and they didn't get that
that God has a greater expectation that they will be
the light of the world that they that they won't be.
That be the image bearers of God for people they did and if we
are honest, it's hard to get it. It seems as if the Jews struggle
with being stuck. I think this is the beauty of
the Gospel. Is that Jesus came to set us
free to ensure that we have Supernatural help that we are
not stuck. It was downtown a large
high-rise building. And they were stuck in elevator.
People will cry. Hail hell.
They were quiet but no one could hear that Christ.
They were people that were banking.
Bam. Bam, bam.
That was no calm person in the elevator.
They were desperate and desperate people, do desperate
things. And one guy.
Is that he only had an idea? He walked over lifted the latch
grab the phone. Held into his ear.
It was a voice that came on other line, hello may?
I help you. It says we're in the elevator.
We're stuck between this floor and that floor.
Can't you send help? Person on other date, elephant,
personal other line said we'll be there by the way, everybody
on the elevated. A they were so focused on Beast.
But they were, you was using all of that, human energy have human
effort to get out of the situation where all the time,
there was a system mechanism that was right there in place.
And all they had to do was to pick up the phone and talk to
the person who can actually help them.
As sometimes as Believers, we find ourselves stuck between
this place and that place and we are trying every human effort
that we can to get ourselves free to move all to go forward.
But can I tell you that God has a sister.
That that God has a system where we can contact him when we can
connect with him, where we can get trial closer to where we
could get super natural. Hello.
Maybe in this Lenten season, you also feel like you iced up and
you're tired of being stuck here.
You're tired of being in this miss holding pattern, you
realize too that your priorities have been out of line.
And you don't seem like you've learned the lessons of the You
pack up. The Holly Farm.
He's speaking to the holy God. He said, I need you.
I need to get closer to you. This is the season.
I've looked worried and Dally. I get closer to Apple.
The Dua. God.
Amen. Lord. we give us because at
times, we Bill is if we're stuck, we feel like we're all by
myself. But God, you are just all away.
Help us God to press in to you. Help us to learn the lessons
that we need to learn. Help us to do the disciplines
that you've given us to do. Help us understand that you've
given us credible opportunity. A wonderful privilege to know
you to be drawn closer to you. To be conformed into the image
and likeness of Jesus. And that we met her view that we
may live out the expectations that you have for us, your
servant. Or help us to get we pray this
in Jesus name. Or help us to get we pray this
in Jesus name.