READ: Zechariah 3-4

BACKGROUND: There is so much crazy imagery in here that it’s almost impossible to understand what’s going on without at least a few basic handles. There are whole books written about this stuff so I’ll be brief. Please feel free to ask any further questions you have in the comments section below and I will get back to you.

Zechariah saw 8 visions in a single night.  Chapters 3 and 4 contain the 4^th and 5^th visions. Here is a basic description of the imagery:

• Chapter 3
• Joshua the High Priest: The actual High Priest at the time (not the same Joshua as the earlier one)
• Satan: The name means “accuser”
• Dirty clothes: Sin
• Clean clothes: Forgiveness
• Clean turban: Part of the High Priest uniform, a symbol of the restoration of the community before God
• Branch: Jesus
• Stone: Jesus
• 7 eyes: It indicates completeness, Jesus sees everything everywhere
• Chapter 4
• Lampstand: Just like the one in the temple which the priests constantly tended
• Olive trees: They fill the lamp with oil so the priests don’t have to which symbolizes God’s sovereign provision
• Zerubbabel – The guy who was in charge of the temple rebuild, no king at this point but he was the heir of David

THINK: Sometimes we read all of the wild prophecy in the Old Testament and wonder what in the world it means and what in the world it has to do with us. But I think that the big idea of these chapters couldn’t be any more significant for us. Ultimately, these visions point to core theological truth: God can do what we cannot.

It is so easy, I think, to reduce our faith to performing tasks and achieving holiness and doing good things for God in our world. We allow Christianity to become a bunch of boxes that we check off in the belief that we can somehow perform well enough in life that we’ll earn salvation. We would, of course, never admit that publicly and maybe we’re not even fully aware of it. But it’s how we live nonetheless.

And many of us really try to make an impact in our world. We genuinely love God, and we are so overwhelmed by the reality of our salvation that we give our time, our passion, and even our lives to doing great things for God in our world. But then things don’t work out the way that we wanted them to and we face opposition from the world and we get mad because we’re working, striving, and achieving and it isn’t “working” like God “promised.”

All of this flows from our own self-righteousness. We desperately want to believe that we are sufficient, that we are in control, that we can be good enough, and that we don’t really need God. But the beautiful visions in Zechariah 3 and 4 remind us that just the opposite is true! We stand before God dressed in the filthy rags of our very best efforts and our countless failures. And only he can replace them with white linens. Only he can give the forgiveness and the reconciliation that we desperately need. And our efforts for the gospel – all of our endeavors to build his kingdom that meet resistance from the our world just like the endeavors to build his temple met resistance from the ancient world – will never be accomplished by our ability or our skill. But they will be accomplished!

“Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit,” says the LORD Almighty.

PRAY: Memorize that verse (Zechariah 4:6), and then live like it’s the truth. Confess your self-righteousness to God and confess the areas where you’ve secretly believed you were self-sufficient. Then worship him for his power and sovereignty, thank him for his forgiveness, and ask him to make the power of the Spirit evident in your life.

READ: Zechariah 1-2

BACKGROUND: The name Zechariah means “The LORD (Yahweh) remembers” and it uniquely fits the purpose of the book. Zechariah was a priest writing to the people of Judah after they’d been allowed to return from the exile and rebuild the temple. The book is an encouragement and a call to the people to continue building the temple and not give up, a reminder that if they turn back to God he promises to be faithful and present, a reminder that God is in control, and ultimately a prophecy about God’s faithfulness to his promise to look after Israel through the coming Messiah.

THINK: Reread Zechariah 2:1-5, 10-13 from The Message, noting the exclamation points:

I looked up and was surprised to see
    a man holding a tape measure in his hand.
I said, “What are you up to?”
    “I’m on my way,” he said, “to survey Jerusalem,
    to measure its width and length.”
Just then the Messenger-Angel on his way out
    met another angel coming in and said,
“Run! Tell the Surveyor, ‘Jerusalem will burst its walls—
    bursting with people, bursting with animals.
And I’ll be right there with her’—God’s Decree—‘a wall of fire
    around unwalled Jerusalem and a radiant presence within.’”

“Shout and celebrate, Daughter of Zion!
I’m on my way. I’m moving into your neighborhood!”
God’s Decree.

Many godless nations will be linked up with God at that time. (“They will become my family! I’ll live in their homes!”) And then you’ll know for sure that God-of-the-Angel-Armies sent me on this mission. God will reclaim his Judah inheritance in the Holy Land. He’ll again make clear that Jerusalem is his choice.

Quiet, everyone! Shh! Silence before God. Something’s afoot in his holy house. He’s on the move!

The prophet Zechariah receives several visions from God and writes about them in detail in the beginning of the book. Take the next several minutes to ponder this vision. In the interaction God says, “Shout and celebrate, Daughter of Zion! I’m on my way. I’m moving into your neighborhood!” Consider God’s incredible plan to send his Son, Jesus, to live among us. What comes to mind as you think about God’s pursuing his people enough to move literally into their neighborhood?

“Quiet, everyone! Shh! Silence before God. Something’s afoot in his holy house. He’s on the move!” What fills your mind as you consider that God is active in human history? How is that reality different from what other people, the media, and our culture say about God’s involvement in the world?

What does God’s activity say about his character? How do you respond to this type of God?

PRAY: Allow the reality of a loving God pursuing his people, on the move and moving into your neighborhood, guide your prayers right now. What would your world be like if God moved into the house, apartment, or building next door to you? Allow your communication with God to flow out of your thoughts.

LIVE: As you walk or drive in your neighborhood, consider the implications for your life of having God residing in your – our! – midst. And thank God for the fact that he actively pursues you!

– Adapted from Eugene Peterson in Solo

READ: Habakkuk

THINK: Habakkuk is a really cool book because, among other things, its style is unique among all the prophetic books of the Bible. The others all have oracles addressed to Israel (or Judah, as it were), but Habakkuk is simply a conversation between the prophet and God that written down and meant to be read by the people. And the conversation is raw. Habakkuk lived around the same time as Jeremiah, likely during the reign of Josiah and then afterwards into the reign of Jehoiakim’s reign. He was an individual committed to righteousness who watched as his nation turned its back on God and then watched as God brought about it’s destruction.

The book begins with Habakkuk asking why God isn’t punishing all the evil that’s happening. God says, “Oh I will, I’m sending Babylon to destroy the nation.” Then Habakkuk wonders why God would choose Babylon because they’re even less righteous than Israel. Then God says, “Oh I know, they’ll face destruction too eventually.” And Habakkuk closes with an amazing prayer of thanksgiving and hope. The whole thing is this incredible and vulnerable look into the heart of a brokenhearted man who wants to see his people turn back to God.

And one of the themes, I think, that runs throughout the book is patience. It starts out with Habakkuk feeling impatient and just asking God how long he will have to wait before God will answer him. How long can God ignore the violence? And then God lets him know that he does see and he is acting. Justice is coming but Habakkuk needs to be patient and trust in God’s sovereignty. And then when he learns that punishment for evil is coming in the form of Babylon, Habakkuk gets impatient again and has to be reminded, once again, that God is in control, that God is aware, and that God’s sovereignty means his justice is coming.

Patience is hard to have when we look out at a broken world. It’s even harder to have when that brokenness affects us directly. But patience is possible when we understand just who our God is and just what he is about. The great Oswald Chambers wrote this about patience:

“Patience is not indifference; patience conveys the idea of an immensely strong rock withstanding all onslaughts. The vision of God is the source of patience, because it imparts a moral inspiration. Moses endured, not because he had an ideal of right and duty, but because be had a vision of God. He ‘endured, as seeing Him Who is invisible.’ A man with the vision of God is not devoted to a cause or to any particular issue; he is devoted to God Himself. You always know when the vision is of God because of the inspiration that comes with it; things come with largeness and tonic to the life because everything is energized by God. If God gives you a time spiritually, as He gave His Son actually, of temptation in the wilderness, with no word from Himself at all, endure, and the power to endure is there because you see God.”

In our times of distress, frustration, and brokenheartedness over the state of our world, we need to remember God’s word to Habakkuk – though it lingers, wait for it (2:3).  He is in control. He makes all things new and sets all things right. Patience isn’t easy. But it’s possible because we have great hope!

PRAY: Pray Habakkuk’s words today; speak them to God and let them be your own: “LORD I have heard of your fame; I stand in awe of your deeds, O LORD. Renew them in our day, in our time make them known; in wrath remember mercy…though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will be joyful in God my Savior. The Sovereign LORD is my strength.”

READ:  Daniel 11-12

BACKGROUND: If you have questions about this complex eschatological (end times) text then please post them! I will get back to you.

RE-READ: Read Daniel 12:1-3 again, and read the whole chapter if possible. Lay your watch or phone next to your Bible or computer screen. As you read, consider how this passage affects time, both right now and in the future.

THINK: A great deal has been said and written about the end times – in radio talk shows, best-selling novels, Hollywood blockbusters, and conversations over coffee.

In light of these verses, what are you thinking about the end times? What are you feeling? Does talk like this about the future excite you or scare you?

Focus a few minutes specifically on Daniel 12:1-3. How do we know if we lived wisely? What does it mean to lead others around us to righteousness? What are the implications of these words in your life? Who do you have the opportunity to help get on the right path towards life?

Do you think it’s fair that God gives some people eternal life and banishes others to eternal separation, frustration, and shame? Is he being just when he does that? Why or why not?

PRAY: Tell God how you feel about the future – both your immediate future and the end of the world. Ask him to help you live wisely. Invite God to guide you in helping put others on the right path to life.

LIVE: Live with confidence today, knowing that God has already secured the future and will be victorious.

– Adapted from Eugene Peterson in Solo

READ: Daniel 9-10

THINK: I think that we are living at a crossroads within the evangelical church in America. Our nation is plagued by a dull and lifeless church marked by compromise and a lack of holy integrity. And there is something that powerful that we can learn something about how to pray for revival from the way that Daniel prays for the desolation of his people. The following is an excerpt from a sermon by John Piper about that very subject:

Four Ways to Pray for a Desolate Church:

1. Go to the Bible

First, we pray for a desolate church by beginning where Daniel began. We go to the books. 9:2: “In the first year of [Darius’s] reign, I, Daniel, perceived in the books . . . ” The books are the prophet Jeremiah and other biblical books. Prayer begins with the Bible.

Without the Bible in our prayers, they will be just as worldly as the church we are trying to free from worldliness. Daniel’s prayer begins with the Bible and it is saturated with the Bible. Phrase after phrase comes right out of the Scriptures. There are allusions to Leviticus (26:40) and Deuteronomy (28:64) and Exodus (34:6) and Psalms (44:14) and Jeremiah (25:11). The prayer brims with a biblical view of reality, because it brims with the Bible. What I have seen is that those whose prayers are most saturated with Scripture are generally most fervent and most effective in prayer.

2. Confess Our Sin

The second way to pray for a desolate church is to confess our sin.

About 12 verses of Daniel’s prayer is confession: verses 4–15. This means being truthful about God and about sin. It means recognizing sin as sin and calling it bad names, not soft names: things like wickedness and rebellion and wrong (v. 5) and treachery and shameful (v. 7) and disobedience (v. 10). It means recognizing God as righteous (v. 7) and great and fearful (v. 4) and merciful and forgiving (v. 9). It means feeling broken and remorseful and guilty (v. 8) before God.

Before God! There is a difference between feeling miserable because sin has made our life miserable and feeling broken because our sin has offended the holiness of God and brought reproach on his name. Daniel’s confession—biblical confession—is God-centered. The issue is not admitting that we have made our life miserable. The issue is admitting that there is something much worse than our misery, namely, the offended holiness and glory of God.

3. Remember Past Mercies Knowing God Never Changes

The way to pray for a desolate church is to remember past mercies, and be encouraged that God never changes. Verse 15: “And now, O Lord our God, who didst bring thy people out of the land of Egypt with a mighty hand . . . ” Daniel knew that the reason God saved Israel from Egypt was not because Israel was so good. Psalm 106:7–8, Our fathers, when they were in Egypt, did not consider thy wonderful works; they did not remember the abundance of thy steadfast love, but rebelled against the Most High at the Red Sea. Yet he saved them for his name’s sake, that he might make known his mighty power.

Prayer for a desolate church is sustained by the memory of past mercies. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever (Hebrews 13:8). If God saved a rebellious people once at the Red Sea, he can save them again. So when we pray for a desolate church, we can remember brighter days that the church has known, and darker days from which she was saved. This is why church history is so valuable. There have been bad days before that God had turned around. We pray for a desolate church by remembering past mercies, past triumphs of grace. We remember that history is not a straight line down any more than it is a straight line up.

4. Appeal to God’s Zeal for the Glory of His Own Name

Finally, we pray for a desolate church by appealing to God’s zeal for the glory of his own name. Look how the prayer comes to its climax in verses 18b–19: “We do not present our supplications before thee on the ground of our righteousness but on the ground of thy great mercy. 19) O Lord, hear; O Lord, forgive; O Lord, give heed and act; delay not, for thy own sake, O my God, because thy city and thy people are called by thy name.”

The people of God are known by his name. And God has an infinite zeal for his own name. He will not let it be reproached and made a byword indefinitely. That is our deepest confidence. God is committed to God. God is committed with explosive passion to the glory of his name and the truth of his reputation.

So that’s the bottom of our prayer for a desolate church. We are called by your name. We live by your name. Not to us, O Lord, not to us, but to your name give glory. For your name’s sake, O Lord, save. For your name’s sake, revive. For your name’s sake purify and heal and empower your church, O Lord. For we are called by your name.

PRAY: Pray. Pray for revival in a desolate church. Use this sermon as a guideline for your prayer.