Zech. 1:1-6: Return to me, and I will return to you

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1)     Intro: Haggai and Zechariah worked together with the same group of people.

A)   Ezra 5:1

B)    Zech. 1:1 = Late October/Early November, 520 BC

1)     About 2 months after Haggai got the people back to work on the temple.

C)    Think of them like Ben Wyatt and Chris Traeger from Parks and Rec.

1)     Ben focused on the cold hard facts. He was the budget guy who ruthlessly cut spending. He sees the problem, and works to fix it, and he’s not there to make friends.

2)     This is like Haggai. Why haven’t you built the temple yet? What have you been doing? It’s time to get busy!

3)     Chris is the motivation guy. He’s positive and wholistic. He doesn’t just want people to fix their budgets, he wants them to fix themselves.

4)     This is like Zechariah. He is the visionary who focuses on fixing the people’s hearts and having a spiritual renewal.

D)   For Zechariah, the stalled temple reflected a deeper spiritual reality that needed to be corrected.

1)     The people were geographically back in the land…

2)     but they were not spiritually back with God yet, and his message targets their hearts.

2)     vv. 2-4 – Learn from the mistakes of the past.

A)   If we are going to get back on the right track, then we need to be brutally honest about where things went wrong in the first place.

B)    v. 2 – “The Lord was very angry with your fathers.”

1)     Lit. “God was angry with anger”

2)     This emphasized the “very.” (CSB – extremely)

(a)   KJV – “The Lord hath been sore displeased with you fathers.”’

(b)   YLT – “Jehovah was wroth against your fathers—wrath!”

3)     They did not irritate God or just make him a little mad.

C)    v. 4 – “Do not be like your fathers…”

1)     Specifically, they were called to repentance, but they refused to turn back.

(a)   Israel condemned (2 Kgs. 17:13-14)

(b)   Judah condemned (2 Chron. 36:15-16)

(c)   First, you got to the spot where you are right now because of your parents who would not listen to God.

2)     Zechariah was calling this people to repentance, and he told them to not make the same mistake as their fathers by ignoring this call. Second, don’t make the same mistakes that your parents made.

3)     POINT: Don’t make the same mistakes that past generations made.

(a)   v. 2 – “The Lord was very angry with your fathers.”

(b)   V. 4 – “Do not be like your fathers…”

4)     Ezek. 18 – Each of us is responsible for ourselves.

(a)   Summarize

(b)   We don’t inherit our parent’s righteousness OR sinfulness.

(c)   Each of us is responsible for ourselves.

(d)   POINT: Take a look at the mistakes that other people have made, and learn from those and don’t repeat them.

D)   v. 5

1)     “Your fathers, where are they?” In this case, they were sent away into Babylonian captivity and they died in a foreign land.

2)     “And the prophets, do they live forever?” Not even righteous people who devoted their lives to God are still around.

3)     v. 6a – “But my words and my statutes, which I commanded my servants the prophets, did they not overtake your fathers?”

(a)   Is. 40:6-8

(b)   Matt. 24:35 – “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.”

(c)   “overtake”

(i)    NET – God’s word have outlived their ancestors

(ii)  GW – God’s words finally caught up to their ancestors

(iii)          KJV – God’s words took hold of your fathers

(iv) The word is used in Gen. 44:4, “Now Joseph said to his steward, ‘Up, follow after the men, and when you overtake them, say to them…’”

(d)   Your fathers chose to ignore God, and they were overtaken by his word.

(e)   The bad ones are dead, and the good ones are dead, but God’s word is still going.

(f)    …so let’s learn from the mistakes of the past.

E)    Applications: Let’s learn from the mistakes of the past.

1)     Church divisions from the past.

2)     Conversations with Jake about people who fall our with their churches and end up losing everything. Let’s not do that.

3)     v. 3 – The call: “Return to me, and I will return to you.”

A)   “Return” (Everything hinges on this word.)

1)     LTW - to turn, to return. Refers to turning toward or away from something, often used with the sense of turning away from God (apostasy) or turning back toward God (repentance). While [turn] is used for physical movement, and while it is used sometimes in later literature to refer to the nation’s return from exile, it is most often used in covenantal contexts to refer to God’s people either turning away from God or to God’s people turning back to God from sin. Some forms are also used with God as the subject to indicate God’s “restoring” his people.

2)     If God’s people will turn to him, then he will turn to them.

(a)   Zechariah’s name means “Yahweh Remembers.”

B)    Returning to God is a relational word that points to more than just doing what he says.

1)     e.g. Sometimes when I’m preaching I’ll say, “Come back to me.” We are all in the same room, and nobody physically moved. Come back to me points to us being engaged with each other again.

2)     e.g. If a marriage is broken because of years of neglect or betrayal, you don’t just fix it by suddenly doing more chores around the house (i.e. “I did the dishes, so we’re good now”). You need to turn back to your wife, and realign your heart and your loyalty towards them.

3)     Zech. 1:1ff. happens a little after Hag. 1:14 where the people got busy building God’s house.

(a)   But Zechariah isn’t calling the people to finish the plumbing in the new temple.

(b)   He’s saying to them, “Come back to me / come back to me with your heart.”

4)     Deut. 30:1-3, 6

4)     v. 6b – “So they repented”

A)   They owned it. They took responsibility for themselves without making excuses, and fully committed themselves to the Lord.

B)    How do we move forward?

1)     Take a look at the past and see where we got off track in the first place.

2)     Look at where those mistakes have taken other people. I don’t want that for me or my family.

3)     So we are going to turn completely to God, not merely in my actions, but from my heart.

4)     Take action. Do something about it.

(a)   Lk. 15 – The Prodigal Son

(i)    v. 17 – He felt his sin

(ii)  v. 18 – He was sorry for his sin

(iii)          v. 20 – He did something about it (“And he arose and came to his father.”)