Passage: Zechariah 1:1-6
The Big Idea
After seventy years in exile, God’s people came home to a broken city, and they were broken too. Zechariah’s message is that God has a heart to restore, and He has the resources to do it. Even the names in the first verse preach the message: God remembers, God blesses, at the appointed time.
Seventy Years
Seventy years had passed since the Babylonians dragged Israel across the desert. Seventy years of hearing parents talk about the God who did great things for them. Seventy years in a culture that didn’t know God. Seventy years of lions’ dens and orders to bow to golden images. Seventy years of waiting for life to really start.
Now it was over. God made a way for His people to return to the promised land. You’d think that’s when the credits roll and everyone lives happily ever after.
But it’s not. Just like it’s not all perfect when we start following Jesus. There are still a lot of broken things in our lives, a lot of messed-up thoughts and desires.
The people were broken and discouraged. They were struggling to trust a God they barely knew. Yes, He was bringing them back, but the land was a mess: no walls, no army, hostile neighbors.
Zechariah had been born in Babylon. He’d never seen the glory days of David and Solomon. Walking into a city left in ruins for seventy years, he must have thought, “What did I get myself into? There’s no hope for this place.”
Then he probably looked around at the people who came with him and thought, “At least these faithful people are all in.” But it didn’t take long for the complaining and disappointment to surface. They were in bad shape.
Does God Give Up on a Life?
What does God think about things that are messed up? Does He ever give up?
David cried out that God had rejected and broken His people, and begged Him to restore them (Psalm 60:1). And God promised through Joel that He would restore the years the locusts had eaten, so His people would eat, be satisfied, praise Him and never be put to shame (Joel 2:25-27).
God has a heart to restore, especially His people. Especially those who feel their lives are beyond repair, who think they’ve messed up too badly, who believe they’ll always suffer for their past.
Many believe God is mad at them and won’t relent until the price is paid, or until they do enough good to change His mind. Little do they know He is a God of mercy who delights to rebuild broken lives. He wants us to be His trophies, His pictures of healing and restoration.
And He Has the Resources
A few years ago a college in Chicago announced an ambitious plan to restore a historic silent-film studio where Charlie Chaplin once made movies. It would become a museum and performance space. Then the project was cancelled. As the college president explained, fundraising couldn’t keep pace with expenses.
Our efforts, plans and resources can’t accomplish the kind of restoration our lives need.
But God’s resources never run out. Of His fullness we have all received, grace upon grace (John 1:16). That’s how grace works. That’s what this book is about: God’s work, done with God’s resources, in our lives.
Read: Zechariah 1:1
Two prophets, two personalities
Zechariah began prophesying just two months after Haggai. They lived in the same city at the same time and served the same Lord, but wrote very different books:
- Haggai is short, blunt and action-focused.
- Zechariah is long and full of visions, gentle and encouraging.
Both did God’s will. Both encouraged Zerubbabel, the governor. Both were used powerfully.
That encourages me. God loves your personality. He can use you the way you are. Don’t try to serve Him by imitating someone else. Just be you, not the selfish you, but the you filled with the Spirit, which only comes from Jesus.
The message in the names
- Zechariah means “God remembers.”
- Berechiah, his father, means “God blesses.”
- Iddo, his grandfather, means “at the appointed time.”
The whole message of the book is right there in the first verse.
God remembers. That doesn’t mean God forgets. He’s not in heaven saying, “Oh yeah, I forgot about My people in Babylon!” It means He’s reached the point where He can’t bear to be apart from them any longer, and His love moves Him to act.
God blesses. His desire is to pour out heaven’s resources and goodness into our lives. He wants good for us: good relationships, marriages, families. And He brings them in His own timing and way.
Maybe you’re thinking, “I don’t have those things. I can’t have children. My parents are gone.” Those aren’t obstacles for God. He blesses us with the church, a family so close it’s called a body. He is a Father to the fatherless (Psalm 68:5).
At the appointed time. It’s coming. Nothing can stop it. And remember: you can only learn patience before the blessings come. So rejoice in the waiting too. When they arrive, your joy will be even fuller.
The wait can feel long, and the appointed time can seem like the wrong time. But this life is a vapor (James 4:14). In heaven we will see God’s perfect timing and love Him for it.
Read: Zechariah 1:2-6
The Lord was very angry with your fathers (Zechariah 1:2)
God wants them to understand that He understands. Things have been bad for a long time. You can’t just imitate what you’ve seen and be okay, because even the fathers you loved and remember didn’t get it right. But you don’t have to do it the way they did.
“Return to Me, and I will return to you” (Zechariah 1:3)
It doesn’t matter what they did. This is about you and Me.
Don’t ever let your relationship with God be about someone else. If your parents were bad examples, staying away from God doesn’t get back at them. In the end it’s just you and Him, like it was when He knit you together in your mother’s womb (Psalm 139:13).
“But I have too many sins!” God says He has blotted out your sins like a thick cloud. Return to Him, for He has redeemed you (Isaiah 44:22).
Circumstances discouraged them, and God seemed far away:
- The land was desolate after seventy years of neglect.
- Rebuilding was hard work.
- Money and manpower were short (Haggai 1:6).
- Crops failed (Haggai 1:10-11).
- Enemies opposed the work (Ezra 4:1-5).
- They remembered easier times in Babylon.
How far away is God?
No matter how many steps you’ve walked away, He is only one step back.
Sometimes I wish God would just make someone return to Him, or make me. But He’s a perfect gentleman. He wants love to draw us back.
An elderly couple was driving down the road in their old car with a front bench seat. The wife noticed young couples in other cars sitting close together and asked, “Why don’t we sit that close anymore?” Her husband answered, “I’m not the one who moved.”
If we’re far from God, He hasn’t moved.
Your time now (Zechariah 1:4-6)
Don’t be like your fathers, who didn’t listen to the prophets. Where are they now? Zechariah is calling the people not only to rebuild the temple, as Haggai urged, but to rebuild their relationship with God and learn from their fathers’ mistakes. This is your time. What will you do with the short life you’ve been given?
Is God Angry with You?
Do you feel like you’re under His thumb?
God is grieved by sin, everyone’s sin. But if you believe in Jesus, He is not angry with you. How? Because of propitiation: Jesus fully satisfied God’s justice against sin.
- God set forth Jesus as a propitiation by His blood, through faith (Romans 3:25).
- Jesus became a merciful and faithful High Priest to make propitiation for the sins of the people (Hebrews 2:17).
- He is the propitiation for our sins, and not only ours but the whole world’s (1 John 2:2).
- This is love: not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins (1 John 4:10).
Grace Takeaway
Your life is God’s restoration project, and He never runs out of funds. He remembers you, He blesses you, and He’ll do it at the appointed time. Return to Him. He hasn’t moved, and He isn’t angry. He’s already paid for everything.