Today's Word Radio

Brett Meador: Whatsoever you do, do it heartily as unto the Lord and not unto men, knowing that of the Lord you shall receive the reward of inheritance, for you serve the Lord Christ. What you and I do is supposed to be done heartily as unto the Lord, not just for our own thing or for other men to see.

Guest (Male): Pastor Brett Meador with his sincere challenge for believers. Why do you do what you do? The Christian, we want to live for Him and we want to do what He wants us to do. And yet, people do stuff thinking God wants them to do stuff, but it's just made-up weirdness.

The people of Jerusalem in Zechariah's time followed a long-standing tradition of weeping and fasting, but they were unclear why and for whom they were doing it. In today's word, Pastor Brett Meador will show that in seeking the Lord for clarity, we see what God really wanted from them and us instead of blindly following misguided traditions He never commanded us to do.

Brett Meador: Let's take a look at Zechariah 7. We'll begin right here in verse one. It says, "And it came to pass in the fourth year of King Darius, that the word of the Lord came unto Zechariah in the fourth day of the ninth month, even in Chisleu." Or as the Hebrews say, Kislev. "When they had sent unto the house of God Sharezer and Regem-Melech and their men to pray before the Lord."

Before we hear what they're going to pray and seek and say, what's going to happen? These are guys coming to inquire of the Lord and ask this question. So what's the question? Verse three says they came to pray before the Lord and to speak unto the priests which were in the house of the Lord of hosts and to the prophets saying, "Should I weep in the fifth month, separating myself as I have done these so many years?"

This question you and I at first glance are like, whatever. Even by nature, does it sound a little contrived? Has anybody ever walked up to you and asked, "Should I weep right now?" It is a weird question. People usually weep because they're going to weep. Why were they weeping and fasting and mourning? Somewhere along the way, somebody 70 years earlier said, "We need to weep, fast, and mourn."

The reason was that in 586 B.C., Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonians crushed Jerusalem and made rubble out of the temple in Jerusalem. So some of the Jews said, "We're going to just weep, fast, and mourn every fifth and seventh month because Jerusalem is in rubble and our country's been crushed." So that's what they did for 70 years. Now the temple's being rebuilt, Jerusalem walls are back up and running, their houses are built, things are looking up, and they are like, "Do we have to still weep, fast, and mourn as we've done these 70 years?"

Before we are critical of this, let's give them a little credit. At least they're asking. I wonder how many of us just do stupid stuff and think that God's impressed by it. We think the answer was, "Of course, we have to weep, fast, and mourn." What are the things that you and I do that we should actually ask the Lord, "Lord, should we continue doing this? Is this something that You're into?"

It's interesting what we do as churches, for example. What is the church supposed to do? The church does a lot of things. I wonder if, for example, some of our Catholic friends would go to the Lord and ask, "Lord, should we continue to wear pointy hats and robes as we've done these millennia?" Nowhere in the Bible does it say that you're supposed to wear a pointy hat and wear a robe as a priest or a pastor or a clergyman. Where did that come from?

It is good to ask the origin. Where did that weeping, fasting, and mourning thing start? It started at the destruction of Jerusalem. Did God ask them to do that? Actually, the answer is no, but they're just doing it thinking that somehow it makes God happy. We start with this interesting inquisition. By the way, we largely get our mantra from the early church. Acts chapter 2, verse 42. They continued steadfastly in four main things: the apostles' doctrine, which is teaching the Bible; breaking of bread, which is communion; and fellowship.

The word fellowship is koinonia, meaning fellowshipping around Jesus, focusing on Jesus. And then in prayers; that's obvious, to pray together and say prayers to God as a church family. Those are the things they continued steadfastly in. See, that starts to make me nervous. What are the things that we do that we don't even really know why we do them? If we asked the Lord, what would His answer be?

That brings us to this next section of this chapter. We started with an interesting inquisition. The problem is the next section is they had a poor assumption, or presumption, I should say. They presumed that God was interested or pleased somehow by their weeping, fasting, and mourning and praying for 70 years. They thought that was what God was into.

We don't even know whether it was God or man who instructed them to do this at the beginning, but I fear that God never really asked them to do this. You're going to get that sense here. Let's continue where we left off. It says in verse four, "Then came the word of the Lord of hosts to me," that's Zechariah the prophet, saying, "Speak unto all the people of the land and to the priests, saying, 'When you fasted and mourned in the fifth and seventh month, even those 70 years, did you at all fast unto Me, even to Me?'"

The Lord answers the question with a question. Verse six, "And when you did eat, and when you did drink, did you not eat for yourselves and drink for yourselves? Should you not hear the words which the Lord hath cried by the former prophets when Jerusalem was inhabited and in prosperity, and the cities thereof round about her, when men inhabited the south and the plain?"

What does the Lord say? He says, "When you guys were weeping and fasting, were you really doing that to Me?" Now, you have to understand, the Lord knows the answer to this. When the Lord asks a question, He already knows the answer. The answer is they were not weeping, fasting, and mourning; they were going through some kind of a show that they thought was impressive. "Look, we're weeping, Lord, fasting and mourning and praying." And the Lord is like, "Were you really doing that for Me or were you doing that for yourselves?"

The answer is you were just doing that for yourself. Your motivation was way off. You should have been listening to what the prophets were telling you back when the prophets were telling you to repent from your sins. But there you were, doing what you thought was right and holy and cool, but they missed the main thing. They didn't listen to the prophets. They were honoring their own practice. They were honoring their own tradition.

That's why I'm afraid to say I'm not really going to do a Good Friday service because the Lord never really asked that of us. But when it comes to communion, we're going to take that as serious as we can, but without adding more and more weird traditions to it. You've heard me talk about this. People make these mistakes all the time. One of my favorite things to do is to bring a picture of Jesus printed from my inkjet printer.

You just Google up "Jesus," look up the images, and you'll see the picture that always comes up. You know the picture I'm talking about. It's the Southern California surfer Jesus: long, flowing hair with a beard. But you and I both know that's not Jesus. Some artist made Jesus back in the 1950s or something, a picture that looks kind of like what Americans think Jesus looks like, and we think that's Jesus.

So I'd print out my... This was always funny. I'd bring it to church with you guys and say, "Here's Jesus," and you're like, "Yep, that's Jesus." And I'd say, "Now I'm going to rip this paper because this isn't really Jesus." And I'd watch people. People were just dying, squirming in their seats. "Don't rip Jesus, please, Brett. We're going to leave the church if you rip Jesus in half."

But what it was, actually, is just dot-matrix ink splattered on a page in a certain pattern that a computer made of an image that's not actually even Jesus. It's a guy that somebody painted. And yet we make something really holy to where you couldn't even rip it, and people are totally offended. That's just crazy, weird things that we do and believe. As much as I love a cross on a church building, I think it's great. The reason we don't have one is because everybody thinks we have to have one.

I love a good cross. I see value and beauty in the cross, of course. But just because everybody thinks you have to have one, that's one of these things. "Lord, should we have a cross on our building?" I wonder if the Lord would say, "You can put that up there if you want to, but I kind of didn't really ask that of you. Nowhere in the Bible does it tell you to do that. But what I do care about is you being nice to one another, loving each other, being forgiving of one another." That's kind of what I care about.

Wait, we haven't even finished this yet. As we keep reading, you're going to be shocked. These guys are saying, "Should we weep and fast and mourn and pray as we've done piously all these 70 years?" And the Lord's like, "You should have listened to the prophets. And when you did that stuff, you were just doing it to yourself." Don't forget what the Bible actually says. Are we supposed to do what we do for ourselves?

The Bible says no. Colossians 3:23 and 24. "Whatsoever you do, do it heartily as unto the Lord, and not unto men, knowing that of the Lord you shall receive the reward of inheritance, for you serve the Lord Christ." What you and I do is supposed to be done heartily as unto the Lord, not just for our own thing or for other men to see. Why do you do what you do? What's your motivation? I wonder if some of you are even here at church. Why are you here at church?

Going to church is more of a "get to" and not a "got to." I love the sense of that here. But I do wonder. I get the sense there's a few of you that were kind of dragged here by your parents, or by your mother, or by your wife. I know who you are. You're the one slouching in the back right now, flipping through your phone, looking up vacation spots, ordering your Amazon stuff. I see you guys when I'm walking around. I go, "Oh, there's another Amazon surfer during worship."

Somebody dragged you to church today and you're here. I would just say check your heart. Why do you do what you do? Are you doing it just because people ask you to do it? The Lord says, "I'm not really into that at all. It'd be better for you to not do it, I think." It's not only that. First Corinthians 10:31. "Whether therefore you eat, or drink, or whatsoever you do, do all to the glory of God."

That's the problem with these guys. They were fasting and they were doing it for their own purpose, and they weren't really serving the Lord. They were serving themselves. So why do you go to church? Do you go because somebody dragged you, because you're glad to be here, or it can get weird. You can even be here originally for the right reason, but then you can start letting your motivations change. By the way, this story tells us that God sees your hearts and your motivation.

So the young guy signs up for children's ministry. "Yeah, I'm serving the Lord in children's ministry." And the Lord says, "Yeah, you did it because there's a lot of pretty girls teaching back there and you just want to ask one of them out on a date." The Lord sees that, and that's the problem. Weeping, fasting, and mourning are biblical things, but the Lord says, "I'm not really into you guys doing that on the fifth month, seventh month. Check your motives."

By the way, all throughout church history, there were people that did stuff that somehow they thought was pleasing the Lord. One of the most crazy groups you'll read about historically are the ascetics. Asceticism, what was that? These are people that did a kind of severe self-discipline and avoided all form of indulgence or comfort for religious reasons. "I'm not going to be comfortable, I'm going to be in pain because God wants me there." That's what they thought.

So what did they do? The list is long of the ascetics. You can read about them. St. Acepsimas wore so many chains on his body that he couldn't even hold his body up. He had to be on the ground all the time. If he wanted to go from point A to point B, it took him inch by inch. He had to drag these chains on the ground, and he thought that was pleasing to God somehow.

Bessarion was a monk who wouldn't give in to his body's desire to sleep. Good, restful sleep, he thought that was an indulgence and sinful. So, this is a true story, for 40 years, he only would sleep standing up against a wall. That way he would never enter into a real deep sleep. He would just barely be able to get enough sleep to survive. St. Maron spent 11 years in a hollowed-out tree trunk, thinking that pleased God.

But one of my favorites was a guy named Simeon the Stylite. The Greek word for "stylite" is a pillar with a chapter at the top. He was a guy who fasted to the point of almost death many, many times. He got kicked out of a monastery because the monk said, "You're too radical for us. We can't keep up with your starving yourself and inflicting pain on yourself." So they kicked him out, and he started to wander and do stuff.

But he was so perturbed by sinful people in the world, and he said, "I've got to get away from this." He'd find tall things and get up at the top of them and sit there. Every day he'd get up on something tall. Eventually, he said, "I am never coming down." So he found a pillar. The pillar that he found was 60 feet tall, and the top of it had a six-foot-wide surface at the top.

He remained at the top of that 60-foot tower for the last 30 years of his life and never came down. Cold, rain, snow, wind. He even chained himself to the top of that so that when the winds came or if he slept, he didn't want to roll off the top and splat at the bottom. So he literally chained himself to the top of this thing for the last 30 years of life, never coming down. They'd put food up to him in a basket.

That's asceticism on a rampage, and these people literally thought they were somehow pleasing God. I wonder if this guy, if he made it to heaven, I wonder if he'd go, "Lord, should I have sat on that pillar for all those years?" I wonder if the Lord would say, "Well, you could do that if you wanted to. Sounds painful. But what I actually wanted you to do is go into all the world and preach the gospel and love your neighbor and be kind to the sinner and forgive the people that have wronged you." You kind of did not do what I really wanted you to do. I wonder if he was like, "Oh man, what a waste of all those last 30 years."

Why do we do what we do? Because Jesus died on the cross for our sins. Asceticism should have been nailed down when they realized that Jesus, Romans 5:8, "Commendeth His love toward us, and that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." Simeon the Stylite didn't need to be freezing and in pain; Jesus was in pain for him so that he didn't have to feel the pain.

These people, the ascetics, they lost the whole point. The point is Jesus suffered for you so that you wouldn't have to. And then that's what should motivate you and me to do what we do. Because of the Lord. In fact, Second Corinthians 5:14 and 15 says, "For the love of Christ constraineth us," or compels us to do what we do, "because we thus judge that if one died for all, then were all dead, and that He died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto Him which died for them and rose again."

The Christian, we want to live for Him and we want to do what He wants us to do. And yet, people do stuff thinking God wants them to do stuff, but it's just made-up weirdness. So we start our lesson here in this chapter. Interesting inquisition: "Lord, should we weep, fast, and mourn as we've done piously all these 70 years?" The poor presumption was that somehow God was into their weeping, fasting, and mourning.

Now we come to the next section, verses eight through 14. A rough reminder. Listen to what the Lord says to these guys. It gets kind of brutal. In verse eight, "And the word of the Lord came to Zechariah, saying, 'Thus speaketh the Lord of hosts, saying, "Execute true judgment and show mercy and compassions every man to his brother, and oppress not the widow, nor the fatherless, nor the stranger, nor the poor; and let none of you imagine evil against his brother in your heart."'"

But they refused to hearken and pulled away the shoulder and stopped their ears that they should not hear. Yea, they made their hearts as an adamant stone lest they should hear the law and the words of the Lord of hosts that He sent in His Spirit by the former prophets. Therefore came a great wrath from the Lord of hosts. Therefore it is come to pass that as He cried and they would not hear, so they cried and I would not hear, saith the Lord of hosts.

But I scattered them with a whirlwind among all the nations whom they knew not. Thus the land was desolate after them, that no man passed through nor returned, for they laid the pleasant land desolate. The Lord says, "Yeah, your weeping, fasting, mourning thing, whatever. I want you to be kind to each other. I want you to show mercy and give to the poor. You were all worried about your weeping, fasting, mourning in the fifth and seventh month. But what about when you were plugging your ears when the prophets were saying, 'Repent and do the right thing, get rid of your paganism'?"

And the people, I love this, it says, "But they refused to listen and pulled away their shoulder." It's like they went, "Hmm, I'm not listening to you," and then they plugged their ears. "La la la, we're not listening to the Lord." That's what verse 11 is. And so the Lord said, "Because of that, I scattered you among the nations and crushed Jerusalem."

Brutal. This is a rough reminder of why. See, they were supposed to be weeping and fasting and mourning because Jerusalem was crushed, but they should have been mourning not because Jerusalem was crushed. They should have been mourning why Jerusalem was crushed. It was because of their sin. They were just weeping and mourning because they lost their city. And God's correcting them and setting them straight.

"So should we stop weeping and fasting and mourning, Lord?" Lord says, "Stop ripping off the poor, show kindness to those in trouble." It's interesting that when people turn away their ears from the word of God, it always is trouble. In fact, Proverbs 28:9 says, "He that turneth away his ear from hearing the law, even his prayer shall be an abomination."

If you're one who's saying, "Yeah, the Bible and all that, whatever," and you're turning away your ears from the word, don't be shocked when your prayers fail to fly. You can pray till you're blue in the face, but wouldn't you agree if your prayer is an abomination before the Lord, is the Lord going to hear that prayer? The answer is no. So the Lord even says that, "Therefore it'll come to pass, verse 13, that as He, the Lord, when He cried to the Jews in Jerusalem, they would not hear. So that when they cried, the Jews in Jerusalem crying, then I will not hear, saith the Lord of hosts."

That's what happens when we rebel against the word of God. So you have an interesting inquisition, a poor presumption, they were presuming that God was into their weeping, fasting, mourning, praying, and then a rough reminder of why everything happened to them the way it did. Now, I don't want to leave this with this brutal ending because it's kind of heavy. The Lord is saying, "Yeah, you guys are a bunch of losers."

It is kind of brutal. But this reminds me of being a parent. You know when your kids do bad stuff and you get after them? You moms know how it is. You can be pretty perturbed with your kids. I always crack up at the things moms say to their kids. "I'm going to twist your head off like the lid of a pickle jar. I'm going to tell your father when he gets home," or whatever you said to your kids.

But you're really mad at them. But when we hear that stuff, most of you, we know you still as a mother have a real love for those little rascals. Those little stinkers. And the rest of us are like, "Yeah, they're a bunch of little sinners." But you're like, "Yeah, I was mad at them, but I still love them." That's what I want to finish with on this because the Father in heaven's not like us. We're sinful parents.

But one thing I love about God the Father, even though He sees their error in chapter seven, in chapter eight, let's just do a sneak preview. Just two verses. In chapter eight, verses seven and eight, we see what God does. Same people, same people He just kind of thumped a little bit in chapter seven. Look at verse seven of chapter eight. "Thus saith the Lord of hosts: 'Behold, I will save My people from the east country and from the west country; and I will bring them, and they shall dwell in the midst of Jerusalem; and they shall be My people, and I will be their God, in truth and in righteousness.'"

Even though these people were misguided and made some major sins by paganism and idol-worshiping, the reason Jerusalem was crushed, it is just a heavy story. But I love how it ends with the Lord saying, "But you know what? I still love those little rascals." Those Jews, I still have a plan and a purpose for the Jews. And I still am going to bring them back to Jerusalem and make them My people and I will be their God.

That's the God you and I serve. You might be one who's failed. You might be doing silly things, goofy things, stupid things. But guess what? The Lord still loves you, and I love that. Wasn't the Lord just upset with them in chapter seven? Yep, but He also loves them and redeems them. He's telling them what to do: love each other. As I'm forgiving you, that's how I want you to forgive others. He's demonstrating to them what they need to start doing when He said, "Execute true judgment" there in verse nine. "Show mercy and compassion." That's exactly what the Lord's about to do to them in chapter eight.

By the way, it reminds me of Ephesians 4:32. "Be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake has forgiven you." Good lesson. Maybe there's a challenge for each one of you to ask the Lord, "Why do I do what I do? Am I doing stuff just because people asked me to do it or human tradition? Do I go to college because everybody goes to college and I'm spending $60,000 on a degree in French poetry and going to try to make a living out of that? Why do I do what I do?"

I wonder if you'd ask the Lord why we do. By the way, the pastors, the elders, the leadership here at Athey, we constantly are asking the Lord, "What does Athey do that we don't really need to be doing? And what are things that Your Bible tells us to do that we might be missing or forgetting?" That's something we're constantly praying about and wrestling.

Guest (Male): Pastor Brett Meador looking forward to more important truths revealed to us from the book of Zechariah, having completed our study of chapter seven in today's word. And stay right there as Pastor Brett will join me here in a moment. But first, Today's Word is the radio ministry of Athey Creek Church in the Portland suburb of West Linn, Oregon, where Pastor Brett Meador's the senior pastor.

You can find out more by going to TodaysWordRadio.com. That's TodaysWordRadio.com. All right, Pastor Brett is with me. Brett, one of the most famous men in the Bible is King David.

Brett Meador: Yeah.

Guest (Male): Before he was king, he was known as being a shepherd and then slaying the giant Goliath. He was also a man after God's own heart. But he was also a writer of multiple songs, many of those which are found in scripture. So music was, of course, a huge part of his life. And I know music is also a big part of your life at Athey Creek Church. In fact, you'll occasionally be playing with the Athey Worship Band. Why is music so important to you personally, Brett, and why is music so vital in worship?

Brett Meador: I love that you brought up David because I think that some men particularly think that worshipping God is kind of a soft thing to do. It's for the ladies. But I dare you to say that to David's face when you get to heaven. I mean, David was a guy who made the SEAL Team Six guys look like wimps. The women in the street said, "David has killed his tens of thousands," and they would let alone the giant Goliath.

The thing I love about David: he was a warrior, but he was also a worshiper. I think one of the things that we men need to really remember is that worshipping God, there's nothing wimpy about it. David wrestled with depression. He wrestled with challenges and difficulty. But when you read the Psalms that he wrote, you realize this is how he was working through the challenges of life.

It's almost like he had the truth in his head, but it would have to reach into his heart. And I think that's what happens when we are worshipers. It's like in Colossians 3:16 where Paul says, "Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly with all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord."

So worship through music isn't just about performance. It's really not about that. It's more about participation. It's the body of Christ coming together to say, "Here's what God is, and look what He's done, and let's celebrate that together." It's just a good reminder. So I think for me, I like to be a part of the worship team whenever I can because I want people to see that their pastor, who loves the Bible... Have you noticed, Kurt, that there's sometimes people that love the Bible but aren't really into worship?

And then there's people that love to worship but aren't really into the Bible. I want to show our congregation that both are essential, and that's really one of the reasons why I continue to jump in.

Guest (Male): Brett, that's really good insight, how we need to be mindful of how important both worship and the study of God's word really is. Thank you for that. Well, if you'd like more information about Pastor Brett Meador, Today's Word, or Athey Creek Church, you can just go to our website at TodaysWordRadio.com. That's TodaysWordRadio.com.

Well, that's all the time we have. Next time, Pastor Brett Meador will explore the Easter story, and we'll see why the resurrection of Jesus is so central to our faith. Today's Word with Pastor Brett Meador is an outreach of Athey Creek Church in West Linn, Oregon.