Today's Word Radio

Brett Meador: What are the things that you and I do that are actually we should ask the Lord, "Lord, should we continue doing this? Is this something that you're into?" I wonder how many of us just do stupid stuff and think that God's impressed by it.

Pastor Brett Meador asks: Are your efforts to worship God pleasing to him?

Brett Meador: 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? And if we asked the Lord, what would his answer be? And the Lord said, "You can do that if you want to, but I really wished you would have been given to fellowship and breaking of bread and prayer. That's what I really wanted you to do."

Paul challenged the Corinthians: Whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. Yet God used the prophet Zechariah to rebuke his people for what their fasting and mourning had become: indulgent self-pity instead of a time to genuinely seek God. In today's word, Pastor Brett Meador challenges believers to avoid such an example of misdirected worship to the Lord.

Brett Meador: Why don't you turn to Zechariah chapter seven? It's an interesting chapter. It just raises some interesting questions. There's an old true story told during the days of 1859 in St. Petersburg. There was a custom for everyone connected with the court. They would go to the promenade in the Summer Garden between Paul's Palace and Neva. There, the emperor was walking through the gardens in this big festival sort of thing. The emperor was walking through and he saw a sentry, a guard standing at attention guarding in a weird space in the middle of the lawn.

The guy was just there posted. The emperor's like, "Why is that dude there? What's he there for?" So he asked the guard, "Why are you here?" He said, "Orders." Somebody gave him the order to stand there and he's been doing that. "How long have you been doing that?" "Months." The emperor asked around, went up the chain of command. "Why did you order this guy?" "Well, there's always a guy that's standing right there." That's all he could find out. "Well, we've always had a guy right there posted." "Well, why? What's the point?" The emperor, the more he found, nobody had the answer.

But the hubbub reached the servants' quarters there in the palace. One of the older guys said, "Well, I know why he's there. It actually goes a long time ago. When my grandfather was serving here, there was a nice sunny early spring day when Catherine the Great, 63 years earlier, she was walking in the lawn there in the gardens, and she saw a brand new early spring flower. She was so excited to see the flower that she ordered one of her guards to stand and watch guard over that flower to make sure nobody stepped on it."

63 years earlier. It never got canceled. The guard just stood there day after day guarding the flower. The flower long was dead and the guards just kept standing there for 63 years. That's why he was posted at that strange place in the middle of the lawn. Do you ever find yourself asking, "Why do we do what we do?" Now, if you're an older person here, I'm not saying what happens to us when we're in the house like, "Why am I on this side? What did I come to this room for again?" That's different. That's a whole other sermon.

I deal with that from time to time. I'm actually talking about stuff we cognitively accept and just do without even really thinking about why we do what we do. And it's always good to check yourself because sometimes you'll find we do stupid stuff for stupid reasons and we have never really even questioned or even sought the Lord. "Lord, should I continue to do what I'm doing?" It's an interesting thing. The Israelites now here are going to ask a similar question. After doing the same thing for many years, they were doing something.

These are people from the place called Bethel, house of the Lord. They're going to ask the Lord a question in our story here. You've got to understand, remember the stage here if you're just joining us in these studies. The book of Zechariah is set during the period when we call the post-exilic period, where they were exiled for 70 years in Babylon. And then when Artaxerxes, 445 BC, actually declares that the Jews can go and restore and rebuild Jerusalem and build their walls and all that stuff.

The Jews, about 50,000 of them, went from Babylon, their captivity, went back to Israel and Jerusalem and started rebuilding. They'd been doing that for years. They got their walls built by Ezra and Nehemiah and their houses were all built. We learn from the book of Haggai. Now in Zechariah and Haggai, they're saying, "Guys, you've got to finish the temple. Let's get the temple finished." Because it sat for 16 years half done. And there was nobody working on it. That's what part of the book of Zechariah is about, get the temple done. That's what Haggai was all about.

But in this scene, the Jews now, they're living large, they've got their houses nice and built and everything's starting to look up. And that sort of forces this question that these men of Bethel come and they want to inquire of the priests and of the prophet of the Lord. In the Old Testament Hebrew Bible, if you were just a person who wanted to know what the Lord was saying, you didn't really have the Bible to look to. So they had the prophets and the prophets would seek the Lord and speak on behalf of the Lord.

And that's what's going on here in Zechariah. They're asking these guys a question and Zechariah's going to seek the Lord. And the Lord's going to give them an answer. Let's take a look at Zechariah 7. We'll begin right here in verse one. "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. "And when they had sent unto the house of God Sherezer and Regem-melech, and their men, to pray before the Lord."

Now before we hear what they're going to pray and seek and say, what's going on here? Well, these are guys coming to inquire of the Lord. But there's a few interesting things about this. First of all, the month of Kislev as the Hebrews would say, but did you know that's not even really a Hebrew word? The month Kislev is actually a Babylonian month from the Babylonian calendar. It's the ninth month of the Babylonian calendar. And the only time we ever hear this month talked about is in the post-exilic books, like Zechariah 7:1, the verse we just read, and Nehemiah chapter 1, verse 1.

It's the only time we read this month of Kislev. You say, "Brett, we don't care about months, can we just keep reading?" Well, there is something about this that you should note. There's some Babylonian stuff that has lingered with the Jews. The Jews, they come from Babylon. And there's an old saying, "You can bring the Jews out of Babylon, but you can't get the Babylon out of the Jews." Or even the story of Egypt. Remember the Jews were slaves in Egypt? You can get the Jews out of Egypt, but you can't get the Egypt out of the Jews.

And you can say that of us. You might become a Christian and you can say, "Well, you can take the Christian out of the world, but it's hard to get the world out of the Christian." What do you mean, Brett? Sometimes worldly stuff, godless stuff, stuff that's not really of the Lord lingers in our lives. And there's a little bit of that here in this story. Not only in the fact that they're talking about the Babylonian month—they should have by this time got back to the Hebrew calendar—but they're doing that with the Babylonian calendar.

And then there's another hint about this by their names. The two guys that we just read there in verse two, they sent unto the house of God, the first guy, Sherezer. His name, by the way, is a Babylonian name. He's a Jewish guy with a Babylonian name. His name means, by the way, in the Babylonian culture, "protect the king." Sherezer. The second guy, Regem-melech, his name means "king's friend." Now, interesting, the Babylonians were unique in ancient history. When they conquered a people, they did something that was unusual and they were really good at it.

And it was actually one of the most successful things. Think of ancient battles and wars. How did you deal with the people that you conquered? Some people would just slay everyone. You might think Genghis Khan, or Jinguis Khan as his really name was pronounced. There was so much bloodshed; they killed millions of people. And they didn't have prisons or prisoners of war; they just killed everybody. Or made them slaves. That was actually a good day. If they let you live and you became a slave, that was a good day in ancient war.

But the Babylonians did something really strange. They'd kill a lot of people in the battle. But then they'd take the people in and they'd get the best looking, most in shape, sharp, talented, young—they'd get all the youngest, best—and they'd bring them in and say, "Come be a Babylonian, come live in Babylon. We'll show you how true living is." And we see that, by the way, in the book of Daniel. Remember when Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego and Daniel were taken in? They didn't put them in some prison cell.

They let them live in the king's palace and eat of the king's steak and have the king's wine. That's what their goal was. They wanted these little Jewish guys to become tried and true Babylonians. And you know what? It worked. The Babylonians had very little problem with people rebelling against their kingdom because, first, they were really powerful, but second, people were like, "By the time they hang out in Babylon for a while, they're pretty much O Babylon." Like they love it. They love it living in Babylon. It's like, great, "Forget Jerusalem. Total dump compared to Babylon."

That's kind of what happened. That's why, by the way, when God says, "I'm going to return my people to Jerusalem," only—and I say only, you might think it's a lot of people, but it's like not even a tenth of the Jews went back to Jerusalem. Only 50,000 Jews went from Babylon back to Israel. Only 50,000. The rest, they were good old-fashioned Babylonians by their 70-year end of captivity. But even these Jews that come back, they've still got some Babylonian in them. By the way, remember when Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, they were all given new names?

Trick question: what was Daniel's Hebrew name? Daniel was his Hebrew name. Belteshazzar was his Babylonian. The reason I ask it that way, what was Shadrach's Hebrew name? Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego: Hananiah, Azariah, and Mishael. Those were their Hebrew names. Isn't it interesting—of course, most of you're probably like, "No, it's not interesting"—but to me it is. Daniel kind of kept his Hebrew name throughout the story.

Even when we heard Daniel's name was changed to Belteshazzar, that's the first and the last time we hear that in the Bible. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego—Hananiah, Azariah, Mishael—they get their name changed to these Babylonian names, and those names kind of stick with those guys. And they are sort of a little more Babylonian, if you would, than Daniel was in that sense. Even when the kings would summon, they wouldn't say, "Get Belteshazzar," they'd say, "Get Daniel." Even Nebuchadnezzar's mother says to Belshazzar, "I know a guy named Daniel." Like they still refer to him as Daniel.

So his name stuck. And even in VeggieTales, they're Shadrach and Benny. Like those are the Babylonian names. They stuck for century, millennia. That's kind of interesting to me. And the reason I bring all this up—and not to spend too much time on this really—but the idea is you and I should be aware that we can take on worldly, godless sort of things when the Lord wants us to be. And if you look at the meanings of these names, by the way, those young men had godly names given to them by their mothers and their fathers.

But they ended up having these Babylonian names. So you can get the people out of Babylon, but you can't get the Babylon out of the people. And that's the thing. These guys are talking about the Babylonian calendar with their Babylonian names, and they're coming to seek the Lord and ask this question. So what's the question? Verse three. It says they came to pray before the Lord, verse two. And then verse three: "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?'"

Now this question, you and I at first glance are like, "Whatever." Even by nature, does it sound a little contrived? I mean, has anybody ever walked up to you, "Should I weep right now?" What a weird question. People usually weep because they're just going to weep. Maybe an actor if you're in Hollywood, "Should I weep right now? Is this the scene where I fake the tears and everything?" That's kind of the thing. It's a contrived "Should we weep as we've done every year for 70 years?" Now the word weep here in the Hebrew, it's not just weeping; it's something the Jews would recognize as a triplicate: weeping, mourning, and fasting and praying.

Fasting and prayer goes in one, mourning, weeping. This is what they did. They wept, fasted, and prayed and mourned. And they also would wear sackcloth. They put on this rough material that's like gunnysack and they'd weep, fast, and mourn. Well, why were they doing that for 70 years? You can get a sense that they're a little bit—are they tired of it? Because they're asking, "Do we need to keep weeping, fasting, and mourning on the fifth month?" And it's not just the fifth month, by the way, that's what they're asking, but the true question is, "Should we weep and fast and mourn as we do on the fifth month and the seventh month?"

I'll show you what I mean here in a second, but that's what they're asking: "Do we have to still weep, fast, and mourn?" And it's like they don't want to do it. Why were they weeping and fasting and mourning? Well, somewhere along the way somebody, 70 years earlier, said, "We need to weep, fast, and mourn." And the reason: 586 BC, Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonians crushed Jerusalem, made rubble out of the temple in Jerusalem. And so some of the Jews said, "We're going to just weep, fast, and mourn. And every fifth and seventh month we're going to weep, fast, and mourn because Jerusalem is in rubble and our country's been crushed."

And 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're like, "Do we have to still weep, fast, and mourn as we've done these 70 years?" Interesting question. So that kind of—that's what I'm going to call this first section that we've just read. Basically, this first section I'm going to call "an interesting inquisition." They're asking the Lord, "Lord, do we have to weep, fast, and mourn still? We've been doing it faithfully for all these years. Do we still need to do it?"

Now 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 for stupid reasons and we think that God's impressed by it. And we think that the answer is "Well, of course, we have to weep, fast, and mourn." What are the things that you and I do that are actually—we should ask the Lord, "Lord, should we continue doing this? Is this something that you're into?" It's interesting like what we do as churches, for example. What is a church supposed to do? And the church does a lot of things.

And I wonder if, for example, if some of our Catholic friends would go to the Lord, "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 pastor or clergyman. Where did that come from? And it's good to ask maybe the origin: where did that—like this weeping, fasting, and mourning thing, where did that start? Well, it started at the destruction of Jerusalem. Did God ask them to do that? Actually, the answer's no.

But they're just doing it thinking that somehow it makes God happy. I wonder if there's things that the Catholic Church or the Protestant Church, for that matter, does. Pointy hats, fancy robes. Where did that come from? Well, therein lies a story. Back when Christianity finally by Paul the Apostle reached Rome, for about the first 300 years of Christianity, you could die quickly being a Christian in Rome. You'd lose your head. Like, Nero chopped Paul's head off for being a Christian. And it got worse from there. Ten waves of Roman persecution for 300 years.

It was a radical, horrible time for a Christian if you're living in Rome. By the way, I love when I was in Rome a few years ago. My favorite place in Rome was the catacombs. You go down under Rome and there's these miles and miles of tombs under the ground. You say, "Brett, that's kind of creepy." Well, it's kind of Indiana Jones a little bit, but also more importantly, during the persecution of Christians in Rome, the Christians would go on a Sunday morning, they'd go and they'd meet in the catacombs, in the tombs, because they didn't want to be found out as Christians.

So they'd secretly gather and worship Jesus in the catacombs. And what's also interesting—and this will come into play in our discussion—there was a symbol they'd carve into the rock of the catacombs to be the symbol of where they would meet. Does anybody know what that symbol was? The anchor. The anchor was the symbol. You might be tempted to say, "Well, the cross." And did you know the cross was really not a part of the early church's symbol? That came much later, and keep that in mind. But the anchor came from the Scripture that talks about how the Lord is our anchor of hope.

And the anchor was kind of a symbol along with the Ichthys, the fish symbol. Now, around 300 AD, that's when Constantine comes, sees the cross in the sign of this conquer and blah, blah, blah. And whether or not Constantine was really a Christian, don't know. Historically, that's a hard one to discern, but it worked out for him politically to suddenly change from Christianity being persecuted to Christians being celebrated. And then it only took about 100 years after Constantine, Christianity became the religion of the Roman people.

But what happened was, in Rome before Christianity, what was the religion? Well, as it turned out, there was sort of a paganism in Rome. And so they worshipped Saturnalias and Astarte and all these different things. But remember what happened when Constantine and the gang starts changing to Christianity, what happens? All these pagan priests are like, "Well, what are we supposed to do? We've been doing this for millennia." And they're like, "Hey, no sweat. You priests keep your pointy hats, keep your robes and your scepters and your swinging incense and all the things you do. We're just going to Christianize it all."

You guys are now Christian priests. And you're going to do the Christian thing. And instead of Saturnalia, we'll worship Christ's mass on Saturnalia. Instead of Astarte and that whole pagan stuff... And that's where all these things happened. That's where the pointy hats came from. You see what I'm saying? Human tradition that actually goes back to paganism. In fact, there's even good things that people kind of mistake. Question: is it good to fast? Is fasting a biblical notion? Yes. What about weeping? Yes. The Bible tells us to weep with those that weep, mourn with those who mourn. Like all of this is a biblical thing.

But these guys in their little routine of weeping, fasting, mourning, and stuff, that's the question that they're asking. "Should we continue to do this?" And I think the answer's going to be a little bit of a shock. The Lord's going to say, "No." And he's going to give them some shocking reasons why. And that's what I wonder if you and I are going to ask, "Why do we as a church do what we do, or why do we not do what we don't do?" "Why does Athey Creek—why did you guys not do a Good Friday church service? Every good church does a Good Friday service, Brett."

Well, why don't you— Now, let me just say this. I've led Good Friday services. I've done Good Friday—and let me just tell you about Good Friday. Jesus did not die on the cross on a Friday. "Brett, that's—how can you say that? The Pope says it did. He did." Okay, let's do the math here for a second. This is something we know from the Bible. When did Jesus resurrect from the grave? What day of the week was that? Sunday. It was a Sunday morning. Jesus rose early Sunday morning. That's given in the Bible.

How long was Jesus in the grave or buried, if you would? Well, this is what Jesus talked about there in John chapter three. Remember Jesus said, "Even as Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights, so too will the Son of Man," and he goes and starts talking about how he'd be in the center of the earth. That's that when he first descended before he ascended. Remember that whole thing? Jesus made the claim of three days and three nights. So what does that do? If you do the math, if Jesus died on a Friday afternoon as so many people say, that only gives them Friday to Saturday to Sunday morning.

That's like a day and a half, or maybe you could maybe stretch two days out of that. Do you see the problem here? So if you actually ask real Bible students and theologians, "When did Jesus die?" they won't say Friday. That's just a tradition that kind of stuck. But that's not the main reason I don't celebrate Good Friday. But as it turns out, nowhere in the Bible did it say, "Thou must have a Good Friday service." But Jesus did tell you and me to do something related to his cross and his death, and it wasn't a Good Friday service. What was it? Anybody?

Communion. Jesus said, "Do this, not that. Do this in remembrance of me." Communion is what Jesus asked the church to do regularly. Do this often in remembrance of me. Here's what Jesus said: "When you eat bread, you can break it and when you eat it, you can remember what I did on the cross. That's as much as you need." So when you're at home and you're making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich—and I'm not trying to be irreverent—but if you take a piece of that crust and you say, "Lord, thank you for dying on the cross for my sin," and then take a bite of that bread, that counts according to Jesus.

Not according to the Catholic Church or a lot of churches with their rules and regulations, but according to the Bible. I think you're in good standing if you take a moment out of your day and eat the bread and remember and drink the cup and say, "I remember that Jesus died on the cross for my sins." I don't think you have to even do it at church; you can do it at home. And so, I bet there's going to be people shocked when they get to heaven. They'll get to heaven, say, "Lord, should we have been having the wafer on our tongue by the priest?"

"You can do that if you want to, but what I really would have liked rather than your communion ritual, I would have much rather had you feed the poor. Or I would have much rather had you watch out for the orphan child. That's what I actually care about." "Brett, are you just making stuff up?" Well, this is where this discussion goes. We start with this interesting inquisition. By the way, really 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 I think having meals together, too; and fellowship.

The word fellowship is koinonia. It means not just hanging with each other watching football and stuff; koinonia means 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. And we might say, "Lord, should we have done our series on financial liberty?" And the Lord's saying, "You can do that if you want to, but I really wish you would have been given to the apostles' doctrine and fellowship and breaking of bread and prayer. That's what I really wanted you to do."

Guest (Male): Pastor Brett Meador drawing important truths in today's word from the prophet Zechariah, to beware of practices of worship to God that are mere ritual and routine. And stay right there as Pastor Brett will join me to help us with a question that many Christians struggle with. But first, our teacher Brett Meador is the senior pastor of Athey Creek Church in the Portland suburb of West Linn, Oregon. If you missed any portion of our time today, you can find this message online at todayswordradio.com. That's todayswordradio.com.

Alright, I have Pastor Brett with me. Reading God's word, the Bible, is obviously very important for Christians to grow in their faith. But what about a person who struggles finding the time? Brett, what advice can you share with that person, where to start and how to remain consistent in reading God's word?

Brett Meador: I think I'd like to encourage people to start with low pressure. How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. I think the Bible is so huge and people feel like, "Well, I've got to read a lot." And I've noticed there's a lot of people even with dyslexia or comprehension issues and they just throw it out and say, "I can't read the whole Bible." But I would encourage you, start small. Start with just saying, "I'm going to read three verses every day." Or if you're a good reader, one chapter a day.

And I wouldn't start in Leviticus. I would maybe start in the Gospel of John. What a beautiful expression of Christ and the gospel of Jesus Christ. So start in John. Some people start in Genesis, but that's a heavy lift. But take your time. And I think day by day, daily in the word—remember the people of Israel would get up in the morning there in the wilderness wanderings and they'd see manna in the morning and they got manna daily. And what happened if they tried to store up the manna? It would grow worms and get stale and ugly and moldy.

And what they needed to do is daily get fresh food. I think that's what we need from the word of God, just daily take small bites and see how the Lord might just use that. But the word will always reward you.

Guest (Male): Ah, that's such a practical and really encouraging way to think about getting into a daily reading program of the Bible. Thank you, Pastor Brett for that. Well, I want to mention that if you'd like more information about Pastor Brett Meador or Today's Word, just go to todayswordradio.com. Well, next time Pastor Brett will continue in the book of Zechariah and we'll see how the people in Jerusalem at that time were following a tradition yet not knowing why. And how following misguided traditions is something God never commanded them to do.

Today's Word with Pastor Brett Meador is an outreach of Athey Creek Church in West Linn, Oregon.