Please turn your Bibles to the book of Zechariah. This is our 19th and final sermon in this little series. maybe not so little series through the book of Zechariah. When I planned this out last summer, I planned for 18 sermons. My goal was for 18 sermons, so I made it through with only a slight adjustment, but I will say that having a plan and a goal was helpful in terms of getting it through in an organized way. And what we're looking at here, as we look at the end of the book, is a little bit about what God's purposes and goals are. We've been seeing that throughout the book, but so we get a little bit of that as we come to the end of this book. And I think it's helpful to us to think about what God's goals are as we leave this book. So we'll read now verses 16 through 21. That's the end of the book of Zechariah. Listen now to the word of God. And it shall come to pass that everyone who is left of all the nations which came against Jerusalem shall go up from year to year to worship the King, the Lord of hosts, and to keep the feast of tabernacles. And it shall be that whichever of the families of the earth do not come up to Jerusalem to worship the King, the Lord of hosts, on them there will be no reign. If the family of Egypt will not come up and enter in, they shall have no reign. They shall receive the plague with which the Lord strikes the nations who do not come up to keep the feast of tabernacles. This shall be the punishment of Egypt and the punishment of all the nations that do not come up to keep the feast of tabernacles. In that day, holiness to the Lord shall be engraved on the bells of the horses The pots in the Lord's house shall be like the bowls before the altar. Yes, every pot in Jerusalem and Judah shall be holiness to the Lord of hosts. Everyone who sacrifices shall come and take them and cook in them. And that day there shall be no longer a Canaanite in the house of the Lord of hosts." And there ends the reading of God's Word. May He bless it to us as we think about it. Well, every semester when I teach a class over at IU that has a significant number of undergrads, particularly freshmen in it, I give a little talk at the beginning of the semester, which I like to call, How to Get Better Grades and Have More Fun. And this has such, you know, really deep wisdom in it. Go to class. This is a novel idea that you have to try to let people know about. But one of the things I talk to them about is the importance of setting goals for themselves. And I talk about it not just in terms of academics, but in terms of their whole life. But the idea, particularly in their academics, of setting goals and having a goal for each class. There's an old adage that if you aim at nothing, you will be sure to hit it every time. And so part of the idea is if you have a goal, you have a way of knowing then if you get a D on the first midterm, you better do something differently. Unless a D is in fact your goal, usually it's not the way we start. that you want to adjust. If you don't have an idea what you're shooting for, you have no way to make a corrective action. And what I found in dealing with my students is there are a couple issues, because we know that difficult objectives are sometimes hard to meet. So we may set a goal, but then achieving it's very hard. And this is whether it's taking a class or finishing a whole degree, an athletic team trying to win a championship. a person on a diet, trying to finish a project at your house. You just go on and on. You set goals for yourself and a lot of times they're difficult to accomplish. And two of the problems I've seen with my students, anyway, is that on the one hand they don't set goals, or they don't set appropriate goals, or they abandon their goals, the first sign of difficulties. And just to give you an idea, I had a class last semester where about 50% of the class actually finished the class. And I don't think it was because it was an impossible class, it was because the first sign of trouble, everybody just grabbed a parachute and jumped out. And so this is one of the things that we struggle with. Well, as Christians, These kinds of things come into our spiritual lives as well. And so we struggle sometimes to find appropriate goals and to persevere in them when we have set them. Obviously, the difference when we're setting goals for ourselves in spiritual terms are that God is the one who dictates to us what is an appropriate goal and what is not. And so we have to know what God desires, and then we can set our priorities accordingly. And it makes a big difference if you have in mind His goals and rather than your own goals. Too often it seems today that the message of the church, at least the kind of broad evangelical church, is come to Jesus and you'll be happy. You'll have a better life. You'll have more organization. You'll have a better marriage if you're married, et cetera, and so forth. And so Christianity is portrayed as a way to happiness and to feeling good. But this is not, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, this is not really the scriptural emphasis where God says his goal for you is for you to be happy. You have a hard time finding that idea in the scripture. In fact, God's goal for you, what we can find and we see in this passage, is that you would be holy. And it's quite a different matter. And for us, oftentimes, we don't think in terms of that as a worthy goal. our holiness, that this is in fact what's important to God. And like other goals, is this a goal not easily achieved? And that really has been what we've seen in this book of Zechariah. For those of you who were here last week, the first part of chapter 14 talks about the people of God surrounded by enemies on every side in a terrible battle, and God himself coming down to fight for the people and delivering them through this horrible situation with a great victory. But see, the holiness of the people comes at a great price and through great toil. But as we look at this passage this evening, I hope that you'll see God's goal is for his people to be holy. He will have a holy people for himself. And therefore, then we, as his people, ought to promote the same objectives that God's interested in. If God's interested in holiness, then it's appropriate for us, too, to seek holiness in our own lives. And you children, if you're going to try to draw a picture, there's a lot of images in this passage you could draw. There's the people coming up to this feast of tabernacles, and we'll talk a little bit about that. There's bells on the horses that have special words on them. There's a pots and pans even that are talked about in this passage. So pick one of those images and listen for what we say about it. Let's see some of the things that God says about his goals for his people that are in this passage. First of all, God has a goal that he will have a global people. of global people. This is his ultimate purpose. You see, in verse 16, that the result of this great battle we read about in the first part of chapter 14, it says, Then it shall come to pass that everyone who's left of all the nations which came against Jerusalem shall go up from year to year to worship the King, the Lord of hosts. And this is the idea. Christ comes again, he brings in the new heavens and the new earth, and he eliminates his enemies. We read about that last week. And now what it's saying is anybody left is a worshipper. But notice where these people come from. It talks about any being left of all the nations in verse 16. Verse 17, any of the families of the earth that it's talking about, they should be coming up to worship God too. And then it specifically mentions Egypt, which would have been one of the quintessential enemies of the people of God. And yet it's talking about all these people are coming up to worship God. And this is pointing us to the idea that God's people are going to be a worldwide people. These pagan nations that have been at war with God, these former enemies, are going to be God's servants. And the idea here, if you're wondering, why does it say they're all going to come up? And then it says, well, if they don't come up, there's going to be these judgments. We've seen this before in this book. This is kind of a hypothetical. If it were that there were any left over, God would eliminate them. And that's what The idea is of bringing no rain, right? This punishment of no rain. This is a symbol of God's judgment. And again, the idea of the plague, right? He'll strike the nations with the plague. Well, you remember that plague we read about last week, where the skin is dissolving off the bodies. It's this horrible plague of judgment. Well, the point is there won't be anyone who's not joining to worship God. Once Christ comes again and establishes this kingdom, all will be worshiping God. I'm trying to make the point here is that you see this is a worldwide group, though. It's a group not just of Jews, but of people from all nations. And we see parallels of this in the book of Revelation. When Christ comes again and fights this final battle, we have the description of the worship of every tribe and every tongue. that have been redeemed by Christ are worshiping Him. And this has been a message that's been throughout the book of Zechariah, too. It's talked about the temple being rebuilt and all nations coming to it. And so this is an idea that's been consistent. This week when I was doing this Bible study with some of my former teaching assistants who do not have much biblical background, and we're kind of working our way through the overall plan of the Bible, and one of the young women there who's actually from Russia, and I think is a little familiar with the Bible, but not much. As we're reading through, we've gotten up into the book of Exodus, and we're into the Exodus. She said, you know, it seems like God's just concerned about this one nation, the Jewish people. Is that right? And I said, well, it's not right. That's not his overall concern. But see, you have to look at how he's going about accomplishing this goal. He's working in the light of a massive, rebelling humanity. He works in the life of one man, and then from that, a family, and from that family, a nation, and from that nation, then we're going to reach the whole world. And there is a progress here, and his goal is the whole world. But you're right now at this stage in the process, and yeah, it looks like we're focused in here, but stay with us. And you're going to see this opening up. And I think she's thinking, you know, what does this have to do with me? Which is what we all tend to think when we're reading something. And it's great to have Nancy here with us this evening, because we understand this idea. We get prayer requests and we pray about what's going on in her ministry. in the Congo. And there are people there who love God and have come in to the kingdom of God because of these promises being accomplished in space and in time. So this helps us. So we see God as the goal of having a global church. How would this then affect our priorities if this is a priority of God's? Well, I think one of the ways this affects us is we think in terms of ministry, of outreach, of ministering to others. And we support missionary work. We pray for missionaries. We pray for our brothers and sisters around the world. We fund missionaries, but we also take advantage of what God's given us right here in Bloomington, which is a campus full of people from all over the world. that we can minister to right here. And so each one of us needs to think about how we reach out. And we, in that way, reflect having the same priorities, the same goals that God does as we reach out in our community to those from all over the world that they might love God and join in his worship. So God will have a global people, but he will also have a thankful people, the text tells us. It mentions specifically here the people coming up to celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles. Now, why is this? Why pick this one feast? There were several annual feasts and there were other celebrations. Why the Feast of Tabernacles? First of all, let me make the point that this, like the rest of the book, the prophetic book, we have to look at as symbolism. We do not expect, literally, when Jesus comes back again, to have re-established people worshipping in the literal Jerusalem and celebrating the Feast of Tabernacles. That's not the way this works. This is a picture of what God is doing. It's painted in terms that the people would have understood. So we have to understand, what does the Feast of Tabernacles represent? It's not that we're looking literally for resumption of sacrifices and people going back to the old way of worship sometime in the future. What does this feast represent? The Feast of Tabernacles had two main elements. Originally it was designed to celebrate God's provision of the people while they were in the wilderness, before they came into the promised land. And so part of the celebration is actually, children you might like this idea, maybe we should think about doing this in the church sometime, is to come to Jerusalem and people would build little booths for themselves. to remember this time of wandering in the wilderness. They bring in branches and things, and they build these little shelters, and they basically camp out on the rooftops and in the city, and celebrate this for a whole week. And they'd be celebrating God's provision for them, and they'd also be celebrating the harvest, because this came at the time of the year when the harvest was brought in. It'd be a little bit like our Thanksgiving celebration. And so the picture here is a global people coming up regularly to celebrate God's protection, God's deliverance, and the bountiful harvest. And why this particular one is chosen might have to do with the fact that this is a global. This, in some ways, pictures the harvest of all people from around the world that are part of God's kingdom. And so we can imagine what this would be like. You children might think about this. You would come up with other pilgrims walking up to Jerusalem and the city would be decorated and it would be beautiful and there would be people there from all over and you would come up and your family would be camping out in a booth and for a whole week This went on for eight days. There would be worship, but there would also be feasts and visiting with people that you may not have seen for a whole year. You'd be gathering together with them. This is what it would have been like in the life of the Jewish people. And this is the kind of joy as they celebrate God's provision for them. The harvest would be in. There would be plenty there. And so this is what the message is trying to tell us, is in this future age when Christ comes again and we are with him in perfection, we are celebrating with joy his provision for us. And we have a great, great Thanksgiving. This is a thankful people that God gets together. Now, one of the closest things we have to this, in terms of kind of getting away for a week and relaxing, and celebrating a little with family is that sometimes we do that on vacation, right? And I don't know about your experience, but my experience on vacation is that that's nice. I really like vacation. It's a great time. But we have what we call in our family re-entry, this phenomenon we call re-entry, which is because while we are away, what's happening back at home? The whole world stops, right, and waits for you to get back. No. And so every issue that you have to deal with is still piling up there. And so when you get back, it's not as if I just pick up where I left off. It's now I have to catch up from all the things I missed. And this would have been kind of the way it was for the people who celebrated this feast in Zachariah's day. Always something hanging over your head. Always the threat that next year's harvest wouldn't be very good, or that your enemies, which are still surrounding you, were going to attack you. But what's pictured here is this kind of celebration and thanksgiving that knows no end. It's not threatened by having the press come back upon you and this being taken away. It's a permanent condition of rejoicing and thanking God in His finished work and being free from our labors. And this is a wonderful thing to think about and can actually be used to help us cultivate thankfulness now. So God has a global people. He has a thankful people. He will have a worshiping people. And this is, in fact, what these global and thankful people are doing when they come up to Jerusalem to celebrate the feast. It says that they will worship, in verse 17, the King, the Lord of hosts. They will come and they will worship the King, the Lord of hosts. Actually, it says that in 16, and then they're judged for not doing that in 17. And this is the idea. People are coming annually to worship God. But it makes a point of saying they come year to year, every year, they come to worship God. Now, the book of Revelation, we said, we said many parallels to Zachariah tells us that there is no temple in the new heavens and the new earth, that God himself and the lamb are with his people and that we interact with God face to face. And so we're able to worship him in a way that is quite different than what we have now. And you remember throughout this book, one of the stresses Zachariah has had is on rebuilding the temple. Zechariah was preaching to people that had come back from the Babylonian exile. The temple had been destroyed, and he was telling them, rebuild this temple. See, worship is going to be central to what the people do in the short term, but also in the long term. Well, some of us may be thinking, well, is this really such a great thing? Are you telling me that this is what I have to look forward to, going to church all the time? you know, worshiping, because frankly, for us in this day and age, this part of our life, it's hard to imagine this sometimes because we come to worship and it's hard. Sometimes it's really hard to worship because of the things we're dealing with on the outside. After all, we meet with a bunch of sinners here and we don't fully understand God and all that we have to worship. And our ability to block out our distractions and to focus on him is limited. And so sometimes our worship here is hard. And that's not what's being pictured here, because in the end, worship is not going to be hard at all. It's not going to be work. It's going to be pure joy, because God's people will really know God and be able to see God in all His glory and will be unencumbered by sin and will be able to worship Him in the fullness. And I think we can safely say that imagining you and me may imagine the most wonderful thing that you can think of to do here on this earth, and it will not come close to what it will be like to worship God in the presence of all his people and all his angels made perfectly holy. That will be something that will be beyond anything we've experienced here. This will be the central activity of what the people of God do in heaven will be with God and to praise God for who he is. And that will be a wonderful thing. And what we ought to do now, while we are on the earth, is to consider that when we do come to worship, we are, in a sense, experiencing just a foretaste of what God has promised in all of eternity. And to realize that God says in His Word that when we come to worship Him, He's there in a special way. His presence is there. And God really is there to encourage and strengthen our faith. The people in heaven, and in the new heavens and new earth we're seeing described here, will know that they are God's. Will there be any doubt that they are God's people when they are in heaven? Are you going to be still questioning anything at that point? No, because you're going to see it. And this is a little bit of what's supposed to happen when we come and worship God week by week now, is that we come into God's presence, meeting with His people, to have this encouragement, to be reconfirmed that yes, we are God's people. Yes, He has saved us from our sins. Yes, He is going to be our God and be with us. So God's people will be global. They will be thankful. They will be a worshiping people. And we also see in the text that God will have a holy people. Now in verse 20, Zechariah says that the bells on the horses will be engraved and the engraving is going to say holiness to the Lord. Now this phrase holiness to the Lord. We see, we can read about in Exodus 28, 36-38, it tells us that this was the phrase that was to be engraved on a gold plate that was to go on Aaron the High Priest's turban, on his crown, his holy crown. That the priest who represented the people before God was marked a side of being holy. to the Lord. And we think about holiness. There's really two aspects to holiness. On the one hand, there's a complete absence of sin. So there's purity. There's the absence of sin, and that is in view here. But there's another side to this, and we get that in this text in Zechariah. Not only is there the absence of sin, there's also this idea of being consecrated to God's service, to being totally given over to God. Was Aaron supposed to do other work? No, Aaron was given over totally to the work of God. This is why they were provided their food even by the other people in Israel. And so what does it mean then, if we understand this properly, what does it mean to say that holiness to the Lord is engraved on the bells of the horses? What's being said here is the most insignificant thing. The most mundane things, even things like bells on horses, are totally given over to the Lord. There's no longer a distinction between what is sacred and what is secular, what is profane, what is ordinary. They would not have thought of taking the utensils of the temple, the holy utensils set aside for God's use, and say, hey, I'm going to go use those to do my barbecue today. They wouldn't do that. They understood these things that were holy were set aside for God's use and only God's use. They wouldn't even dream of taking them out of that temple context. And what this is saying is that that distinction is now broken. that these things that are for everyday use are now considered holy. And the text makes this point in a couple of different ways. It talks also about pots and bowls in verse 20. The pots in the Lord's house will be like the bowls before the altar. Well, there are pots and pans there because they cooked meat and the Levites ate part of the offerings. And these weren't particularly sacred pots, they were used for cooking. And what it's saying is these cooking pots would be like the bowls on the altar, these bowls which captured the blood of the sacrifice and which were set apart in a very special way to the service of God. But that distinction will be over. The pots will be like these holy bowls. And you see also that, in fact, in verse 21, every pot in Jerusalem and Judah shall be holiness to the Lord. And in the Hebrew, this is exactly the same as in verse 20. The same title, holiness to the Lord, is on the pots in everybody's house. And it goes on to say in verse 21, everyone who sacrifices shall come and take them and cook in them. So you get the idea that these sacred things are no longer different than these ordinary things. Now, there's two ways this could happen, right? One would be to mean what we're doing is we're making the sacred ordinary. We're bringing these down to the level of the ordinary. But that's not what's happening, is it? The sacred things are still sacred, but now the ordinary things are also sacred. Everything is sacred. And what does it mean to say that every worshiper would be able to cook in these pots. Well, this means every worshipper is a priest. And this is, in fact, what the Bible tells us. The book of Revelation tells us you will be priests to God, that you have been made holy in a special way, totally free from sin, but also totally set aside and consecrated to the service of God. And this point is further made, but it's a very interesting way to finish this book. There will no longer be a Canaanite in the house of the Lord of Hosts. It almost seems bizarre. But the point is, a Canaanite, not an ethnic Canaanite, but what the Canaanite represents, which would be a pagan, someone who would profane the house of God. There will be no profane person in God's house. God's not just worried about the bells. That's not the point. It's the people, right? And there will be no unholy person in God's temple, because in God's new heavens and new earth, all will be perfectly holy. And of course, we understand this can only be possible if our sins have been removed. And that is, in fact, what this book has talked about a lot is the removal, the total removal of our sins. There's a current NASCAR commercial going around on ESPN. Don't shake your head no. A lot of people out here might like NASCAR. But what happens is it shows the people getting ready for the race, and everybody's got their own routine, and they want to wear their driver's number and colors and things like that. Well, it shows a young woman painting her fingernails with the colors and the number 24. Every single nail with a beautifully inscribed 24. Well, this is a Jeff Gordon fan. And these nails have been set aside, set over to root for Jeff Gordon, right? Every part of it is put over. This is a real fan. And this text is saying something like this about the situation at the end of time. God's people are totally down to their fingernails given over to God, to His service. Everything is sacred. The bells and the cooking pots, the people are completely holy. Every person a priest. Every person serving God. And this is important because you understand right now you are not totally devoted to serving God. You're not. You serve God with mixed motives. And part of the reason is because you're not perfectly holy. You're not perfectly free from sin right now. And you do have a relationship with God through Jesus Christ, but that relationship is still affected by your sin. God considers you as holy in Christ, but are you actually holy now? In God's sight, you're holy because of the righteousness of Christ applied to you, and that's true, but are you actually holy? I hope that you understand the answer is no. That's why you committed a sin. You know, we all did this already today and maybe in the last minute, right? In our thoughts and in our attitudes, we're not actually holy yet. And that's what this is describing is a time when you're actually holy. You will actually have true oneness with God. Your relationship with God will be much more full than it is now because the sin that is an impediment to it will be removed completely. And you yourself will have holiness to the Lord on you. You will be perfectly holy and perfectly set aside, and every ounce of your energy will be going in to serve God. Not yourself. It's so hard. We battle now against serving ourself and serving the Lord. And then it will not be that way. You will serve God because you'll be totally consecrated to Him. Well, how is it that all this can happen? How can God get a people, a people who are not holy now, but get them holy as this passage describes? This happens through the work of the Messiah, the work of God's servant. And this really has been the burden of this entire book that we've read through. And I hope that you've seen that and been impressed with it as we've worked through the book. Because the only way that this problem of sin gets solved is if God solves it for us. And this book talks about how that's going to happen. It talks about the rider on the red horse who we were introduced to in chapter 1. And it talks about the angel of the Lord who came to interpret these visions for Zechariah in chapters 2-6. It mentions the one who takes the filthy robe off of Joshua the high priest and gives him a clean robe in chapter 3. It talks about the servant. He's the servant of the Lord, the branch in chapter 3. He's the branch that will come and build the temple in chapter 6. He's the priest who sits on the throne and wears a crown. in chapter 6. He's the coming king who rides on a donkey into his palace in chapter 9. He's the cornerstone from Judah in chapter 10. He's the rejected shepherd that was valued at 30 pieces of silver in chapter 11. He's the pierced one in chapter 12. He's the shepherd stricken by God in chapter 13. He's the One who stands on the Mount of Olives and defeats all the enemies of God and establishes the new heavens and the new earth in chapter 14. We read about it last week. And He's the King worshipped by all nations here at the end of the book. God is going to accomplish His purpose to have a holy people, and He's going to do it in the person of Jesus Christ. And this book of Zechariah has shown us that God is going to restore His temple. He's going to rebuild His land and renovate the people. And He's going to do it all in this person who comes and suffers for His people. I coach a little girl's soccer team. And I've done this for a couple of years. And one of the things I've learned when you coach a young kid's soccer team, before we play, You bring them all together. This is the last and most important instruction you give them before you let them go in the game. You gather them around and you say, now which goal are we shooting at? And we all point. And if we don't do that, it's a lot of effort, but it doesn't do anything we want to do. So we get that straight, and then every ounce of energy, and there's a lot of it, goes into trying to get the ball in that goal. The text here we have this evening tells us, and this whole book tells us, what God's goal is. And the fascinating thing about what we've read tonight is that there isn't one command in here. There's not one imperative in here. God is not saying, you do this. God is saying, this is what I am about. This is what I am doing. And yet this book is written to motivate God's people. So how does it work if He's not actually telling us to do anything? This is the idea. He's showing us what He's doing. And if we see what He's doing, and we see what He is interested in, and what's important to Him, then that helps us see where we need to expend our energies. Because what's important to Him should be important to us. And when I said before that your happiness is not his end goal, there's a little caveat to that because you can't have true happiness apart from holiness. And so until you are truly and completely and perfectly holy, you will never be perfectly happy. But our confession, our larger catechism says that in the new heavens and the new earth, God's people will be perfectly holy and perfectly happy. You will be perfectly happy because you are perfectly holy. This is God's goal for His people. And this ought to motivate us to seek holiness in our lives. This is what God wants. This is what God has in mind for you. And with every ounce of our being, even as we struggle as sinners now, praying for the grace that He would give us, let us seek holiness. Let us enter into the work that he's doing, relying upon him, saying no to sin, saying, yes, God, I want to be set aside to serve you with every ounce of my being. And let us give God the praise and the glory for that. Let us pray. Heavenly Father, we do rejoice in what you are doing and we thank you for this opportunity we've had over several weeks to look at the book of Zechariah and how you have pictured for us your work and your plan and how that was manifested to Zacharias' people and included rebuilding the temple and reestablishing their land. But Lord, as we've seen, you were pointing to something bigger. You were pointing to Jesus Christ coming and establishing His church and then ultimately coming again and establishing a new Jerusalem where sin was utterly taken away and where your people worshiped you in perfect holiness. And Lord, we thank you that that is indeed your desire, your goal. We confess, Father, all too often our goals are very short-sighted. very short-term and very selfishly motivated. We ask for Your grace that we might have in mind the things that please You, the things that are important to You, and that we would seek after holiness. How can we put aside sin from our lives more and more? How can we see ourselves as consecrated to serve You and not our own interests? Help us, Lord, even with this vision, this vision of what You are doing in creating a global people, a thankful people, a worshiping people, and a people that is, above all, holy to the Lord. We pray for your work and your grace. In Jesus' name, Amen.