Transcription
Amen. It's good to be in the house of the Lord. Amen, amen, amen. I realized I have no idea when I started saying that every time I preach. At some point, it just snuck in and became my catchphrase, and I don't know where it happened or why, but all of a sudden, I realized I say that quite a lot, don't I? Um, I think part of it was the trick of preaching. When you learn, it's like, how do you start preaching if you're nervous? They just start. Once you start having words come out of your mouth, they'll just SOL come out quicker. So I think that was the trick: I'm just going to say good morning, and then the rest will come. Cuz no matter how long you've been doing this, uh, sitting in front of people and the butterflies, they'll always be there. And um, it's it's an exciting and nervous thing to preach the word of God.
Um, when I tell people I public speak as a profession, they're like, "I no, no," and I'm like, "Yeah." They God has a funny sense of humor when he took the most introverted person I've ever met and said, "Surprise, you're going to speak in front of people for a career." Um, so God's mean in a funny way. Um, but yeah, so that's that. Um, so this morning, as we we're almost done, and I know so many of you are sad about this with our series, The 12, um, we are almost out of Apostles. Um, we are this morning going to be learning about um one of the last two. Um, the most infamous one is next week. Um, you can guess who that is, but this week we're learning about Simon the Zealot. Um, and this is another one of those disciples we know almost nothing about. And now you might be thinking, "Well, Nick, well, last week was all about the people we didn't know anything about. Why don't you include them in the roster?" And it's because of that almost that is super important about this man. So this man's name is Simon the Zealot, to distinguish him from Simon Peter, the, you know, the main guy, walks on water kind of guy. Um, this is another Simon. If you uh ever watch the TV show *The Chosen*, they make fun of that: there's another Simon in the group, so they give him a nickname. But um, the only thing we really know about him is is that one little line right after his name: the Zealot. And for us modern-day readers, that doesn't make a lot of sense to us; we don't know the background, so I'm here to explain it to you.
Um, so 2,000 years ago, in in Judaism, there was four groups or sects or uh philosophies they would call them um within the the Jewish faith. There's the Pharisees; you probably heard them; they're pretty popular. If you read the Bible, they were the rabbis; they were the guys in the synagogue, and they were the main teachers there, and they had a lot of popularity and control, especially in the synagogues. Then there was the Sadducees. Um, there's the corny Sunday school joke: How do you know which one's a Sadducee? Because he's sad you see. They're always very clumpy. Um, I love barely bad dad jokes, and it's only got worse when I became a pastor and a dad, so they're just they're multiplying. So there's the Sadducees, and they were mainly in the temple as the priests. Um, that's where they had a lot of their control. Um, but there was these two other groups, and we don't really hear a lot about them in the Bible, but we know about them from history and some references in the Bible. There was the Essenes; these were kind of like Jewish monks. Um, were really we know them really well for two reasons: one is they most likely had a lot to do with John the Baptist. Um, it is it is really well theorized that he grew up with the Essenes, and that's why he had such a dedication and knowledge of scripture. And even though he wasn't a normal kind of Rabbi or teacher by any means, um, he just he had this great faith and knowledge that he would use to Lead the Way of the Lord. Um, but we really know them because uh in the 1940s, I believe it was, um, little Shepherd boy in the Middle East was throwing rocks trying to find his flock and ended up finding jars of really well-preserved pieces of scripture going 2,000 years ago. And we know them famously as the Dead Sea Scrolls, and they prove that the scripture we have today is the same scripture they were reading from and teaching from 2,000 years ago because it was was perfectly preserved. All of the New Testament and other scriptures are there. Um, and these were written and uh dutifully recorded and preserved by the Essenes. Um, that third group, then here comes the fourth group: The Zealots. Now these were really a political group. Um, so at the time, Jew uh uh Judea was controlled by the Roman Empire, and they were not happy about that by any means necessary. Um, so these were a political extremist group really, um, who obviously carry the banner of their faith. Um, they trained and were waiting for the day the Messiah would come so they could rise up against the uh the Roman nation and become their own independent nation again, was the Messiah as their King. Uh, they would train uh really well for this; they carry knives, and they were they were a religious extremist group with a political agenda. Um, so to see one of those amongst Jesus's followers is kind of interesting.
Um, we talked the other week ago about Matthew, a tax collector, who to us that means like, okay, it's not my favorite person in the world, but whatever. But back then, that was a huge kind of scandalous deal to have a tax collector in your group of followers because they were considered traitors to their whole nation and their people. But then he also has a Zealot in his group, a political extremist group that was very actively waiting for the Messiah. And the Messiah they received was not the one we're expecting; he was here to come first battle their spiritual battles before any um physical battles. So as I'm praying and reading about Simon, like I said, we know next to nothing about him except of who he was affiliated with and this uh religious and zealous group of people who they called the Zealot. And I was praying, like, "Lord, what do we learn from this disciple?" Because as we've been learning through this whole series, every one of these Apostles, through their lives, through their questions, through their failures, or even just just how we're recorded and meet them, teach us something about being a disciple today. And I just was blown away by how much the word of God talks about zealousness or Zeal. Um, you know, like I said, we don't know much about Simon, but we know that he used to be a man who was very religiously Zealot, I mean, who was a part of that group before he came to follow Jesus. I don't know how he met him; I don't know how he decided to follow him, but I know just from who he used to affiliate with, some of his mentality, some of his mindset, he was a very fervent man just by uh who he associated with.
Um, so as we've been going through in our Sunday school series, um, the armor of God, we've been talking a lot about spiritual warfare. And the first thing we ever talk about in that series is how who we actually supposed to be fighting when it comes to spiritual warfare. Um, we know so many people, whether from social media or the news, of people who claim um You Know the Way of the Christian flag, who are super passionate about their faith and about their um their ideas and their concerns, who act the least like Christ you've probably ever seen and give a real hard conversation to people um when it comes to talking about Christianity because of the things they're doing in the media and whom they're kind of standing up in front of. And we talked about that in our Sunday school lesson: who are we actually fighting in this spiritual world Warfare? Because it's not the people across the table from us, even if they are antagonistic, even if they're doing things we don't like, even if we if even if we're struggling with them. Um, Ephesians 6:10 tells us that the people we're struggling with isn't these people; it's the the spiritual forces and the authorities and the Agents of this world. We need to learn who we're actually engaging with. Um, but the Bible is full of time and time again, people who were very zealous for their faith, um, but sometimes confuse their passions, their ideologies, their emotions for being zealous for the Lord. We see that with this religious group, The Zealots. We see this with Paul. Paul, when he is describing himself um in the book, his letter to the Philippians, he says, "I have every reason to brag," and he goes down the reasons of why he can brag, and one of them in Philippians 3:6 is like as a a um in a I wrote my SCP story here, sorry, Philippians uh 3:6, he says, "And as to Zeal, a persecutor of the church, a Pharisee of Pharisees," he calls himself when he's describing as like, "Hey, I had every reason to brag in my in my previous life as being a religious and zealous person." One of the things he gives himself bragging rights to is, "I was one of the most zealous uh Pharisees you've ever met. You want to talk on being on fire for your faith? I was on fire for my faith, but it sent me after people to try and kill them and crucify them and and capture them um in the name of anon in after my Jewish faith," and he realizes like that wasn't the faith; that wasn't the zealousness that God wanted me after. Um, I ended up accidentally persecuting my own my own Lord and Savior. But Paul uses himself as a misled um Zeal, an example um in Zeal without knowledge is foolish and destructive. If you have just passion, if you just have determination, like we were kind of talking about in our Sunday school series, but you don't let God direct you, it can be destructive; it can be used for the wrong reasons. In um in Romans 10:2-3, it says, "For I can testify about them that they are zealous for God, but their Zeal is not based on knowledge, for they do not understand God's way of making people right with himself, refusing to accept God's way, they cling to their own ways of getting right with God by trying to keep the law." And then also in Proverbs 19:2, it says, "Even Zeal is no good without knowledge, and he who hurries his footsteps misses the mark." There is this fine line between passion and destructive foolishness. Um, the Bible talks about, you know, these men who's like, yeah, we see the people who are passionate for their faith; we see the Pharisees and the Sadducees; we see the cots; we see these people who were really on fire for their faith, but being on fire for your Fai Faith isn't isn't the qualifying Factor. Um, it's who your faith is in and what direction it's pointed out. God is after our Zeal; God wants us to have zealous Hearts, but when we are aiming it at the wrong place, it becomes destructive. It's like a fire uh you put a fire in a in a fire pit; it's useful and helpful, or a forge, and it's uh crafting, creative, but you put it in a house, and it burns it down. That Zeal needs to be directed and needs to have purpose. And um, God talks about, you know, uh Zeal without wisdom is uh like a foot missing the mark. You know, we we don't we want to hold on to our ways rather than God's ways, and that Zeal could be destructive. So these are the examples of this Zeal, but what is what does Christ's Zeal look like?
Um, in 2 Corinthians 7:6 through 7, we find that his Zeal is meant to be comforting to others. In 2 Corinthians 7:6-7, "But God who comforts the downcast Comforts Us by he by the arrival of Titus, and not only by his arrival but the Comfort he received from you, and he uh he told us about your your longing, your um your Mary, your Zeal for me, so I rejoiced all the more." Paul's writing this letter to the church in Corinth, and he's saying, "We were comforted because we encountered the Zeal of Titus; we were comforted because we encountered your Zeal." Our our Zeal, our passion in our faith is meant to comfort other people; it's not just meant to be this wild fire that, you know, is destructive and crazy; it's it's like a fire that we can sit around and be warmed by and comforted by. It's meant to be a comfort, and um, if it's out of control, it's destructive, but if it's where it needs to be, it's comforting. There's a reason why so many people flock together to their local churches and their congregations, to sit around their brothers and sisters in Christ, their family, even if they if they don't have a relationship with God yet or they're on the fence; they're like, "There's something here; there's a presence; there's a comfort there; there I I feel something, and even if I can't put it to words yet, I know there's something here; I feel this presence; I feel this comfort." And people are drawn, as they hopefully should be, to the people of Christ, cuz we should be one of the most zealous and excited and loving people in the world. We're not always; that's a different conversation for a different day, but people feel that; your brothers and sisters in Christ feel that; people who are lost and wondering who are, you know, as it said, downtrod and a downcast, they can find comfort in your Zeal for the Lord, your passion for God. I love how it defines uh Zeal in the in the dictionary: Zeal is intense emotion compelling action. Zeal gets things done. If we're going to learn something from this morning, Zeal gets things done, and you can either get get things done for us or for God; it can either get things done destructively and or it can get things done purposefully and wonderfully. And Zeal gets things done. You know, there's a reason why God calls us to Zeal; it's it's not something that he criticizes people for; he wants our Zeal; he wants our passion because he has Zeal for you; he has passion for you. And we're going to see in a little bit what his passion can accomplish, but the passion we have through Christ, it should be a comfort; it's also meant to stir other people up. In 2 Corinthians 9:2, it says, "For I know your Readiness of which I boast about you to the people of Macedonia, saying that AAA has been ready since last year, and your Zeal has stirred up most of them." Our passion, our our faith is our Zeal is supposed to stir each other up; we should not ever have a passionless relationship with Christ. You know, we are called to to stir one another up. There's a reason why, you know, when people, especially today, when we went through Co, and we all got to see, "Hey, I can go to church online; I can go to church on my phones; I can do those things; why do I need to go to church? You know, I get fed right here; I have my relationship with God right here; why do I need that?" It's because we can we're called to stir each other up; we're called to equip each other; we're called to lean on each other; we're called to build each other up, even as much as family can be frustrating, and the church is a family. So just like your family at home can push your buttons, yes, sometimes small church will push your buttons; sometimes you'll be I would be glad if I never saw those people again because Lord help me why did you save them, but we are called to stir each other up, to come here. We we know the expression, "Iron sharpens iron," so one man sharpens another man. You know, we're called to to stir each other, to equip each other, to build each other up. That when you're having a bad week, we come and mourn with you, and we lift each other up and say, "Hey, God's the god of the hills and The Valleys; we got this; it's okay; it's a faith walk," to praise and be excited when you be celebrating and rejoicing, to be there as a community, to stir each other up when some weeks like, "Man, I don't know why I'm doing this; I don't know how I'm supposed to keep going on; I mean, I feel like God's so far from me," but yeah, I've been there too; let's pray together; let's just let's just sit together; let's just, "Hey, you want to go have a cup of coffee together?" We're called to be the uh the backbone for each other. That's why when we're talking in our Sunday school series about spiritual warfare, one of the things I keep bringing up is, "You might be the most equipped and prepared and awesome Soldier, but if you go charge an army by yourself, you're not going to have good luck." We are called to be equipped, but also to be a part of an army, to have a family, a unit, because we equip each other; we protect each other; and yes, sometimes we get know each other's skin, but you know what? It's okay; there's forgiveness; is redemption; and we're all a little human. That's why there's a reason why the Bible talks about seasoning our conversations with Grace. That's one of Sarah's least favorite conversation points. I have to tell her sometimes, like, "Sweetie, you might have to season that conversation with Grace, like you season it with Grace," just keep me away from my keep me away from the internet. Um, but she's like, "You you can see or the exact opposite, like, you can sure season that conversation with grace for other people, but you didn't season it with me," and I'm like, "That's fair; I'm sorry." If she watches this later, she'll probably "You've never been in that; you're sorry once," but um, we're human, and sometimes we stump in each other's toes and we get under each other's nerves, but you're still called to be the church together, to build each other up to our faith. Our passion is me to stir each other up. You know, that's why we come together, um, because otherwise that fire can can die down and just become Embers and be really hard and Wonder Man how am I still doing this? Sometimes you come to that brother and sister in Christ who just has such a passion for the Lord, a Zeal, and you just get that fire reignited, like, "I needed to have a cup of coffee with you, brother; thank you; I I know some of those people who have that gift of encouragement, that Zeal, like, man, they're infectious," and that's what this Gathering is; one of the things is supposed to be about is stirring each other up. So it's me to be a comfort; it's meant to stir each other up; and it's also meant to help us endure. In First Peter, um, in 1 Peter 3:13, it says, "Now who is there to harm you if you were zealous for what is good?" And then also Galatians 4:18, it says, "Nevertheless, it is good to be zealous if it serves a noble purpose, that anytime and not only when I am with you." There are times like this analogy of zeal being a fire; there are times where we have to weather a storm, where we do feel isolated, where we do feel alone, where we are struggling; we just we can't seem to figure it out, and that Zeal, that passion, is like a fire in the middle of a snowstorm; that is the only thing kind of keeping us through it. It's like, "Man, I I am freezing out here; I am hurting out here, but I have this I I I have this just God keep me through it," and it's it's meant to help us endure because there are ups and downs in life; there are ups and downs in our faith; there are ups and downs in marriage and child rearing and careers; there there's ups and downs, but God gives us the Zeal and that passion to help us through those moments because there are moments where you're like, "God, I don't know what I'm doing, and I am just I am just running on empty." Then we come together to encourage each other, to help us re-equip and refuel, but there's sometimes where we need to fill that tank so we can get through those lulls, those moments. If someone was going to go and take a 5-mile hike and they didn't bring a cup of water, I would probably say, "You're going to feel real dehydrated and real uncomfortable; I'm also going to say, why you walking a 5-mile hike on the couch is right there; we have Netflix," but that's my different, but if you go under equipped and under fuel, you're going to feel that burnout, and this is what that Zeal does; it helps us endure through those moments; it's why we can't neglect the assembly; it's why we can't neglect getting into the word of God or spending time in prayer because we need that fire stoked for when life gets hard because it does get hard. And I'm not saying we're all perfect; I'm not saying sometimes we don't neglect it or sometimes the storm feels too big; God is there in the midst of everything, but this help us get through those places.
So then we see that's that's what his Zeal looks like in us, but this is what we see his Zeal done in his hands. Christlike Zeal confronts sin head-on. There's a story in uh John 2:2-17 where Jesus goes to the temple and he sees that they've turned into a a Marketplace and they're selling wares and and changing coins and they turned it into a human Affair. And this is everyone's favorite story about Jesus; he takes out some cords, ties it into a whip, and he he turns tables, and he gets everybody out there. Everyone loves turning-table Jesus because like, "Man, that's radical love," that, but he gets used by two sides to completely miss the point. Liberals love it because like, "Oh, Jesus, he he goes against the status quo, and he goes against the system," and the conservative saying, "Yeah, look at Jesus because he was aggressive, and he he was he confronted everything, and he was angry." His point is that he couldn't tolerate sin; that he confronts it head-on. We learned about this a few weeks ago with one of our other disciples. God does not ignore sin; he doesn't leave you in it and say, "Hey, I love you, so that's fine; we'll just keep doing what you're doing." That would be like leaving someone alone to burn in a fire; he goes in and he confronts them and say, "Hey, you're here; I'm not going to leave you here; I find you where you are, and I bring you to where you need to be, and that's with me." He confronts it head-on. These groups will use that that story for their agendas, like, "Yeah, look at Angry Jesus; yeah, look at revolutionary Jesus," but the point here is Jesus saying, "I am a holy God; I confront said head-on; I do it I do it head-on, but I also do it in love." We don't see him, you know, going with a sword and slanging the people down; we seeing um he references the verse in Psalms 69:9, "For Zeal for your house has consumed me, and the reproaches of those who reproach you have fallen on me." That's that's the verse that came to mind for the disciples when they saw him doing this; that he was zealous for the house of God; that he was zealous for his father. The people were completely turning what God's house should be into something of their own, and he confronted it. I'd only be terrified to see Jesus walk into some Churches today and seeing what he reaction was to them, but he confronts it head-on; he doesn't ignore it. It also he confronts sin head-on, but he also he rescues The Remnant. Now some of you might know what I mean by that, but um, in Isaiah 37:32, in 2 Kings 19:3, he says this: "The Zeal of the Lord Almighty will accomplish this," and I love that we talked about Zeal gets things done, and here the prop Propet Isaiah in these two places says the Zeal of God will get things done. There was a time where the people of God were judged because they completely turned their backs on God, and they were taken into captivity by these enemy Nations, and they thought they were going to be wiped away from the face of Earth; that God had completely abandoned them; that they were done for. And God said, "No, this is a lesson; I will rescue The Remnant from; I will rescue a remnant of you; the people, my people, will not disappear forever." This was to get you back on track; he rescues The Remnant. And as we learned a few weeks ago from the story he tells of the shepherd who would leave the 99 to go find the one, is that Jesus Rescues The Remnant; he rescues the remainder; there's not someone so small or neglected that he forgets them; he finds them; he hunts them down; he pursues them. And I love what it says: "The Zeal of the Lord Almighty will accomplish this." He rescues The Remnant; he rescues the one; he rescues the people who are lost and broken and weary. And it's because of that Zeal, his passion for you, gets it done. Like I said at the very beginning of this, there is a Zeal that is misdirected, but God wants us to have Zeal because he has Zeal; he's got passion; he has he's got fire in his belly for you; his love for you is unwilling, and it will rescue The Remnant, and it will get it done. And I love this: it establishes his kingdom. In Isaiah 9:7, "Of the increase of his government and of the peace there will be no end on the throne of David over his kingdom to establish it and uphold it with Justice and with righteousness from this time forth and forever more; the Zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this." He confronts sin; he rescues those who need to be rescuing; and he establishes his kingdom, and it will get it done. Several Sundays ago, we talked about how there will come a day; that was our that was our last line of the sermon: "There will come a day." I love that we get the whole story in the word of God because there's um there's the joke: I know how the story ends; I've read the ending, and we win. Um, there's a there's an artist who just wrote a song that's all over CB and the Christian radios right now is, "I know how the story ends." I love that we know how the story ends, but there will come a day where he will establish his kingdom; that we're not lost and broken and wandering forever; that this world is passing; that the tears on our eyes one day will be wiped away. There will come a day, and what is it says is his Zeal will accomplish this; his passion will'll get it done. It doesn't matter how fiery and angry the world is and the devil is and how how lost we are in our sins and how broken we are; his Zeal trumps all that, and it will get it done; he will rescue those who need to be rescued; he will save the remnant; he will establish his kingdom; there will come a day where he'll wipe away every tear, and we will all be able to find a home in him. Zeal of God gets things done; let's just not confuse it for our own Zeal and our own ideologies; let him be our Zeal because his Zeal gets things done. Let's pray. Heavenly god father, I just thank you that you are a passionate God; that you are God who would pursue us; that you are God who will establish your kingdom; that you will that you will be the victory, Lord. I Thank You, Lord, and I just pray that sometimes when we get off track with our passions or our Zeals, that you would draw us back to you; that you would give us your passion, your Zeal, Lord, and that we would remember that it will do it; that it will accomplish it; that your Zeal gets things done; it rescued the lost; it healed the Brokenhearted; it brought dead men from the grave. Thank you, Lord, for your passion; thank you for your Zeal; Stir It Up in us that we would Stir It Up in others, and in your son's name I pray, amen, amen.