Julius: The reading from Zechariah that we'll focus on tonight from Zechariah chapter 6. The word of the Lord came to me. Take an offering from the exiles, from Haldai, Tobija, and Judiah, who have come from Babylon, and on that very day go into the house of Josiah, son of Zephaniah. Take the silver and gold and make a crown and place it on the head of Joshua, son of Jehoshadak, the high priest. Tell him that this is what the Lord of Armies says. There is a man whose name is the branch, because he will branch out from this place and build the temple of the Lord. He is the one who will build the temple of the Lord. He will be clothed with majesty, and he will sit and rule on his throne. He will be a priest on his throne, and there will be peaceful relations between the two offices. The word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Sometimes we think of our roles in life as different hats that we wear. So at a certain time, you might be wearing your husband hat or your wife hat, but then you have to wear your parent hat, and you go to work, and you have to wear your work hat. There's all sorts of different hats that you wear in life, and sometimes it seems like they come into conflict, and it's hard to do both well. You're thinking, okay, I'm gonna... put on my spouse hat, I'm going to be a good spouse and we're going to go on a date. And then your kid gets sick and you think, ⁓ no, now I have to put on my parent hat and we can't go on a date. It's hard to balance things like this. And maybe two of the hats that Christians have a harder time balancing are those hats of being a citizen of the state and a citizen of the church. And in the United States, we often talk about those things being entirely separate, the separation of church and state. Maybe better is to talk about a distinction, a distinction between church and state. They're not entirely separate. For example, a police officer of the state will protect the property of a church and the church will pray for the police officer. So there can be some overlap there. And in the Christian life, there's a distinction, but they're connected and you try to manage both. So think about your citizenship as a Christian. While your citizenship is in heaven, your ultimate hope is there. You must obey God rather than man. And as a citizen of the church, you have a particular weapon and it's not a physical one. It's the Word of God. You wield the word of God and you do things like forgive sins and you don't forgive sins. So in the church, if somebody breaks a commandment, you say that's wrong, but you don't hit them with a stick. You just say that's wrong, that's the word of God. And if they say, I'm sorry, you forgive them. On the other hand, a citizen of the state might throw that person in jail because things operate a little differently over here. And that's true also for you. as a Christian. So while over here you're reigned and you rule entirely by the word of God, over here as a citizen of the state you use your human reason a little more. You're operating a little bit less in the realm of right and wrong. When you're choosing things in the state and the government, you're often choosing between two bad options. You're choosing wrong and less wrong. Which one of these am I going to pick? So things get a little bit Messier over here as a citizen of the state, but this is also something that you get to do as a Christian and that's a good thing. It can however be difficult to manage both and you do have to keep a distinction sometimes and that's okay. God wants us to keep a distinction when that's proper and he even does that in the Old Testament when it was a theocracy when God was in charge of that country. Even then there was this distinction sometimes between church and state. And a lot of the time you see that in the fact that there was a high priest in charge of the church stuff and a king who was more in charge of the government stuff. And there was a distinction there when a king named Uzziah in the Old Testament tried to come over into the church and offer a sacrifice. He's like, I can do both these jobs, piece of cake. The Lord struck him with leprosy. Do not cross that line, Uzziah. So there was some distinction there, which is why it's really surprising in Zechariah chapter nine to see that distinction disappear with this guy named Joshua, the high priest. No separation between church and state for him. He got to be both high priest and king. So we'll read that again from Zechariah chapter six. The word of the Lord came to me, taken offering from the exiles, from Haldi to Bijah and Judiah. who have come from Babylon and on that very day go into the house of Josiah son of Zephaniah, take the silver and gold and make crowns, and I'm gonna translate that plural there, we said crown in that reading, but crowns and place them on the head of Joshua son of Jehoshadak the high priest. Now in the Hebrew there, it's actually plural. It says take crowns and put them on his head. Now why in most English translations do they just translate it crown because it doesn't seem to make sense to put two crowns on someone's head. How does that even work? How does that balance? That's going to look weird. So maybe it's just saying crowns as in crown of crowns, a really nice crown. But I think it's crowns, it's two crowns. Put two crowns on Joshua's head. He's going to be able to balance both of these somehow. It goes on. Tell them that this is what the Lord of Armies says. They parade this guy like a fashion show. Look at him with his two fancy crowns on his head and says, there is a man whose name is the branch because he will branch out from this place and build the temple of the Lord. He is the one who will build the temple of the Lord. He will be clothed with majesty and he will sit and rule on his throne. He will be a priest on his throne and there will be peaceful relations between the two offices. Now here is something special. So they take Joshua, the high priest, church, and they say, let's give him two crowns, not just the high priest crown, church crown, but we'll give him the state crown too. And you hear that in the language there. He's obviously in charge of the church. It says he will build the temple of the Lord, but then he's also a ruler of a kingdom, of a government. He says he will sit and rule on his throne. He'll be both. He will be a priest, not behind a pulpit, but on his throne, and there will be peaceful relations between the two offices. Now sometimes in the Old Testament, God makes it difficult to see how a prophecy points to Jesus. This is not one of those cases. The guy's name is Jesus. That's the Old Testament. Joshua, same name as Jesus. And Joshua the high priest never actually did this. So they took him out, they put the crowns on his head and said, look, a priest and a king, whoa! And then, if you read a couple verses later, it says they took the crown off his head. the crowns off his head, and they put it in the temple as an exhibit, as a display, as a memorial to make people think, wow, wasn't that cool? That guy was there and he did both, crazy. And after this, Joshua went back to life as normal as just a high priest. So clearly, it wasn't saying he was going to do it, but it is saying there's this guy named Jesus, and he is the branch, messianic title, and he's gonna rule perfectly over both the church and the state. and he'll be able to manage that like nobody else. Obviously pointing ahead to Jesus. Not hard to see that in the text, but it is sometimes hard to see that in real life. So they should have known 600 years later, a guy named Jesus shows up and he's a king of everything. But they didn't see it. Who is this guy? We don't like him. We don't want him to be in charge. And still today, it can be hard to see this. Jesus is telling us, I'm in charge of the church and the state. But this can be hard to see, right? Especially when you're working over here with your citizen hat on and you're thinking, all these governments in the world, they're godless governments with godless leaders. and sinful citizens, ⁓ Jesus can't possibly be in charge here, can he? Yeah. And then you come over here to the church and you see all these messes in the church, and the church isn't growing, and the church is being persecuted, and people in the church are doing bad things, and you think, ⁓ how could Jesus be in charge of this? And he says, yeah, I'm in charge there too. And if it's really hard to see that Jesus is in charge, We're glad that we have John chapter 19, which shows a fulfillment of these words. What did it look like when Jesus was standing in front of Pontius Pilate? We had the state Pontius Pilate going, oh, I don't want to kill him. It's not good, but fine, we'll do it. And then we had the church, the chief priests and the experts in the law saying, we want to kill that guy. And here's Jesus in the middle, wearing a crown of thorns and bleeding and seeming absolutely helpless. And who's in charge in that situation? Jesus is. He's in charge over here, and He's in charge over here, fulfilling this prophecy. You it's wild in the original, in Zechariah, when they bring out Joshua with the crowns, it literally says, behold the man. Huh, how about that? In John chapter 19, when the church and the state take Jesus out, united in fulfilling God's plans, even though they don't know it. They come out, they present Jesus, and what do they say? Behold the man. Jesus fulfilling these words. Pilate has no authority except what Jesus had given him, and Jesus is in control of the whole situation. He's using Pilate to fulfill his plan of salvation so he'll be killed at just the right time. and so that everybody in the world will hear about it. The chief priests and the experts in the law rejecting Jesus, unwittingly fulfilling Jesus' plans to kill him so that he can be the high priest, dying on the cross as a sacrifice for his people to forgive their sins and have his grace spread out into the world and rule in people's hearts. Jesus is in charge of both the church and the state, and He always is, and that's the confidence you can have them in your life. As you go over here, and you're a citizen of the church, and you go, uh-oh, things aren't looking so good, church is being persecuted, the church isn't looking as good as it should, Jesus is in charge, He's your high priest, interceding before the Father for you, sharing all the grace that you need for every day to live your Christian life. And over here, As you try to be a good citizen of the state and you think, how? I'm getting my hands dirty just touching this ballot, just living in this country. Jesus is in charge. He's taking care of that and he's using you, letting your light shine, being a good citizen so that he can create a society where the gospel will be spread. Jesus in charge of both. And the Bible tells us how to manage this. It's not necessarily a complete separation. You're a Christian over here and you're a citizen over here. It's something that goes together. 1 Timothy chapter 2 says, want you Christians to pray. Pray, citizen of the church, for the government. Pray for them so that they do a good job so that there's peace and quiet in your country so that you can live your godly life and share the gospel. See how those connect? How Jesus is in charge of it all. He's ruling over all things so that He can spread His kingdom of grace. It's really what we're praying for in the Lord's Prayer. Your kingdom come. And how do we know it's going to happen? Because Jesus is in charge over here. Jesus is in charge over here. And Jesus is in charge here. And He's strong enough to rule in all of those places because His is the kingdom and the power. and the glory forever and ever. Amen.