{"id":26149,"date":"2020-11-06T13:28:00","date_gmt":"2020-11-06T13:28:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/2021\/02\/04\/preaching-on-zechariah\/"},"modified":"2026-01-21T16:58:55","modified_gmt":"2026-01-21T16:58:55","slug":"preaching-on-zechariah","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/content\/preaching-on-zechariah\/","title":{"rendered":"Preaching on Zechariah"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Historical Background<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Zechariah\u2019s ministry spanned four decades. His first recorded message took place between Haggai\u2019s second and third messages (Oct.\/Nov., 520 BC, Zech. 1:1-6). His eight \u201cnight visions\u201d (1:7-6:8) occurred four to five months later (February, 519 BC), and sermons on repentance and blessing (Zech. 7-8) two years after that (518-17 BC). Then there appears to be a gap of 40 years\u2014a Jewish generation\u2014with his final visions (Zech. 9-14) occurring after 480 BC.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Zechariah was a part of a group of 50,000 returnees to the land under their new governor Zerubbabel after their 70-year exile to Babylon (see Ezra 1-6). Cyrus the Great permitted them to return (see Isa. 45:1-7) and encouraged them to rebuild their Temple to Yahweh, as Persian foreign policy sought to gain the favor of all the gods of the peoples in their empire, covering all their bets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the contemporary of the prophet Haggai, their books should be read together, along with the first six chapters of Ezra, to help grasp the context. The two prophets are mentioned together in Ezra 5:1 and 6:14. The personalities and callings of Zechariah and Haggai mirror what we often see in our ministries, where you have two highly gifted individuals but with very different gifts and burdens. They deal very differently with the same spiritual realities. The Spirit illumines each to see a different set of needs that must be addressed for spiritual health to prosper. One is not right and the other wrong, but they do exist in tension (like the gift of faith and the gift of administration).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They returned to a totally devastated city and country\u2014think of New Orleans after Katrina, only let it remain untouched and unrepaired for an additional 70 years! The Babylonians were thorough in their destruction, hardly leaving one stone on top of another. What would happen to the street where you live if houses were wrecked and burned and it were then deserted for 70 years? What would you find when you returned? How would former houses, yards, farms, and fields appear?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

No economy, trade, or markets existed, no working farms for food, no infrastructure, no military or police, no government services, and no Temple or city wall. Just wreckage\u2014piles and piles of it, overgrown with weeds, brush, and trees. Wild animals and vermin all would have taken over. Plus, everywhere were the skeletons of unburied bodies (Jer. 16:4), bones dragged everywhere by predators which gnawed on them left behind after the final Babylonian siege. There was no time to bury them before the survivors were marched off into exile. It is no exaggeration to call it an early holocaust, with a similar emotional impact on the first returnees who saw it and had to clean it up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The tasks they faced were overwhelming, even with an army of motivated people. Again, think of post-hurricanes Harvey or Katrina, but with no bulldozers, lumber yards, or Home Depot. The returnees started rebuilding quickly because they had<\/em> to, including laying the foundation of the Temple. But then the Samaritans (a people resettled in the Northern Kingdom of Israel by Assyria two centuries earlier) offered to help.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is hard to know the Samaritans\u2019 motives, whether the offer was honest or duplicitous\u2014but the Jews refused the offer. Men like Zerubbabel, Ezra, and Nehemiah knew Israel\u2019s history and the impact of integrating with idolatrous peoples that surrounded them. The Samaritans were highly insulted by the rejection though, and they became an ongoing threat politically and militarily, creating the resentment that continued into Jesus\u2019 day. Exactly what that looked like, again we are not sure, but we get some sense of it in Nehemiah\u2019s day (445-44 BC), when he had the workers on the city wall equipped with both trowel and sword because of the threat. Their threat discouraged\/frightened the people enough to stop their work on the Temple in the early days.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Their anxiety was legitimate, due to extreme<\/em> vulnerability. They were in a dozen different kinds of danger all the time<\/em>. That kind of anxiety is a fertile field for a creative communicator to plant seeds, both then and now. God enables Zechariah to see and report on \u201cthings that are unseen,\u201d not dissimilar to Elisha praying his servant\u2019s eyes to be opened to see that \u201cthose who are with us are greater\/more than those who are with them\u201d (2 Ki. 6:11-19). Vulnerable people need to understand how God is protecting them, and that he knows what is going on with them, even when their circumstances look bleak.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

God thus gives the prophet Zechariah a dovetail task to the prophet Haggai (whose message was about task-oriented priorities<\/em>). Zechariah\u2019s message is about security<\/em>, that highest level of need on Lazlow\u2019s \u201cHierarchy of Needs.\u201d If people do not feel secure or safe, if they experience vulnerability, fear, and anxiety, then their priority becomes self-protection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chart: Preaching Through Zechariah<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

We know the weekly grind of sermon prep is hard, whether you are in the midst of series or planning a new series. Trying to find key verses you need to highlight in your sermon, finding the historical background to the book, discovering the flow\/structure of book, and even figuring out what is the theme of each section.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That is why we created this chart! This chart is designed to\u00a0save you time<\/strong>\u00a0as you prepare to preach a new sermon series from the Book of Zechariah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You will find a quick visual overview of the movement of the Book of Zechariah. It will help orient you and your hearers as you preach through the entire book or sections of the book. It provides, at a glance, one way to divide the book into pericopes. The chart includes key verses in the book, an overarching title for the book, the overall message of the book, and some historical background. It is color-coded to highlight certain defining aspects of the book.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This chart could be used as a slide in your church service. It could serve as an introduction to a new series or a weekly check-in before you begin preaching. It could even be printed out and given to the members of your church, as a resource to help them grasp the message of the book.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Sermon Series<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The three sections of Zechariah (Ch. 1-6; 7-8; 9-14) should probably be separated when preaching, as they each have their own purpose. Another possibility is to preach \u201cThe Amazing Verses of Zechariah\u201d as there is approximately one very familiar verse or passage per chapter (on a variety of topics) that could be done as a summer series if they were set in their context.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, if you preach through the book, a sermon series on the first section, Zechariah\u2019s \u201cnight visions\u201d (Ch. 1-6) to the battered, frightened group of returned exiles to whom he spoke could be titled: God\u2019s Protection from Unseen Dangers;<\/em> or God\u2019s<\/em> Ultimate Security System; or God Secures Our Present and Our Future; <\/em>or When You Feel Vulnerable<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The second section (Ch. 7-8) comes two years later where God reveals to a delegation sent from a resettlement of Bethel why he has not responded to their corporate fasting in the fifth and seventh months. It is because they have made a division between their religious and their moral practices, similar to Isaiah 58:1-6, \u201cthe fast God chooses.\u201d God explains how his discipline and even wrath came because the Israelites separated<\/em> their religious and moral lives, just as modern believers often experience severe cultural pressure. The culture doesn\u2019t mind if we \u201cpractice our religion\u201d in private, they just don\u2019t want it interfering with our business or political decisions. God makes sure they understand that those who truly believe in him do not<\/em> have that option and gives them a history lesson in why he sent the previous generations into exile.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Possible series (or sermon) titles for this second section are: Making It Real; <\/em>or Permeating Truth; <\/em>or How to Eliminate Hypocrisy;<\/em> or Taking Truth Past the Parking Lot<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The third section (Ch. 9-14) is highly Messianic, with some of the most wonderful and well-known prophecies about both the First and<\/em> Second Coming of the Messiah. It could be an Advent series on Getting Ready for the King;<\/em> or focus on leadership qualities prophesied of Christ How to Recognize a Great Leader<\/em>. One striking feature is the repeated phrase \u201con\/in that day,\u201d<\/em> seventeen times in Chapters 12 and 14. Chapter 12 is focused on the First Coming of Messiah and Chapter 14 on his Second Coming.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Overview of the Sections<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Text: Zechariah 1-6<\/h2>\n\n\n\n