SERMON TITLE: The Accuser and the Advocate
TEXT: Zechariah 3:1-7 (ESV)
SPEAKER: Mike Norman
DATE: 10/24-25/20
You can watch the sermon here.
It’s great to be with all of you this weekend at Gateway Church. My name is Mike Norman, I have been the Technical Director of Gateway since 2008. And I also have the honor of being the Bowling Green Campus Pastor. So I want to say a big Hello to our BG family worshiping at the Veterans Memorial Building, to our North Main campus, and to all of you joining us online. So like I said, I’ve been here for 13 years now, which I think puts me up there in the running with Dale Briggs for the longest tenured staff members. My wife Lindsay is our worship leader up in BG and is the rock star mom of our 4 kids, Cooper, Ellie, Asher and Campbell. I’m originally from Campbell, CA, went to school in Nashville, where I met Lindsay, who is from Findlay. We were married in 2001 and started our family in 2004 and that’s when the Lord brought us to Findlay. So that’s a little snap shot for those of you who may not know me.
The one thing we always want you to know is that God loves you and we, your Gateway family… love you too.
So with that, on to today’s message. I’ll be teaching out of a passage of Scripture you may not have traveled through very much in your Bible reading. We will be in Zechariah chapter 3, looking at verses 1-7. This is an adaptation of a sermon I heard Tim Keller give which really impacted me and illustrated the gospel in a way I’ve never seen before, so I pray for that same depth of impact for you.
The book of Zechariah is a part of the Twelve Minor Prophets. This chapter contains a vision by the prophet Zechariah, of Joshua, who is the Jewish high priest, being cleansed before God in what could be characterized as a courtroom.
How many of you love to watch court TV shows? I’m not talking about Judge Judy or whatever Judge Jerry is! No, I mean shows like Perry Mason, Matlock, LA Law, or Law and Order… great movies, like “A Few Good Men”… Oh man, I get sucked into good courtroom dramas. Well, today’s courtroom drama plays out in Heaven and I’m sure it’s no surprise who the judge is, God has that role pretty well secured. What I think is fascinating about this passage is who plays the role of the prosecuting attorney and who is the defense attorney.
That’s something we will need to pay attention to, and with that, let’s turn to our passage for today.
If you have your Bible please turn with me to Zechariah, which is near the end of the Old Testament. It’s right there between Haggai and Malachi… as if that helps. “Ohh, Haggai, gotcha….” HaHa, just go to the end of the OT and back up a couple.
Alright, while you’re finding Zechariah chapter 3,
I want to begin by saying, there is a heavenly courtroom, and we all kind of know that, right? You don’t even have to go to the Bible–your own experience tells you that there’s some bar of justice out there in the world by which we are judged.
Everywhere we look in this life we see comparison, judgment, and condemnation. Social media, for some of us, seems to play a critical role in fueling these feelings. This stems from a place deep down inside where we ALL feel like we just don’t measure up. There’s a voice that we hear telling us repeatedly that we’re not who we say we are. Maybe the voice says to you, “You’re a fake” or “ Nobody likes you” or “You will never be good enough.” Or maybe you don’t have a voice like this, that may be scariest of all. (Josh Hanson)
So with that picture in our minds, let’s read this together.
Then he showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the Lord, and Satan standing at his right hand to accuse him. 2 And the Lord said to Satan, “The Lord rebuke you, O Satan! The Lord who has chosen Jerusalem rebuke you! Is not this a brand plucked from the fire?” 3 Now Joshua was standing before the angel, clothed with filthy garments. 4 And the angel said to those who were standing before him, “Remove the filthy garments from him.” And to him he said, “Behold, I have taken your iniquity away from you, and I will clothe you with pure vestments.” 5 And I said, “Let them put a clean turban on his head.” So they put a clean turban on his head and clothed him with garments. And the angel of the Lord was standing by.
6 And the angel of the Lord solemnly assured Joshua, 7 “Thus says the Lord of hosts: If you will walk in my ways and keep my charge, then you shall rule my house and have charge of my courts, and I will give you the right of access among those who are standing here. Zechariah 3:1-7 (ESV)
Ok, so there’s the courtroom, who do we see in this scene? We all know that God is indeed the judge, right? We see Joshua the High Priest who is there to represent the people of Israel, he always represents the people when we see him. That’s you and me. So, he’s standing there before the judge, the place where we all stand. And while standing there he is clothed in filthy garments which represent his sin, his unworthiness, his guilt, his unrighteousness. A quick reminder about righteousness. it’s a relational term meaning to be in a right standing with someone... And so here’s Joshua, representing the people of Israel who are being judged by God, because of their unrighteousness. Their relationship with God has been fractured, and we don’t exactly know why.
We see throughout Israel's history that they constantly fell into idol worship, they failed to keep God’s rules about marriage, or maybe it had something to do with not rebuilding the temple. Whatever the reason, they appear before God in this vision as unrighteous or as the text says, “filthy”.
So there’s Joshua, or us if you will, standing before the judge with our sin exposed in this heavenly courtroom. What does that make you feel right now? The thought of appearing before a judge completely exposed, and not just any judge… THE JUDGE. Nothing is hidden from Him.
Have you ever had a dream where your subconscious fears are made public? Like the one where you go to school as a kid and when you get there you look down and you’re not wearing pants.
Several years ago Pastor Ben and I made a video about a dream he had, and several of you participated in this dream video. The video was Ben talking to a counselor about a dream where he was preaching, and as he looked out at the congregation, everyone was giving him the “ It’s time to wrap it up Pastor” look. Staring down at their watch, yawning, wondering when he’d be done. He was getting really self-conscious about this and then all of the sudden everyone started laughing at him. It was at that moment he realized he wasn’t fully clothed. We actually shot a portion of that video from the stage during a Sunday morning service! Do any of you remember that? If you were a part of that service, I’m so sorry. Oh, the crazy ideas he had for videos.
Hey, here's something fun.. Ben is supposed to preach here next Sunday night and I guarantee he's not watching me preach this week. Can we please all wear watches and start giving him the Ole, “it’s time to be done Pastor” look? Please? That would be awesome!
OK sorry, enough jokes.
What’s happening in dreams like Ben’s, is that deep inside ourselves, is an insecurity about not being liked or accepted. About being found to be an imposter, that we don’t have it all together or that our sin is worse than everyone else's. There exists in us a deep need to belong and be acceptable.
In 1985, the actress Sally Fields, (showing my age here again) finally won the Oscar for Best Actress. And during her acceptance speech she said, “ You like me, you really like me.” Let’s be honest, many of us wonder if people really like us.
That’s why there’s a “LIKE” button on everything we post on social media. Marketing today makes us feel unacceptable and that we fall short unless we use their product. We see this in our kids, they are being crushed under the weight of the pressure to measure up, or look a certain way, wear a certain brand. And none of this is new, it’s just marketed with more accuracy these days. We want validation that we are liked, or noticed. It’s a sign of being seen or accepted. But that feeling only lasts for a short while. Then it fades away and insecurity begins to creep back in.
So that’s the set up for Joshua who represents us, his filthy clothes, which represent unrighteousness, and how he doesn’t measure up.
Let’s continue to look at this scene, who else do we see? Satan… Satan was there. What was he doing? He is there accusing Joshua, just like a prosecuting attorney.
Let’s talk for a minute about ”practical Satanology” , what did you say? I said practical satanology. What the heck is that? The study of Satan of course… Let's learn a little something about this adversary. He has a name and a job.
Did you know that the very name Satan means “accuser” or “Prosecutor”? That’s his name! Did you also know that that’s his main job? We often think that his main job is to tempt us to do evil. While he is a tempter and he is always looking to ensnare us in sin, that is not our main trouble when it comes to Satan. We actually do a pretty good job of falling into sin on our own.
His job is to accuse us... which is why we read in Revelation -
“the accuser of our brothers . . . who accuses them day and night before our God” (Revelation 12:10).
Accusation is the main problem when it comes to dealing with the forces of darkness. (https://podcast.gospelinlife.com/e/accuser-and-the-advocate/) That is what he’s doing in this passage, making a case against the people of God. And he does this day and night. Why?
Because as one pastor puts it, “In his misery, the devil not only loves company — he demands it. He labors night and day to surround himself with the condemned.” (https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/against-every-accusation) In an effort to drag as many as he can with him.
“And for those whom he cannot condemn (because they are in Christ), he labors night and day to destroy their spiritual peace. No matter how much these saints hate their sin and long to please their God, the devil will strive to blot out the light of God’s favor. He will meet them at midnight with visions of God’s wrath. He will send them deep within themselves to scrutinize every motive and feeling. He will whisper alongside all the promises of God... ‘“But does this really apply to a sinner like you?”’ (https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/against-every-accusation)
Man… It’s no wonder we feel the weight of not measuring up. Of feeling like an imposter or a failure. The judgment we feel is what’s being whispered into our ears day and night by the accuser who is trying to make his case to the judge in the heavenly courtroom. And the worst part of all of this is that in large part, he’s not wrong. He’s not wrong to accuse us of the sin we’ve committed. He’s not wrong when he says we don’t measure up to God’s Law. We know this and that is why it weighs so heavily on us. His words of accusation penetrate our hearts and paralyze our spirit, and attack us through our conscience.
I’m going to get techy here for a minute. My Dad developed satellite and radar tracking systems early on in his career. These tracking systems were located all over the world and looked up to the sky trying to find the signal from a passing satellite. These tracking stations, or antennas, would work together to locate and maintain communication with the satellites as they orbited the earth. Many times they would pick up signals from other countries' satellites. Which is a lot like on a road trip when the radio station that you’re listening to starts to get out of range. There’s a point when a different station's signal starts to step on the one you were dialed into. Well, we too have an antenna, it’s called a conscience. ”The conscience is an invention by God designed to remember and reflect the law of God.“ (https://podcast.gospelinlife.com/e/accuser-and-the-advocate/) I'm gonna say that again, ”The conscience is an invention by God designed to remember and reflect the law of God. It’s like an antenna, dialed into God’s frequency, helping us stay connected to and remember His truth. We experience this most often when we do something, Or have a choice to do something that we know is not right. The horrible feeling in the pit of our stomach comes from the conscience that’s remembering what the law of God is and knows what’s right and wrong. Well, Satan the Accuser also has a frequency competing for dominance, which is trying to hijack the broadcast. There’s a lot in this world that works to jam God’s frequency. There can be seasons in life where we tend to tune into the accusations of the enemy a little more closely. Like...
We can sometimes translate these as, “God is punishing me” & “I deserve it”. We do a lot on our own to jam the frequencies of truth in our lives. These days there seems to be a tsunami of frequency jammers out there, news media & social media to name a couple. The Accuser will use anything to disrupt, disconnect and redirect you to his message.
Maybe some of you don’t believe in the Devil, you’re saying, “c’mon man, you seem like a reasonable dude, you can’t expect me to believe in a Devil”. But I would say to you, your conscience, your guilt in life, your insecurity… I mean, it comes from somewhere. Someone is transmitting on that frequency. We live in a culture where nobody is a loser and everyone's a winner. So then why is it that we can often feel like a loser deep down inside? We don’t just remember our failures, we are being reminded of them by someone. Somehow we know that we were designed to be perfect, but we fail, don’t we? And those failures are what the enemies broadcast tries to remind us of.
For the Christ follower, the frequency can get hijacked, maybe when you’re trying to witness to someone. The accuser will say something like, “Who are you to tell him he needs Jesus? If they only knew what you are really like”.
Another is how often we get distracted from God when trying to spend time with him. Pop-ups in our mind occur seemingly at will. When we’re trying to pray or stay focused on the Word of God. It can be exhausting trying to block out these distractions. How about right now? During church services when you're trying to listen to a message, A REALLY GOOD MESSAGE, the prosecution comes in loud and clear, doesn’t it? So when we can’t stay locked in on God’s truth, we start to listen to the broadcast of the accuser. What we feel when we start to believe the accuser is a spiritual problem called condemnation. This means that we have a misfiring conscience. It’s struggling to “remember and reflect the law of God.”
Sometimes our conscience is too numb or too sensitive to the accusation. We can be passive about our right standing with God and have a blah position when it comes to our walk with Him. Or we can be overly sensitive to it and fall into a mindset of works-based salvation. We feel the weight of not being good enough so we work hard to earn back God’s love. As if we had lost it somehow. Either way, what we need to work on is recalibrate the conscience.
For the Christian, we have the advantage of being made new in Christ and having the transforming power of the Word of God and the ministry of the Holy Spirit as our recalibration tools. Those are very effective tools in the hands of the Christ follower.
So maybe the next question is this… How do we do that?
We should probably start by looking at the next person we find in Zechariah’s vision.
We have an “Advocate” standing before the judge in our defense, making a plea on our behalf. There’s someone there who speaks with authority for us, and I’m glad because if I have to represent myself before a righteous and holy judge, I would just toss up my hands and say, “What’s the use?” Or worse, I would actually dig in my heels and try to defend myself. I do that now, so why wouldn’t I do it then?
Here is the thing we need to understand, “We will never find peace, by arguing for our innocence.” (https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/against-every-accusation)
Here’s some good news, Thankfully, we don’t have to. We don’t need to defend ourselves as followers of Jesus. We don’t stand before the judge alone. In this passage we see the Angel of the Lord, standing there as our Advocate, who we know from scripture to be Jesus.
But wait a minute Mike, haven’t we seen in scripture where the Holy Spirit is also called our “Advocate”? Yes we have, great question, thanks for asking!
Both Jesus and the Holy Spirit are rightly called Advocate. We read in First John,
My dear children, I am writing this to you so that you will not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate who pleads our case before the Father. He is Jesus Christ, the one who is truly righteous. (1 John 2:1 NLT)
Man, how well does that go with our Zechariah passage?!
And then in John 14, Jesus says:
And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, who will never leave you. 17 He is the Holy Spirit.” (John 14:16-17 NLT)
So, “the Son is our Advocate with the Father, interceding for us, and the Spirit is our Advocate as counselor, guiding us into the truth and testifying that indeed we belong to Christ”. (https://aleteia.org/2018/05/20/ever-think-of-the-holy-spirit-as-your-lawyer-if-you-know-a-bit-about-the-devil-you-should/)
How bad did we need to hear that? Seriously! The Son is our advocate to the Father and the Spirit is our advocate, who verifies we indeed belong to Jesus. That is good news right there!
So let’s continue with the understanding in this passage that Jesus is the Angel of the Lord, and he’s our advocate, our defense attorney. Real quick, what’s an ADVOCATE?
It’s “One who pleads the cause of another”. (https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/advocate) Jesus is standing there as our defense, our advocate, to plead our case before the judge who is a Holy God. He is the only one worthy of such a role.
A good defense attorney doesn’t stand there and agree with the accuser and say, yes he’s a sinner, yes he's a wretch, but give him a break your honor. No, a defense attorney makes a case, right? He says, Father, you are a righteous judge, look at my blood which has paid for this man’s sin. Because of what I’ve done, I’ve paid the price, you must pardon him. And because you are a righteous Judge, you cannot double penalize a person.
Let’s jump back to our passage where we read,
Then he showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the Lord, and Satan standing at his right hand to accuse him. 2 And the Lord said to Satan, “The Lord rebuke you, O Satan! The Lord who has chosen Jerusalem rebuke you! Is not this a brand plucked from the fire?”
The “Brand (or stick) plucked from the fire” is us who have been saved from eternal punishment in Hell. When you pull a stick out of a fire what happens? The fire extinguishes and that’s what happens with Hell for the believer. The punishment of Hell is removed. What’s left? The char. The char is what represents the sin and scars of sin in our life. You’ve seen this before at a campfire right? The stick has a char that rubs off on whatever it touches. It has a smell to it that doesn’t go away. It’s the visual representation of experiences we have in this fallen world which mar us and distort our original design. Once the stick is removed from the fire, the damage doesn’t just automatically go away. The fire stops but the char remains to some degree. This illustration helps us see the effects of sin in our lives.
I’m from California, and forest fires are unfortunately pretty common to me. Well when you walk through a forest that had a fire, maybe 100 years ago, sometimes you’ll find a tree that still bears the scars from that fire, even though it has new life.
This is a picture of our sin. The scars of our sin stay in this life, as a reminder of what it does to us. It makes us “filthy”. For the Christ follower, their stick has been removed from the fire, “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.“ (Romans 8:1)
But, for those who don’t follow Christ, their stick remains in the fire.
What do we see happen after the stick is removed from the fire?
4 And the angel said to those who were standing before him, “Remove the filthy garments from him.” And to him he said, “Behold, I have taken your iniquity away from you, and I will clothe you with pure vestments.” (Zechariah 3:4 ESV)
So, not only is Jesus the one who argues our case, (PAUSE) He is also the one who paid the penalty for us. Paul reminds us of this in Romans.
34 Who then will condemn us? No one—for Christ Jesus died for us and was raised to life for us, and he is sitting in the place of honor at God’s right hand, pleading for us. (Romans 8:34)
Are you hearing this? “Who shall bring a charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies.” So then who is to condemn us? Jesus is the one who paid the price for our sin by giving his life for ours.
In Revelation we read...
10 And I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, “Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have come, for the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God. (Revelation 12:10)
LISTEN, “At our right hand is our accuser, but at God’s right hand is our Advocate.” (https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/against-every-accusation) That is so important.
But that’s not all...Our accuser has been thrown down!
Our advocate is standing beside the Judge saying,
“Your honor, what the prosecution has claimed has no bearing on this case, and I would remind the judge that this case has already been tried, sentenced and paid in full. The punishment for this man’s sin, (your sin and my sin) has already been paid for in full and it would be unjust to require double payment your honor. And because we have a righteous judge sitting on that throne, he does not condemn those who are in Christ Jesus, but declares them clean.
Remember? He says, “Remove the filthy garments from him.” And to him he said, “Behold, I have taken your iniquity away from you, and I will clothe you with pure vestments.” (Zechariah 3:4 ESV)
The apostle Paul explains how this takes place.
22 We are made right with God by placing our faith in Jesus Christ. And this is true for everyone who believes, no matter who we are.
23 For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard. 24 Yet God, in his grace, freely makes us right in his sight. He did this through Christ Jesus when he freed us from the penalty for our sins. 25 For God presented Jesus as the sacrifice for sin. People are made right with God when they believe that Jesus sacrificed his life, shedding his blood. This sacrifice shows that God was being fair when he held back and did not punish those who sinned in times past, 26 for he was looking ahead and including them in what he would do in this present time. God did this to demonstrate his righteousness, for he himself is fair and just, and he makes sinners right in his sight when they believe in Jesus.
27 Can we boast, then, that we have done anything to be accepted by God? No, because our acquittal is not based on obeying the law. It is based on faith. 28 So we are made right with God through faith and not by obeying the law. ( Romans 3:22-28 NLT)
Jesus has obeyed the law perfectly and His righteousness has been given to us. And when the enemy tries to accuse us of our failures, we can remind him that Jesus already paid the price.
So if we look back at why Joshua was standing there before God, being judged and clothed in filth...
Ultimately, it’s because of our desire for success, which is a desire to be something to ourselves that only Jesus Christ can be for us. We want to be our own saviors.
If a church could be full of people who have learned how to deal with the prosecutor, that means they have abolished guilt, and they are able to stem discouragement. Of course we will always experience some kind of discouragement, but I mean the kind of discouragement that stalls us out, or sends us into depression. If a significant number of people in a church were able to preach the gospel to themselves and were able to deal with the accusation of the enemy…
Do you realize what that would be like? Worship would be off the charts glorious, we would be eager to run to God, we would make it a priority! We wouldn’t be afraid, we would not be ashamed, and we would not be so self conscious.
We might actually even have a sense of humor about ourselves because we know how ridiculous it is that we are even worthy to be called christians.
Lastly, there would be great oneness, because we would finally stop being so insecure about who we are and how we look to others. We wouldn’t need the “Like” Button.
Because we would finally trust God when He says
Behold, I have taken your iniquity away from you, and I will clothe you with newness.
Let’s pray...
Heavenly Father, thank you for being a righteous and kind Judge. Help us to see and trust your wisdom through suffering and loss. Help us to use the Gospel as a platform for our daily lives, which helps us deal with the accuser.
Jesus, we thank you for being our Advocate with the Father, interceding for us, and for your willingness to leave your place of glory and to take the place of shame and punishment.
And Holy Spirit, we thank you for being our advocate, our counselor in life, guiding us into the truth and testifying that indeed we belong to Christ. Help us stay connected to the message of the gospel. That we would stay locked in on the truth of that message and not fall for the lies of the accuser who wants nothing more than to disrupt, disconnect and redirect us to his message.
Let us be a people who are filled with joy because of our hope and confidence in you. Amen.
May you go filled with joy because of the hope we have in Jesus.
Amen.
God loves you. I love you. You are sent.
You can find the sermon notes here.
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