Household Worship Guide on The Sinner's New Clothes and Rejoice Greatly in Your King Who Saves You from Zechariah
This week we will consider The Sinner's New Clothes and Rejoice Greatly in Your King Who Saves You from Zechariah. Are the sinner's new clothes somehow simply make-believe like the Emperor's New Clothes? Not in the slightest! Here is the household worship guide for Friday.
Listen up, little ones
Especially for the littles in your household.
Listen for the words LORD and clothes.
Reading
Zechariah 4:3-10—I (God) am Giving You Fine New Clothes
Keys for kids
Also for the littles. Young households might choose, after Keys for Kids, to go directly to praise and prayer.
- God promised to give Joshua clean clothes.
- God also promised to remove Joshua’s sin.
- God laid the penalty for all the sin of his people onto Jesus.
Questions
(Some read the ?s before the notes/ ask them after.)
- How did Joshua get clean?
- Who is the Righteous Branch?
- How did God remove the sin of all His people?
Notes
(See Saturday for authors. )
How will Joshua get clean? Having rebuked Satan for his accusing of God’s chosen people, God orders Joshua’s filthy clothes be taken off. In commanding to take off filthy clothes God announces that the clothes are indeed filthy—that Joshua is indeed guilty. But Joshua is not left there shivering and naked.
Where will Joshua get beautiful, splendid clothes? Where will we? God alone can provide cleanness. God gives Joshua clean new clothes. But lest we think this is just about clothes, the Lord announces that He has taken away Joshua’s sin. How can we get rid of our filthy, dirty sin? Try really hard? Then try harder? And harder? No! God alone can take away our sin.
And God makes here two needed and glorious promises. First, He promises that His servant, the Branch, will come. Isaiah (11:1) and Jeremiah (23:5) had promised a righteous Branch. Rummage points out that the Messiah is called “the Branch” four significant times in the Old Testament, and each mention connects to an aspect of Jesus revealed in the four Gospels. … In talking about the Messiah as the Branch then, God is unveiling the fullness of who the Messiah will be as revealed in the Gospels.
Second, God promises to remove all of the sin of the land in a single day. Surely this points to that day when Christ died to pay for all the sins of all His people! Now he has appeared one time, at the end of the ages, for the removal of sin by the sacrifice of himself (Hebrews 9:26b CSB).
Swedish Method questions
See the Sunday notes for meaning of the symbols.
Praise
Psalm 96b, 119u
Prayer
- Rejoice that you have been made clean in Jesus.
- Pray for the hearing of God’s word preached this Lord's Day.
- Pray for a member of our church, for your family, and for a non-Christian friend/family member.
At Springs Reformed Church we distribute a weekly guide running from the Lord's Day to Saturday with Monday-Wednesday reviewing the sermons that were preached the Lord's Day at the start of the week and Thursday-Saturday previewing the sermons that will be preached the coming Lord's Day.
However, for the posts here I am linking to the guide from Thursday to Wednesday so that all are aimed at the Lord's Day as the peak of the 7-day rhythm as seen in the image above. The Lord's Day post includes links to the sermons.
Thursday Zechariah 3:1–3—Filthy, Dirty, Guilty
Friday Zechariah 4:3-10—I (God) am Giving You Fine New Clothes
Saturday Zechariah 9:9-13—Behold Your King
Lord’s Day
Monday Revelation 19:1-10—His Bride Given Fine Linen to Wear
Tuesday John 19:28-30—It Is Finished
Wednesday Matthew 21:1-17—Behold Your King
If you find it useful to use these in your household/family worship, consider asking your pastor to speak to me about him developing something similar in your congregation.
Worship Connected is a guide prepared by me, Dr. Ed Blackwood, pastor of the Springs Reformed Church (RPCNA), to focus family worship around the sermons preached each Lord’s Day. For more information about how and why I developed this guide (and encourage other pastors to consider doing something similar) see here.
