Pastor Steve Perez | December 11, 2022

The Fountain Apostolic Church

House of Prayer (2022)

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Sermon Notes:

Zechariah 4:6

Throughout our life we are moved and sometimes accustomed to being a good soldier of Jesus Christ. We SOLDIER THROUGH tragic times, hurts and traumas. We stand at attention in life as we march being strong and live in places of much pain and anguish.

I believe we have suppressed our pain for a long time. You have had a stiff upper lip and carried on while your heart has been breaking into millions of pieces. Yet you find yourself in problems of aggression, anger, depression or confusion. 

Suppression has Expression

I submit to you today that we even come into the presence of God as his good soldier and ready for our next assignment because we are strong enough to handle what life has. Today this message is for the soldier of the Lord. You have pushed and fought through many afflictions and trials. To every soldier here or watching today you stand at spiritual attention but the Lord is saying to at ease.

I am not looking for your strength but your weakness. 

An amazing message was given to Zerubbabel (a descendent of king David), who having returned from the Babylonian captivity to govern Jerusalem, was the one chosen of God to start rebuilding the Jewish Temple. He was told by Zechariah the prophet that God would carry out the work: "Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit," says the LORD of hosts.

This divine revelation is as relevant today as it was centuries ago, we must all come to an understanding that the Lord Himself will carry out His plans, which He alone has purposed, not by might nor by power, but by the grace of God's Spirit alone. 

Not by might refers to not a great army of soldiers

Not by power refers to the strength of men

By my Spirit refers to God alone is the center of our strength

Zerubbabel was not told HOW God was to carry out His plans and purposes for, like us, he only saw through a glass darkly, nevertheless his responsibility, like ours, is to live by faith in God, to trust the Word of the Lord, and to believe all that God has told us.

We know that without faith it is impossible to please the Lord. Even in our weakness we must activate the one element of our life and that is our total faith in God. It’s when we function outside of faith, we fall short.

Romans 14:23

God is working His purpose out as year succeeds to year, but we are not always privy to the plans that God has purposed in the counsel of His own will. However, we are His workmanship. We are the spiritual Temple of God that is being built together by His Holy Spirit. God's work is not carried out by the cleverness of men or the influence of their mighty ministries. We are being built together by the work of the indwelling Spirit of God. We are the Body of Christ. We are the Church of God that is quietly being built into His eternal dwelling place, precious stone by precious stone.

2 Corinthians 12:9-10

The trees represent the never-ending oil that will be flowing into us

The oil represents the anointing of the Lord in us

Examples of Weakness made Strong

Luke 22:43-44

2 Corinthians 4:17

2 Corinthians 3:18