Sermon July 5, 1998 The Lord is My Strength based Zechariah 12:7-10

Grace to you and peace from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

Introduction

I understand that at the Chokio Centenial Celebration they are having a "He-Man" contest. To participate you need to drive a spike, roll a log, throw a rock, chug a beer, and other tests of strength. The definition of strength this contest gives should cause us Christians to stop and ponder from where we get our strength.

Where do we get our strength to go on with life and face the challenges we must face? You each are facing different challenges such as: raising children, caring for your parents, battling illness, making financial ends meet, a holding difficult job, getting crops to grow, moving, going on vacation, and experiencing loneliness. We all face the challenge of trying to live a God-pleasing life, resisting temptation to sin, and taking time to allow God to nurture our faith. You can certainly add your own challenges to this list. As you live your life in a "He Man" contest, where does the strength come from?

The Scriptures give us the answer over and over. The Lord is my strength. This very phrase is repeated several times. Habukkuk 3:19 says "The Lord is my strength." 2 Samuel 22:33 says "The Lord is my strength and power." Psalm 28:7 says "The Lord is my strength and shield." They all tell us where our strength comes from. Even more, Exodus 15:2, Psalm 118:14 and Isaiah 12:2 all say "The Lord is my strength and my song, He has become my salvation." This brings in the added idea of the Lord being our song. That means because He is our strength, we sing about Him and to Him. We praise Him and give thanks because He is our strength. And He also is our salvation, say those three verses. When the Lord is our strength, then He is also our source of salvation.

Other Sources of Strength

How about other sources of strength? There are many people in this world trying to sell you strength from other sources. Whether it is psychic hotlines, spiritual forces, positive thinking, vitamins and other chemicals, you can really take your pick of strength sources.

Can't we just find the strength inside our selves? This is the lie that New Age religion is trying to pass off. Look inside of yourself. Get in contact with your inner being. Find strength within you. This is passed off as wisdom, but it is a lie. True strength is not to be found within us.

For the truth, we look to God's Word. In our text, the prophet Zechariah gives a message about whom the Lord will save. The strength comes from the Lord saving His people.

Some people would take strength based on being part of a royal family or based on where they lived. This Zechariah addresses by saying the Lord will save the dwellings of Judah first. This means that all of God's people will be saved. It won't be that some are saved before others. It won't be the case that the house of David, those who are royal descendants of the king David, will be saved first. It won't be that the residents of Jerusalem will be saved first. The message to us is not to count on our descent or our location to save us. Don't look to the family of your birth or the location your residence for strength. Who will save you? The Lord will save you.

Strength From the Lord

The text goes on to clearly show us the Lord is our source of strength. It says, "On that day the LORD will shield those who live in Jerusalem, so that the feeblest among them will be like David, and the house of David will be like God, like the Angel of the LORD going before them." See how the strength comes from the Lord? He will shield His people. The effect of the shielding will be to lift us up. Without the shield, we are weak, but with the shield of the Lord, we are strong. We gain strength because the Lord is our shield. This means the feeblest among us will be as strong as David. David will be raised up too. We all become strong with the Lord as our shield.

Our strength also comes from the Lord destroying all His and our enemies. This the text says: "On that day I will set out to destroy all the nations that attack Jerusalem." All those who attack us will be destroyed. If your enemies are removed, you suddenly become stronger. This most dictators in other countries know, for they will often jail or murder their political enemies. By removing the enemies, they become stronger. The Lord promises to remove our enemies.

Strength from the One who was Pierced

The greatest strength comes from the one they have pierced, as our text describes Him. Who was pierced? Some 500 years before it happened, Zechariah wrote about Jesus Christ. Through God revealing the future to him, this prophet could write about what was yet to come. Jesus was to come, the Son of God taking on human flesh and then being pierced. As Jesus was hung on the cross, the Roman soldiers pierced His side with a sword to see if He was yet alive and if they needed to break His legs. When separated blood and water issued from the wound, they knew He was already dead.

How did Zechariah fortell that people would respond to this piercing and death? They would mourn, he tells us. Zechariah says: "They will look on me, the one they have pierced, and they will mourn for him as one mourns for an only child, and grieve bitterly for him as one grieves for a firstborn son." As one would mourn for the loss of an only child or a firstborn son, they will mourn the one they have pierced. Revelation 1:7 mentions this too: "Look, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, even those who pierced him; and all the peoples of the earth will mourn because of him."

This mourning will be great, as it should be. For the Son of God has died. The only child of God died. His firstborn was sacrificed.

You and I should mourn this death for we caused it. We are the reason Jesus had to sacrifice His life. It is our sins which made the death necessary. It is our disobedience to God. Our daily turning away from Him and on to our own path. Our doing our own things. Our looking inside ourselves for strength. Our errors, blunders, mistakes and failures are the reason Christ was pierced.

This is cause for mourning. This is cause for regret. This is a reason to be sad and disapointed in ourselves.

Spirit of Grace

Yet, there is a end to this mourning. There is a pleasant outcome. There is a "Spirit of grace" which God pours on us. This spirit of grace teaches us why Christ had to die-as a sacrifice for our sins. This spirit of grace also teaches us that the sacrifice was done because of God's tremendous love for us. It is a successful sacrifice too. In Christ, our sins were paid for. In Christ, we are reconciled to God. We are made friends of God once again. The mourning comes to an end and the rejoicing lasts forever. Yes, and even though Christ died, He now lives again, having been resurrected from the grave. We too have this resurrection to look forward to.

The spirit of grace works with our weakness of our sins and gives us strength of forgiveness. Someone who tries to approach this grace with their own strength, soon will find they come up short. Our own strength will never do it. Looking at ourselves, we only see the weakness of our fallen, sinful state. Depending on our strength to gain us salvation will simply leave us mourning forever, lost and separated from God. God wants to be our strength. This is why Zechariah said, "The Lord will save..." and "The Lord will shield..." and the Lord "will set out to destroy..." and the Lord "will pour out..." These are all actions of the Lord on our behalf. He wants to be our strength. He doesn't want us to depend on our own strength. If we do depend on our own strength, our sins will remain. This, the spirit of grace teaches us.

We draw strength from this spirit of grace. It teaches us our sins are forgiven. Day by day we know that our record before God is cleared of all wrongdoing. Whatever mistakes we might make along life's way are erased. We have strength from the spirit of grace so that we can go on living. We have strength to strive to do God's will, even in the face of failures, because we know our failures are forgiven.

This spirit of grace gives us strength because we know the outcome once this life is through. We know, as we count on grace from God, as we look to Him for strength, He will save us. He will shield us and deliver us to eternal life, with resurrected bodies. We have a reserve of strength as we face the problems of this life, to know that wonderful things are promised in our future. The trials of this life are only temporary and insignificant compared to the bliss to come.

Spirit of Supplication

The spirit God will send will be a spirit of grace, but also a spirit of supplication. Supplication is making a humble request, asking in a prayer. This is our second supply line to the strength God grants us. We have strength to make our requests of God. We know, because of the spirit of grace, that we can approach God and ask of Him what we need. Grace assures us that we have a loving God, to whom we are reconciled. He promises to supply all we need for this life and to cause all things to turn out for the good of those who love Him.

Prayer is our source of God's strength. We can gain peace knowing God hears our needs and concerns. We can pray, asking for wisdom to face life's challenges, and we can know God will grant that wisdom.

Conclusion

The spirit of grace reminds us first to mourn the One who was pierced for our sins. It reminds us of our sins. This spirit of grace also reminds us that the One who was pierced did indeed atone and make-up for those same sins. It reminds us that God loves us and forgives us through Christ. This grace gives us strength to face life's challenges. The spirit of supplication then sends us to God for further strength. We seek to fulfill our needs for strength by turning to God in prayer. The one who knows grace will also know supplication. If we seek the strength in ourselves we won't pray. This Luther commented on:

"Thus the Franciscans wickedly boast that their religion is most like the life of Christ and therefore in their smugness they do not pray. On the other hand, the more a godly man feels his weakness, the more earnest he is in prayer. With this wisdom there simultaneously begins continuous prayer."

We turn to God, knowing our weakness and our sins. We turn to Him for strength as we go about our lives. The Lord is our strength. Our strength is not found in ourselves. Our only source of strength is Jesus Christ. Amen.

Now may the peace of God which passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.