Zechariah 4:6

hello antioch family and facebook
friends Darius Hubbard here
one of the pastors at Antioch Community
Church here in Northeast Minneapolis
here to share a word of encouragement
with you today um
as we ended the advent season last week
hopefully you
and your loved ones were able to spend
some time together
exchanging gifts and just being thankful
even though they might have looked a
little bit different some of us probably
had the opportunity to be
in person with a few family and some of
us were virtually
but at the same time i also hope that
some of that time you were able to
reflect
and give thanks to the father for the
great gift of his love
in sending his son to be born as a man
and to die on the cross
for our sins so that we may have a
personal relationship with him
and as we in 2020 tonight
it definitely has been a year filled
with
unexpected stalls to life working
ministry
um yet there are still things to look
back on 2020 and be thankful for
there’s things that were accomplished um
that we didn’t accomplish in the year
prior to that and as we are led
forward into the new year some of us may
be filled with hope
others uh may be filled with anxiety um
some uncertainty and some might be
experiencing some new fears
with are some of the unknowns of 2021
but may we remember that no matter how
we feel about
what is to come in this new year we are
able to move forward because of the lord
in the book of zechariah chapter four um
god gives zechariah a kind of weird
vision
um for the work that he wanted a man
named zerubbabel to
accomplish really finish he has started
the work of rebuilding the temple
and due to various reasons in his life
and situation
and returning from the exile um the work
has stalled
and zaruba bill really was didn’t know
how he was going to carry on
but god gave zechariah a needed
encouragement to zoruba bell to know
that he can carry on this work
can any of us relate to that this year
um i find it myself sometimes in 2020
just needing a little extra something a
little encouragement a little push
to make it through the next day the next
year the next
week the next month just with everything
that was happening
this year um and that’s what god is
doing for
zerubbabel giving him a little
encouragement through zachariah
um and something that stands out in that
chapter is
uh zechariah 4 verse chapter 4 verse 6.
god says this pertaining to um
how zerubbabel feels about how is he
going to move forward
in zechariah 4 verse 6 it says
god says this not by might nor by power
but by my spirit says the lord of hosts
so god reminds zerubbabel you didn’t
come
out of this exile
through your own power or strength but
it was by my spirit
and it is by that same spirit that
you’re going to be able to move forward
and carry out and accomplish the things
in life that you feel like are stalled
because of the situation surrounding you
so i pray that we may hold to this verse
in the upcoming new year that may be
filled with
unknowns new possible stalls to life
work and ministry
and know that it is not by human power
or resources that we will move forward
but by the spirit of the lord
and by god’s spirit we will move forward
and accomplish
what he has for us to accomplish and
what he needs for us to accomplish
god bless you guys and have a happy new
year