When Life is Overwhelming by Chuck Smith

shall we turn down our Bibles to second Corinthians chapter 3 for our scripture reading today 2nd Corinthians chapter 3 I'll read the first and the ombré verses we ask you to join together as you read the even-numbered verses let's stand for the reading of the word do we begin again to commend ourselves or need we as some other epistles of commendation to you or letters of commendation from you for as much as er manifestly declared to be the Epistle of Christ ministered by us and written not with ink but with the spirit of the Living God not with tables of stone but upon the fleshly tables of the heart not that we are sufficient in our of ourselves to think anything as of ourselves but our sufficiency is of God but if the ministration of death written in engraven in stones was glorious so that the children of Israel could not steadfastly behold the face of Moses for the glory of his countenance which glory was to be done away for its administration of condemnation be glory much more that the administration of righteousness exceed in glory for if that which was done away was glorious much more that which remaineth is glorious and not as Moses which put a veil over his face that the children of Israel could not stedfastly look to the end of that which was abolished but even unto this day when Moses is read the veil is upon their heart and now the Lord is that spirit and where the Spirit of the Lord is there is Liberty let's pray father we pray that you'll help us this day that we might behold your glory and that there might be that work of your Holy Spirit in our lives changing us Lord from glory to glory even into your same image let's now Lord the study of your word open our hearts speak to us and Lord just let it minister to us in Jesus name we pray amen you may be seated well we excuse me we're getting into the book of Zechariah this week and we'll take the first seven chapters tonight and next week the next seven chapters then the book of Malachi and we have completed the Old Testament and we start off in the New Testament the following week so just about ready to finish up on the Old Testament with a great journey but we're looking forward to getting into the New Testament and the exciting truths of the New Testament this morning we'd like to look at the fourth chapter of Zechariah verse 6 where we read and then he answered and spake unto me saying this is the word of the Lord - the rubber ball saying not by might nor by power but by my spirit says the Lord of hosts who art Thou O great mountain before is the rubber Belva shall become a plane and he shall bring forth in the headstone thereof with shoutings crying grace grace unto it have you ever been working on a project and you got to the place where you thought well there's no use even trying anymore it's just too big the task is too great I can never do it have you ever felt overwhelmed by your circumstances and felt that you couldn't take one more step that you might as well just give up and quit have you ever felt just like giving up if you have then you understand the feelings of zerubabbel in our text today he was discouraged he was ready to give up he had returned from Babylon with other Jewish people from the captivity and they had high hopes the people were in high spirits they were looking forward to getting back to Jerusalem they'd heard of the beauty of the city of Jerusalem they had heard of the temple and and all and they were anxious to see Jerusalem and they weren't really prepared for what they found when they came to Jerusalem because the destruction by the Babylonian army was so complete the city was nothing but rubble piles of rubble and so the Magnificent temple was just completely destroyed and the devastation was just unbelievable the people of the neighboring villages have pillaged the city and the people just their hearts sank when they saw the condition and their dreams were sort of shattered and just because of the reality of what they were looking at have you ever worked all day very hard and at the end of the day you couldn't see any visible results of your labor it seems like you made no headway but think of after working months and again having that feeling that you can't even see what you've done in these many months that pile of rubble still looks as big as it did when you first started to move it and if you can catch this you're catching the mindset of the people they were discouraged they were ready to give up the people have become so demoralized that they've given up the project of rebuilding the temple and they started working on their own houses and left the temple just to go the book of Haggai was written at the same time that Zechariah was writing his book there's only about two months difference between the writing of the two books and Haggai was I calling on the people to get not give up and to get back to work on the house of God and he pointed out that God's blessings were lacking because they were letting the house of God go desolate while they were just tending to their own personal houses we need to remember that the most important relationship in our lives is the vertical relationship our relationship with God if this is right then the horizontal relationships will be right but until this is right our whole life will always be out of kilter it seems that there is a fixed axis in our life between the perpendicular and the horizontal and if the perpendicular my up-and-down relationship with God is right then my horizontal is right I have a right relationship with you but if my perpendicular gets out of kilter then it's a fixed axis and my relationship with others becomes topsy-turvy up and down and I have a real problem so the importance of seek first the kingdom of God his righteousness then all of these other things will be added unto you God will take care of the others but the important thing of course is that vertical access upon which our whole lives spin or result we are resolving our revolving Jesus of course encouraged us to seek the spiritual things first through the prophet of Zechariah God is going to send the message to the leaders to encourage them to return and to start building the temple again God said if you notice that you just don't have enough money to get through the week that you're always you know just short and so forth it's because he said you've forsaken my house and you're busy about your own things and and that's the reason why you're just having so many problems so many difficulties so much hardship so during this time Zechariah saw this vision that the Lord gave him and the vision was of the menorah now the menorah was that seven golden candlesticks candlestick with seven little cups on the arms of it and that was to light up the sanctuary of the Jewish temple and it was to be a symbol that God intended the Jewish nation to be the light of the world and that was one of the main furnishings of the temple was this menorah and each day it was the duty of the priest to change the oil and to put in new wicks and so forth and to make sure that that menorah was always burning the seven golden candlesticks were always earning continually in the vision that of course that was quite a laborious task every day it was you know doing the same thing cleaning up and and putting the fresh oil in and it was it was one of those things that could become very monotonous after a while but God gave to Zechariah this vision he saw this menorah with the seven golden candle so the seven arms on this candlestick he saw the cups with the oil but then he saw on either side of this menorah there were olive trees and there were branches that were going from the olive trees directly into these cups filling them constantly with the oil so that it wasn't a daily task that he had to worry about getting the oil and filling the cups but here was just this sort of a Rube Goldberg kind of a thing where these olive trees were feet feeding the oil into the cups just daily and the Lord said to Zacharias what do you see he said I really don't understand it and the Lord said well that's the word of the Lord to the rubber both saying it's not my might it's not my power but it's by my spirit saith the Lord of Hosts this mountain of rubble shall be removed in other words he's discouraged it looks like they're not getting anywhere in the removing of the rubble but the Lord is giving words of encouragement not by might nor by power but by my spirit saith the Lord of Hosts might is a word in Hebrew that is used for human resources or human ability the work isn't going to be done with human resources or human ability power denotes human effort physical or mental and it should be noted that they had tried might empower they'd run out of their might and power but the mountain of rubble was still there and the temple was not rebuilt and so it's interesting when we have exhausted our store of endurance when our strength has failed ere the day is half done when we reach the end of our hearted resources our father's full getting has only begun his love has no limits His grace has no major his power has no boundary known unto men for out of His infinite riches in Jesus he giveth and giveth and giveth again today we see men trying to do the work of God through might and power the Christian periodicals are filled with the conference's that you can attend conferences on how to raise the funds for your church or how to stimulate church growth or how to win the world for Christ there are Christian think tanks where men come together and they explore new ideas to make the church and the gospel more attractive to the world there say 'king for success formulas and for a price you can buy the recipe for developing a large church the step-by-step processes whereby you can evangelize your community I was going to say that these programs are a dime a dozen but that's not quite right they're three hundred and ninety five dollars a seminar if you read you're in it if you register in advance 500 of your weight and register at the door through over the 50 years that I've had in the ministry I've seen hundreds of these programs come and go I even participated in some myself in the early years of my ministry as zebrova Bois and Joshua I became discouraged after putting out so much effort and so little to show for it when I given up the man's created devices and an ideas and their power routines I just started doing what the early church did back in the book of Acts they continued steadfastly in the Apostles doctrine and fellowship and in prayer and the Holy Spirit added daily to the church such as should be saved as people would come from around the world to discover the secret of the phenomenal work that the Lord was doing here they were usually disappointed because they did not have we did not have the success programs to sell to them and they always thought we were holding back from them now reading what is the real secret of your growth there which that was just the Lord you know no no really what are you doing you know and and they want you to lay out some kind of a program for them but we didn't have any we were just teaching the Word of God loving one another and watching God do a beautiful work and we've had that blessed privilege of being able to do that as Paul wrote to the Galatians Oh foolish Galatians who has bewitched you that you should not obey the truth I want to ask you did you receive the spirit by the works of the law or by the hearing of faith are you so foolish having begun in the spirit are you now going to be made perfect in the flesh there was a time when the hippie movement was a hot item in the press and they were writing about it in the papers and in the magazines and so forth this counterculture hippie movement had sort of taken hold here in the United States and I was reading an article in the Time magazine about the 65 hippies down there at Black's beach in San Diego who stripped in to the bare and in went swimming in the nude there in the bay assembly at San Diego and I thought is that all that you know the magazine has reported on 65 kids you know swimming in the nude down in a Black's beach at San Diego we're going to be baptizing about a thousand kids you know in Corona del Mar to me that's more newsworthy than kids you know swimming in the nude down there I think I'll get hold of Time magazine and see if they would like to do a report on something else that's happening in the Pacific Ocean rather than just kids swimming nude you know and the Lord spoke to my heart I was driving home from church and thinking about that the Lord spoke to my heart I said who's been your publicity agent up till now and I said well you have Lord and I II said well look you haven't had to do any advertising and you've been in Look magazine you've been in Reader's Digest you've been in several newspaper articles are you not satisfied with the job that I'm doing and I had to say well Lord I'm very satisfied forgive me you know let's you know forget trying to contact Time magazine and let them know when I got home there was a fellow sitting in the living room and my wife said honey this fellow's a reporter from Time magazine [Applause] he wants to do an article on you know the church and the kids come into Christ off and so the Lord was one step ahead of us which he always is but it was exciting to see how God was working and it is exciting to see the work of God continuing the Lord was saying to the Rev Abell you have worked so hard until you're totally exhausted you're at the point of giving up you push the people until there's no more push it is true that you can push people too far and when they do not see the promised results they get discouraged and quit the time has come to let the spirit do the work not by might nor by power but by my spirit saith the Lord of Hosts this mountain shall be removed the results of letting the spirit do the work first of all the work gets done the mountains will be removed we have different words to define a task we say well that's very easy oh that's that's difficult we so that's hard and then there are some who say oh that's impossible and so we have a tendency to major a task and grade it as far as difficulty or ability to accomplish that particular task but you know if it's God doing the work then any talk of impossibility is absurd he said behold I am God is there anything too hard for me there may be mountains of difficulty in your path it may be that you've been trying to move those mountains it may be that you've been laboring strong and hard and trying to you level things off but it seems like the mountain is still there and you have come to the conclusion it just is too much I'm worried I can't do it well when we reach the end of our heart and resources our father's full giving has only begun and so there gives the opportunity for God to begin his work and to do for you what you can't do for yourself the work gets done when the Spirit is the one doing the work secondly you have the assurance that the work is going to be accomplished the hands of Zerubbabel the Lord said have laid the foundation of this house and his hands also will finish it the assurance of God that work is going to be accomplished and finally God gets the work that is done when it is done for we know that we weren't able to do it and we're given up but now that God does it we can just watch him and we can just give the glory to God for what he has done so he often times waits until we get so discouraged that we're acknowledging I can't do it and that's what gives him the opportunity to then step in and do for you what you can't do for yourself when he accomplishes his desires and the great success is always the result all we can say is to God be the glory great things he hath done we look at the challenge of the Great Commission Jesus said to his disciples go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved he that believeth not shall be damned and the fact that this commission we look at the world in which we live and we look at our weaknesses and we think how in the world can we ever reach this world with the gospel it seems like you know things are really just impossible you know to reach people whose hearts have become so hardened and so yet enamored by the world that they're just not interested in the gospel how can we do it how can we reach them well not by might nor by power but by my spirit saith the Lord of Hosts this mountain shall be removed oftentimes in looking at the difficulty we're prone to just sort of give up and shirk from the task and we say who is sufficient for these things but we must remember that our sufficiency is not of ourselves our sufficiency is of Christ we often get discouraged because we're looking at the difficulty of the task rather than at the sufficiency of Christ maybe you have a mountain of rubble in your life you know that it needs to be removed and perhaps you've even endeavored to remove that mountain of rubble out of your life because you realize that it is hindering your walk with the Lord so greatly and maybe you've come to that point of almost giving up and I just saying well just not going to happen it just can't happen and know this it's not by might nor by power but what the Spirit of God can do he can move that mountain for you I may be too weak for the task but he's able to do much more and then I could ask her think and with his help the mountain shall be removed don't give up but give in to the power that God has provided to give to you the ability to move that mountain I know it's impossible for me to move the mountain but for him there's nothing to it reminds me when we were first starting out in the ministry we were pastoring down in Tucson Arizona and our first child I was just 18 months old at the time a brilliant little girl just take a real lover and just the joy of our lives and smart as a whip just she was so smart and of course just you know lived with adults just her mom and dad and she was just so so well just real sharp and so we had a Christmas program for the church and she had memorized this little poem and I did a real good job with it and she was going to recite it for the Christmas program and I can remember I was still teaching her mama said I was too little daddy said I couldn't do it Merry Christmas there I said it really there was nothing to it and so it was just a little but she could say it so clearly and and we were so proud of her and so when she you know she was a little hesitant of doing it but I said honey I'll buy you that new doll for Christmas if you you know say your poem you know because I was so proud of her you know being able to say it so clearly it and and just seems so little it was just really remarkable and and I was just wanting to sort of show off my little daughter and she got up in front of the people and I looked down and her little lip was quivering and she looked up at me and she said I don't want a doll and she went running off and and I thought you know I felt like a brute you know I I saw a little lip quivering and I thought you know I've been pushing her too far and you know I felt real bad about it but you know I it would well just one of those moments that you sort of routes the mountains they're too big for us we can't move him but he can and it's not by might nor by power but by his spirit saith the Lord of Hosts so let's just let him move the mountains for us and he will if you will just allow him to do it father thank you for the help that you give to us and Lord there are those here today who have mountains of difficulty facing them they're looking at the task and they're looking at the situation and they are feeling Lord I just can't do it I don't have the energy I don't have the ability I don't even have the desire it's just too much but lord I pray that you'll help them to realize that you are able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we could ask earthing and it isn't by our might or by our power but Lord it is by your spirit the mountain shall be removed and so lord help us that we'll be able to turn over our mountains of difficulties to you to allow you to do for us what we cannot do for ourselves we ask this father in Jesus name Amen shall we stand the passengers are down here at the front to pray for you and if there are situations in your life that are just sort of overwhelming and you even hate to think about them because you've tried everything and nothing seems to be working and if you've been working on it for a long time but it doesn't you can't see any progress it looks like the mountain is still there time to let the Lord take over and so I would encourage you come on down and just say to them pray for me I just want God's help in dealing with these issues in my life that are just more than I can handle and they'll be happy to pray for you and God will be happy to move those mountains for you so may the Lord be with you may the Lord bless you and may he move mountains for you this week in Jesus name we pray our Father which art in then I would be my name thy kingdom come Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors and lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil for thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory for ah [Music] god bless you

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Length: 33min 54sec (2034 seconds)

Published: Sat Aug 18 2012