Zechariah 9:9

In the book of Zechariah, prophet Zechariah, is one of the last books of the Old Testament, one of the minor prophets, not minor because of age but because of the volume of what he wrote. A bit of Biblical instruction like this: In the Bible there are major prophets and minor prophets, the major prophets were those who wrote a large volume like Isaiah or Ezekiel, they were prophets who wrote a large amount of teaching, and other prophets who wrote minor books, of greater extent they are called the minor prophets.

Let's read verse 9, from Zechariah. The Lord put this word in my heart this morning, in fact while I was asking him for such a specific word for us and I share it with you, especially in verse 9. We are going to read verses 9 and 10 of Zechariah 9. The word says there of the Lord “rejoice greatly, rejoice greatly daughter of Zion, shout for joy daughter of Jerusalem, behold, your king will come to you, righteous and savior. (Samuel prepare it in English) just and savior, humble and riding on a donkey, on a colt, son of a donkey and of Ephraim I will destroy the chariots and horses of Jerusalem and the war bows will be broken and he will speak peace to the nations and their Lordship shall be from sea to sea and from the river to the ends of the earth." Amen.

They know that that passage was written several centuries before that prophecy was fulfilled. The prophet Zechariah writes in a dark time in the life of Israel, when Israel has been taken captive, has been in captivity for many years, returns and Jerusalem is already destroyed and they have to rebuild the city, and in that environment of oppression and Out of sadness for all the glory that had been lost, Zacharias ministers and writes his prophecy.

That is the context of this call to rejoice. It is a gloomy context, it is a context of sadness rather. Israel is under the oppression of many nations, especially Persia, which is the superpower of that time and has dominion over Israel. And there are other nations that also want to destroy Israel, and take possession of it. And in that environment of uncertainty and repeated oppression, the Lord sends this word of hope, and speaks to them about a wonderful being who is to come and who is going to fix things, and who is going to put everything in its place. That is why the prophet Zechariah says these words. Now let's understand, so that we can see something interesting, and that is that again we must emphasize that this was written, and that is known historically, this book of Zechariah was written hundreds of years before the coming of Jesus Christ and Zechariah has many passages that talk about of that Messiah who was to come.

It is interesting that many times in the Old Testament the coming of the Messiah is presented with a sad, gloomy, dangerous, threatening background. And yet it is always accompanied by a call to rejoice and joy. If you look for example in the book of Isaiah, Chapter 9, you can see there this idea of a call to celebration, Chapter 9.

It says in verse 2 of Isaiah 9 “...the people who walked in darkness saw great light, those who dwelt in the land of the shadow of death, light shined on them. You multiplied the people and increased the joy. They will rejoice before you as they rejoice in the harvest, as they rejoice when they distribute the spoil.

Brothers, we have to remember that, that many times the word will call us to rejoice and to think about what Christ makes possible in the midst of times of tribulation and anguish, in which all things are not going well for us. And at that time the Lord tells us: look, even though everything is not right with you, even though your whole life is not perfectly right and all the pieces are not in place, still rejoice because my son is going to make sure everything turns out okay in your life. My son is going to bring light to your life and he is going to bring solutions to your problems. Brothers, that call from God to defy the darkness, to defy the negativity, is wonderful, and calls us to rejoice in a challenging and militant way in the midst of the test.

My brother, the Lord will many times allow tribulations and anguish to come into your life to prepare the background for the liberation that God wants to do in your life. And do you know what guarantees the solution, what guarantees the descent of God's power into your life? When you, I call it preventively, decide to rejoice in the Lord and celebrate the Lord and celebrate the liberation of God, even though everything inside you screams "don't do it" because there is nothing that justifies celebrating and worshiping. And in those moments is when we have to say the most: No, I am going to adore the Lord, I am going to declare his goodness, I am going to celebrate because the word says that "...the joy of the Lord is my strength". And we have to learn to cultivate as an act of the will in the spirit, the joy of the Lord, and celebrate the Lord even though everything around us is not well.

There is something, brothers, that when we prophetically announce the good things that the Lord is going to do for us and we refuse to put on the cold and damp mantle of depression, that the devil wants to put on our lives, that is the vehicle that many times God uses to bring his salvation into our lives. I was thinking this morning, I have the authority to tell them that, do you know why? Because I am not necessarily a person with a very expressive and joyful temperament. I can find ten reasons why things are not going to go well for any event in life, but I have had to learn to rejoice and celebrate and for me that is not a natural skill, it is a skill that I have learned and which I have discovered that it works. It works.

When one refuses to submit to one's temperament or circumstances, and one says: No, with everything I am going to rejoice in the Lord, I am going to celebrate the Lord, I am going to declare the good will of God in my life, I am going to declare that He is good and that He has good purposes in my life. And when you begin to do that, your body and spirit begin to warm up and the blessing of God begins to flow in your life, because there is nothing that has more power than defeating the devil than the praise of the son of God when he is in the midst of trials and tribulations, because that is where faith is truly fulfilled. There is a chorus that says: praise God when things go well for you, how good it is, praise God when there is no problem, what a good thing, but if you praise him among your brokennesses, that holy Christ glorifies himself within you. Amen. You can clap, that's fine. Don't applaud me, applaud the word of the Lord.

We must rejoice in the Lord. The prophet Abacuc, writing about this, says in Chapter 3 of Abacuc, verse 17, and you know the passage: "... even though the fig tree does not flourish nor are there fruits on the vines, although the produce of the olive tree is lacking and the crops are not give maintenance, and the sheep are removed from the fold and there are no cows in the corrals, yet I will rejoice in Jehovah, Hallelujah! And I will rejoice in the God of my salvation."

Abacuc is thinking, what is the worst that can happen to me? Well, if I lack this, if I lack the other, if they close the doors around here, if the world falls apart, but I am going to be determined that with everything, despite everything, I am going to enjoy myself. in the Lord, and I'm going to praise the Lord anyway.

Brothers, you know you have to rehearse that, because that's not going to come naturally to you. I often ask myself, what would happen if the worst thing happened to me, what I fear the most, if I stayed as I most fear to stay, and if all the scaffolding of life were removed from me, and all the things that I consider as a source of my security, could I still praise the Lord? And I say, I don't think so, I am going to trust that at that moment the grace of the Lord will allow me to praise and glorify Him and rejoice in Him by faith, because it is often by faith that we have to do things brothers.

You know what brother? The devil cannot deal with a person who decides to praise the Lord in the midst of his tribulation. Because that faith destroys, shames and defeats the devil. When you are in trial situations, what the devil will say to you is as Job's wife said to Job, "Curse God and die." What God said is a lie, that is the hoaxes of the evangelicals, God is not as good as He says. But at that moment you have to say like Job: No, I will believe, even if He kills me, I will believe in Him, says Job, and I will see it with my own eyes. And certainly Job saw the glory, the mercy, the goodness of God, his restoration and we have to do the same, we have to believe and over and over again the Bible calls us to that: to believe in the midst of trials. And that is made possible by Jesus Christ.

You see the prophet Zechariah is telling the Jews, in the midst of their tribulation, in the midst of nations that are looking hostilely at them to destroy them and to possess and oppress them, the prophet tells them: rejoice, be glad daughter of Zion , shout for joy. Many times, brothers, what will scare away the devil are those joyful voices that you are going to give in your house and the demons are going to run away like mice to get into their hiding place because a son or daughter of God dared to praise the Lord in the midst of tribulation and trial. I say that this is the last card that a child of God plays, when all the other cards have failed us and there is no more, the only thing left for us is to say: God is good and his mercy is forever. I know that He will bring your liberation, I don't know where it will come from but I know that the liberation will come from somewhere, as one of the prophets also said. God will get deliverance from somewhere, Esther's uncle told him, “if it doesn't come through you, it will come through someone else”, and that's what I've always learned in my life, you know? That I believe that God always has a solution for my life. God, even if all the doors are closed, it is already like a motto of my life, that if it is not always the solution that I hope for, God will find the solution from somewhere else and I have seen that over and over and over again.

When we were dealing with this question of the temple and the difficulties were there and the uncertainty of whether we were going to receive permission or not, and every so often, another new group came out that wanted a piece of my skin and one more explanation and one more meeting more and all this, and sometimes it seemed difficult. But I said: Well, Lord, what is the worst that can happen, maybe that the temple will not be built? there it is because you have a better and bigger temple somewhere else. Do you understand? Because sometimes things don't happen the way we want them to.

But I know one thing, that my God is faithful and that what He promises is fulfilled and that if He doesn't find the solution on one side, He will find it on the other because He is an expert in miracles. And we have to trust that, always make sure that you know that in your life. The son of God with his power, with his salvation, is always ready to be born again in your life and to rescue you from wherever you are. So therefore rejoice preemptively, rejoice preemptively. Never give place to depression, to sadness. Never stay in that terrible place where the devil wants to put you, in a hiding place there in the dark and feeling sorry for yourself. Move and get up and glorify the Lord and put on lipstick if you're a woman, and if you're a man don't wear lipstick, put on something else, but celebrate. Here in Massachusetts you have to clarify those things, you know? But, whatever it is rejoice and dress well. I believe in that, brothers, when sometimes I don't feel very happy or very happy is when I try to dress better and tell the devil: Hey, you're not going to get away with it. This child of God believes that God is powerful. It is so, brothers.

When we are going through trials many times the devil wants us to simply die and stop dressing and stop calling our brothers and coming to church and doing good works and the word tells them: no , no, never tire of doing good. Never get tired of glorifying the Lord. Never run away from the devil, always face the devil and face life because I am with you and I am stronger than what is in the world. I'm going to get you through. That is the essence of the Christian life.

Rejoice greatly, daughter of Zion, shout for joy, daughter of Jerusalem. Behold your king will come to you. Hallelujah! How beautiful that promise! Your king will come to you. You know that Christ came into the world, not as an impersonal and generic and distant king, but as a personal king for each one of us.

It's something that always strikes me about that every time the coming of Jesus Christ was announced, it was announced in personal, very intimate terms. Notice how it says in Isaiah, it says: "... because a son is born to us, a son is given to us." It does not say: a son is born or a son has been born. No, he says: a son is born to us. In other words, a child has been born into the family. When Christ was born, he was born in the heart of every man or woman who received him, accepted him. Christ came as a personal being. Christ came to establish a relationship so that you no longer feel alone, so that you do not feel helpless, so that you do not believe that it is only you and life fighting there, but that you have Christ with you. The Lord came to announce himself to you and me and if you receive it, the Lord becomes part of your life too, the Lord enters your life. A son is born to us, a king will come to you. There he tells us about the real character of Jesus Christ. Christ came in a humble form but He is also a King, He is Lord of Lords, He is the King of Kings. We serve a great king, an almighty king. It says: “just and savior, humble and riding on a donkey”.

Look at the qualities here: it comes right first, you know the Lord is right. And let me tell you something that these qualities are for us to imitate as well. These qualities are for us to imitate. The qualities of our Lord Jesus Christ are for us to imitate. The quality of justice, the Lord Jesus Christ is just. He came to right all the injustices of humanity, all the mistreatment of people, the oppression of man against man, war, all these things, exploitation. The Lord came to establish a kingdom of justice. And while He comes we have to live in justice with each other, and we must treat each other with justice.

He came to save, He is a savior king. He came to rescue us from our sins, to save us from our difficult situations, to bring solutions to our problems, and above all to reconcile us with the Heavenly Father. And you know what? In some sense we also have to be saviors for others, we also have to be merciful towards others, and we also have to exercise mercy towards others.

There is one quality here that to me is the most important of all. It says that He came riding on a donkey, humble on a donkey, son of a donkey, and that, brothers, is very important, for me that is the essence of this passage that is there: in that quality, humble of Jesus. Notice that one would think: Well, the Lord is the king who comes to save his people, he comes to remove the oppression, the yoke of these great nations, he is going to be a powerful king, a king full of strength, an attractive king, mounted on a white horse, with a whole army behind him, and with a whole court that pays homage to him, and for the moment, things seem to change here. One is waiting: well, that king that he is going to save is going to have all those attributes. Know what? Says; He comes humble, riding on a donkey.

I was reading a writer's comment on this passage and this man, who is an expert on the Hebrew language, says that the word translated “humble” is still much stronger in its implication than the word simply humble. in Spanish. The word is rather, humiliated, afflicted, depressed, poor, insignificant, it is a very negative word.

And why is this important to point out, brothers? Because many Hebrews couldn't understand that Jesus was Lord because what happened? They expected a king full of glory, they expected that king as men expect a king to be and in their carnality they did not read, although they knew that these passages were messianic passages, but their carnality and their Jewish national pride did not allow them to see that message that I was telling them: my son, my king, the one I am going to send to free them, will not come like other kings do. He is not coming to fight a physical fight with the nations and have you make them the superpower of the earth, my king is coming in a way and in a package that you do not expect. He is going to come humble, simple and downcast and the complete opposite of what you would normally expect a king to be.

That is important for us to understand, brothers, because I see something and that is that God did not want to do things as men wanted. There is a controversy that God has with men, pride. And we want to do things with human strength, with the vigor and cunning of our mind and with our resources and our talent. And God says: No, what I bring, the spiritual victory that I want to achieve in this world will not be won with human weapons. And I am going to establish a way of doing things very different from how you are used to doing them, and my son, my king, the one that I am going to send will win with simple weapons and weapons of light and weapons of love, and weapons of kindness, weapons of humility.

Brothers, the most important thing about this revelation is that this is the way in which we also have to fight the battles of our lives, with weapons of light, not with weapons of violence. I ask the Lord every day to help me put aside the weapons of violence, and anger, and oppression, and human cunning, and human strength, because I have discovered that when the A Christian who accepts Christ begins to move under rules and a dynamic that is very different from the one that men debate, and that our struggles already have to occur with a different methodology, it is the methodology of weakness and poverty.

I believe that many of us have difficulties in our lives because that great truth has not yet dawned on us, brothers, that we have to put on the weapons of light. And like Christ, fight with humility, mercy, grace, forgiveness and that is the vehicle through which then the grace and goodness of God flows in our lives. Brothers, let us make a pact with the Lord to put aside the weapons that the devil uses. The devil will always be able to fight with a strong man, with a strong woman and he will defeat him because the devil is much stronger than any of us.

But what the devil cannot fight, what the devil cannot defeat is a man, a broken and humble woman who says: Father, I put down my weapons, I put down my sword, I put down my revolver. On one side, I put the stick that I could use to hit someone and now I put on your mercy, I forgive those who offend me, I forget what they have done to me and I ask that your grace descend in my life and that you manifest yourself in love through me. And you know what? The devil can't beat that, brethren. Where did the Lord Jesus accomplish the greatest victory of all? On the cross of Calvary. There immobilized, tied, nailed, defeated, humiliated, there the Lord defeated, he says, the principalities and powers and annulled all the accusations of the devil against us.

And that's what we have to do, this Christmas, I believe that the essence of the Christmas message is that: that God uses humble and simple things to carry out his greatest miracles, and that we have to treat ourselves that way . In this coming year, brothers, let's make a resolution to ride life humbly, walk humbly, let's put roughness aside. Let's put the accusation aside. Let's put hate and violence aside. And let us clothe ourselves with the love and humility of Jesus Christ. Let us walk that path that God has traced for us using simplicity and meekness, the love of God. The Lord came as a simple child. The Lord came as a humble baby, through that humility the Lord made it possible for the grace of God to flow into this world and we are going to receive a blessing this year, we are going to receive a blessing, but it will be through that walk as Christ walked. I want, brothers, that this year more than ever our church be a church of harmony, love and mercy.

I want brothers, that this year if there is any conflict between us, if there is any resentment in any of us if someone owes you something, if someone has not given you everything you think you deserved, if someone has not has treated you as well as you think you should have been treated, don't hold any resentment against that person in your heart. Seek reconciliation, forgive those who offend you. Walk life humbly. Walk life with transparency. Let's be transparent to each other. Let go of anger. Let's leave the discord. Let's stop the bad words. Let us leave violence in our dealings and ride humble as the Lord Jesus Christ came. And you know what? God will make you powerful through it, God will free you from the struggles that you have. God will humiliate the devil and say: Leave my son alone now, because my son is now using the weapons of light and you have to respect him, you have to give him freedom. If we work that way, God is going to do his work in our lives. This Christmas, brothers, I believe that this is the primary message of everything else, the essence of our Lord Jesus Christ will speak peace to the nations, he will speak peace to the nations. Let us be men and women of peace. The Lord Jesus Christ came to destroy the chariots and horses, the war bows, he says, will be broken. May God help us, brothers, to be part of that peaceful army on this earth, that army of peace.

That's Christmas. Christmas is peace and we are going to be men and women who walk in the humility and meekness of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Let's stand up. We are going to receive that call of peace to our hearts. Let's sing that... let's imagine that child, that humble and simple baby who came riding on a donkey, a donkey and that is the spirit in which we have to walk and that spirit gives us incredible power, brothers . It gives us power to break all ties, to free ourselves from all the difficulties in our lives. It is in this trust in the Lord, in standing in the goodness and mercy of the Lord, not fighting with our own weapons, but letting the Lord set us free, let the Lord lead us forward, and trust in Him and have grace with one another. for with the others. That is the origin, brothers of every great triumph in life. Let's sing that hymn.

Let's bow our heads for a moment, let's embrace that call of God now to our lives of peace and mercy. Father, I am the first to confess that many times I lack that meekness that Christ came to exemplify and this afternoon, Lord, I ask with my brothers that you pour out a special portion of the meekness and love of Christ and the humility of Jesus in our hearts. Lord Jesus, the world is used to violence and harshness, sometimes we ourselves think that if we do not use these weapons we will be abused and exploited and oppressed, but you have taught us that in these weapons of praise and faith and declaration of your goodness and your faithfulness and joy and celebration and love, forgiveness, we can win in a way that no man with his human weapons can. Help us to embrace and embrace the spirit of Jesus Christ, Lord, this afternoon. And to be like our teacher, people of peace, people of love and kindness.

Lord we embrace the spirit of our Lord Jesus Christ this afternoon.