(Sermon by Pastor Michael D. Schultz 05/27/07)

INTRODUCTION:

I had a friend in college who ran the longer distance race – the two mile.  Once a year we would go to Lawrence University for the Lawrence Invitational.  It was the only track and field facility that our small college team went to that had the special hurdles for the grueling race called the steeplechase.  Those are the hurdles that don’t fall over, the ones where the runners jump up, plant one foot on top of the hurdle and then jump over the little pond of water on the other side – well, sometimes they jump over it.  Sometimes they get wet feet because they don’t make it all the way across.  And sometimes, in a rather ugly way, they trip and fall and get all wet and banged up.

I would always watch this friend of mine running that race.  As the race grinds toward the finish, those hurdles get more and more challenging.  Toward the end, some runners would end up not springing off the top of the hurdle at all but climbing over and splashing down on the other side.  Especially for the weaker runners, it was more of an ordeal than a race.

It sometimes seems that the path toward heaven is one hurdle after another.  You scale one mountain only to find that the next one is taller and steeper.  What do you do to keep going?  There weren’t many races in college track where people would quit, but the steeplechase was one of them.  Some runners just fell in a heap on the infield grass.  Where do you find the strength to go on?  What happens when you try to summon some kind of untapped strength from within, only to find that it isn’t there?

About 2500 years ago there was a man named Zerubbabel who was facing a huge hurdle.  In Zechariah’s prophecy it was even referred to as a mountain.  Zerubbabel was supposed to be leading the charge for getting the temple built, the one the Babylonians had destroyed, but no one seemed to be interested in helping him and the opposition was fierce.  Things were looking pretty sad, till the Lord showed Zechariah a vision of how the hurdle would be crossed, how the mountain in front of him would be flattened.  The Holy Spirit would do it.

The Holy Spirit – He Gets Things Done

The time we have for a Sunday morning sermon isn’t going to let us get into great detail, but you can picture in your mind the main elements of the vision, and it isn’t too hard to get the big picture.  There’s a lampstand with seven lights and an endless supply of oil.  “Your Word is a lamp to my feet.”  The Holy Spirit gets things done by his Word.  There are also two olive trees which represented Joshua the priest and the king-like leader Zerubbabel.  The Holy Spirit gets things done through his people.

But he gets things done in ways that you can seldom see.  Our congregation was recently blessed with the assignment of a vicar, Kelly Huet and his soon to be wife Katie.  In many a sermon addressed to young men preparing to be pastors, the preacher will say something like, “…and you will be privileged to actually see God’s Word at work, to see what happens in a living room or a Bible Information Class when a person hears how Jesus cancelled out all his guilt by laying down his life, and that person is so relieved.  For the first time he believes that God really loves him and heaven is really his.” 

It’s perhaps not every day that you will be able to see a person’s face light up and a person’s life change as the gospel gives them a freedom from sin and a joy in their heart like they’ve never had before.  But let me tell you this: people are hitting the hurdles and it hurts.  Like that steeplechase, you and I are smashing into obstacles and getting banged up as we fall down on the other side of the hurdle into the water.  There are issues you face that make you want to quit the race and collapse on the infield grass.

You live a relatively quiet life from day to day but day after day you still struggle to figure out what you’re really accomplishing.  Does what you’re doing really make a difference anyway?  If you quit and walked away from it all, would anyone notice or care?  Or you’ve been too busy to think.  There’s never a let up and the weight of the world is on your shoulders and it’s a weight you’re not particularly fond of carrying any more.  Everyone else seems to – why can’t you catch a break, even a little one?

What will you do?  What will you do to fix what needs fixing and to improve what needs improving?  You know this man named Zerubbabel, this fellow who was trying to build God’s house and do God’s work, but it wasn’t getting done.  You know him because he’s you.  So what does God want you to see and hear?  He wants you to see seven lamps burning brightly and to hear this: “’Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit’ says the Lord Almighty.’”

The Holy Spirit gets things done by his Word.  Our despair and frustration rise up from hearts that think God is some kind of puny wimp.  We’re telling him so when we snivel and whine, when we throw ourselves a pity party and talk about quitting every day.  No wonder the hurdles hurt.  Our sinfulness is an ugly and damning thing.  So what does God do?  In the darkness of our wickedness, the Holy Spirit turns up the light of the golden lampstand of God’s Word and says something our ears do not deserve to hear.  “You are precious to the Almighty God.  You have a Father in heaven who loves you.  You have a Savior named Jesus who endured hell for you.”  

To use a contemporary phrase, it is not within you or me to deal with our demons.  The things that trouble us and vex us and slay us are sin-related and we don’t have what it takes to surgically remove the sin from ourselves, because it’s in every cell.  Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit – in the message about Jesus the Holy Spirit pulls you up by the shirt collar, stands you on your feet, forgives your sins, breathes life into your soul and pronounces you healthy and whole.  No more sin in any cell.  The holy blood of Jesus purified you.  You’re washed clean and sin free, because the Spirit says so.  Look at Emma Hames, another of the Holy Spirit’s miracles, cleansed by water and Word.  Your baptism means the same for you.  Those seven lights on the lampstand are burning brightly, telling you Jesus is alive from the dead, and so are you.

So did Zerubbabel get the temple built?  Little by little, along with his fellow believers, he did.  More accurately, the Holy Spirit did.  That building rose up from the ground because, few as they were and opposed as they were, the Holy Spirit filled and empowered the builders.  The Spirit gets things done through his people.

He gets things done through you.  We all operate in different venues and we all have hurdles to cross and mountains before us to climb.  They seem endless and more often than not they are awfully imposing and intimidating.  The calling you have as a student or spouse or worker, the calling we have as Christians to be forgiving and kind when people, even fellow Christians, say and do things that infuriate us, the calling we all have to set aside the excuses and the apathy and come together to do God’s work, and all the setbacks and trials there are along the way – plenty of hurdles, plenty of tall, steep mountains.

It’s time to take hold of the promise of God.  What are you, O mighty mountain?  Before Zerubbabel you will become level ground.  God pours out his Spirit upon you and the Holy Spirit himself lives within you to get the job done.  The race is on.  It is a steeplechase.  But little by little, one at a time, the Holy Spirit gets you over each hurdle, and every time he does, for every single success he gives you and every next step he lets you take, let the shout go up, “God bless it!  God bless it!”

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