Today we are going to continue on in the story of Haggai and if you weren’t with us last week, let me quickly give you the backstory. In 587 BC, the nation of Israel was defeated by the Babylonians and King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon made sure both the city of Jerusalem and the Temple were completely destroyed. After 50 years of living scattered throughout the region, the Jewish people were allowed to return to Jerusalem and rebuild the Temple. They worked quickly to lay a new foundation and build the altar, but then the work stopped. For 14 years work stopped because the Jewish people faced opposition and persecution.
Through the prophet Haggai, God told the people, the time is now for you to stop building your homes, and focusing on your lives, and return to the work of God. The time is now to rebuild the Temple. To make things as simple as He could, God told the people to go up the mountain, bring down the timber, build the house. It’s not easy work, but it is God’s work. The people had to take a Hard Right over the Easy Wrong and work to rebuild the house of God. And that is what they did. Haggai 1:13-14
Then Haggai, the Lord’s messenger, gave this message of the Lord to the people: “I am with you,” declares the Lord. So the Lord stirred up the spirit of Zerubbabel, governor of Judah, and the spirit of Joshua, the high priest, and the spirit of the whole remnant of the people. They came and began to work on the house of the Lord Almighty, their God.
It’s important to see that God didn’t just tell the people what to do and then give them simple steps to follow, God actually moved in and among the people to start the work. First God went to the leaders, Zerubbabel the governor, and Joshua, the high priest, and stirred their hearts to do the work, and then God went to the people and stirred their hearts to do the work.
Have you ever been stirred by God to do His work? Have you ever felt such a drive and desire to do something that you just had to move forward? Have you ever heard God clearly telling you this has to be done and the time is now to do it? You might think this happens all the time to pastors, but it doesn’t. I know the hard right and the faithful things we need to be doing in general, but to have my heart truly stirred by God for a specific work is not common (maybe that’s something I need to reflect on). But I did have a moment like that a few years ago.
In 2017, I was at our Annual Conference and heard a report about our sister churches in Sierra Leone. We had been part of supporting pastors in Sierra Leone for many years and we even hosted the Bishop of Sierra Leone, Bishop Yambasu, when he was in PA. While he was here, I heard the bishop talk about how some of his pastors didn’t have 2 pairs of shoes and he marveled at our 2 and 3 car garages. It was humbling. In 2017, the report from the churches in Sierra Leone wasn’t good. Due to the Ebola outbreak and some natural disasters, there was a $30,000 shortfall in covering the pastor's salaries.
As I listened to the report, God stirred my heart. I heard God say, Andy you can do something about this, and I decided I would make a donation to the cause. But then I kept hearing God say, you can make a difference here and it wasn’t just going to be me, it was going to be us. I came home and presented the situation to the church thinking that maybe we could raise a few thousand dollars: we raised $31,000. It was enough money to cover all the expenses of the UM pastors in Sierra Leone. God stirred my heart as the leader and then God stirred all of your hearts as the people and together we did more than we ever thought possible. This is what happens when God is present AND stirs up people’s hearts. It was a true work of God! We should pray for this to happen all the time!
This is what happened in Jerusalem when God was present AND stirred up the heart of Zerubbabel, Joshua, and the people. They began to work on God’s house again. They were motivated, focused, and diligent and that lasted for about a month. We don’t know if the work slowed down or stopped all together, but the flame of enthusiasm went out.
This happens to us all the time. We get excited about something, start the work with all our focus and energy only to quit in a few weeks. We do this with diets, exercise, hobbies, living within a budget, and even our relationships. We are sold out for a month and then 1 or 2 things happen:
#1 we don't see progress so we get discouraged,
#2 we compare our work to the work of others, our lives to others, and get discouraged because we just don’t measure up.
We get discouraged and we quit. We’ve all been there.
I watched my dad do some amazing refinishing of furniture when I was young and so I decided I was going to refinish something and then sell it for a lot of money. An antique mirror was given to our band auction and no one was bidding on it so I got it for like $20. I was convinced that I could refinish it, make it look beautiful and then sell it for hundreds of dollars. So I started. I took the entire thing apart. I put all kinds of paint thinner on it to remove the layers of paint and varnish, and I scrapped it all off. But there was still a lot of gunk in all the little cracks and crevices of the scroll work. That’s when my dad gave me dental tools to keep working.
Dental tools, basically tooth picks, to clean out every little nook and cranny that still had paint and varnish. Well, doing this work wasn’t fun anymore, and I was working hard and getting nowhere. Then the work stopped. When my parents moved out of that house many years later, that mirror was still in pieces and ended up in the trash. I started out on fire but then flamed out. I’ve done this with other hobbies, diets, and exercise. I quit because I get discouraged. I quit because I don’t see quick progress. I quit because everyone else seems to be doing it better than I am.
Israel quit because they weren’t making a lot of progress, and because they compared the glory of the previous temple to what they saw in front of them, and what they saw was kind of pathetic. Haggai 2:3. Who of you is left who saw this house in its former glory? How does it look to you now? Does it not seem to you like nothing?
There were people working on the Temple who would have remembered what it looked like in its true glory days. Haggai himself might have seen it. We think Haggai may have been in his 70’s at this time, so he would have been a teenager when the Temple was in its full glory. People knew what it looked like then, and what it looked like now, and not only was the progress slow but compared to what it looked like before - what they saw was pathetic, why keep going.
Slow progress and comparison is often what discourages us from moving forward. When we try and climb out of debt but don’t see the $10 we put each week toward our debt making a difference, we wonder why we are doing it in the first place. When we diet for 2 weeks and don’t lose a single pound we start asking ourselves why we gave up potato chips and ice cream in the first place. When we don’t seem any farther along in our faith, when we find ourselves struggling with the same sins and failures year after year, we wonder why we are even trying to be more like Jesus. Slow progress is discouraging.
Comparing ourselves to others is discouraging, and today, social media makes this even worse. When we see a picture of our friends' perfect marriage, perfect family, perfect house, successful business, or amazing vacation, we realize that in so many ways we don’t measure up. When we see people celebrating getting in shape and we are struggling to get into our precovid clothes - it’s discouraging. When we see other people getting more likes, having their videos and ideas go viral, and we limp along with barely any interest, it’s easy to think about giving up.
If you are feeling discouraged right now because you aren’t seeing any progress in the areas of your life that you are trying to improve, or when you look around and see that everyone else has it better than you do, please know that you are not alone. Personal discouragement is something we all face but from Haggai we also see that God is with us. More than just being with us, however, God has something to say to us. Haggai 2:4
“Be strong, Zerubbabel,” declares the Lord.
“Be strong, Joshua, the high priest.”
“Be strong, all you people of the land,” declares the Lord,
“and work. For I am with you,” declares the Lord Almighty.
God goes to each leader personally to encourage them, and then God goes to the people. God’s love and care is truly personal and when any of us get discouraged, God is right there to say, be strong. And the reason we can have courage and move forward is because God says, I am with you.
When we compare ourselves to others it often leads us to feeling isolated and alone. Everyone else has the perfect life and I am a mess. Everyone else has a successful job and I’m going nowhere. Everyone else has a strong faith and I still can’t get anything right with God. That feeling of being alone is what God wants to address so God doesn’t say it once but twice. Haggai 2:5
This is what I covenanted with you when you came out of Egypt. And my Spirit remains among you. Do not fear.
So first God says, I am with you, and then He says, my Spirit remains among you. God had promised to be with His people when they left Egypt and God had not forgotten that promise. God was with them, and His spirit was among them, so there was no need to fear or give up - they could keep going.
And that was the second thing God told them, keep going. Work. Keep doing the work, and that work was to: go up the mountain, bring down the timber, and build the house. Maybe by now the work was to place one stone next to another, one stone on top of another, and keep going. Do the work. Don’t complain because there is no progress. Don’t compare your work to what you see around you, or what you remember from the past, just do the work.
The astor and author Craig Groeschel says, successful people do consistently what normal people do occasionally.
The key to experiencing success, growth, or any kind of victory is to just keep going, and we can keep going because we aren’t working in our own strength but in the strength of God. You see, the power of God is not just with us, it is now within us.
Haggai encouraged the people to build a temple where God would dwell on earth, but for us now, the Spirit of God dwells in us.
1 Corinthians 6:19, Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? Paul also said in his letter to the Romans that the same spirit that raised Jesus Christ from the dead is at work in you.
1 John 4:4, the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world. So we aren’t trying to be strong in our own strength, we are learning how to tap into God’s strength and a spirit and power that raised Jesus from the dead. It’s that power, it’s that Spirit, the Spirit of God that helps us keep going.
It is easy to get discouraged in life and in faith. When the progress we want to make is slow, and when we look around and see everyone else doing so much better than we are, it’s easy to get discouraged and think about giving up. In those difficult moments we need to remember that God is not just with us, the Spirit of God that raised Jesus from the dead is at work in us. That is why we can be strong and do the work.
Next Steps
The Time Is Now - Overcoming Discouragement
When have you felt stirred by God to do something?
● What was the project? What was the outcome?
When have you seen a group of people stirred by God and then accomplish something great?
What project have you started with great enthusiasm to only quit after a few days or weeks? What caused you to quit?
What is something you are thinking about quitting now?
Read Haggai 1:13-14.
● Why might Israel have felt discouraged after only 1 month of rebuilding the Temple?
● Why do you think God starts by telling His people that He’s with them? Why is this important for us to remember?
Which is more discouraging to you: comparing yourself to others or lack of progress? How does each play out for you?
What do you feel keeps you from being strong and doing the work you need to do to get past discouragement? What is the work God is asking you to keep doing today?
Read Scripture about perseverance:
1 Chronicles 16:11 Romans 5:3-5, Hebrews 12:1-15, James 1:12
What difference does it make to know that God is within us and not just with us?
Read: 1 Corinthians 6:10, Romans 8:11, 1 John 4:4
Successful people do consistently what normal people do occasionally.
Craig Groeschel
