Don’t leave what is Left
Haggai 2:1-9
Haggai 2 1 on the twenty-first day of the seventh month, the word of the Lord came through the prophet Haggai: 2 “Speak to Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, to Joshua son of Jozadak, the high priest, and to the remnant of the people. Ask them,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?
The word of the Lord–came through the prophet Haggai
Sometimes the word that you need comes through people.
God is going to give you a word in, from and for your weakness, so you no longer have to worry.
If you worry, you have not gone to the word.
God is speaking this word in a season of struggle. He is addressing people who have been distracted and discouraged by building their own houses. 16 years the rebuilding of the temple was idle because the old and young were not in agreement.
The previous temple is utterly destroyed to the foundation and in the middle of all that mess, God sends a messenger to ask a question.
Watch!! Who of you is left?
It is imperative that we focus on what is left not what is lost.
For me For me For me, “Sometimes” I was missing what God is bringing Because I was missing the people that left
Title: Don’t Leave What is Left
Note: Interesting that God is speaking with a question. It was not like God didn’t know the answer. I think sometimes the answer is in the question.
We have all questioned God when we already knew the answer.
Ask them,3 ‘Who of you is left who saw this house in its former glory? How does it look to you now?
Out of 60,000 people who returned from exile, some remembered what it used to look like.
“The Past” is the story that sometimes holds you back from embracing the future. It is the myth you believed that never really happened the way that you imagined it.
4.But now be strong, Zerubbabel,’ declares the Lord. ‘Be strong, Joshua son of Jozadak, 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. 5 ‘This is what I covenanted with you when you came out of Egypt. And my Spirit remains among you. Do not fear.’
Note: God never promised the absence of problems, only that He would be with you. That was His promise! My presence will be with you in your problems.
Some of us are so focused on our persecutions that we forgot how to possess the land that was promised to us!
I told you that 2022 will be the year of the reset.
GET READY FOR THE RESET! There are things that we have been challenged with that we will release to you later, but I assure you will look nothing like the past version of yourself or what you thought Christianity was.
- Haggai told the people it was time to quit weeping and get to work. ∙ Haggai addressed the whole crowd. Zerubbabel the Governor, Joshua the High Priest and “all you people of the land” He didn’t leave anyone out because all are needed to do the work.
∙ It’s too easy to blame the politicians and the preachers. We are all responsible for the work. God has given us gifts and responsibilities to carry out His purpose in this province. Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace.
It was as if Haggai was reminding us and them, “Don’t sit around weeping over the ashes of the past when the living God is present with you today! Get up and get to work!”
1 Peter 4:10-11 “If anyone speaks, they should do so as one who speaks the very words of God. If anyone serves, they should do so with the strength God provides, so that in all things God may be praised through Jesus Christ.”
6 “This is what the Lord Almighty says: ‘In a little while I will once more shake the heavens and the earth, the sea and the dry land. 7 I will shake all nations, and what is desired by all nations will come, and I will fill this house with glory,’ says the Lord Almighty. 8 ‘The silver is mine and the gold is mine,’ declares the Lord Almighty. 9 ‘The glory of this present house will be greater than the glory of the former house,’ says the Lord Almighty. ‘And in this place, I will grant peace,’ declares the Lord Almighty.”
Emma Stark “The church should be going from glory to glory; not asking for a facelift on a move that was for yesterday.”
Glory to Glory is a moving journey, not a rest area or a parking place.
They are rebuilding the temple of the Lord in Jerusalem. It has been in shambles for over 50 years because God’s people were carried off into Babylonian captivity.
Their hope was to rebuild the temple of God after all these years of weeping, worrying and wondering what is next. While they were intent on rebuilding – God was intent on restructuring. They were fixated on the template of the temple to make sure it was perfect.
The new generation only heard about the temple that was destroyed. They never lived there. They only read about it. The only ones who had any history in the temple were now seniors. The black-haired people wanted nothing to do with the white-haired people.
One historian said, “Half of the gold in the world was used to overlay Solomon’s temple”. That’s all cool but that was Solomon’s temple, according to his template. If you read the first 4 chapters of 2 Chronicles you will see the wealth and manpower of a mighty nation focused on building a grand temple for the Lord. There was an inexhaustible supply of gold and silver. In fact, there was so much wealth that they could not even calculate the weight of the bronze.
Note: The new temple may not have had as much gold as the old one, but it would have more glory
God is not an add on or an app. He is not convenience and a coffee. People can make it everywhere but church!
We are what? Repeat it. Mobile tabernacles of the glory of God. Called and Commissioned
These people have been in isolated captivity so long they forgot what it was like to walk in freedom. They never knew the glory of the former house so they started building a temple from their ideas.
There are people now so afraid of covid that they are afraid to walk in public anymore much less evangelize a city. Fear has paralyzed them.
There is a book called, “Making peace with your past” It is about dealing with the trauma that happens to you so that your trauma does not become your template. So that what you went through does not limit you.
Amy Moren Inc Magazine article said, “Although a certain amount of self-reflection can of course be healthy for you, sometimes to become your strongest self, you need to be able to focus on the present. Looking backward makes it impossible to enjoy what’s going on around you right now, and it prevents you from making the future as good as it can be.”
In our efforts of rebuilding, we have to be open to reinventing church. Not to make it relevant but to make it real! Have we not been re-establishing foundations?
We signed up to help people in a Crisis and lead people to Christ, not oversee a Christian Call Center. This text is laden with trauma and tears.
I can’t build from the rubble of yesterday. Some things need to be torn apart, some things need to be put on hold, Sometimes the foundations that we thought were strong enough are not good enough to withstand something bigger.
Haggai shows up and finds out there is resistance on the outside and discouraging on the inside.
We have to know that we are no longer rebuilding a routine but reinventing.
2 “Speak to Zerubbabel, son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, to Joshua son of Jozadak,[a] the high priest, and to the remnant of the people.
The remnant was reading about the rubble, wondering how to rebuild. The remnant is back but after all these years, things have changed.
The word remnant means: What is left. It represents those who remained. Remember hundreds of thousands were in captivity and only 60,000 came back. That can mess with your head especially if you’re a leader like Zerubbabel.
I know I’m supposed to respect and rejoice with the remnant but I’m telling you it is very hard to not feel rejected by those who called you their friend and pastor. One of the hardest things to do is to release those in whom you had relationship with.
If you don’t release, you can’t rebuild because you will always remember the rejection
I was so focused on who left that I forgot what’s left.
If I focus on who left and what we lost, then I’m not going to see who is lost and what is left!
It is time we rebuild with the remnant and don’t worry about the rubble!
If the devil can keep you distracted, discouraged and disappointed you will lose your delight and plunge into a dungeon of depression.
I confess I did that. We did that. We looked at ourselves and blamed ourselves. I mean, we were sent to build and go forwards not backwards.
The remnant is what will bring restoration because they know what it is like to bond.
Our mission and mandate are reaching people
God made a covenant with you!
If God be for us who can be against us?
What is coming is greater than what is gone. Start praying over these seats! Each seat has a butt assigned to it.
“If the enemy can keep you crying over what is not here, he can keep you from seeing what is coming” Steven Furtick
God can’t make this place better if we keep looking back
4 But now be strong, Zerubbabel,’ declares the Lord. ‘Be strong, Joshua son of Jozadak, 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. 5 ‘This is what I covenanted with you when you came out of Egypt. And my Spirit remains among you. Do not fear.’
You see it’s one thing for you to come out of Egypt. It is another thing to get Egypt out of you.
When Jesus came, the Children of Israel were so stuck in the law of Moses they didn’t recognize that Jesus came to fulfill the law.
They could not embrace better because they were stuck in before.
Even in the midst of a covid crisis God is still doing something new, something better but it’s up to Sheryl and I and the remnant to make a conscious decision to not look back and say, “We did it this way before”
We can’t keep wishing for what we don’t have at the expense of what we do have.
I realized that I have already won because now I know who I am working with! It is not the whiners but the winners
What I got challenged with was this: Are you going to stop weeping and start working or are you going to keep worrying? Because if you are still worrying, you forgot who you are working with!!!!
We are growing personally, if we are going to have an impact horizontally it is imperative that we reach vertically as well as digging deeper to establish our foundation.
I have to call those things that are not as they are.
We are not going to build like before!
Phil 1:6 being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus
Ezra 3:10-11 10 When the builders laid the foundation of the temple of the Lord, the priests in their vestments and with trumpets, and the Levites (the sons of Asaph) with cymbals, took their places to praise the Lord, as prescribed by David king of Israel. 11 With praise and thanksgiving they sang to the Lord: “He is good;
his love toward Israel endures forever.” And all the people gave a great shout of praise to the Lord, because the foundation of the house of the Lord was laid.
You have to learn how to praise God in the process not just that you made it through your past!!!
******12 But many of the older priests and Levites and family heads, who had seen the former temple, wept aloud when they saw the foundation of this temple being laid, while many others shouted for joy.
Trumpets and Tears! Talk about a split church
One is shouting the other is sleeping in the same sermon
How can there be division looking at the same thing? The foundation!!
Wishing, Wanting, Worrying and waiting instead of working will not get the temple built.
Problem: Their experience became the enemy of their expectation
Have you ever wondered why Jesus didn’t pick Bible scholars to be his disciples? There is a benefit in not knowing everything.
Some of us need to dry our tears and start blowing your trumpet
ECC. 3:1-4 There is a time for everything and a season for every activity under the heavens: 2 a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot, 3 a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to tear down and a time to build, 4 a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance,
What time is it? Romans 13:11-12
11 And do this, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep; for now our salvation is nearer than when we first believed. 12 The night is far spent, the day is at hand. Therefore, let us cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armor of light
Sometimes you will have to dance through your discouragement!
Build when you’re bummed out; Plant when you’re pooped, Search when you feel like sleeping. It is time for a reset with the remnant!
