Word for You: You are positioned for a miracle. In order to achieve the mission, we will need a miracle even when it gets messy.

Quote of the Week “Desperation is a set up for revelation” Steven Furtick

Haggai 2:1-9

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,[a] 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? 

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.”

When I have an idea, I will research my library of outlines and this week I found a great outline that was “Bobbyfied” by Rev. Alan Carr

Intro: On September 5, 1886, The late-great theologian Charles Spurgeon began his sermon on our text with these incisive words:

“Satan is always doing his utmost to stay the work of God. He hindered these Jews from building the temple; and today he endeavors to hinder the people of God from spreading the gospel. A spiritual temple is to be built  for the Most High, and if by any means the evil one can delay its uprising, he will stop at nothing: if he can take us off from working with faith and courage for the glory of God he will be sure to do it. 

He is very cunning, and knows how to change his argument and yet keep to his design: little cares he how he works, so long as he can hurt the cause of God.”i

I heard Pastor Karl Thomas say this week in staff meeting, “Many people feel their life right now is in the pits. However, the deeper the hole the higher the building that can be built.” When you build a high rise, for a long time you don’t see anything but a whole because the builders are digging a strong foundation.

Discouragement should never prevent, inhibit or block the believer from reaching their destination or destiny.

Satan’s only design is to hurt the cause of God. He has many weapons in his arsenal to attempt his purpose. He may at one time use greed, another time use anger or malice or false accusation, still another time use lust, evil desires, or the temptation to revenge. But of all his weapons, none is sharper than the one called discouragement. If only he can get the saints of God to lose hope and give up over their efforts, then his battle is already won.

It was advertised that the devil was going to put his tools up for sale. On the date of the sale the tools were placed for public inspection, each being marked with its sale price. There were a treacherous lot of implements. Hatred, Envy, Jealousy, Doubt, Lying, Pride, and so on. Laid apart from the rest of the pile was a harmless-looking tool, well-worn and priced very high.

One of the purchasers asked, “What is the name of that tool”

“Oh,?” said the adversary, “that’s Discouragement.”“Why have you priced it so high??”

“Because it’s more useful to me than the others. I can pry open and get inside a person’s heart with that one, when I cannot get near him with other tools. Now once I get inside, I can make him do what I choose. It’s a badly worn tool, because I use it on almost everyone since few people know it belongs to me.”

The devil’s price for Discouragement was so high, he never sold it. It’s still his major tool, and he still uses it on God’s people today.

OVERCOMING THE MOUNTAIN OF DISAPPOINTMENT

RECAP:

God does his greatest miracles in our biggest mess

I want to take just a few moments to look into the words Haggai shared with Israel during their time of discouragement and disappointment. The lessons taught here can help us when we are overwhelmed by disappointment and want to quit. I want to talk to you about Overcoming the Mountain Of Disappointment and giving some tools to get over it.

1. THE CAUSES OF DISAPPOINTMENT

The reasons for their disappointment are many, and most of them revolve around a bad memory. Memory can be a blessing or a curse.

1. vs. 3a  The Things We Remember – Haggai asked the question, “Who is left among you that saw this house in her first glory?” Haggai prophesied in 520 BC. The Temple was destroyed in 586 BC. It had been 66 years since Solomon’s Temple had been destroyed. Certainly, there were some people among the Jews who had seen the first Temple, the one built by Solomon.

They remembered its glory; they recalled the glory days when the Shekinah glory of God filled the temple and the house of God reverberated with his praises.

For 16 years the Temple remained unfinished because of division among the older saints and the younger. Then, God raised up the prophet Haggai to call the people back to their task of rebuilding the Temple.

The people responded to the voice of God’s man, and they began to build again. But after only a month, they became discouraged and again they wanted to quit. They were disappointed by the Temple they were building and they were discouraged in the work they were doing.

Haggai writes to them to challenge them and to encourage them to carry on. That is a message I think we could all use today.

Do you ever get discouraged? Do you ever find yourself disappointed in your work for the Lord? We all do! There are times when disappointment looms over us like an impossibly high, impassable mountain. If we are not careful, our disappointments can derail our lives and cause us to lose faith and focus. If we are not careful, our disappointments can even cause us to quit on the Lord and sometimes ourselves..

Question: What are you working around that God wants you to walk through? How much longer are you going to keep doing it?

When you are discouraged and disappointed, a detour may not be a distraction but a new direction. 

Many times we need to get out of our own way!!

The Jews were guilty of focusing on the negative and forgetting all about the positive. For these Jews memory was a heavy burden that hindered their progress.

THEY HAD A GOOD MEMORY ABOUT THE WRONG THINGS

The same people looked at the Temple they were building now, and it seemed to be an embarrassment to them. The shack seemed so small and so shabby compared to the wonderful Temple that was destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar. This scene is described in Ezra 3:9-13.

Ezra 3:9-13

New International Version 9 Joshua and his sons and brothers and Kadmiel and his sons (descendants of Hodaviah[a]) and the sons of Henadad and their sons and brothers—all Levites—joined together in supervising those working on the house of God. 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. 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. 13 No one could distinguish the sound of the shouts of joy from the sound of weeping, because the people made so much noise. And the sound was heard far away.

These people looked back, and they remembered the past. Remembering the past is not always a bad thing, but they chose to live in the past, and that is never good! All they could consider with how things used to be, and they had no interest in how things were now.

To rebuild that temple now at current cost would be an estimated 150 Billion dollars.

Memory is a good thing if you remember the right things. For these Jews memory became a curse because they not only remembered the past, they chose to live there!

Remember you can’t build and get better if you keep looking back.

When we hold so tenaciously to the past that we refuse to serve God in the present, we are remembering the wrong things!

1. v. 4-5  The Things We Forget– They had a bad memory of the right things. 

In these verses God reminds them that He was with them in the past. He was there when they crossed the Red Sea.

He was the Author of all the great miracles that adorned Israel’s past. He had always been with them. He was there during the glory days of Solomon’s Temple. He had always been there. And, He still remembered the promises and covenants He had made with them 900 years earlier! He was standing by every promise He had ever made to His people.

They had heard the stories about God. The problem was, the stories from their past had become just that, stories. They were sure that the glory days of the past, and the God Who blessed them then, were gone!

Then, God tells them that He is still there! He says, “My Spirit remains among you.” God said, “I am still here, just like I have always been!” Think about what the Lord is telling them. He is saying, “Abraham is gone. Moses is gone. David is gone. Solomon is gone. The first Temple is gone. But, I am still here! Fear not!”

You see, they looked at the Temple built by Solomon and they remembered its grandeur and majesty. They looked at the Temple they were building and were discouraged by the differences.

Are we not guilty of the same? Discouraged by the Differences in people, places and things

What they could not see was that God did not see a difference. He was not concerned about the external glory of the house. As far as He was concerned, this house was as much His house as the first house had been. He was just as prepared to dwell there, meet with His people there, and bless there as He had been in the first Temple. It wasn’t about what they used to have, it was, and always had been, about the God Who dwelled in the Temple!

He is telling them to forget about the past. Forget about who isn’t here. Forget about the things you don’t have any longer. Those things are gone and they are gone forever! In spite of that, God is here! He has never left. His power is still the same. Keep your hands to the plow- keep working! Don’t look back to the past. Don’t worry about who isn’t here, focus on Who is. Don’t be intimidated by daunting circumstances, the Lord has never left us, and He never will, Heb. 13:5.

Luke 9:61-62 Still another said, “I will follow you, Lord; but first let me go back and say goodbye to my family.”

Jesus replied, “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God.”

That is a lesson they needed to hear, and it is a lesson we need to hear too. We get caught up in the same trap. We look at how things used to be, forgetting that the God of yesterday is still here and still able to bless.

Our duty is to forget the past and reach forth into the future, Phil. 3:13. This work is His work! He stands just as ready to bless today as He did years ago. He will not leave us, nor will He forsake us. He will meet with us, dwell among us and bless us for His glory. Our primary concern is that we remember what life is really about! It is about Him and His glory. As long as we keep our eyes fixed in His direction, we will be fine, Heb. 12:1-2.

1. v. 3b  The Comparisons We Make– God asks the people this question: “and how do you see it now? Is it not in your eyes in comparison of it as nothing?” The old people wept when they saw the new temple and as they remembered the old one. In their eyes, the new Temple was less than nothing. It seemed that it was not worth their time, or their energy. They hated it and they wanted nothing to do with it.

If we are not careful, we too will get caught up in the comparison game. When we do, it can be easy to get disappointed. We compare the way things are with the way they used to be. We compare what we have now with what we used to have. We compare the church with how we remember it being. We remember the past as being better than it was so the present seems worse than it is.

Ill. In the 1930’s one of the most famous race horses in America was a horse named Seabiscuit. Seabiscuit was an incredibly fast horse. On the right kind of track, he was almost uncatchable. When he was training, his trainers had to be careful to properly choose the other horses he trained with. Some of the horses lost to Seabiscuit so often that they refused to run. Seabiscuit would toy with other horses, allowing them to come neck and neck with him, then he would unleash his speed and leave them in his dust. His training partners knew they were going to lose, and they refused to let Seabiscuit beat them again. Losing to such a fast horse, so often, caused those horses to become discouraged and quit. The same thing can happen to us! Comparisons are always foolish, but they can be especially harmful when we are constantly disappointed with the outcome of our comparisons, and we will be!

When we live in the past and downgrade the present, the inevitable result will be disappointment and discouragement. We will miss God’s promises and plans for today and for tomorrow. We will be so trapped in what we feel and believe, that we will forget that God has some big things planned for the future, Ill. v. 9. If we are not careful, we might just fail to see that the greatest days of our lives, the greatest days of our church, the greatest days of our ministry, might be the days in front of us, not the days behind us!

If we are not careful, we can become a source of discouragement for others. If we are not careful we can be so against everything that is new and different, that we end up discouraging others in their walk with God.

THE CURE FOR DISAPPOINTMENT

When we find ourselves looking at that high mountain of disappointment, how do we get over it? This passage offers a couple of simple steps we can take to conquer disappointment in our lives.

1. We Must Let Go – The Jews had to let go of their memories of the first Temple, v. 3-4. This Temple would never be as grand as the first, and they had to accept that.

The past had to be relegated to the past, if they were going to accomplish anything in the present.

As hard as it may be for you, you must let go of the past. Until you do, you will never be able to move into the future!

4. We Must Look Up– The people are called to look up, v. 4. They are called to turn their eyes away from their pain, their problems and their disappointments to view the God Who was greater than anything they faced. Six times in these verses God is called “the LORD of hosts”. The word “hosts” translates the word “sabaoth”. It speaks of “the armies of earth and Heaven”. It literally means “the Lord Almighty”. It is a military name for God. This name reminds us that God is greater than all the combined forces of Heaven and earth. No one can stand against Him. No one can defeat His purposes. No one can hinder Him in the least. As God says several times in Isaiah 45, “I am the LORD and there is none else!”
5. We Must Look Ahead– God only sends His people in one direction: forward. He never sends them back to the past. The Jews in Haggai’s day had romanticized the past and completely forgotten the future. What was that future?

Several years ago Grace Baptist Church in Philadelphia had to turn away a little girl named Hattie May Wiatt from children’s ministry because of overcrowding. That day Hattie May Wiatt started saving her pennies to help the church make more room in their children’s ministry. Two years later, Hattie May tragically died. In her pocketbook next to her bed her parents found 57 pennies and a piece of paper with a note saying that the money was to help the church build a bigger children’s ministry. At Hattie May’s funeral, her mother gave that 57 cents and the note to Pastor Russell Conwell, the pastor of Grace Baptist Church now Temple Baptist. That Sunday, Pastor Conwell shared Hattie May’s story with his congregation. People’s hearts were touched; a realtor gave the church a piece of land to expand the children’s ministry, asking for 57 cents for a down payment. A local newspaper carried the story, and soon news about Hattie May Wiatt’s 57 cents spread across the country. The pennies grew far beyond Hattie May’s initial 57 pennies. Over 250K was raised which was huge around the turn of the century. Grace Baptist Church not only built a new children’s ministry wing, but also a new ministry center, today seating over 3,300 people. Out of that movement of generosity from Hattie May’s example the church built Temple University in Philadelphia, and Good Samaritan Hospital. In fact, you can visit Temple University today and find a picture on the wall of Hattie May Wiatt, a little girl who’s 57 pennies were used by God far beyond the limits of her life.

14. We Must Get Moving– In verse 4, God tells the people to “be strong” and “to work”. We like to sit around and attend more conferences and conventions. When we get discouraged and disappointed, there is a tendency for us to want to quit on God. God says, “Get up and get to work! Don’t let anyone side track you, derail you, or stop you.” We all find ourselves discouraged and disappointed from time to time, but we should never allow that to distract us from the work God has given us to do. In fact, our marching orders are found in Rom. 13:11-14.

How do we put all this into practice? Walking, Living and breathing in freedom….

Conc: Is there a mountain of disappointment looming in front of you? Do you find yourself looking back more often than you find yourself looking ahead? Do you ever find yourself making fruitless and foolish comparisons? Do you ever find yourself asking, “What’s the use?” How will you get past that mountain that threatens to stop you? Do what these verses teach and “Let go, Look up, Look Ahead, and Get moving”. If you can do that, and God will help you, you will see mountain of discouragement and disappointment evaporate into nothing.