It’s Time to Be Encouraged
It's Time February 2, 2025 Haggai 2:1-5 Notes
Discouragement is one of the greatest obstacles to faithfulness in serving God. When things don’t seem to be going the way we expected, we can easily lose heart. The people in Haggai’s day faced this same struggle. They had begun rebuilding the temple, but it didn’t compare to the former glory of Solomon’s temple. Many became disheartened, and some questioned whether their efforts were even worth it.
How are you doing today? Are you facing some obstacle or difficulty that has you feeling discouraged, even feeling like giving up, or quitting? We all have feelings of discouragement from time to time. How can we find encouragement during times like this?
That’s what today’s message is about. How to be encouraged in the Lord! In Haggai 2:1-5, the people of God were encouraged to overcome their discouragement and to persevere in His work. We can be encouraged to persevere in God’s work.
Audio
Well, I want us to get started back in our book of Haggai. We're in chapter two today. We're going verse by verse through this little book over these eight weeks, and today, we're going to be talking about, “It's time to be encouraged.” Now, I don't know about you, but I could use some encouragement today.
I want to thank many of you who have sent us cards. Some of you have talked to us in person earlier today, or you've sent us a message on social media. My wife's older sister passed away this past week, and it's been a challenging week for our family. We drove up to Salem, Virginia, on Monday.
We got up early. We thought we were just visiting. We knew she was in the hospital, and she'd been in the hospital for a little while, and we needed to get up there. So, I told Robin, “Let's stay overnight at a hotel.” We rented a hotel room across from the hospital. I have a lot of work to do, so I'll step in and say “hello” to her. Then, I'll just leave Robin there while I go to the hotel room and work. That was the plan.
But on the way up, we got a text from her daughter. She said she had taken a turn for the worst. We needed to get there. She passed away with us there, so I never left the hospital.
I stayed there, and we held a vigil. We were there, thanking the Lord for her life as she took her last breath. Now, I'm pastoring this church, and I'm trying to take care of all of you, so I had to get back here. I'm a pastor, not just of this church of 33 years but I'm becoming a pastor to the city. Now, my whole family thinks I'm their pastor, too.
So, guess who they asked to do the funeral? So we drove back up again this past Friday. It's been a hard week. Can I just say that to you? It’s been a hard week.
She was my sister, too. Robin and I have been married 45 years. I told the Lord, ‘You know, it seems like I ought to be able to take a break right now. I'm tired, driving up and back and then up and back to Salem and preaching at the funeral.”
Then, when I started studying for this week I decided to name it, “It's time to be encouraged,” because I got a lot of encouragement from His word. You know, sometimes the preacher needs encouragement just as much as anybody else, because I'm just one of you. I'm just one of you.
Is that okay for me to tell you that? I know you probably wanted a great pastor. Well, I'm just a little pastor who loves a great God. Here's what I've noticed - If I'll just show up sometimes, whatever's left of me, if I drag up here and show up, He shows up bigger than ever.
That's what I'm doing today. I need this encouragement. Y'all pray for me and I'll pray for you, because some of you are discouraged just like me today for different reasons. Maybe you've had a loss like our family had this week.
Maybe you had to work hard this week and it just wore you out. Sometimes just physical fatigue will cause discouragement. Discouragement is one of the greatest obstacles to being faithful to God. It makes you want to quit. Discouragement makes you want to say, “I'm done.”
When things don't go the way you expected them to go, it makes you lose heart; it makes you want to give up. Sometimes, we say we want to give up on marriage. Sometimes in the middle of the night, after the third wake up from an infant, we wish that we could give up on being a mama.
Sometimes, we want to give up on some dream we had because, once we started getting closer to it, we found out it wasn't going to look as great as we thought it was going to look. That's kind of how it was for the people in Haggai's day. That's how they were feeling in Haggai's day. The people were feeling discouraged. They had started the work on the temple, but then they started looking at it and realized it wasn't going to be as great as the former temple that Solomon had built that was destroyed.
The old people, especially, started feeling discouraged. They were down. They wanted to quit. How are you doing today? Are you facing some obstacle or difficulty that makes you want to cash it in, that makes you want to give up?
Are you feeling like quitting? That's how feelings of discouragement can move us from time to time. I wonder how we can find encouragement at times like that? That's what this text is about today. That's what this message is about in Haggai.
In chapter 2, verses 1 through 5, the Lord encourages the people of God not to give up, but to persevere in His work. I believe that, we too, can hear this encouragement from God's Word today and be encouraged. Even if we're discouraged, we can be encouraged to keep on keeping on, to persevere in what God's called us to. Let's look at it.
Haggai 2:1-5 (ESV) 1 In the seventh month, on the twenty-first day of the month, the word of the LORD came by the hand of Haggai the prophet: 2 “Speak now to Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua the son of Jehozadak, the high priest, and to all the remnant of the people, and say, 3 ‘Who is left among you who saw this house in its former glory? How do you see it now?
Is it not as nothing in your eyes? 4 Yet now be strong, O Zerubbabel, declares the LORD. Be strong, O Joshua, son of Jehozadak, the high priest. Be strong, all you people of the land, declares the LORD. Work, for I am with you, declares the LORD of hosts,
5 according to the covenant that I made with you when you came out of Egypt. My Spirit remains in your midst. Fear not. This is God's word. Amen. We're looking for three ways we can be encouraged to persevere in God's work.
1. Be strong relying on God’s presence.
Be strong. Be strong. Relying on God's presence. Did you hear it three times?
If you didn't hear it the first time, he repeated it two more times for your ears. Three times he said, “be strong.” He said it to three different people. The first person he said it to was Zerubbabel, who was the governor of Judah. Zerubbabel would have been king.
He was in the line of David. But because Babylon had overthrown Israel, and then because the Persians had overthrown Babylon, now Zerubbabel does not get to take the throne as king. He's, instead, appointed governor under King Darius the Great, who's the ruler of Persia. His name means “seed of Babylon,” “Zerubbabel,” “seed of Babylon.” I wonder why that was.
Well, it's because he was born in Babylon. That's what his name means and so, he is told by the Lord to “be strong.” Then Joshua, Yeshua, the high priest, the priest with no church. The building hasn't been built yet.
He says, “be strong, Joshua” and then he says, “be strong, all you people.” He says it three times. I think if God says something once, we ought to take note. If He says it twice, we ought to underline it.
If he says it three times, I think we need to get it. “Be strong.” I don't think he means with your muscles. The idea, in the Hebrew, really has more of the idea of “to hang on with strength, to get a grip.”
It's speaking of your spirit, it's speaking of your attitude. What would you take hold of? What would you get a grip on? Well, He tells us what He would desire us to get a grip on. He says, “I am with you,” in verse four.
You need to take hold of the Lord. You need to take hold of God. Be strong in hanging on to Him. He's with you. His presence is with you.
Now, before He tells them to be strong, I want to “back up the bus” here a little bit to verse one and take note of what I've said in previous weeks. Haggai is one of the most careful diary takers. He writes down dates very carefully in his diary. This is his third entry of a date. He opens up, in verse one, that it's the second year of Darius, the sixth month on the first day of the month.
He tells us what God said on that day and then, he closes chapter one by saying, “the 24th day of the month and the sixth month in the second year of Darius. ” Now, he says in Haggai 2, verse one that it's the seventh month. Okay, so it's the next month and the 21st day. He says, ‘okay, so 27 days have taken place according to the Hebrew calendar since the people went back to work.’
Remember, they had been discouraged, due to opposition and because of other reasons and fear. Sixteen years had gone by since they had returned to the Promised Land. They had started the foundation, but then got discouraged and stopped working. Now, the foundation has been exposed to the elements and it has actually gone backwards, so now, they're going to have to kind of do some rework.
But at the end of chapter one, remember that the Lord stirred them up and they said, ‘let's go back to work’ and they went back to work. They had passion and they were fired up. But now, 27 days later, discouragement is creeping back in. Why is that? Well, that'll happen.
Sometimes you start obeying God, I'm going to be strong. I'm going to get back to work. Then, you start seeing the size of the thing, or you start looking at it and thinking, I don’t think this is going to be as nice as we thought it was going to be. This is going to be harder than we thought it was going to be. Maybe it's not going to be the dream we thought it was.
It's going to be smaller. that sort of thing. So, they were already, after 27 days, getting a little discouraged. God actually uses a couple of questions. He's got three questions for them, in verse three, to kind of use as a “scalpel,” to kind of help them look at their hearts. What's causing this discouragement?
He says, 3 ‘Who is left among you who saw this house in its former glory? How do you see it now? Is it not as nothing in your eyes? First of all, he says, “Who is left among you who saw this house in its former glory?” In other words, he says, ‘How many old people did we have out there? How many people saw Solomon's temple and then got carried off to exile?’
Now, you're back and you're seeing what they're starting and you're sitting there thinking, It ain't gonna be the same. In fact, if we go over to the historical book that's written during the same time period, I would remind you that the two prophets that are prophesying at the same time are Haggai and Zechariah, and the two historical works are Ezra and Nehemiah. These are all in the same time period. So over in Ezra, chapter three, we read, Ezra 3:12 (ESV) “But many of the priests and Levites and heads of fathers' houses, old men who had seen the first house, wept with a loud voice when they saw the foundation of this house being laid,
though many shouted aloud for joy.” The old people were thinking, It ain't going to be the same. It's not the same. I remember Solomon's Temple. It was all gold.
The whole thing had been plated in gold. The front pillars were so amazing, we gave them names. I mean, it'll never be the same. Do you remember the church you grew up in,
old people? I'm one of you now. I can call you old people. Don't get offended. I'm one of you.
Do you remember that church, you know, suits and ties and “Just as I am,” all 27 verses at the end of every service? Do you remember that, church? Can I get a witness? I had many of you hit me up after the first service and say, ‘I hear you, pastor, but it'd be okay if we just sang one or two of those old hymns every once in a while.’
How many of you remember? That's what God was asking. The reason He was asking that is because they were weeping and they were saying, ‘It ain't gonna be the same.’ Then, He asks, “How do you see it now?” They don't think it looks like much to them..
In fact, He uses a double negative in His third question. “Is it not as nothing in your eyes?”
Can you hear it? The young people are starting to go back to work, but the old people are thinking that it ain't going to be the same. They are working hard, but it's for nothing, really.
It's not going to be the same. They were living in the past. They wanted what they had, not what God was giving them. Now, I remember when we first planted the church. We were renting Forest Hills Middle School, setting up and tearing down music equipment, nursery equipment, every Sunday. We would load it back up.
We were like the children of Israel in the wilderness with the tabernacle, the tent of meeting. Every week, we would set up and tear down. We did that for a long time. When we first started, I wore a suit and tie because that's how I was brought up. Then, I began visiting some people in the city and in their homes, trying to invite people to church. People would say to me, “I don't have church clothes.”
Remember when that was a thing? “Church clothes.” So,I decided at first, to just take my tie off. Okay, I'm sort of dressing down, but eventually I said, ‘You know what? I'm just going to go ahead and wear blue jeans.’ I'll still wear a blazer, and you'll see me wearing that to church. I decided, ‘Let's just have liberty when it comes to dress code.
Let's be modest. Let's do that. But I don't want to hear another person say, I can't come to church because I don't have church clothes. I want to take that excuse away.’ Then, the other thing was young people who didn't go to church; how could we reach them?
What kind of music are they accustomed to listening to? So, we started introducing drum kits, electric guitars and things like this. I actually heard some pastors on the radio in Wilson, back in the early 90s, talking about us. ‘That church has got a rock and roll band over there. It can't be right.’
It discouraged me. People would discourage me. It didn't take much to make me feel discouraged in those days because I was young and I was still learning. People would get discouraged because it didn't look like the church they used to go to or should still look like. Things have changed a lot since then.
We don't hear those kinds of things anymore, but we still hear people talk about what they think things should look like. Do you understand what I'm saying? Maybe they say that about you; you should be doing this, you should be thinking like this, you should be dressing like this, or you should be…It can discourage us. God's kind of using a “scalpel” on the old folks heart right there and saying, ‘I see this differently than you do.’
You see it as nothing, but I see it as something. I'm telling you, don't give up. Hang on to Me. Be strong. Hang on.
Be strong. Keep going. Why? Because I'm with you. Verse four,
”Work, for I am with you, declares the LORD of hosts,” I'm with you. I'll never leave you nor forsake you. Paul says in the book of Ephesians 6:10 (ESV) “Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might.” We're not called to be strong in our own selves, but to take hold of the Lord and to find our strength in Him. One of the things that I knew is I felt tired even when I got up this morning.
I got up early this morning, the alarm clock went off at 5am. I slept until 5:25 am because I was debating with God. God, would it be okay if I took Sunday off? Then the other part of my head said, Who's going to preach? I don't know. I should have called somebody sooner.
I'm still grieving. I'm still tired. All of this work this week doesn't seem fair. I shouldn't tell you all this, should I? I should keep that to myself, right,
because y'all need a better pastor. You need a stronger pastor. Here's what I've learned though. If I'll tell the Lord the truth and if I'll share with you the truth about what I'm going through and then say to you that I decided to show up anyway and trust that when I'm weak, He'll be strong. Here's what I have learned -
I don't even remember what I said at the first service because there's not much of me left right now. But, when I get out of the way and there's less of Gary and more of Jesus, the things go better, I preach better, I lead better. Now, there were times when I was younger where I might have checked out and thought, Boy, you deserve a break today. But, I'm learning to be strong in His strength.
Remember what He told old Joshua when Moses had died and Joshua got put in charge. I'm sure Joshua's knees were banging together. He said in Joshua 1:9 (ESV) “Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the LORD your God is with you wherever you go.”
When you're weak, if you'll take hold of Him, you'll be strong if you'll just show up. See, God cares more about your availability than He does your ability, because any ability you have comes from Him anyway. Besides, when you depend on your own ability, then you get the glory. But when you depend on Him, He gets the glory.
He cares more about your availability than He does your ability. That's the first way: (1) Be strong, relying on God's presence. Here's the second way that we can persevere and be encouraged:
2. Do the Work trusting in God’s promises.
Do the Work trusting in God's promises. Do the work. Look at verse four. He gives it to us.
His command is one word, “work.” I like that. “Work.” Do you see it in verse four? “Work.”
That's what He says. “Be strong, all you people of the land, declares the LORD. Work, for I am with you, declares the LORD of hosts, 5 according to the covenant that I made with you when you came out of Egypt. My Spirit remains in your midst. Fear not.”
That covenant is filled with promises. Our God is a promise making and a promise keeping God. He loves to make promises and He loves to keep them.
One of the reasons that we don't get to experience His promises is that we won't obey His word. His protection, His provision, His blessing and His grace is over here under the umbrella of obedience. He says in verse 5, “according to the covenant that I made with you when you came out of Egypt. My Spirit remains in your midst. Fear not.” Remember the covenant. Get to work. I've already told you in the covenant, if you'll do the work, then I'm going to bless you and I'm going to cause you to be a blessing to all peoples.
All of those promises that I gave Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and all those promises I gave through Moses, all of those promises are yours if you'll just do the work. Now some people say, ‘Well, Christianity is not about work.’ You're right about that, partially. The gospel is against earning because you can't earn salvation. Christ has already paid for it; it's a gift.
Christianity is not against work; it's against earning, but we are to work out our salvation. After receiving our salvation, we're to do good works. Ephesians 2: 8-9 says, 8 “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves,
it is the gift of God— 9 not by works, so that no one can boast.” That's verses 8 and 9 and then verse 10; people forget to read verse 10, “For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”
So, the gospel is against earning, but it's all for getting to work and so, we get to work and we ask God to help us in our work. Now, one of the things I used to do is I used to be a district manager for the Eckerd Drug Corporation. I was transferred down here from Roanoke, Virginia, and they gave me the eastern North Carolina district.
So, I had Raleigh to the coast, all the drug stores that Eckerd had. I would travel to these stores and sometimes I would have a problem store and I would have to let the manager or the pharmacist go. The store would be a mess; it would be a mess and I'd have to replace the manager.
I would come in with a new manager and usually it was a promotion for an assistant manager at a new store. They would come in and they'd be overwhelmed with the work and I would say, “Okay, get a clipboard and get some notebook paper on that clipboard.
Let's “walk the store.” I'd start in the parking lot and I'd say, “One of your letters is burned out. You need to call somebody and get that “D” for “Eckerd” lit back up.
Hey, there's trash on the front walk. Hey, your coke machine doesn't have any coke in it.”
Then, we go through the front door. “You need to clean your windows.” Then we go to the front and I would walk every aisle and the
manager would be writing it down. “Your camera clerk is out of dress code. Write that down.”
Then, we went to the stock room and the break area. “You need to clean that.” Let's go to the bathrooms.
”These are the employee bathrooms. This is
one of the ways you pay your employees is by having a nice bathroom.” He would be looking at ten pages of lists and I could see the discouragement. This doesn't feel like a promotion.
I would say to him, “Hey, look, I'm going to be back in two weeks to see where you're at.” They would say, “Two weeks?” How about two years? No, two weeks. I asked him, “Have you ever heard of the ‘Swiss Cheese Theory?’
I'd read somewhere about who gets the cheese. There was a book about who gets the cheese. I thought, Well, I'll use that, except what if it's swiss cheese? and I asked, “Have you ever heard of the Swiss Cheese Theory?” I kind of made this thing up on the road, on the run.
I said, “Just poke holes in it. Don't try to eat the whole cheese in one bite. Just poke holes in it. Let's look at your list. Do you see those first five items?
Dou think you could get those done today?” “Yeah, I probably could.” “Okay, do those today, then tomorrow, how about doing the next five or six?”
”Yeah, I could probably do that.” I said to him, “Okay, don't worry about tomorrow. How much can you get done today? Here's what you'll notice. I want you to take your pen, and every time you do a task, mark it out.
It'll feel good. Then, watch what happens if you keep on it every day. By the time I get back, you'll be finished. Every day that you mark out another task, you'll get encouraged. But, if you look at the whole list, you'll get discouraged
and every day you don't act on it, you'll get more discouraged. But, if you'll just show up and do the work, if you'll just show up and do what's next, you'll get more encouragement in the work.” Show up, do the work, be strong; do the work and then God will show up. God will help you.
It says in Psalm 90:17 (ESV) “Let the favor of the LORD our God be upon us, and establish the work of our hands upon us; yes, establish the work of our hands!” God is not interested. He doesn't want us to be focused on success.
He wants us to be focused on faithfulness. Success is in His hands. If we'll do the work, He'll give the increase. It says in 2 Corinthians 9:6-8 (ESV) 6 “The point is this:
whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully.” (Pastor Combs’ comment: That makes sense. If you don't sow anything, you won't grow anything. The more you sow, the more things will grow.) 7 Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. 8 And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work.
Here's the thing I've noticed - God trusts generous people.
If He knows He can trust you to be generous, He can abound to you more. He can trust you more and He will take care of you. Where has God called you to work today? Where have you gotten discouraged? The fact that you're not at work on that thing, your discouragement has grown as a result.
What would it look like to just start doing the little things again? Take a baby step towards the calling it has on your life. Take a baby step towards it. Stop saying, “I feel like God's called me to this.” The more you say it without taking action, the more discouraged you will get.
Who am I talking to right now? Are you getting this? Show up with whatever you have . You know, perfectionism is the enemy of faithfulness.
Well, I'll do it when I have perfect conditions. The problem is, perfect conditions never arrive. Do the work. Show up, especially when you don't feel like it and say, “God, I'm going to be strong in You. I'm going to leave the results up to You.
I'm going to do the work. Will You establish the work of my hands?” Here's the third:
3. Be Fearless walking in God’s Spirit.
We're in verse five, the final two words, “Fear not.” Fear not. Be strong, do the work. Fear not. All of these are Hebrew imperatives, all of our commands to God's people.
This is how God is encouraging His people. Be strong, do the work and don't be afraid. Be fearless. How?
Because My spirit is with you. My spirit is in your midst. Many commentaries I was reading saw the Trinity in these five verses. Do you see the Trinity in these five verses? Notice, first of all, that the word of the Lord came to Haggai
and he said, “Speak now.” It was so important to Haggai that he wrote down the date that he heard the Word. Verse 1, “In the seventh month, on the twenty-first day of the month, the word of the LORD came by the hand of Haggai the prophet: Verse 2, “Speak now…”
He wrote that down. So who is the word? Well, we go over to the New Testament. We find out who the word is first. We find it in the Gospel of John.
John 1:1-4, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. 4 In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind.”
Then, in verse 14, “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.” It's Jesus; that's the Word.
Then, the Father says, “Be strong. Do the work. Fear not.”
We have the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit all in these five verses. If we look close, He says, ‘I’m with you. I'm in your midst.’ The Holy Spirit is here now, by the way. People have prayed for the Holy Spirit to be here.
The Spirit of Christ is in our midst. He's here in our worship. He's here in the preaching. He's here in your hearing right now. He's speaking to your heart if you'll allow Him.
He's in our midst. Some of us are afraid because when we talk about generosity, we land in one of two “ditches.” We either land over here, in this “ditch” of fear. But, God says, “Fear not.” We're afraid we won't have enough and instead of living in an attitude of generosity, we live in an attitude of scarcity. We don't think there'll be enough and so we live in fear.
Or, we live over in this other “ditch.” Which is, we get offended because we want more. We're in the greed “ditch.” We always want more; we're never satisfied. Generosity makes us angry when we talk about it. I can't believe that pastor's talking about that.
I don’t want to talk about that. But, somewhere in the middle of those two “ditches” is the highway of love. The highway of love says, ‘Love gives and it's fear not.’
Misers are miserable, but givers are glad. The joy is in the generosity. He says, “Fear not.” Don't be afraid to keep on keeping on, people of God. I love this.
This quote from Oswald Chambers says this, “It is the most natural thing in the world to be scared, and the clearest evidence that God's grace is at work in our hearts is when we do not get into a panic. The remarkable thing about fearing God is that when you fear God, you fear nothing else, whereas if you do not fear God, you fear everything else.”
I don't know where you're at today. I don't know if your discouragement has led you into the fear “ditch.” I remember that my grandparents and my mother came out of the depression generation, the ones who experienced the season of the depression. They were always so afraid of not having enough.
Sometimes, based on your past experience, some of you might have come up so poor that your mindset is still there in terms of your scarcity mentality, instead of thinking that God is our provider and all that we have belongs to Him and that He can pour out whatever we need if we'll just trust Him. If we will just live “the life of the open hand” - one hand open to God, one hand open to others, so that our life becomes like a conduit, like a river that flows to us and provides for us and it flows through us to others to provide for the needs of others. It's a life of such freedom and joy, but we're afraid. Instead of revering and fearing God, we fear everything else.
Paul talks in the book of Romans about fear. He says, Romans 8:15-16 (ESV) 15 “For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” 16 The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God.”
So, when we cry out to the Father, as believers in Jesus, we've been adopted into His family. We're actually talking to our Father like a daddy, like a provider. So, when you have a spirit of fear, that's from the old life, but the new spirit, the Holy Spirit, that spirit that lives in us, cries out within us saying, ‘No, ask your Daddy for what you need.’ Now, I've told you this before. My daddy died at age 39 of cancer.
I was 8 years old when he died. I'm the oldest of four children. I remember when I was an only child, though. And then my brother Barry came along and ruined it. For four years, the first four years of my life, I was it.
I was “the cat's meow.” I was the only child, the firstborn son. My daddy, boy, he was my hero. I was scared of the dark, though and I remember at night this being a real problem for him.
It might seem strange to you that I remember four year old memories, but there's something about when you have a crisis or a tragedy in your family. It's like it superimposes all your memories and so, I have so many memories from my early age, I think because of my dad's passing. But I remember that I would get scared and I would cry out. My dad would come into the room
and he'd say, “What's wrong?” and I'd say, “I'm afraid.” He would then say, “Well, go back to sleep. There's nothing in here” and I would say, “There's something in the closet.”
I couldn't stand for the closet door to be open when I was a little kid. There's something in there. He would open it, look in and would say, “There's nothing in there.:
He would kick around in the closet and there was nothing. I'd say, “Shut the door”
and he'd shut the door, because I didn't like an open closet door when I was 4. Then I'd say, “I'm still scared. Would you stay here with me?” and he'd say, “Okay.”
We had twin beds. They had already bought twin beds in anticipation of the next child. I'm laying in my bed and my dad would get in the other bed. He would stretch his arm out across the space between the two beds and he would hold my hand. Every time he would think I was asleep,
I'd feel him. He'd try to pull his hand loose very carefully and I'd grip it real tight.
His arm probably just about rotted off on those nights. He had to get up and go to work in the morning. But, I would hang on till I went to sleep, holding my daddy's hand.
I still remember that. He was a good daddy. Our Father in heaven is an even better daddy. He's the best daddy. He's the best daddy.
He'll never let go of your hand. He'll never leave you nor forsake you. If you're afraid, reach out and say, “I'm afraid” and take hold of His hand and feel His touch. He'll change your life.
Be fearless. If you fear God, you don't have to fear anything else. Take hold of the Lord. Are fears holding you back from full and complete obedience? What are you afraid of?
Have you forgotten who your Father is? Be strong. Do the work. Be fearless and be encouraged to persevere. So, the people of God went back to work, and maybe we can, too.
Amen. Let's pray. Lord, thank You for Your word. Thank You for how You encourage us. I pray for that person this morning, especially, who doesn't know You as father.
Is it you, my friend? You've never given your life to Jesus. Would you do it right now, right in your seat? You can talk to Him; He's listening. It's called prayer.
You could pray like this. “Dear Father, I'm a sinner. I've never given my life to You, but I believe Your son, Jesus, died on the cross for me. I believe He was raised from the grave and that He lives today. I invite Him to come into my life now and
forgive me of my sin. I want to follow Him all the days of my life as my Lord and Savior. Would You adopt me into Your family? I want to be a child of God. Forgive me of my sin.
Make me what You want me to be.” If you're praying that prayer of faith, believing, the Bible says He'll save you, He'll adopt you into His family. You can call on Him right now.
Others are here and you know Him. You're a follower of Jesus, but you've been afraid, you've been discouraged, you've been down, you've been hurting. Right where you are, would you say, “Lord, would You encourage me? I've heard Your word today. Help me to start taking baby steps towards obedience.
I want to be like You, Jesus. I want to be generous. I want to be full of love and joy. Would You remove this discouragement from me today and help me to persevere in what You've called me to do and what You've called me to be.
In Jesus’ name, Amen.”
Audio
Morning, church. Can y'all see me over there?
Probably better that way. Can you see her? Alright, well, that's good. Praise the Lord. This is my wife, Nicole.
Most of you know her. If you're a guest here. This is Nicole. And yeah, you should do that. She likes that.
She's the extrovert of the pair. Y'all might not know that, but I'm not the extrovert. I just put it on every once in a while. But anyway, for the next few weeks, we're leading into what we're calling commitment Sunday in just a few weeks at our church where we're praying that the Lord will show us what he wants to do in and through us with our time, talent and treasure. And so for a couple of weeks, I'm going to be interviewing some couples at our church that are making that commitment to sacrifice in those ways.
And we thought we would start with ourselves and how we're praying the Lord would lead us and how to sacrifice in our time. I'm not sure that we can give much more of our time. I feel like we've lived here lately. And talents, I think we're doing our very best with that. But with treasures.
We're having to do a few things this year to try to be a part of what God's doing with his church here. And it wasn't a great year last year for real estate, was it? She's a realtor, by the way. Most of you know that sold a lot of your houses. Yeah, it wasn't a great year.
So little bit of a slow year coming into this year. We're like, well, God says if he's telling our church it's time, then we've got to figure out how to do that. So there's a couple of things we've been considering this year. How are we going to try to make a little bit more so that we can give a little bit more? So I am still selling real estate for those who might need that shameless plug.
Tell your friends, Lord. Lord, don't turn over the Money changers right now, Lord, please. This is for you. But it was a slower year. So in addition to that just being what real estate was, I was also kind of following something God's put on my heart for years now.
It's probably been something we've talked about or I've talked about for about three years and I started subbing at the schools and he tells me all the time, I don't know why you're doing that. You have so much on your plate. But truthfully, it's. For me, the fact that it pays is just icing on the cake. I.
I love it. I find it a blessing to be able to be in the public schools and love on those kids. So that's just an extra way that not knowing at the time that I started subbing this was going to be coming right around the corner. So it's funny how God works that out. Yes.
We're trying to take whatever that number is and just move that right over into how we give and try to pretend it's not even showing up. Just move it right over. In addition to me subbing, I've actually somewhat talked this guy into maybe doing it as well. In all of his free time. He gets one off day each week, and so he was like, hey, why not use that day to also sub?
So we're getting him in. No days off. No days off. So he might start subbing every once in a while as well. I'm not doing elementary, though, just so y'all know.
It's not for me. Some of the stories she comes home with, I'm like, I don't even really want to deal with adults, much less, you know, small children. So that's been a couple different ways. Yeah. Picking up odds and ends here and there, trying to figure out how to make a little extra.
That's not gonna probably be enough, is it? We're going to have to make some cuts. That's the fun part, right. Gonna have to probably pull back a few things. Have y'all noticed that you're probably paying for, like, 14 different streaming services?
I think we've got a whole bunch of streaming services right now. I looked at her the other day, and she likes. There's certain shows that come on certain networks, and she wants to watch all of her Chicago shows. They're all on Chicago Fire. Chicago.
If I ever. If y'all ever find me dead somewhere, just know she's been planning it for a while. She's been watching Criminal Minds and stuff like that for years. So watch out. I didn't do it.
I can guarantee you someone else did it. But all of those different shows, we're gonna pull back on all that. We're gonna cut back. Whatever we can't find that's just on. So I'm gonna just binge watch everything in the next couple weeks until the subscriptions run out, and then I'll be bored for a while, go back to DVDs, have to find something else to do.
We're gonna cut back Our gym membership that we're so actively using, we haven't been in a year. I don't think I want to quit the gym. We talk about it a lot, but we're like, we'll go this week. So we're bringing it back old school. If we do work out, it'll be push ups or something at home.
Yeah. Just looking for creative ways to cut back things that we don't need, things that we've been doing that we've kind of gotten in the habit of eating out too much, spending where we don't need to be spending. And so it's going to take a little bit of both of those things from us to make a little more, spend a little less so that we can be a part of what God we think is calling us to do as a cut back on my Amazon spending. Probably. I might need to delete that from my phone.
Yeah. Maybe just be done with Amazon. Yeah. And then. Well, the hardest one is this year is what?
What is this year for me and you? It's our 20th wedding anniversary. Yeah. This year, August will be 20. Yes.
She has survived this. This has been a ride for her. I am so sorry for a lot of what I put you through, but we've been talking and thinking for years maybe this would be the time we'd get out of the country or something like that, do something big. And we're going to put that off for a little while. We're still going to celebrate.
Y'all can. Don't worry about us. We're going to celebrate together. But Europe might have to wait. This one's been wanting to see Paris for a while.
I'm like, the Lord says it's his time to build his church. I don't think it's going to be it's time to see Europe this year. Unless he does something extravagant in our lives. But that's okay. We'll wait.
We'll celebrate 20, maybe two years from now at 22. We'll say it was 20, 23, something like that. Yeah. So that's what we're doing. Church.
The only reason I got her up here. And I'll be doing this for a couple of weeks. I have couples up here just to entertain and talk about our sacrifices is just to get you thinking about how God might be calling you to be a part of giving and the steps that maybe he's putting in your life, that once you start breaking it down, it's not as intimidating as you might think. And so thank you, Nicole. I look like you were about to say something.
She took a deep breath like she was about to unload.
This chair right here is possessed. All right, so just be ready. It just comes right apart, so be ready.
All right, Church, thank you so much for coming today. I'm very thankful for you. I want to spend just a handful of minutes before we get into Haggai again today just to share a couple things that you might have seen in your seat. This is kind of to get you thinking about your part in this process. Take a look at it, read it through and and determine what God's telling you to do.
We're trying to teach more than just that. The goal of this whole thing isn't, hey, we need to raise a bunch of money, that's a good thing. But the main goal through this whole it's time is to teach us biblical principles that hopefully we can use for the rest of our lives. And this will hopefully help you with the principle of stewardship. A lot of us maybe come to this with a scarce minded sort of mindset.
I often do. I'm always wondering, when's the other shoe gonna fall? I don't have what some might call an abundant mind where I think God truly can do anything and has everything. That last song we sang is like a check of my spirit. That song kind of I had to go, do I believe this, that everything I need, God will provide?
I mean, I believe it here, but I'm not sure. I always believe it into my heart. And Psalm 24 says, the earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein. Everything is his, and if he desires to give it, he has all the means and room to do it. Also with this we've been trying to teach and will be trying to teach the principle of proportional giving.
I had a hard time saying that this week. Proportional. Proportionality. I don't know what it is about that word that gets my southern tongue just totally tied up. But the principle of proportional giving is all throughout Scripture.
And that's part of the goal with us as a church, is that we'll decide and determine and pray how God wants us to sacrifice for our family. It's not going to look the same for everybody. And God doesn't desire that anyway. That's not what he wants. Deuteronomy 16 it says, all must give as they are able, according to the blessings given to them by the Lord.
You're God. Paul reiterates this To Corinthians in 2 Corinthians 8, whatever you give is acceptable if you give it eagerly and give according to what you have, not what you don't have. And so hopefully over the last few weeks you've gotten one of these. You can study more about what we're up to back here in the very last tab called the commitment guide. And you'll see a little chart in there.
If you go all the way to the back, you'll see this little guy get baptized. That's me, by the way, back when I was six. Anyway, I went too far. But this little page, you'll see this little graph. And this is to kind of help you consider how the Lord might be calling you to give.
And so our commitment is based on this motto, not equal gifts, but equal sacrifice. I'm prayerful for you, that you would understand something maybe that you've never experienced. And that is the way in which God shows up when you say yes. The way in which God provides when you just determine, I'm going to do what he's called me to do. I don't know how it's going to work out exactly, but I'm going to sacrifice where he's called me.
I want to see miracles in my lifetime. I hope you do, too. I want to see God move. And I feel like if I just sit on the sidelines and never get to be a part of anything, I'm not going to get to see what God's up to. So I hope this testimony and some of these things that we're giving you will help you pray and think about your lifestyle of stewardship.
Now, let's dig in together. We're in the book of haggai and I want to remind you of our theme verse, Haggai, chapter one. Into chapter two, it says, these people say the time has not yet come to rebuild the house of the Lord. Yet now be strong, work. For I am with you, declares the Lord.
My spirit remains in your midst. Fear not. So I gave you all this intro stuff, and I want you to know what the sermon title is today. It is it's time to be encouraged. That's what God's up to in his word today.
For the last couple of weeks, if you've been on this journey, he's been kinda smacking the people of God around a little bit, saying you're out doing your own thing, being real selfish and you have nothing to do with me. That's where he's been. But now they're into the work and they're starting to feel a little discouraged and God shows up with a word of encouragement. I wonder, do you need a word of encouragement today? I bet a lot of you do.
It seems like no matter how good things are going, you could always use just a little bit more, a little bit more of a push that, hey, you're going in the right direction. You're doing what I've asked. You're fulfilling your purpose in this life. I imagine all of us need a little pick me up, a little encouragement. I think discouragement, in fact, might be the greatest, one of the greatest obstacles to your faithfulness, period.
Discouragement can make you pull back on things that you were clearly called by God to do. But some sort of hurdle or something can appear in your life. Maybe it's a relationship, someone speaking into your life, telling you you can't do it, or obstacles begin to appear that make you think, man, I guess I'm not where I'm supposed to be. These things of discouragement can really tear down what God has put in your life. I heard this a lot growing up.
Don't dig up and doubt what God planted in faith. And don't, I might say, don't dig up in discouragement what God planted in your life by faith. The people of Haggai's day are beginning to struggle. Here's what they're struggling with. They finally said, yes, all right, we're going to go rebuild the house of God as you've called us to do.
After decades have passed, we're going to go do it. And they begin to lay the ground, the foundation. They start seeing a little bit scaffolding maybe going up. They're seeing some things begin to appear, and what's happening, it's going to be a whole lot smaller than it used to be. They're realizing, wait a minute, this isn't quite going to be as filled with gold and the cedars of Lebanon as it once was, because all of that stuff was destroyed or carried off.
And the old men who had, old men and women who had seen it in their day, they'd seen Solomon's incredible temple are beginning to see this and go, it's not going to be what we once had. They're feeling discouraged about that. They're starting to think maybe God didn't want us to do that. Many became disheartened and questioned this. How are you doing today?
Are you facing some obstacles, some difficulties causing you to feel discouraged, maybe give up, maybe feel like quitting? You're not alone, my friend. You're not alone. We've all felt that way. Some of us feel that way with you today.
They began this building and it wasn't adding up. I've certainly felt the weight of this discouragement a lot of times in my life. I can say this kind of openly to you now. Church. Ever since, like 2020, our church has kind of been the same church.
It's like we took what was meant to be a Polaroid every Sunday that would constantly change and suddenly made an oil painting that we hung up. And this is who we are from now on. And there was a lot of reasons for that. But I began to feel very discouraged and very uncertain as to what God wanted me to do as your pastor, the pastor of this church. But I'm feeling encouraged now.
God's doing a lot of things in my life and I pray in your life that is encouraging me that's the best place to get encouragement, and I pray that's what happens to you today, that there's no better place. Like your parents or your. Your siblings or your spouse or your boss. These people can encourage you incredibly. But hear it from the word of God today.
This is a timeless encouragement you can come back to over and over again. So here we are starting the book of Haggai, chapter 2, verse 1 through 5. And here God has encouraged his people with three ways that are going to sound really familiar to you. So let's dig in. Haggai, chapter 21 through 5.
In the seventh month, on the 21st day of the month, the word of the Lord came by the hand of Haggai the prophet. Speak now to Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua the son of Jehozadak the high priest, and to all the remnant of the people, and say this. Who is left among you who saw this house in its former glory? How do you see it now? Is it not as nothing in your eyes yet?
Now be strong, O Zerubbabel, declares the Lord. Be strong. O Joshua, son of Jehozadak, the high priest, Be strong, all you people of the land, declares the Lord. Work, for I am with you, declares the Lord of hosts. According to the covenant that I made with you when you came up out of Egypt, my spirit remains in your midst.
Fear not, God bless the reading of his word. Amen. Fear not. Well, the three points are right here. We are right in the heart of our theme text today, and I couldn't by any stretch dodge what the points ought to be.
How do we get encouraged to persevere in God's work? Well, we Be strong. We do the work and we be fearless. That's the it's time motto, and that's where we are today. So the first way to be encouraged is be strong, relying on God's presence.
Be strong. In God's presence. We see some timing words. Haggai's really good about this, maybe better than most in the Old Testament about when these things are occurring. He Sundays, in the seventh month of this time period, what we heard in chapter one was it was the sixth month.
Now we're in the seventh month. So he's telling us, hey, about 27 days has gone by. About almost a month has gone by since the people came and said yes to doing the work. And now they're beginning to see it shape up, and they're questioning if it's going right. It's starting not look like they expected.
You ever done a job, you ever got into something you thought God was really in, but it didn't shape up the way you expected, it didn't look as big or it didn't go the way that you really thought it would go? That's what's happening to the people of God here. That's what happened to me church. I'll admit it. That's what's happened to me over the last 10 years.
I thought I'd come in this place with all of my dashing and wonderful speech, and I would just. Boy, we'd be growing a church in day one. Instead, we suffered at Rocky Mount Academy for two years. People had a hard time finding us. Couple of y'all found us by sheer accident.
And that's instead how it went. And a big part of that was for me and my own edification, my own sanctification. This is what's happening now to the people. About a month has gone by and they're going, huh, I don't know if we're doing what we should do. And God shows up to the prophet Haggai and says this.
He says in verse two, speak now. I love that. I love the urgency of God here. He's starting to hear the people getting discouraged, and he's like, I don't want y'all to stop doing the work. I want y'all to hang in there and persevere, because I've got great things in store.
He says, speak now. And he asks them three questions. And this is how we know what the people are discouraged by, because we really wouldn't know. Based on chapter one, these questions tell us a lot. Verse three.
Look at this. He says, who is left among you. Who remembers what it used to look like? Who remembers the former glory? Who's left among you?
And the people are like, well, there's quite a few of us. There's quite a few of us still around. One commentator kind of puts the dates on this. He says about 59 years have passed since the destruction of the temple. Old men around in.
Old men and women in their 70s would have seen the original temple. So there's probably a decent amount of people still around. They're not doing a lot of the labor I would imagine now. Plus life expectancy was less then. So these people are probably in the last days of their life.
But they're starting to share the stories with the young people. Maybe they're watching the project go and they're like, it's not what it used to look like. That's not what I remember. And the young people were like, we don't remember it, but now we're really bummed out.
I could go into a real long sidebar about that for a little while because some of you have come from some wonderful churches back in the day. You had a great. Maybe you had a great choir back in the day and you did the hymns and I love all that stuff too. But when we look at the way things used to be with rose colored glasses and we forget all the horrible stuff, we forget what happened at Solomon's temple. Did you know God destroyed it on purpose because the people weren't worshiping him?
They were turning to false gods and idols.
They were not with what he was up to. And so now the young people are like, well, we don't remember this, but it sounded like we're not doing it right. Ezra, chapter three tells us this very plainly. Ezra three. He's writing at the same time period as Haggai and Zechariah.
It says many of the priests and Levites and heads of the fathers houses. Old men who had seen the first house wept with a loud voice when they sound the saw the foundation of the house being laid. Though many shouted aloud for joy, Some of them saw it and had the right perspective. But a lot of them wept aloud. This isn't what we remember.
God asks them a second question. Well, how do you see it? How do you see it? I know there's some among you that see it this way, but how do you see it? How do you see what I'm up to in this time?
One commentator writes, God's estimate of things is very different from man's. However, their low estimate of the present temple, from its outward inferiority, God holds it as superior. Why is this? We're going to learn more about this in Haggai. We're going to find out that God really holds the second temple in higher esteem.
Why? Because the people no longer turn back to idolatry. The people have authentic worship in this place. And guess what else? The Son of God will one day walk in this second temple.
So God holds it superior. Oh, it doesn't look as fancy. It's not as luxurious. But God doesn't see things that way. I could turn you to a lot of stories about that.
David would be one of the greater examples where in fact God tells the prophet Samuel, man looks at the outward appearance, but God looks at the heart. He's more satisfied that the people in this second place are coming in with authentic worship. He doesn't need buildings and places. This will always be true church. Wherever we are authentically worshiping God, that is where the church is.
Do we need a new building to do that? Absolutely not. Has God given us an opportunity to move in somewhere new? Yes. But is that going to change us being the authentic church?
No, that's here. Which is why we have to change now. We have to grow now. We can't say, well, once we get to there. Once we get there, and some of us are doing this in our individual lives, one day I'll serve God, but right now it's just not a good time.
God's not interested in the outward. He's interested in the heart. Move. No man knows the hour of his return. No man certainly knows the hour that he might take you home.
To be saying, tomorrow I'll do this is foolishness. He asks him a third question and he asks it weird. I looked at the Hebrew here. It's just strange. He says, is it not as nothing?
Hey, God, that's a double negative. I took English. God, that's not how we're supposed to write. What is that about? Is it not as nothing?
He does this on purpose. I'm convinced this double negative emphasizes something about the discouragement of the people. Because what he could have said is, it is something in your eyes? Because the double negative should reverse it. So he should have said, is it something in your eyes?
But no, he does it the way he does it, because he's asking them something important. You're looking at what I'm doing. You're looking at God's house and thinking, this is nothing. That's not okay. He's trying to emphasize just how silly it is that they're feeling this way.
It should be something in your eyes. And to this he tells them three times, be strong. We have three imperatives in this text. Be strong, work, and do not fear. Those are the commands of God to you today, to his people in Haggai, and now to you.
This word be strong means strengthen, be courageous, grow stout. But more importantly, it means hold on, retain or hang in there. I know for a fact God's not looking at his people and saying, y'all need to lift more. Like there's some big stones y'all gotta move and you're too weak. Y'all need to start working on your push ups and stuff.
That's not what God's saying here. He could have used some other words, some other Hebrew words for that type of strength. This word strong, which he uses somewhere around 30 times in scripture, always means prevail. Hang on. God is moving ahead.
He's in front of you. Hang on as he guides you on this journey. So be strong enough to not quit, to persevere. And he tells them how they can do this. O Zerubbabel, O Joshua, O remnant of the people.
You can be strong. Why Verse four? Because I am with you. I'm with you, Church. Do you believe that, that he's with you, Emmanuel, That Christ is with you?
The Holy Spirit of God is with you. The Almighty God. Here we have Yahweh, the greatest news of all. The Almighty God is with them. Paul reminds us of this.
Ephesians 6. It says, finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. So clearly he's not saying, hey, if you guys would just pull yourself up by your bootstraps. If you were just a little tougher, if you were just a little stronger. No, guess what, Church?
We are not strong enough to do any of the purposes of God. We're not. He didn't even call us to be able to do that. Every calling you've ever received has always been a double calling. It's always been, hey, here's a purpose I have for you.
Plus you're going to have to depend on me to do it. That's always the second call. Trust in me, Trust in me. Depend on me. Throughout scripture, the Lord's commands to be strong are always connected with his presence.
Joshua 1:9. It says, have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened. Do not be dismayed.
For the Lord your God is with you. Wherever you you go. He's with you. Now I know it can be hard to Be strong when others are not seeing the same dream that you are. Some of you have experienced this in your life.
And it's hard for me to imagine what this was like for you, that some of you thought, man, I'm going to go on to do great things. And you had a father or mother say, I don't think you're going to amount to that. Some of you had that experience. You had a teacher or somebody you respected say, yeah, I don't think college is for you. Yeah, I don't know that you're going to be able to accomplish that dream that you have.
And some of you have experienced that in your life. Sometimes you get to a place where you're really trying to move into whatever you felt that God has really called you into doing. And it seems like everyone around you is not seeing the same dream that you're seeing for yourself. I wonder, can you look past those present situations? Strength in the Lord doesn't come from what you see, but from looking to God.
I'll say that again. Strength. This kind of be strong in his presence. It doesn't come from what you see. It comes from looking to Christ.
Because what you're going to see for much of your journey is resistance. What you're going to see much of your life when you're trying to live into God's purpose is opposition. These are things that we often don't consider. But there is another team. There is an enemy that is not for you and certainly not for the gospel.
There will always be opposition. If you've not observed this, just pay attention to anything going on in our country. Anything. You will see time and time again a repeated truth that everything else can be tolerated except for the Gospel. We'll tolerate anything else but Christianity, authentic Christianity.
No, no way. You notice this. There will always be opposition to the gospel. There will always be opposition to you and the dreams that God has laid on your heart. So I'm asking you, instead of looking at what you see, look unto Christ and rely on his presence.
That's the first way. The second way is this. Do the work. Do the work. Trusting in God's promises.
Now that might sound redundant. Be strong. God's called me to do something, so I'm going to go do it. Some of us get into, like, analysis, paralysis. You ever heard that?
Like, okay, I think God's asking me to do something. I think I need to be about this kind of purpose in life. And you'd start to do all the work of figuring out, okay, what do I need to do to get there. I feel like God's calling me to go speak to my neighbor about this. It might be something as small as that.
I drove into my driveway and I noticed my neighbor over there. And I think, you know, I've really not talked to them much, or it's been a while, or we've never had a good conversation about Christ. And then in that moment, you're thinking, okay, but I can't do it right now because the conditions have to be perfect. But God laid it on your heart in that moment. He does that.
The conditions are never perfect for your willingness to do what's right. Right? And we get into this paralysis of, I got to think about this and I got to analyze it in such a way. No. Christ says to the people, do the work.
In fact, what he really is referring here is continue doing the work they've started. He tells them, be strong. Keep going. Keep going. Some of you, I pray you can hear this today.
Some of you are overcoming addictions in your life. You're overcoming brokenness in your life. There's something that God is moving you towards in your life. And it's clearly the Word and it's clearly the Lord in your life. And to you, I want you to hear, keep going.
God says, keep going. Keep working. I know there's times of discouragement. People around you are not believing in you. Maybe you don't even believe in yourself half the time.
Look past that. Look to Christ, who is saying, do the work. How trusting in my promises. He gives them a reason that they can trust. He says, I want to remind you of something in verse five about this covenant that I made with you.
This is what's so great about Christianity. I think one of the greatest things about this faith compared to all others, is that we serve a God who loves us enough to do all the work. He's called us into his purposes. Yes, he's called us to be a part of bearing fruit. But the act of your salvation, my friends, you did nothing.
You couldn't. It's not just that you didn't. You couldn't do it. So he calls us into this, and he calls his people into this again here he says, look, don't forget the promises I've made to you. The covenant I made with your ancestors and now I make with you.
What is that covenant? I'd have to read to you most of the Old Testament to cover that covenant. And I didn't think we had time. So I'll give you a snippet of what One commentator, and he gave me like 30 references as to where he pulled this. But Benson, when writing on this, he says of God, I will fulfill to you what I promised to your ancestors.
First, that I will be their God, I will be with you. Second, that I will keep you from evil. I will protect you. And third, that I will bless and prosper you when you obey my word, my commands. There's these scenes all throughout the Old Testament where they stand on opposite mountains, and one group shouts out the promises and blessings of God, and the other mountain shouts out the curses if they don't fulfill their obedience to him.
Well, guess what they end up doing for hundreds of years not fulfilling the covenant that they'd made. God here shows up and says, but I didn't forget it. God shows up and says, something I want you to hear today, because it's even more true today in Christ Jesus. I made the covenant. I will keep the covenant.
Some of you have come from some broken homes, broken relationships, broken. You've been fired from workplaces where they said, we love you, you're great. And then two months later said, bye. Broken covenants. We come from a place of broken covenants constantly in our lives.
God says, good news. It's not up to human beings. This one. I am the God of the universe. I made the covenant, I will keep it.
And he keeps it all the fuller in the person of Christ Jesus. He keeps the covenant in a way these people couldn't have possibly imagined. This idea of I will be your God and I will bless and prosper you now in the person of Christ Jesus, that we have now been saved by his miraculous sacrifice. Now because of that, we know his blessings will be eternal and we don't have to wait. He says, do the work.
Because the covenant, the promises, that they're in my hands, not yours. We're called to do kingdom work, understanding that only God can establish it. Only he gives success. Look what the psalmist writes in Psalm 90. Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us and establish the work of our hands upon us.
Yes, establish the work of our hands. God, you tell me what you want me to do with my mind and my heart and my strength. God, you tell me how you want me to live my life because you've made me for a purpose. Help me to see it and know it. And then God encouraged me to do the work.
That's the prayer of the psalmist and should be your prayer, my friend. And remember that the reaping and the sowing is all or the reaping part is all in his hands. Second Corinthians 9, it says, the point is this. Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly. Whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully.
Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion. For God loves a cheerful giver. And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work. This is supposed to be the way in which we function with a holy God that we would say, God, you can have all of me. That's what he's really called us to.
You can have all of my mind, my heart, my strength, my stuff. It's all yours. Whatever it is that I do have, I know you gave. And so here it is. And so when I start to ask my wife and when I start to, as a family, begin to think, how can I give God my best?
Not the last fruits, the first fruits, the very best part of me, then we start to make sacrificial decisions based on that. There's just things in this life we have to eventually determine. I couldn't have accomplished this apart from God. These things that have happened in my life are him. I tell my son this all the time.
He's a very good student and he doesn't have to try very hard. And every once in a while, y'all should pick on him because he's got a big head about it. Alright. There's some other areas in his life where he gets humbled and I'm thankful for those. But when it comes to this big brain that some of you have inherited like him, I like to remind him all the time, what did you do to earn that?
Oh, you were born good job. You didn't do anything for that either. I saw who had to do a lot of work for that and it wasn't you. So you've got a good brain. What are you going to do with it?
Because if God gave it to you, he has a purpose for it. You ever think about that? Oh, I have the time. I have the time to give to God right now. He has so built margin in my life that I could give him more of my time.
Oh, he's given me all these gifts. Yeah, but Jonathan, I've practiced hard. I studied hard in school, I practiced guitar, I've worked hard at singing. Yeah, but you couldn't have started any of it. I've met Some of you, you can't sing a lick.
You can't make a joyful noise to the Lord, though I'll stand right next to you and listen to you like a moose. And I won't mind because God says he calls you into singing, do it. Some of you won't stand next to that person. I'm trying to be more mature in this Christian faith, you know, but some of us are incredibly gifted. And I would ask you, yeah, you've put the time in, you've worked on it, you've practiced it, but who put the seed in there?
Who built it? What are you going to do with it? And it's way broader than that, because here's what I found. Oh, you can put all the work in. You could have a good mind for work, good mind for business.
You could be good with people. You might have great social skills. You could be a talented musician. You could have all this stuff and God might still not let it rain.
Oh, if I work really hard, I will always succeed. Try it and find out, and you might get the kind of success that you thought was success. And it wasn't success at all. It wasn't at all the blessings you were hoping for. But I've got all this stuff and all this wealth, and I feel so empty.
Only God, only God gets the best of me. Will you get the best of you? Where has God called you into work? Where have you neglected this due to some discouragement? Take the next step today.
It might be just a small next step, but God blesses faithfulness again and again. He's not into perfection. He knows you can't do perfectly what he's called you to. He's wondering, will you be faithful? Will you just say yes and move forward?
And then he's got some lessons to teach you on the journey, because you're a mess and so am I. Here's the third way, and I don't know when that clock started today. If it started with me and Nicole, then I don't know. But I'm going to try to still hit that time, which means you're getting a shorty today. All right, Third way is this.
Be fearless. Walking in God's spirit. This is where he finishes. Be strong, do the work, be fearless. How in the world can we possibly be fearless in this life?
I have to admit something to y'all, and you might think less of me as a man, but I can't really do scary stuff. I've said this before. I know, in church. I'm not ashamed of It. I do not watch scary movies.
Why? Because I have nightmares like a child. And I don't think I'm ever gonna change. I tried not long ago to watch a movie that really wasn't really that scary. And I dreamed about it for three weeks, five nights at Freddy's.
Some of you have seen it and said, that movie's not even scary. It really wasn't scary. But I made it scary. I made it scary. I'm walking around my upstairs.
I got goosebumps. I got my hair standing up. I'm like, these jokers are not in my house. This thing's fiction.
Yeah, I'm a boy.
I've not ever been able to overcome this. When God says, be fearless to me, I often go to that place. But, God, I'm a little boy in here. It's easy to make me jump. I'm jumpy.
I don't like it when my kids do this to me, by the way, and they don't always even mean to do it. They'll just kind of sneak up on me. And I'm like, my mom was this way. You could scare her in the middle of the day, just coming up, like, hey, mom, what's for? Like, I'm just trying to ask what dinner is.
Good grief. I got some of that jumpy, scared of things. I want to be tough, God. I want to be manly, you know, whatever that means. He says no.
He says to a guy like me and people like you because some of you feel real tough. But you know, there's some stuff that's got you terrified it might not be scary movies and silly stuff like that. And I'm just joking about that. There's far scarier things. I don't know.
I don't know if that kid's going to turn out loving you, boy. I'm doing my best, God, but I'm worried. I'm scared that they won't follow you. And I've tried, God, I don't know if I can save my marriage. I'm terrified.
Those are way scarier. God, I don't know what's going to happen tomorrow at work. It looks like they're letting people go. I'm scared of what's next.
Notice that he doesn't tell the people here in Haggai that, hey, you guys need to be tough, be men. No, he tells these people, be fearless. Why? Because my spirit remains in your midst. That's what he says in verse five.
He leads with it. In fact, he says, my spirit remains in your midst. So fear not, we don't have to be afraid of tomorrow. In fact, Jesus says, don't worry about tomorrow. Tomorrow's got enough worry for itself.
Don't worry about that. Focus on me. Look to me. He tells the people of Haggai, my spirit is in your midst now. He says this very interestingly enough.
He could have said, hey, my spirit is with you, or whatever. No, he says, in your midst. The word here in the Hebrew has the idea that he is standing among you. I don't think this is accidental. Look back through 1 through 5 and notice something.
We have the voice of the Lord speaking. We have Yahweh speaking, and then we have the Holy Spirit. John Gill sees it. I saw it too. And it looks like the Trinitarian God is on display right here.
He says not only Jehovah the Father and his divine Logos Word Christ were with them, but also the Spirit, the Holy Spirit, the third Person, the Trinity. He gives them such a wonderful promise. Here I am with you. My Word is with you. My spirit standing among you.
The words he chooses here are very interesting. It's like he's in the room. I pray that most Sunday mornings I pray that with the team back here, God, would you just let your presence fall in this place? We can't do that part. We can come here to worship and serve you, but God, if you don't show up, then we're not doing church, we're just hanging out.
God, show up. Let your presence be here, he says and makes this promise to the people. I know you're discouraged, but you don't have to be afraid. Why? Because I'm standing right next to you.
I'm here. Oswald Chambers. This is one fantastic devotional if you've never studied it. My utmost for his highest. In there, he says this quote.
It is the most natural thing in the world to be scared. Don't feel bad. I was happy to hear that. Okay. I get scared sometimes.
And the clearest evidence that God's grace is at work on our hearts is when we do not get into a panic. The remarkable thing about fearing God is that when you fear God, you fear nothing else. Whereas if you do not fear God, you fear everything else. That's been true in my life is what I've found. Some of you have found a peace that transcends all understanding.
And you know exactly where it comes from. It comes from saying, God, I don't know how in the world this is going to work out, but you are God and I am not. And I'm trusting You. When something goes down and breaks down in your car, in your house, and some of you get up in a tizzy about it, I want to remind you of something. When you lose a job or when a relationship starts to go sour, I want to remind you of something.
And when you fear God, you fear nothing else.
Some of you might be in a dating relationship right now or something like that, and it looks like that person's going to leave you, and you might just assume. You might just say, well, if God allows that, then God knows. Some of you might be getting saved for something just tremendously bad in your life.
Some of you lost a job recently and you don't know it yet, but you're going to find out that God did you a favor. I don't know. The budget's been not agreeing with you on that, Jonathan. Yeah, but your life purpose is.
Some of you know this, but I got fired as a pastor one time. I worked for a year down in Greenville at a church that I had helped plant. And a year later, they were like, sayonara. We don't like what you're up to. Me and another pastor, two of the three pastors, got fired in one week.
And I started selling life insurance. I did that for one week and found out I hate this job. I hate it.
So now I sell life insurance in a different way.
I found out something that I'm continuing to find out, and that is if I would just trust God in this, I'll find out something. I didn't know he didn't want me in Greenville. I'm surprised he wanted me in Rocky Mountain. I was as surprised as you. But he put me here to plant this church, and it's been quite a ride.
And I'm learning to be faithful to him. And I'm trying to learn. I hope you will learn that when I fear God, I'll fear Nothing else. Romans 8 says, for we did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the spirit of adoption. As sons by whom we cry, Abba, Father.
The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit, that we are children of God. When you call out to him, dad, Father, abba means Daddy. When you have that kind of relationship with him, you begin to trust him. In that way, your fears diminish. What fears are holding you back from full obedience?
What fears have discouraged you? Lay them at the feet of the Lord. Would you learn to fear him and no one else? Hear God's words of encouragement to you today. They're the quote.
They're the statement of our whole series. Be strong, do the work and be fearless. Whatever God is calling you to today, I want you to hear those words of encouragement in action. Whether it's in your personal life, in your stewardship, in your whatever ministry kinds of things God's called you to, not just in our church, but outside these walls. You have constant opportunities for the gospel if you'll see them.
It's time to do the work. Be strong and be fearless. God is with us. I want to remind you of a few things before I pray together. I've been saying this every week and you may be getting tired of it.
That's okay too. But they say you got to hear a thing and do a thing like for six weeks straight before it becomes a habit. Some of you are doing well. I would ask you to continue to attend here as often as you might bring your journey guides. Take notes.
Do the six week devotional with me. I missed Friday. Those of you who've been following along, I missed Friday, which was interesting because we actually had a misprint in there anyway. But that said, I was on the road all day Friday. But I'm not going to miss any more if I can help it.
So join me on that devotional. Get into a community group. There's very few of you left that aren't in a community group, but try to hop in one. We've got some open. We need to start more.
I'm believing that this year we're going to have to start a lot more groups and we'll see how that goes. Be praying with me. It's Lord, what do you want me to do? How do you want to work in me and through me and then respond in a few weeks on commitment Sunday? Let's pray now together.
Heavenly Father, I thank you so much for your people, for your church, for what an encouraging word from you today. I know it must have so moved the people to hear speak now. Speak these words. Be strong, do the work and fear not because I'm with you. My spirit is in your midst.
What a relief that must have been for the people to hear as they're starting to see things shape up a little different than they expected. God, I think you're doing that over and over. It's like you're telling that story again and again and again in our lives. A lot of us have got into things in this life that haven't quite gone the way we expected. But if there are things you've called us to, God, I pray that we would be Encouraged this morning with be strong, keep working and don't be afraid.
I'm feeling that personally as a pastor for sure, as a church family, I pray we would feel that. That some of us have been on this journey together as a fellowship of believers for quite a while, and we've seen some ups and downs. We've lost people along the journey. Some of those people are with you now, Lord. It's been up and down.
There's been brokenness in homes. There's been varieties of things we've had to suffer together. But God, we have persevered. And I'm asking, Lord, would you encourage us this morning that you are in our midst, that you are with us, that you have a plan for the gospel in our city? That's all I've ever wanted.
God, I pray that for your people that the thing we desire most as a church fellowship's great. You know, that we would have a family. Those are good things. But I just pray that those would be secondary to what's primary. That what we want more than anything as a church is to see lives changed, that we would see people come to Christ in our lifetime.
We would see baptisms in this room and in future rooms. God, I want to be a part of that kind of church that's reaching the city. And I believe that's what you started this church for. So I'm believing that, Lord, and I'm asking that you would encourage your people in this. But go even further if you would, God, encourage them to see the opportunities in their life, in their life for conversations about the gospel.
I'm observing that they happen all the time. If we would just see them, we might be ordering some food somewhere and there's an opportunity at a grocery store, just working at the school where our kids go, at their workplace, constantly where we work. God, help us to see those opportunities and be strong and do the work and don't be afraid. God, the gospel, it's enough to change lives in an eternal kind of way. But sometimes, sometimes people oppose it.
I pray, God, that you would help us to be fearless with it. Because it's not up to us who you're calling. It's only up to us whether we'll say yes to what you've called us to. God, do this in us, we pray. Help us to be strong.
And that person that's been so discouraged lately, that's been so down, I pray that you would guide them to take a small step today towards the thing that you called them to originally, that they've quit or just gotten away from God, Would you move them back in it? Stir them back up to continue in the work. Do all of this we pray, in Jesus name, Amen.