Hope from Haggai

During my reading time on the net, I came across a interesting read from a pastor speaking out of the book of Haggai …here are some of his words, (Mine in bold)

In the little book of Haggai, one of the shortest books in the Bible, the prophet Haggai is sent to the nation of Israel with God's message to rebuild the temple. They had started the work 15 years before, but troubles had come, discouragement had set in, and they had ceased this important work. Now God sends them a wake up call exhorting them to resume the work which he has called them to do.

He gives the Children of Israel some step by step instructions on how to rebuild the temple. I want to examine these instructions, and see if we can't apply them to our own process of rebuilding the ministry of our church here in Merced. I think we can apply these words to were we are at right now as a church too.

Haggai 1:7
Thus saith the Lord of hosts; Consider your ways.

Before we can build the church, before we can help others, before we can reach others for Christ, we must first consider our ways. The Hebrew for "consider your ways" means literally "set your heart upon your ways." In other words, really examine yourselves. Do we just want to start new programs, or do we genuinely want to rebuild God’s house? Where is our heart in this matter?
There is a difference. Are we doing things, maybe very good things, to please ourselves, or are we doing them to please God. When we are doing things to please ourselves, we will get easily frustrated and discouraged when things don't work out the way we want them to. We will become upset with others and start berating, in our minds at least, other members of God's family.

This is why Haggai encourages the people to consider their ways. We need to allow the love of Jesus to take control of our thoughts, and we need to be looking to God for guidance in any rebuilding project that we might start.

Haggai 1:8
Go up to the mountain, and bring wood, and build the house; and I will take pleasure in it, and I will be glorified, saith the LORD.

Notice that God tells the people to do three things: first, go up to the mountain; next, bring wood; and last, build the house. Now these steps were necessary for the nation of Israel since the temple lay in ruins, and they would need lumber to begin the process of rebuilding it. So God speaks through Haggai to tell the people to climb the mountain, cut down the trees and bring the wood down, and then rebuild God’s house. I believe that God has called our church to do the same, our building is a real one, but we can rebuild our spiritual lives as well.

Stage 1. Go up to the mountain. This is the stage of commitment. When they began to climb the mountain, they were committed to complete the job. What kind of commitment do we need to make in order to climb the mountain? We see in Matthew 14:23 that Jesus "went up into a mountain apart to pray: and when the evening was come, he was there alone." And we see from 1 Kings 19:11-12 that it was at Mount Horeb that Elijah heard the still, small voice of God. Moses received the Ten Commandments from God at Mount Sinai, and Abraham heard God’s voice on Mount Moriah.

There are two reasons we need to pray. First, when we pray, we are renewed in our spirit. As we enter into a time of communion with our Creator, we discover our spirit soaring with praise, our mental attitude being transformed, and our faith growing. It is during those times of prayer when we are encouraged and when we feel God’s peace and rest filling us. We need those times of prayer. It is good for us.

Second, when we pray, God will respond to us. This is a mystery and difficult for us to understand — how the mighty ruler of the universe would not only listen to our feeble requests, but would also act on our behalf. But it is a true fact — prayer changes things. James 5:16 tells us, "The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective."

Stage 2. Bring wood. Before Israel could rebuild the temple, they had to make some preparations. Before we can rebuild, we need to make some preparation. Now we could apply this to all the planning and programs we intend to do. But I want to look at spiritual preparation.
There is a cleansing effect from reading and meditating upon the words of the Bible. This cleansing is two-fold: outward and inward.

First, as we read God’s word, we learn to identify outward areas of weakness in our life: sin, bad habits, wrong attitudes, harmful thinking patterns. Upon recognizing them, we become more aware of their damaging effect on our life. The result is we slowly learn to turn from these sinful things that have entrapped us for years. As the psalmist wrote in verse 18, "Open my eyes that I may see wonderful things in your law."

Second, there is an inner cleansing that takes place in our soul as we meditate upon God’s holy word. We don’t understand how this happens, but our soul is being fed and nourished and is growing spiritually stronger. We understand the need for physical food. And few of us skip too many meals, but we don’t appreciate the need for spiritual food. As we feed on God’s word, our spirit is refreshed.

Stage 3. Build the house. In other words, get to work. We can spend time in commitment and prayer to God, and we can spend months or years of preparation, reading the Bible and making plans, but there comes a time when we have to roll up our sleeves and get to work. As James 2:17-18, "Thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. But someone will say, ‘You have faith, and I have works.’ Show me your faith without your works, and I will show you my faith by my works."

The nation of Israel had been neglecting the Lord’s work for too long. That’s why the Lord had to raise up Haggai — to stir up the people from their inaction. Sometimes we need to be stirred up, too.

Remember, Stage One and Stage Two are what leads us to Stage Three. Sometimes we feel we have to become more committed in our prayer (stage one), but what we are really seeking is a perfection of dedication. This will never happen, not in this lifetime. Our commitment to the Lord is made in faith, not in our own ability to perfectly carry it out; but in God’s ability to help us keep our commitment to him in spite of our human frailty.

Sometimes we are not sure we’re prepared well enough, and so postpone the work until we are perfectly prepared (stage two). We need to make preparations, but not be so over-prepared that we have anticipated every and any possible contingency. We will never be perfectly prepared.

As you have heard the last few weeks, on our cores to our new place, two large hurdles presented themselves to us that seem huge. They were not anticipated and increase the total cost of the project.. Our preperation was good, and we nothing really has stopped us from concerdering other options. However, I believe that God has brought our church to this place. Yes our faith must increase, yes, the cost will be higher then we first thought, but our God is our provider, and we are resting in Him.

So how do we rebuild the Lord’s house? Obviously, there are church programs that we can become involved in to help reach out to others. But I think the most effective way of rebuilding God’s house is when we spend time with others sharing our faith with them, or encouraging them to join us in church. There are people you will come into contact with every day who are searching for meaning in life, who are confused and frustrated, who are open to you coming along side them and sharing with them God’s love. If you will look for people to talk to, you will find them. It’s the same with us, the bottem reason we are doing this is to place our church in a better position to share the gospel with more people …isn’t it? Let’s go for it!

Have an Awesome Day

David