More Than We Can See

Introduction

Recap Series

Week 1 - Call to Obedience

Consider our actions, reactions and consequences

Week 2 - Living by the Word of God

The Word, the Promises and Fire of God

Today - More Than We Can See

We need to understand the history of what is taking place here, to understand exactly what God is telling them

Bible broken up into different sections

historical - Genesis - Nehemiah

Poetic - Job - Ecclesiastes

Prophets - Isaiah - Malichi

Gospels - About Jesus

Acts - about the first church

Epistels - Romans - Jude

Revelation - about the end time

Hard to understand Haggai, especially this chapter if we do not know where this fits into the historical parts of the Bible

Ezra 3 - Altar and the foundation of the temple is built

Ezra 4 - faced opposition, new king, King Artaxerxes is persuaded to not allow the Jews to finish the temple

Ezra 5 - Haggai and Zechariah tell the Zerubabbel, Joshua and the people to get back to work. About 16 years between Ezra 4 and 5.

the same opposition exists around them, people offer to help so that they could slow down this process, even get a few crooked politicians to help them out

But now, there is a new king

Haggai 1, is the message given, build the temple

Haggai 2 is the message given after they get some opposition to restarting the temple, before they had heard from King Darius in Ezra 6.

Haggai 2:1-9 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 the high priest Joshua son of Jehozadak, and to the remnant of the people: 3 ‘Who is left among you who saw this house in its former glory? How does it look to you now? Doesn’t it seem to you like nothing by comparison? 4 Even so, be strong, Zerubbabel—this is the Lord’s declaration. Be strong, Joshua son of Jehozadak, high priest. Be strong, all you people of the land—this is the Lord’s declaration. Work! For I am with you—the declaration of the Lord of Armies. 5 This is the promise I made to you when you came out of Egypt, and my Spirit is present among you; don’t be afraid.’ ” 6 For the Lord of Armies says this: “Once more, in a little while, I am going to shake the heavens and the earth, the sea and the dry land. 7 I will shake all the nations so that the treasures of all the nations will come, and I will fill this house with glory,” says the Lord of Armies. 8 “The silver and gold belong to me”—this is the declaration of the Lord of Armies. 9 “The final glory of this house will be greater than the first,” says the Lord of Armies. “I will provide peace in this place”—this is the declaration of the Lord of Armies.

PRAY!

The Clarity of the Past

Hindsight is 20/20

my call to the ministry… how many times did I say that I would not be a Pastor… Heather said she did not want to be a Pastor’s wife, they always look tired

now looking back, I can see all of the ways that God was preparing me for this

lessons that he was teaching me, skills that he was giving me

Too often when we look back, we only see what we want to see

we can easily ignore the bad things and only remember the really good things

we have been here 13 years this month, there have been a lot of great moments

it is easy to only look at the great things, the high points, but there have been some hard times too

Haggai 2:3-5 ‘Who is left among you who saw this house in its former glory? How does it look to you now? Doesn’t it seem to you like nothing by comparison? 4 Even so, be strong, Zerubbabel—this is the Lord’s declaration. Be strong, Joshua son of Jehozadak, high priest. Be strong, all you people of the land—this is the Lord’s declaration. Work! For I am with you—the declaration of the Lord of Armies. 5 This is the promise I made to you when you came out of Egypt, and my Spirit is present among you; don’t be afraid.’ ”

Who remembers Solomon’s temple… this is God reminding them that the temple now is not anything compared to what it used to be…

I am sure that there was some grumbling going on… they were facing opposition again, the temple wasn’t what it was before the exile

Doesn’t this seem like God is kicking them while they are down… they know it is not as big and glorious…

Is he telling them that they need to do better

no he is reminding them of the past sins

the exile and the failure to rebuild the temple

but why… I thought God forgot about our sin

if we do not remember our sins and the past, we are doomed to repeat them

God does not allow us to forget so that we learn

Satan will remind us as an accusation, Jesus reminds us so that we do not repeat them

Instead, God reminds them with a promise

Abrahamic Covenant

The promise that I made then, is the same promise that I am keeping now

The Uncertainty of the Present

Haggai 2:6-9 For the Lord of Armies says this: “Once more, in a little while, I am going to shake the heavens and the earth, the sea and the dry land. 7 I will shake all the nations so that the treasures of all the nations will come, and I will fill this house with glory,” says the Lord of Armies. 8 “The silver and gold belong to me”—this is the declaration of the Lord of Armies.

How many people watched a lot of the news this week…

I did not… my assumption is that the world is still in chaos

I used to say that I thought that Jesus would come back soon, I wasn’t sure that it would be in my lifetime, but surely in the lifetime of my kids… Now I think it might be sooner than I thought

Here they were, obeying the Lord and they faced opposition from people who lived in the land and corrupt politicians

can we relate?

God was calling them to stay strong because he is about to do something

My fear is that we are focused on the wrong thing to see what God is doing right now

they were focused on how they did not measure up to the past and the opposition of the present

how about us… are we so focused on trying to return the US to a time of glory, or defeating what we see as opposition that we are not focused on what God is doing

God has called to stay strong and work!

not to grow or change the USA, but to grow the honor the Kingdom of God!

Our citizenship is not of this world, our first priority is to live as citizens of Heaven

I think that we have fallen into the trap that if we do not save our country God will not be able to work in this world

as if God is limited on the United States.

But even if the people are quiet, the rocks will cry out

Be still and know that I am God, I will be glorified all over the earth.

God is about to do something

he tells them he is about to shake things up

the earth is about to tremble

the messiah is coming soon

Matthew 12:6 I tell you that something greater than the temple is here.

one thing that was holding them back, finances…

they didn’t have enough to build the temple, especially they way that is was

Ezra 6 - King Darius has the records searched to find out what was supposed to happen when the Jews went back to Jerusalem...

he tells them that they were supposed to build the temple and that the government was to pay for it

not only that, but that if anyone would do something to prevent it, their entire household would be destroyed

God gave them finances and protection

this is what God can do… that is why he can say that all silver and gold belong to him

God is calling the church to rise up and glorify him, share the love of Christ and make disciples

what he calls us to, he will finance

it may not be the comfortable lifestyle that we are used to

but we are not called to comfort or success, but to obedience

not only will he finance it, he will be with us through it

just as he has been with the people of God through all of history

The Anticipation of the Future

Haggai 2:9 “The final glory of this house will be greater than the first,” says the Lord of Armies. “I will provide peace in this place”—this is the declaration of the Lord of Armies.

This is something that would be hard to believe… it is right there in front of them

this temple that they are building is the temple that was there at the time of Jesus

the disciples thought that it was amazing,

but here, the people who had seen Solomon’s with their own eyes, how could this possibly be better

Solomon’s temple was beautiful, but it did have a problem…

idol worship.... on more than one occasion, Solomon’s temple was defiled with idol worship

this is something that the temple being built never had

Matthew Henry “The purity of the church, it’s adherence to divine institutions are much more its glory than external pomp and splendor.”

This temple ended up having something that Solomon’s never did…

God in the flesh would enter it… The messiah came and was dedicated in it, learned in it at the age of 12, cleaned it out by driving out money changers and taught and performed miracles in it.

the previous temple never had that…

this temple also had the way of salvation taught by the disciples after the ascension of Christ

What does the future hold for us… I do not know

But God will be with us, God will give us strength

Do you know him… can you recognize his voice in all this chaos?