The Courage to Build Again
Notes
Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
What would happen if I were to ask you privately to lay out your dreams and hopes and visions? Probably most of you would share something that you would like to do, to have done. Perhaps on your house, maybe in your professional or personal lives.
But would happen if I were to press you and say, what are you doing to make that a reality? Most of us, myself included, would probably answer, well, not a lot.
Let’s say you want to lose weight and get in shape. Noble dream, great goal. What are you doing about it? Have you researched diet plans, exercise programs? Or, you want to go into business for yourself? Ok, what are you doing? Have you researched the market, have you made a website to begin to market your product?
We could go on. We are fascinated with the stories of individuals who left PA, loaded up a car and headed to Hollywood to become an actor. They waited on tables, they shared a rat infested apartment, so on and so on. We look at them and say, I could do that. But, here we sit. Month after month, year after year, never moving from PA to Hollywood.
The point is, what usually separates the ones who have made it from the ones who are stuck is the courage that it took to step out, to launch out, to make a move. Of course I’m not advocating anyone to go to Hollywood, to quit your job, but if God is calling you, if God is nudging you, what are you doing?
And when it comes to God, the things of God, the work of god, it is the same thing. Many of us want to see the kingdom of God come in our lives. We want to see the church grow and thrive. We want to see the Spirit poured out on us as a church, as a community, but here is the question. Do you have the courage that it takes to do the work God is calling you to do? Do you have the courage to rise up and meet the call of God that He is placing before you?
I. The Courage to Heed the Word of God. v.1-2
I. The Courage to Heed the Word of God. v.1-2
The first step needed to begin the process of revival and renewal is to actually heed and do and put into practice the word of God in our daily lives.
Look at
Then the work on the house of God that is in Jerusalem stopped, and it ceased until the second year of the reign of Darius king of Persia.
Work on the temple had been stopped for a long time. After sixteen years a new beginning was needed. “Like every spiritual advance, from Abraham’s to the missionary expansion in Acts, this venture began with a word from the Lord.”42 For this God used two prophets, Haggai and Zechariah, whose messages of rebuke, exhortation, encouragement, and assurance were desperately needed by the restored community. Their mission was to bring about spiritual renewal and to motivate the people to restore the proper worship of the Lord.
Now the prophets, Haggai and Zechariah the son of Iddo, prophesied to the Jews who were in Judah and Jerusalem, in the name of the God of Israel who was over them.
The work had ceased, the people, for as long as 16 years forgot about the house of God and focused merely on themselves, and then two prophets arose and began the work of reviving the people.
You recognize the names of Haggai and Zechariah. We have their words, we have their prophecies, and so we know what it was that they were prophesying to the people about.
In the second year of Darius the king, in the sixth month, on the first day of the month, the word of the Lord came by the hand of Haggai the prophet to Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua the son of Jehozadak, the high priest: “Thus says the Lord of hosts: These people say the time has not yet come to rebuild the house of the Lord.”
Then the word of the Lord came by the hand of Haggai the prophet, “Is it a time for you yourselves to dwell in your paneled houses, while this house lies in ruins?
Now, therefore, thus says the Lord of hosts: Consider your ways. You have sown much, and harvested little. You eat, but you never have enough; you drink, but you never have your fill. You clothe yourselves, but no one is warm. And he who earns wages does so to put them into a bag with holes. “Thus says the Lord of hosts: Consider your ways.
Hear those words, and then, hear the words of Zechariah.
In the eighth month, in the second year of Darius, the word of the Lord came to the prophet Zechariah, the son of Berechiah, son of Iddo, saying, “The Lord was very angry with your fathers.
Therefore say to them, Thus declares the Lord of hosts: Return to me, says the Lord of hosts, and I will return to you, says the Lord of hosts. Do not be like your fathers, to whom the former prophets cried out, ‘Thus says the Lord of hosts, Return from your evil ways and from your evil deeds.’ But they did not hear or pay attention to me, declares the Lord.
Your fathers, where are they? And the prophets, do they live forever?
Look at these messages. Consider your ways. Look at your ways. Look at and consider your life and turn back to me, come back to me, says the Lord.
The message of Zechariah and Haggai are relevant messages for us today, are they not. We must consider our ways, we must be willing to look at and examine our lives.
Now, don’t understand. God is not against you living in a paneled house. That is not the point of Haggai’s prophecy. God is not against you building and working on your house. We’ve been putting in replacement windows in our house.
But their point is, in the Jews’ pursuit of life, of living, they have neglected what is truly important. What truly matters. And it’s not the things of this world. I joke about if you have a fever stay home during this time of covid, but if you were up till 3 watching Netflix and can’t come to church, repent and get to church. Like I said, it’s a joke, but some do that. We have Netflix, I’ve binge watched programs, but at the neglect of what counts? That’s the point.
Jesus tells the parable of the four soils.
And others are the ones sown among thorns. They are those who hear the word, but the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches and the desires for other things enter in and choke the word, and it proves unfruitful.
Revival starts when we look at the Word of God and actually heed it.
But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror.
For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing.
So, what about it? Are you willing to forgive people who have wronged you? Are you willing to put away immoral and profane speaking? Are you willing to pray for those who hold governmental leadership positions as 1 Timothy 2 says? Oh yeah, he’s my guy. But what if the other guy wins?
Again the message is clear. We must be willing to follow and heed the Word of God when it convicts, when it cuts, when it calls for and demands change in our lives.
II. The Courage to Believe that God’s Eye is on Your Work. v.5
II. The Courage to Believe that God’s Eye is on Your Work. v.5
Haggai and Zechariah come and prophesy, the work begins, and wouldn’t you know, here comes the governor to see what is going on. They immediately ask what are you doing, where did you get the authorization to do this, who said you can rebuild this temple, rebuild this altar?
But look at what the author states in verse 5.
But the eye of their God was on the elders of the Jews, and they did not stop them until the report should reach Darius and then an answer be returned by letter concerning it.
In other words, the elders knew that what they were doing was right, it was the right course, the right action, and they pressed on, despite those coming and telling them the work should stop. Despite those harassing and haranguing the builders. And nothing less than an edict from the king himself would stop them from their building project.
Why? Because God’s eye was on their work. They knew, that despite the opposition, despite the hardships, they were doing the right thing, they were engaged in what was right, and God was with them.
Now, notice, the fact that the eye of God was on their work did not mean that trouble or opposition stopped. Unfortunately, we have been told, have gotten the impression that if God is in our work, in our plans, that everything will go according to plan. We believe God has called us to build a 1000 seat church and so one of you has placed a 10 billion dollar check in the offering and the church will be built in a week and a half and government leaders will green light the project the whole way, and by the way, we’ll have 1000 people next Sunday. Except you know I am wrong when i said government officials will green light the project the entire way. That doesn’t happen.
WE would probably be better off remembering the plight of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.
Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego answered and said to the king, “O Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer you in this matter. If this be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of your hand, O king.
But if not, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up.”
Or perhaps the story of Paul the Apostle.
For I will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name.”
except that the Holy Spirit testifies to me in every city that imprisonment and afflictions await me.
that no one be moved by these afflictions. For you yourselves know that we are destined for this.
When you decide to live for God, when you decide to order your life according to God and His Word, make no mistake, you will face hardship and persecution, turmoil and pain. But do you believe that this is what God has called you to do. Do you believe that God is, and has called you to live according to His Word?
I believe, as I have stated in the last several weeks, that we, the church, are the hope that the world needs. We are the light of this dark world. And yet, things are likely to become harder, likely to face more opposition. Will we press on, will we continue to believe that God’s hand is on our lives, regardless of what we face?
The courage to heed God’s Word, the courage to believe that God’s eye is on our lives, and
III. The Courage to Step out in Faith and Trust God. v.6-17
III. The Courage to Step out in Faith and Trust God. v.6-17
So, Tattenai the governor checks out what is going on in Jerusalem. And, the Jews tell him that they are building, Cyrus had given an order some years ago, let us build. Tattenai sits down and writes a letter to Darius and explains the situation to the king, and notice what is in the letter.
Then we asked those elders and spoke to them thus: ‘Who gave you a decree to build this house and to finish this structure?’ We also asked them their names, for your information, that we might write down the names of their leaders.
And this was their reply to us: ‘We are the servants of the God of heaven and earth, and we are rebuilding the house that was built many years ago, which a great king of Israel built and finished.
And notice the honesty that is conveyed to the governor.
But because our fathers had angered the God of heaven, he gave them into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, the Chaldean, who destroyed this house and carried away the people to Babylonia.
An admission, a tantamount admission that the reason they were carried away into Babylon was because of their sin. They knew their rebellion from God had caused the exile, and they were ready to admit it freely.
But think about the willingness, the courage that it took to say, this is what Cyrus decreed we can do, and this is what we want to do. Go look it up. This is what we are allowed to do.
To accomplish a work of God will always require a person, a church, a people to step out in faith and trust and obedience to God.
The Bible is filled with these stories. Noah, stepping out and building an ark. Moses, leading the people to the Red Sea, believing that the sea would part. David, trusting that five stones were enough to defeat the giant. Even the apostle Paul, running into cities and proclaiming the Gospel, believing that God wants to start a church.
All of these take faith, take courage, take a willingness to say, I trust God.
Conclusion
Conclusion
Here is the point I want to make today. God is calling us, as a church, as the church, to stand up and make a difference in this world. And it may not be as dramatic as changing the world in a literal sense, but perhaps its just making a difference in our lives. Living differently, living with love, not hatred, living for God and not our own passions. Learning to be a good father, an understanding husband, a person who is not afraid to live for God, even in a broken culture that wants us to conform to its mold and pattern.
But the word that I used in all of my points was what? Courage. The willingness to pick up the pieces, to take the next steps, to do the hard work that needs to be done. This is what matters. This is what we need. Do you have the courage to take those steps, to make that necessary change in your life?
The greatest change you can make is accepting Christ as your Savior. If you have not done that, do it today.