Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

Have you ever noticed when you recall stories or memories from the past we always tend to exaggerate it, and romanticize it?

This is where the joke about the fish that was caught comes from, because it was always bigger in our memory.

So when we recall the past or we desire to do something from our past and we relive or remake that moment that it never seems to meet our expectation that was shaped by our memory.

Stories of the future are the same glamorized and aggrandized so when we walk into the future we are let down because reality doesnt match our expectation that was shaped by the picture painted for the future.

Both how we view the past and what we see for the future tends to paint our picture for the present and shapes our expectations unrealistically.

Like the middle child always compared to the older and the younger sibling and never allowed to stand on their own (at least not while growing up).

This morning as we turn to look at Haggai’s next message, we are reminded that His first message addressed the people’s wrong priorities and his second message addresses the people’s misshapen expectations.

He gives them and us this morning the proper views with which to shape our expectations both for today and for the future.

Discouraged Through Misshapen Expectations

On the 21st day of the seventh month - is the 21st day of Tishri.

Usually occurring September - October on the Gregorian Calendar.

The month of Tishri is full of holy days and celebration for the people of God.

1-2 Tishri Rosh Hashannah (the celebration of creation - Talmud opinion says that Adam and Eve were created on 1 Tishri 3760 B.C.).

3rd of Tishri Tzom Gedaliah - Fast day.

9 Tishri Erev Yom Kippur and 10 Tishri Yom Kippur.

Then 15 - 21 Tishri is Sukkot - Festival of Booths or Feast of Tabernacles.

So on the last day of what should have been the feast of tabernacles the word of the LORD came to Haggai for Zerubbabel, Joshua and the remnant people.

Nearly a month after we read that the people’s zeal for building the LORD’s house had been restored the people were in an air of discouragement.

Zeal evaporated into an air of depression.

On what should have been a day of celebration (Festival of Booths or the Feast of Tabernacles) was a celebration of weeks and was a reminder of God’s faithfulness.

The Festival of Booths/ Feast of Tabernacles was to remind people of God’s faithfulness: to fulfill His promises to His people, to provide for His people, and to be present among His people.

Instead the people from the political to the religious to the common were all discouraged in the work for the LORD, so God sent a message to the people on this day through Haggai.

Why were the people discouraged?

God gave Haggai specific questions to ask them all in order to open their eyes to the problem.

They were discouraged because they had unmet expectations.

Unmet expectations come from misshapen expectations.

How do expectations become misshapen?

Look at the questioning from the LORD to the people.

He asks three questions.

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?

Through these three questions the LORD pricks the heart of their problem.

At least some had seen the glories or had heard of the glories of the temple Solomon had built prior to its destruction 66 years before.

Misshapen expectations come from misguided comparisons between the work of God in various times and places.

The comparisons are rarely ever beneficial and mostly become exhausting and detrimental.

It was not helpful for the people in Haggai’s day to think or reminisce on the magnificent temple of Solomon’s day compared to their own rebuilding work.

Often times the comparison leads us to believe that our meager gift is of no use to the LORD and therefore we may as well not offer it.

If we cant build as Solomon then we may as well not build.

All the works of us as men falls short of God’s glory.

The first mistake was giving an exaggerated importance to the external features in religion and worship.

The people were stuck in the memory of the magnificent glory of Solomon’s temple that they perhaps wrongly believed that somehow it was more glorifying to God than what went on inside it.

It is not the outward appearance of his house that pleases God but the reality of the inward worship for which it was built.

Consider Jesus words to the disciples as they were leaving the temple

Not only predicting the future of what would happen in 70 AD through Titus, but also that is destruction was the consequence of the defiled worship within it.

Have you ever noticed that revisting places or things from our past never meets up with our remembrance of them?

If we arent careful our past experiences will shape our present expectations.

We do it with alot of things - sports teams - 90’s Cowboys, or the Bulls anybody?

We do it with our childhood, our nation, our churches, our music, our school experiences, even our parenting — we compare everything to past experiences and it leads to frustration and discouragement of unrealistic and unmet expectations because they were misshapen from the start.

Israel was built on stones of remembrance but it was to remind them of God’s faithfulness then, never for them to stay there.

Do not get so stuck in the remembrance and comparison of the past that you cannot see what God is doing in the present and preparing for the future.

There is a great danger in looking back and getting stuck there.

Like Paul press on for the goal and the prize

The second mistake is idealizing or glorifying the past.

The good old days syndrome.

At a time when they should have been overcome with joy and praising God for their return from exile and the house of the LORD to be rebuilt.

We can do the same - looking back the church of Acts, the reformation times, the Great Awakenings, the revivals of times past.

We feel we arent doing anything because we arent doing anything like they did then

God’s work of the past is not God’s work in our day or of God’s work in the future Individually there are some who get stuck with what God has done in the past for them and relating yesterday’s experiences.

The question is what is God doing today?

The LORD is always looking ahead to new wine and new work of the Holy Spirit.

The important thing is to accept who and what we are and whatever gifts great or small God has given to us and then get on with the work in the situation in which He has set us in.

The seventh being the worst usually - one who stirs up trouble among brothers - one who sows discord among brethren.

The one who says what we are doing will never compare to what has been done before — etc

Reshape Expectations For Today and Tomorrow

God is calling on the people through Haggai to reshape their expectations and work again and stop being discouraged.

God next in His message for Haggai to give to the people says “Even so...”.

God doesnt deny that the work may not compare - it doesnt compare - but even so - BE STRONG.

The work you are doing may not compare but even so BE STRONG.

God repeats the phrase be strong to each - to Zerubbabel, Joshua and to the remnant people or all the people of the land — this is the LORD’s declaration - BE STRONG.

The next command is WORK - be strong and work.

It is easy to start anything, a building, a project, a calling, but to continue in it to the finish is the important thing.

Run the race with endurance

Be strong and work - For I AM with you.

This is the difference maker in the work for today.

In the work of today we dont compare it to the past to determine its worth and its use.

Our expectation of the work of today is shaped by the presence of God.

Is He with us - then the work continues!

It is the presence of God that strengthens the people, it is the presence of God that is our strength.

We cannot be strong in our own strength.

Like many others we face tasks that are impossible by normal means.

We may not be like Joshua, David, Solomon or Moses - we are not the heroes our forefathers were.

We can be strong and equal to the tasks because God is with us, we are weak but He is strong.

Neither God nor Haggai exhorts anyone to be strong in themselves and continue the work in their own strength.

God says do it because I am present with you and my Spirit is among you so do not fear.

When we are discouraged or tempted to give up, God is with us and His Spirit dwells in us.

Three clear commands to accomplishing God’s work; be strong, WORK, and do not fear.

Great things are only accomplished with these actions coupled with the presence of the LORD.

It is God’s abiding presence not previous achievements or glory or any acts on our part that should shape our expectations.

Zechariah - Haggai’s contemporary - emphasizes trusting the Holy Spirit for enablement to do God’s will.

God continues in His message through Haggai helping the people to reshape their expectations for tomorrow or the future as well.

The LORD of Armies says “Once more in a little while” This is not a chronological immediacy but more of an imminent could occur at any time.

This is future divine and sovereign promise.

Reshape expectations for tomorrow through the promises of God.

God says I will shake the heavens and the earth, the sea and the dry land.

I will shake the nations so that the treasures of all the nations will come and I will fill this house with glory.

The expectation of the glory of the house they are building is not in the building - but in the promise of God to fill it with glory.

Indeed it is a shaking of the nations - the Medes and the Persians who shook Babylon would themselves be shook by the Greeks who would in turn be shaken by the Romans.

Indicative of supernatural intervention