Matt Hagee - We've Got Work to Do
When you read the Bible, you need to understand that predicated on the chapter and verse you're looking at, it's a piece of a puzzle that connects to a bigger picture. When people say to me that they've read the Bible through from cover to cover, I appreciate and can be impressed by the effort, but I also am concerned because there are pieces and parts of the Bible that if you read it from page 1 all the way to page 1,287 or however many pages you've got in yours, from Genesis to maps, you've looked at different parts of the puzzle at different times, and might not have a very clear picture.
So, when you open a book like Haggai, he's just two chapters. And you read those two chapters, and you wonder to yourself, "What is this doing here"? It's a piece that doesn't fit. But what you need to understand is that every piece of God's puzzle fits perfectly together with God's plan because he's the one that wants us to get the big picture. Haggai is just a piece of the puzzle. What do we connect him with? We should connect him with the book of Ezra because Ezra is a priest and a scribe who, during the Babylonian captivity, wrote down the history of what was happening so that he would have a job to do in the land of a foreign king.
You say, "Well, what do you mean"? Well, Ezra was a priest over here in Jerusalem. Ezra's a scribe. He's a priest unto the Lord. Nebuchadnezzar comes, and he takes Ezra, and he takes Daniel, and they're young men, they're teenage men, and they go all the way from Jerusalem over here to Babylon. And when they get to Babylon, the Babylonians ask Ezra, "What do you do"? He says, "I'm a priest to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob". He says, "Those positions are filled, we don't need any". Now, when you're not needed in a new kingdom, guess what happens? You get the axe. And we're not talking about let go from hr, we're talking about a literal axe.
So, Ezra tells the Babylonians, "What I mean is I'm a historian. I write down important details, so please allow me to serve in your kingdom writing down history". So, Ezra in Jerusalem is a priest, but Ezra in Babylon is a historian. And Ezra starts writing down some facts that help us paint the big picture of this puzzle of Haggai. One, for example, he tells us who haggaI's talking to. He's talking to Zerubbabel and Joshua. Zerubbabel is the head of the government. He was given authority by king Cyrus to go into the land of Israel, back to Jerusalem, and rebuild the temple. Joshua, he was the priest who was over the proper process in which the temple was going to be made. We read these verses in Ezra starting in the first chapter, the first verse and the second verse. There we read.
"Now in the first year of Cyrus, king of Persia, the word of the Lord might be fulfilled that stirred up the spirit of Cyrus so that he made a proclamation". What was the proclamation? Read verse 2. In verse 2, it says, "Thus says Cyrus, king of Persia, all the kingdoms of the earth the Lord God of heaven has given me, and he has commanded me to build him a house at Jerusalem, which is in Judah".
Cyrus is a pagan, Godless man. Cyrus is a killer. Cyrus is not a nice person. Cyrus is a threat to Babylonians. Not democracies, but Babylonians. And yet, God uses this evil person with such a Godless heart. Why? Because it doesn't matter if you're in Jerusalem, it doesn't matter if you're in Babylon, it doesn't matter if you're someplace in between, God is still God because he is higher than the highest and he is greater than the greatest, and he can do above and beyond anything you can ask, think, or imagine.
So, after 70 years, the children of Israel, under Cyrus, are allowed to return to Jerusalem and Zerubbabel is going to head up the coalition, and Joshua is going to head up the religious aspect of it. And they go back to Jerusalem, and the Bible tells us that while they were there, when they first get back, they lay the foundation of the temple. Ezra 2:2 says the people who went back to rebuild the house of the Lord were Zerubbabel, Joshua, and Nehemiah. We've heard of them. Ezra 3:10, it says, "And they laid the foundation of the temple". And then in Haggai 1, Haggai comes to Joshua and Zerubbabel, and he gives them a word of warning. Haggai 1:5. He says, "Consider your ways".
And then in verses 6, 7, and 8, he makes sure that they understand what their ways are doing. And then he repeats himself, he says, "Consider your ways". He's a prophet of God and he's waking up God's people. God didn't send his word to the unrighteous, he sent his word to the righteous. So many times we want God to send a word to people that we know need the word. "Oh, I wish they were here to hear what was said in church today". How many of you know somebody, you would never think this way because y'all aren't these type of people. But you know somebody that whenever they hear something, they go, "Oh, that's so good. I wish they were here, that is for them".
You know somebody who knows that everything's for somebody else? Anybody? Guess what? God didn't send his word to them, he sent his word to you. And Haggai comes to them in Haggai 1 and he says, "Consider your ways". He said, "You've built your house, but you haven't built God's house". He says, "Is it a proper thing for your house to be arrayed in fine linen and God's house lays in ruin? Consider your ways". He says, "You've sown much but you've gathered little". Put it in modern terms, "You're working 70 hours a week but it's still not enough. Consider your ways. You've eaten the finest foods, and you've drank but you're not full nor are you satisfied. Consider your ways".
You've got the finest clothes but you're still not warm. And he's telling them very clearly the reason that you do not enjoy the life you live is not because you don't have material possessions, it's not because you don't have subscriptions and the latest downloads, it's not because you don't have 500 opportunities to watch every football game on every device you have in every house you live in. It's not because of the stuff you lack. It's because you're doing your thing and not God's thing. God didn't send those people back to build their house, he sent them back to build his house. And this isn't just isolated with Joshua and Zerubbabel. When Jesus came to the earth, what did he tell his disciples at the sermon on the mount? He said, "Seek ye first," what? "The kingdom and his righteousness and then all of these things shall be added unto you".
You see, life is not only built upon personal responsibility, but life is built upon proper priority. And whenever you have a priority that is higher than the kingdom, that is going to be the kingdom that you serve, but when your priority is the king above kings and the Lord above Lords, he promises you that you're not only going to live in the good of the land but your children and your grandchildren are gonna be blessed and that his hand is going to be upon you, his angels are gonna go before you, no weapon formed against you shall prosper, when you have a need, he's going to supply it above and beyond your ability to contain it. It'll be pressed down, it'll be shaken together, it'll be running over. When they come against you in one direction, they're gonna flee from you in seven directions because if the Lord thy God is with you, no weapon formed shall prosper.
But so often, we wanna claim the promise without doing what the provider has asked. And Joshua and Zerubbabel, they started building but they stopped. Sixteen years later, Haggai comes and says, "Why did you quit"? And they've got some very good reasons why they quit. There was some zoning ordinances that they didn't know about before they began. The zoning ordinances are found in Ezra 4. Children of Israel, under Cyrus, one of the kings of Persia, are sent to Jerusalem. They start to build. The people who had been here for 70 years from Nebuchadnezzar's kingdom and now the Persian kingdom recognize that when Jews start building a temple, it's controversial.
People watch CNN today and they're like, "What's the big deal"? It's been a big deal for a long time, folks. And so, they start writing letters. And if you really wanna get down to it, they kinda use misinformation in these letters. You might call it fake news. It could be considered gaslighting or racist bias. They say things like, "These right-wing nationalists". And if you can't find that in your Bible, it's in my Bible in Ezra 4:6. It says that they write a letter to king Artaxerxes, and here's what they say, "Jews have come to Jerusalem". And it says, "And they're building, a rebellious and evil city".
Notice how they snuck their opinion into the work that was actually being done? And then it says, "If they finish the walls," well, why would they start a building unless they're gonna finish the walls? "And they repair the foundations, we believe," now they're putting more than just their opinion on it, they're trying to shape the perspective of the king. "That whenever they do this, they're going to make trouble for you, and so we suggest that you tell them they should stop". Now, here's the truth, if these local bureaucrats down here could have made Zerubbabel and Joshua stop, they would have stopped them all by themselves, but because they don't have the strength to do what they wanted to do, they wanted to send an emergency order back to headquarters and tell the king, "Here's a bunch of stuff that's really not going on, but we think if you don't stop it, it could get bad for us".
And so, the king reads the letter, and the king's name is Artaxerxes, and Artaxerxes writes back to them in Ezra 4:21-22. He says, "Make these men cease. This city will not be built until the command is given by me. Make sure you do not fail me in this". Now, when the kings says, "Do not fail me in this," guess what? You've got a cease and desist order on your building project. But Haggai comes to Joshua and Zerubbabel, and he says, "Why'd you quit"? And Joshua and Zerubbabel say, "Well, we quit because the king said that we shouldn't do it". And Haggai tells them in Haggai 2:4, "Be strong and work". It doesn't matter who's against you. It doesn't matter what they've said about you. It doesn't matter how they've threatened you. If what you're doing is what God has called you to do, do it anyway.
You see, Joshua and Zerubbabel had allowed the opinion of others to cause them to forget what God sent them out to do. Joshua and Zerubbabel had decided that it would be better to go along and get along and build their house instead of build God's house. And when they forgot this, the quality of their life started to go down. Why? Because the Bible clearly says "When you forget God, you're turned into hell". Psalms 9:17, "The nation that forgets God shall be turned into hell". Hell is a place that is absent of the existence of God. And when your life is absent of his existence, you have hell on earth.
Do you see the parallel that we're walking in this nation in this world today? Joshua and Zerubbabel forgot God's plan and they started to do their plan, and their world was getting turned upside down. They worked a lot and they enjoyed very little. Here on this planet, in this earth, in our lives, we've forgotten God. We've forgotten that it was his mercy that spared us. We've forgotten that it was his grace that was shed upon us. We've forgotten that it's his blessings that bring us our abundance. We've forgotten his word. We've banned it more than we've obeyed it.
Now, what you need to know is that this word wasn't sent to the world, this word was sent to you. "If my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray". Humble yourself. Have the strength to admit you don't have it all figured out. And then pray. Ask the God who actually does have it figured out, and see if he will not hear from heaven and heal their land. Don't listen to a message like this and say, "Oh, that's good pastor. I wish everybody got to hear it". Everybody ain't here, you are. Be strong and work. Why? Because while you don't have the big picture, God does. God sends Haggai to Zerubbabel and Joshua and says, "Guys, it's time to quit making excuses, it's time to start going back to work". And they do.
And guess what happens. The same people that hated them before, they still hate them. And they write the same nasty letter, and they send same nasty letter back to headquarters. And the same nasty letter that they send back to headquarters, it doesn't come to king Xerxes, it comes to another king by the name of Darius, Darius the Mede. Remember the Medo-Persian empire in the statue? Well Darius is in charge of this arm, and he's the one who gets this letter. And the thing that's interesting about Darius is that Darius is the individual who took over in Babylon after Nebuchadnezzar's empire fell there. And if you remember from last week, there was a 17-year-old boy 70 years prior who left Jerusalem and went all the way to Babylon. And his name was, what? Daniel.
Thank God. This sermon was gonna get a lot longer if y'all got that name wrong. And Daniel shows up here when he's 17 and he serves Nebuchadnezzar, and he serves Nebuchadnezzar's grandson named Belshazzar, and then he serves Darius, king of Persia. And the letter that is written about the rebuilding of the temple 70 years later comes to king Cyrus and now 87-year-old Daniel. You say, "How do you know he's 87"? Well, if he's 17 when we got here and 70, do the simple math, right? So, the dude's pushing 90. Let me say something to you, don't you ever think that you're too old for God to use. If you're breathing, there's a reason. Daniel is 87 and he and Darius are friends. And if you read the book of Daniel, there's a plot against Daniel because people don't like him.
They don't like him because he's close to the king, and everything that the king likes to talk about, Daniel likes to talk about. And so, they come up with a plan that says, "If you pray to anybody other than the Gods of Persia, then you're gonna be thrown into the," what? "Lion's," oh, y'all just shortened the sermon even better. And we know all about this story when we read that part of the puzzle in the book of Daniel. That part of the puzzle goes like this, Daniel prays to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, he gets thrown in the lion's den, king Darius is very worried about his friend, Daniel. He goes back to check on Daniel the next morning and he asks a question, "Was God able to deliver you"? And 87-year-old Daniel goes, "God was able to deliver me".
About that time, a letter comes from Jerusalem, the home city of Daniel. And king Darius picks it up and it says, "These troublemaking, right-wing, religious fanatics are trying to build a sanctuary, and when they build the sanctuary, they're gonna rebel against you". And they are expecting to get a letter back that says, "Make them stop, or I'll kill them". And here's what Darius sends back because Darius has just had a supernatural experience with Daniel in a lion's den that those guys over there didn't know anything about. If they knew who his friend was, they might not have sent him the letter.
Darius writes back, "I am so glad that you have volunteered to support the rebuilding of this temple. I want you to take the money out of my bank account, I want you to take the timber out of your forest, I want to send back the gold, and the silver, and all of the things that were taken from Nebuchadnezzar, and I want you to help them set it up, and I don't want you to charge them a thing for it. Oh, and by the way, if you don't do what I say, I'm gonna take a tall spike and I'm gonna put you on top of it". Wow.
You see, they had no idea. No idea what God was gonna do. But as long as they were making excuses and not doing the work, God couldn't do it. Why? Because faith without, what? Work is dead. Say it another way, God couldn't bless it until they started building it. What were they commanded to do? Be strong and work and build the house of the Lord. When they stopped building, God stopped blessing because God can't bless what you won't build. "Oh, but it will never be as good as the first one". God said, "All the gold is mine, all the silver is mine".
God proved it when he showed them how he got Daniel out of a lion's den and got all of the gold back to Jerusalem. They said, "It'll never be like the first one". God said, "The latter glory is gonna be greater than the former glory. I don't care what you heard about the first temple, this next one's going to be something like you ain't never seen". And he proved it whenever he snatched Daniel out of a lion's den and stirred the heart of Darius to say to all of these people, "You make it better than it's ever been because if you don't, I'm coming to visit you myself".
Now, what's the point of all of these puzzle pieces, and all of this story, and all of these things? The point is simply this, we have work to do. We don't know how God's gonna use the work we do, we're just a small piece of this big picture. But if we don't do the work, God can't pour out his blessings. If we don't build the home, God can't bless those who labor in it. If we don't build the family, God can't favor us. If we don't build the nation, God can't protect us. If all we do is whine about what we used to be instead of being who God called us to be, then all we're gonna remember is the past and never enjoy our present or our future.
So, child of God, quit worrying about what you don't have and recognize that what you don't have, God does. Stop worrying about what you cannot do and start to declare, "I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength". Stop worrying about what you don't know and where it's gonna come from and start talking about who you do know because you know the one whose word will not return void.
You know the one whose promises will endure. You know the one who parted a Red Sea for others, he can part one for you. You know the one who brought down the giant for David, he'll bring down a giant for you. You know the one who makes a way where there seems to be no way. And if he did it for them, then child of God, he'll do it for you. Because what did he tell Zerubbabel? I say this in closing. "Be strong". What did he tell Joshua? "Be strong". What did he tell the people? "Be strong". And then, read the last part of the verse, "Because I am with you". Same God who was over here is the same God who was over there and all places in between. That God who was with them, he's the God who's with you, and he sent me here with two very simple things for you to do. You ready? Be strong and work. Can we stand?
God, what a mighty God you are. What a wonderful Savior. What an ever-present help in a time of trouble. Help us to remember today that your word does not return void. Help us to remember today that if you said it, you will do it. And even if we have to wait, if we'll work while we wait, you'll bless what we build. So God, everything that we've heard today, let us apply it to our lives, not worrying about what we cannot do, but doing what we can and knowing that everything that is unimaginable, you've already made possible. We ask these things in Jesus' name, (and all of God's children said) praise the Lord.